Wednesday, May 20, 2015

Flat Diaper Challenge Results

So about that flat diaper challenge. I did not make it the whole week handwashing diapers. :-/ I felt pretty bad, but on day 4 I had to stop. I never quit on anything, I really try to finish everything I start. But I couldn't get my cooking project done while doing this challenge, and we spent a lot of money on that. So my cooking project came first. On day 4 I had 30 dirty flats and no time to wash/dry, so she went into the fitteds and for my sanitary, and my husband's sanitary, I washed them in the W/D. Looking back at the weekend we had during the challenge, we were hardly home so I'm not even sure what we would have done if we would have ran out of clean diapers while out and about?

Wednesday, May 13, 2015

Cooking Project!

I got 40 pounds of ground beef from Zaycon Fresh on Tuesday. It's Wednesday night and I'm still working with it! :'( It's such a big project to do with a baby. 

So far used this much ground beef:

  • 5 pounds for sloppy joes (Wednesday)
  • 5 pounds for enchilada meat (Tuesday)
  • 5 pounds for spaghetti sauce (Wednesday)
  • 10 pounds for taco meat. (Tuesday)
I still need to do:
  • 5 more pounds for spaghetti sauce
  • 5 pounds of raw (need to package by the pound)
  • 5 pounds of browned ground beef
The spaghetti sauce was BY FAR the most time consuming to do because I had to chop up 1 onion and 1 bell pepper per pound - so 5 of each. For the 5 pounds, I had to slice a pound of mushrooms and do 40 garlic cloves. I should really try to chop up more onions/peppers tonight, but I am exhausted and it's already after 9pm. I am really not looking forward to making another 5 pounds of it. I have to make to batches of 2.5 pounds because I don't have a pot big enough for 5 pounds. 

I am already committed to this, so I will deal with it. I have packaged everything in about 1 pound packages as that's about what we eat. We are going to have A TON of meals so I am not sad about that. 3 hard days of work for months of easy meals makes it not so bad at all! :)

Let's pray Emily will actually nap tomorrow for a good nap so I can finish this project up before Jesse gets home tomorrow. That would be a miracle! 

Day 3 - Flats and Handwashing Challenge

Today's question is open topic. I am going to choose this: What are your challenges?

Oh man am I having challenges, but I am not giving up! The last two days have been super rough especially since I am doing another big project - making freezer meals from 40lbs of ground beef. The beef was pick up only this week, so it really didn't make it fun for me. I've been working my butt off the last two days trying to do both of these things. By the time I get to my diapers, my almost 3 month old is fussy, wants to be held, and my husband gets home from a long day of work and wants to relax. Poor husband has helped me out a lot the last few days after work since the cooking project is taking so much of my time. I have been still cooking and needing to bag all my food when he is getting home. How do people other people do this with little babies?! 

Tonight I ran into an issue. Emily pees in her diaper SO much! I have 30 flats and when I went to do the last rinse on my first batch of dirty diapers, I had 1 flat diaper left! I am having to use her GMD fitteds until this batch of 9 diapers dry. I am still handwashing everything, but I just didn't get to them in time. I have washed 9 each day so far, and that is clearly not enough.

Tomorrow I am finishing the cooking project and will probably only have time to do another batch of 9 diapers. On Friday I have no plans so I plan to do all the diapers and actually dry them outside. So far I have only dried them inside because it's been raining, plus it's 9pm when I am putting them up to dry.

Also, my flats are drying super stiff! :( I think it's because they are drying indoors. I have to shake them all around to make them some what soft. I miss my soft flats from the dryer. :(

Tuesday, May 12, 2015

Day 2 - Flats and Handwashing Challenge

Today's question is: What is in your stash?

Just to let you all know first, I did not buy anything extra for this challenge, so I used what I had. I know some people are using receiving blankets and flour sack towels, but since I already owned a whole stash of flats, that is what we used. I also wasn't going to go out and buy anything since my stash meets the requirements. 

My diapers:
  • 30 Green Mountain Diaper Organic Cloth-eez One-Size Flats - $75.00
  • 2 Large Hemp Doublers $7.50
My covers:
  • 3 Sloomb Wool Covers $144.00
  • 1 Disana Wool Cover $29.00
  • 1 Imse Vimse PUL cover $18.95 (was given this from a friend)
My accessories:
  • Bucket with lid $4.00
  • Plunger $1.50
  • 1 snappi $4.35
  • Rubber Gloves $2.00
The total comes to $286.30. If I was in a situation where I didn't have cloth diapers or much money, I would do the wool covers still, but use upcycled covers or much cheaper ones. I had already purchased these, so that's what I used. Also, my stash of 30 is probably a lot to use for this challenge, but I want to point out that I am planning to use them with our next baby, so I wanted to get a nice rotation of them, plus, newborns go through a TON of wet diapers! Emily has wet diapers every time I check her, even if it's been 5 mins since a change! 

I am trying to do wool full time, but when I started this challenge, Mother's Day was the day before and she got poo on 3 of her covers and I didn't have a chance to wash them until Monday so they were drying and I needed to add a PUL cover for just in case. :)

What is in your stash?


*I'll try to add photos later - I'm currently cooking 40lbs of ground beef and trying to hurry with that while baby sleeps! 

Monday, May 11, 2015

Day 1 - Flats and Handwashing Challenge

Today's questions are: Am I taking the challenge, and if so, why?

Yes! Although I feel like this is a terrible week to do so! The challenge started the day after Mother's Day so the house is a disaster this Monday after our busy weekend out of the house. I already use flats during the day, and with the busy weekend, I had half of my flats stash in the dirty pail this morning!! :( 

The point of this challenge is to show that if someone doesn't have much money to diaper their child and/or a washer and dryer, that it is still possible! Actually, if someone were to do cloth diapering this way, it would be super cheap compared to other cloth diapers or disposables.

The reason I am taking this challenge is for several reasons:
  1. If someone tells me they can't afford to CD or they don't have a w/d, I can have the experience to tell them it's possible and show them how, as well as give them good tips from what I learned.
  2. I am always nervous about what could happen. I have been without money before and know what it's like to really like as minimally as possible. If for some reason we get into a situation where we have no money and not much stuff, I can still hand wash cloth diapers for way cheaper then any other means of diapering.
  3. We are going camping and to a week long girl's camp at a state park. I want to be able to learn how to handwash now so I am prepared when we are in the great outdoors!
Are you taking the challenge? If so, why? :)

Sunday, May 10, 2015

Mother's Day

This is my very first Mother's Day! It's been a Mother's Day weekend for sure! I had Emily help me make all the grandmothers and great-grandmothers Mother's Day gifts - Flower pots with her feet/toe prints to create a butterfly, flowers, and a caterpillar.


Painting all the pots white. 
Letting the pots dry!

Getting the area ready for Emily!

Practicing painting her feet. She was super ticklish.

All done - letting them dry.

This one is Nana's.

Bringing them with us Saturday to give to everyone!


We had brunch Saturday morning at my mom's house and then we did dinner at Jesse's mom's house. 


Meme, Grammie, Emily, and Me!



Mommy and Baby Emily!

Our new little family!
Today Jesse made me breakfast - here's him cleaning up afterwards:

After breakfast, we got ready and went to a Catholic mass that I mentioned we would go to. I thought there would be a nursery, but perhaps this specific church did not? So I went in thinking I could give my full attention to the service, but I ended up spending a lot of it holding Emily. Eventually she got a little fussy and I had to move her around, pat her back and after a while she fell asleep. She is like 12 pounds, so she is very heavy after a while of holding her. Besides this, we both really liked the service. I will be prepared next service and probably wrap her before we head in as I can't hold her like that for over an hour. My arm almost fell off after mass. But like I said, we enjoyed the service. Jesse definitely seemed to give his stamp approval. He kept saying "ohhh, I like this." He liked that we prayed over the children before they went to Sunday school and the hymens. He actually liked the up/down aspect as he always has to get up during church and stand in the back as it hurts his back to be on certain chairs. I'm glad he liked it, as I want to find a good place to go and I like the idea of the Catholic church. I am excited to go back next weekend. We also saw a friend couple there too. They normally do 8:30... I doubt we will ever make that mass time at this point. We get up at 7:30 just to get to the 10:30 mass in time. OH! I was so proud of us! We got there 15 minutes early! Last week we were 15 minutes late to church. I love being early, and it seems like such a win to do so with a newborn. 

We had Jimmy Johns for lunch and now Emily and Jesse are taking a little nap. After they wake up we will do something. Jesse keeps asking what I want to do, so I need to figure it out! :) I kind of want to go to a baby boutique store. Hah. I also wanted to go to Macy's. I really want to find some skirts that go just below my knees or mid-calf. Why are they so hard to find?! 

I hope every Mom out there is having a great day! :)

Tuesday, May 5, 2015

Organize All The Things!!

Seriously! I am trying to deep clean and organize our house this week! It really needs it, and I really want to get it done now! Our kitchen has no food storage space, so we are using a 5 tier wire rack from Target to store our food. Unfortunately, it's such a huge mess. I went to Target today and seriously bought 24 different sized clear storage containers to organize our pantry and have extras for the house. I've already started the pantry organization, and hoping to finish today or tomorrow. It's not as easy to complete full projects with a little one ~ she is currently on my lap with hiccups while I type away haha. :)

My grandma also came over today with ziplock vacuum seal bags. I have no vacummed sealed all of Emily's clothes that are too big by size, and sadly all of her newborn and 0-3 months :(. I need to get a bin or something for throwing in her clothes that are too big until she's out of her current size - then I will vacuum seal those clothes. She is growing so fast it's ridiculous. She is already wearing Medium GMD fitted diapers! I actually just ordered them and they are currently being prepped. I'll come back later to add photos of my before and after! :)

Seeking A Church To Call Ours

Jesse and I have been looking for a church to call ours for a while now. We were going to one before we moved to start attending church. Now that we moved, we are looking for a permanent church. We went to our friends' church for several months, but we aren't feeling like it's the right fit for us. We tried a different one last weekend - basically worship was a concert (dark, loud, and full of different moving lights). We talked and found out what we both want in a church:
  1. Traditional/structured.
  2. A good program for children/youth for our kids to grow up with ~ especially things during the week, not just Sunday service.
  3. Jesse wanted hymns ~ I suppose you can put this under traditional.
We both researched the different Christianity faiths - Lutheran, Episcopal, Catholic, Methodist, etc. I liked parts of all, and some of them I found things I didn't like. 

This coming weekend we will be trying a Catholic mass to see how we like it. I've actually been researching Catholicism a little bit the last few days and have learned a lot. I have always had ideas of what it was all about, but now I am learning what's really the truth about the meanings behind it. A lot of the things I am learning are way different then I have perceived them to be. I'm hoping we both like this church as I really want to find a good place to call home. I want to grow my faith with the Lord and bring our child up from the very beginning in a good church and a Christian household.