The Diaper Deal

I am really into being green and trying to do my part to make the planet a better place to be. I've always disliked disposable diapers and wished to cloth diaper, but I was not down with using the old fashioned ones that require pinning them closed. I'm way too paranoid to do that. Too scared they'll pop open and impale my child.

Then the other day, I was blog browsing and I went to Nicole's blog. She's one of the girl's I met last week at my photography training in Charlotte. She's pregnant right now, so I was reading her recent posts about her pregnancy when I stumbled upon a post she wrote about wishing to cloth diaper her new baby. I knew her feelings, I've had them since I was pregnant with Emma.

Well, in this post, she talked about Fuzzibunz diapers. My heart skipped a beat or two when I went to their site and saw these AMAZING diapers...

It was midnight and we were all four piled into mine and Tony's big bed and everyone but me was sound asleep. I was reading all this and on the Fuzzibunz site on my iPad. I spent about two hours looking at everything they had to offer and making a plan in my head.

You guys know I plan to get pregnant sometime soon and I'm really hoping Noah (who is about to be THREE) will potty train before the summer is out. On the site it says that cloth diapered babies potty train a lot sooner than disposable diapered babies because they can feel the wet and the poop. This made perfect sense to me.

So, at 2 am I placed my order to Fuzzibunz.

I was so anxious waiting all week for these wonderous things to arrive. And when they did, you would've thought it was Christmas around here. Nobody should get that excited over diapers. lol ;)

Noah LOVES them and they are pretty much the most adorable things ever!!!

Here's what I ordered in case you're curious:

Set of 12 One Size Diapers

*These are adjustable and fit babies newborn up to 35 lbs. I will finish Noah out in these and then he'll pass them onto his new baby brother or sister.

2 No Mess Diaper Bags

* I got one free for ordering the set of 12, but I wanted two of these that way when one is in the wash with a load of diapers, the other is in use. And if you look at the picture above with Noah and the cat, you can see one of these bags hanging on the door knob. These are AWESOME! They're really big and they just hang on any door knob you'd like to put it on and the bottom zips open, so at the end of the day, when you're ready to wash, you just unzip the bottom and throw the whole thing (bag and all) into the wash!

1 Simple Zip Tote

* I ordered this for when we're out of the house. When we leave, I put one clean diaper in the tote and when I change Noah, I put the dirty diaper in the bag and the clean diaper on his bottom. The cool thing about this is that it has a patch of fabric on the inside to dab essential oils on it to keep down any odor. And that leads to the next item in my bag...

Tea Tree Essential Oil

Natural Wipes Solution Spray

* I ordered this to spray his bottom with when using the cloth wipes...

Organic Hemp Fleece Wipes

Okay, that's what I ordered and I absolutely LOVE every single item. I WILL use these for my next baby and any babies there after. I really encourage you guys to check them out. They are a little pricy up front, but just keep in mind that you will no longer have to buy diapers EVER if you don't want to!! I do plan to keep a small stash of disposables in the house for times like... if they're sick with diahrrea, if we have a sitter who isn't comfortable with the cloth diapers (this is very unlikely to happen as my mom and my aunts and grandma are the only sitters I've ever used) and for traveling if I think we may be gone an extraordinarily long time and I won't have access to a washer.

Anyway, I can't say enough good things. One amazing thing is that Noah pees like 2 gallons at night. It's crazy ridiculous. Every morning of his toddler life, he has woke up drenched. Diaper full to being close to explosion and his clothes wet and smelling like pee. It's really gross and this morning, he woke up for the first time in a VERY long time DRY! Amazing!

We've been using them since Wednesday, so maybe over time I will come up with some cons to this cloth diapering but at this time, I have zero negative comments or observations.

Daddy's Home!!

Tony's home! Woo Hoo! :)

So nice to be a family again as opposed to single mom to two rowdy little people, business owner, house keeper, freelancer, car pooler, and daughter, grand daughter, neice, and cousin. Many, many roles that all become remarkably easier and more managable once the other adult returns home. ;)

I'm not going to make this a long one for obvious reason, but here are a few of my favorite pictures from our reunion day today.

Enjoy! ;)

On Having Another Baby...

You all recall how one of my goals for 2011 was to get pregnant. We want another baby. I'm personally dying for a baby. Every time someone close to me has a baby and I get to hold that baby and smell the intoxicating smell of a newborn, I start ovulating. Really. I do.

Emma wants a sister.

Noah wants a brother.

I just want a baby. I would like for it to be a girl, because Emma will potentially be 7 when this dreamed for baby would be born and I really want her to have a close relationship with her would be sister. And I know the older she gets, the less likely they'll be really close. Right?

But truly, i just want a healthy baby.

Here's what I'm scared of, though.

I am not one of those lucky girls who gets pregnant and stays all cute and small and just has this little basketball of a belly but still has a thin body.

That. Is. Not. Me.

When I get pregnant, my butt is pregnant, my face is pregnant, my thighs are pregnant.

Case in point.

This is what I looked like.... like THE DAY before I got pregnant with Noah.

Thin me.

This. Is what I looked like at 34 weeks when I had my belly pictures done. This is not my favorite one, I am obviously huge, but I love that Emma's loving me. And she looks so tiny. She'd better watch out, that mama looks like she might eat her!

This is my favorite one. The angle makes me look not so large. haha :)

And this, friends, is the fatness that was me the day Noah was born. Holy fat cow. I can't believe I am putting this on my blog for the world to see. I look twice the size of Tony. My face was so swollen it was a chore to smile. Geez.

I didn't care, though. I was so in love with that boy and you can see Emma's pure joy over her new brother.

The only consolation in this whole "Candace doubles in size during pregnancy" thing is that this was just four weeks later and I had already lost the majority of the weight.

And isn't this precious? This was his first trip to the beach when him was just 4 weeks old. Excuse Emma, she was too busy eating cheetos to care too much about looking at the camera.

Oh, I love that boy and that girl.

I nursed him sitting right there in my beach chair and no one ever knew the difference. It's so easy to nurse in a bathing suit. Did you know that??

The bad thing is though, that I've not lost ALL my weight from having Noah. I just haven't been diligent about it like I was after I had Emma. I've had too much going on this time.

After Emma, I had lost almost all the weight and was teaching Pilates at the gym again by the time she was 3 months old. After Noah, though, I started doing photography and learning and cramming and getting my editing style down and for those of you who aren't familiar with that, that requires a lot of computer time. On. Your. Butt.

So, I'm so scared of getting pregnant, because I know I it would be best if I lost a few pounds before it happened, yet I want to sooo much!

This time, I need to only gain like 30-40 lbs. MAX.

Do you know how hard that will be for me?

Very, very hard.

You know what, though? This right here... makes it all worth it.

I swear, me and Tony make the prettiest babies ever born. I know you all will wholeheartedly agree. ;)

Eggo Surprise

Last night, I did what I always do. I went in to check on Noah one last time before going to sleep for the night.

When I walked into his room, the first thing I saw was this on the floor.

And I was just like... whaaa...???

And I suddenly remembered Noah earlier in the day telling me he wanted "paacakes".

Crap.

So I turned on the hall light so I could see a little better and that's when I saw this.

The entire box of Eggo's emptied on the floor.

Completely defrosted.

Not that they would've been salvagable if they hadn't been completely defrosted, but still...

All I could say was "Noahhhhhhhhhhh... whyyyyyyy??????"

And this is all the response I got.

Little punk.

This week on my phone...

head on over to the hussy's page and link up! ;)

noah is always the star of the show when it comes to my phone pictures.

why?

because he's a stinker and he's always into mischief and

THOSE MAKE THE BEST PICTURES.

so please don't be fooled and think i play favorites.

i totally do NOT

it's just that emma always looks like this...

and noah always looks like this...

and this...

and this...

(do you see his cute pottery barn chair in the kitchen? you know what he mainly uses that chair for? climbing onto things to... yup... get into mischief... he also uses emma's for this purpose... see above )

this is just one of the reasons you are CRAZY if you don't enter my GIVEAWAY

i made those wee mary jane slippers. aren't they precious?

here's noah bein bad again.

*sigh*

this is him throwing a fit while thrashing around on top of his poor, sweet, innocent sister on the couch. you can see her legs and feet if you look hard enough.

this is when he's best.

when him's sweepin. ;)

i can't wait to see what's on your phone!! :)

Now don't forget to look below and enter my GIVEAWAY!!! :)

Also, I have a super fun post coming up tomorrow, you must come back to see!! :)

lost in the land of knits and sicks

well, today the kids are a little better.

me, not so much. ugh. my lungs hurt.

earlier when i went to the back of the house for something, I heard the front door open and shut. crap. so back to the front of the house I go to investigate. the two little people who are SUPPOSED to be on the couch vegitating are instead on the front porch, watching the rain.

sigh.

so, i took some pics because really i thought it was cute. ;)

the wal-mart trip the other night where emma started to show signs of being really sick?

we found these caaa-uttttteee cowgirl boots for her to wear to her riding lessons.

$7

yep. love them. and so does she. she wore them all day long laying on the couch yesterday and is doing the same thing again today.

this is where i am so far with tony's project.

i'm looovvviinnnnn' it!!!! it's a spiraling ribbed pattern and looks super cool on. how do i know? because MINE is already done. ;)

greetings from the knit cafe.

my favorite knitting book so far. it's ahh-mazzing! there are three projects in particular that i am dying to make from this book.

also, notice the owlie fabric thing in my bucket. it's my super cool needle organizer i found on etsy. love me some etsy.

these are the three projects i'm salivating over in that book.

the wrap on the left? i ordered the yarn for that one last night. 100% pure alpaca. it's going to be dreamy...

the runner in the center... i just love it and i want it for the wine cabinet tony and i got over christmas. at least... i think that's where i want it.

and the sweater on the right is just so ME! THAT is the kind of thing i love to wear daily. the picture of comfort, yet still very stylish. at least... in my opinion.

anywho... these are the goings on here today in sickie land.... hope you guys are well and happy with beautiful white snow to play in instead of gross wet soppy rain.

blah!

Sickies

Emma is one sick puppy. She's been coughing and kinda droopy for a few days now and yesterday when I picked her up from school, the nice lady who helped her into the car told me that her class as a whole is very sick right now so I should watch Emma. She said they sent home 3 kids yesterday alone. I think they noticed Emma's droopiness and coughiness and warned me it was probably coming.

Well, Emma seemed fine other than the two afore mentioned symptoms, so I took her to her horseback riding lesson yesterday and then she went with me when I took my baby cousin Cody around job hunting last night, but when we got to Wal-Mart (last stop on the job search) she started complaining about her leg and foot hurting. Upon examination I found NO reason her leg should be hurting and I asked her if she'd hit it or anything and she said No and immediately burst into tears because it was hurting so badly. She continued to cry the entire time we were there!

I knew something was wrong.

When we got home, I immediately took her temperature. It was 102.1. I don't think Emma has ever had a fever this high. I could be wrong, but my kids are like me... they normally don't run super high fevers. (knock on wood) We have naturally low normal temps. It's weird, but my normal temp is like 97.4, not 98.6. And they are both the same way. So, when Emma's was 102.1, I freaked a little!

I immediately got her settled on the couch with her sleeping bag, pillow and blanket. I don't know why, but when my kids are sick, I keep them on the couch. I guess it's so they're always near me being that the living room is so central and open in our house. And drugged her up to try to bring that temp down.

Well, as soon as the Motrin kicked in, she was much better. Still droopy and coughy, but not quite so achy and deathly looking.

She fell asleep pretty quickly and my worrying subsided.

Then I was stupid.

I didn't wake her up in the middle of the night to re-medicate her.

Ugh. So, about 6:30 this morning, I woke up to her beside my bed saying, "Mommy, I feel really really bad right now" and I swear, I could feel the heat radiating off of her. Omg! I was immediately wanting to slap myself for NOT waking her up for meds. So, for about 20 minutes, she was throwing up and shaking like a leaf until the tylenol finally kicked in and brought her fever down. I won't make that mistake again.

So, for today and probably the next couple of days, this is Emma's perch...

And Noah has been off and on sick for several, several days. Not with what Emma has, but he's cutting molars. Which means he is the whiniest, cry-iest, nasty diaper-est little two year old you have EVER SEEN IN YOUR LIFE!!!!

Which is why I've tried to auction him off several times in the past few weeks...

So, I"m sure this little turd will be getting what Emma has as well, because isn't that what ALWAYS happens????

For now, though, he knows his sister is a sickie and he's being pretty sweet about it. He's heard me baby talking her while sitting at her side rubbing her head and back saying, "My poor sick baby girl". So, I've caught him more than once walking by her saying, "Po babeeee" (poor baby). How sweet is that??

And Noah has decided to perch on the chair beside her.

The next few days, this is what the days hold for them...

at least Nick Jr is somewhat educational, right?

And this is what the next few days hold for ME.

p.s. i do have a newly finished knitted project and i LOVE it!!!!!! I'm waiting though to share it because I'm making TONY a matching one.... are you curious???? The one I've already finished is for ME and the one I'm going to start shortly is a matching one for TONY. Ha! And he has to wear it, it's part of the marriage contract. I've told him everything I knit for him HAS to be worn and worn FREQUENTLY or else it's grounds for divorce (KIDDING... kind of...) because of the shear amount of time and sore fingers it involves.

;)

oh, and another p.s..... not only are my kids sick and whiny and poopy and pukey.... the dang DOG has some stomach thing going on and all of yesterday I spent cleaning up her drippy droppings (this was the most pleasant combination of words I could come up with to accurately portray the horrible word I refuse to type on my blog ;) from every floor and unfortunate pillow that was ON the floor. Gross to the one hundredth power.

Have a good day, friends.

Runaway Noah

Let me explain...

One bright sunny day in September, I had a ton of editing work to do... Noah needed a nap... Emma needed to go to ballet. So, I did what I do in times like this, I called my Mama to see if she could pleeeeaassseee take Emma to ballet for me so I could stay home, catch up on some work and let Noah get his nap in.

She said she would, so over she came, we packed Emma up and just when it was time to leave, Noah wanted to go. Bad. He was crying and begging and thrashing on the floor and clawing at the door, but alas, he didn't get to go.

I got a phone call and so I went on the front porch to get some quiet. Noah followed. He watched Mimi drive down the driveway and he started marching to the side of the house to the garage. He likes playing in the garage. I thought nothing of it.

A minute later, I notice him on his tricycle, pushing it with his feet down our driveway.

I did nothing at first but watch. We live a very good ways from any traffic, so my kids can run and bike and whatnot without me freaking.

Then I noticed he wasn't just playing on his tricycle in the driveway, he was actually on a mission. So, I got up off the steps, ended my phone call, and started towards him.

As soon as he saw me coming for him, he started yelling, "NO, MOMMY, NOOOO!!!! I GOING TO MIMI HOUSE!!!"

I laughed. What else would I do? And followed at a safe distance. I was truly curious as to what he was planning in his little head...

We live on a looonnnnggg dirt road. That big building in the picture below is one of the warehouses on our farm. My family is in the furniture business and that particular building is their warehouse.

The road in the foreground is OUR driveway into our house. Noah was seriously going to Mimi's house.

And he rounded the bend... Seriously, before you call DSS, I was closer than this picture portrays and there was zero activity on the farm that day. We live way out in the country and you can hear vehicles, tractors, etc way before you see them. I knew he was perfectly safe because it was silent outside... with the exception of him yelling at me to stop following him because he was going to Mimi's house!

Noah ended up going all the way around to the other side of the warehouse, at which point, I decided we'd had enough of that shenanigan, I had to at some point put an end to his dream and turn him back towards our house.

This was the picture after the tantrum was thrown... he had thrown himself off the tricycle, into the dirt and thrashed around somemore. I popped his leg, which brought him back to reality and he immediately started heading home.

It's amazing what a little pop does for this little fella. ;)

So, that was the day Noah ran away.

He's a two year old with a mind all his own.

I also want to add that I am so amazed by him. He has a COMPLETE vocabulary now. Just this past week he has started talking even more clearly than he was. I can't believe it. I know Emma's vocabulary wasn't this advanced at this age. I'm wondering if it has something to do with him being the second child and learning so much from her, when she didn't have the older sibling to learn from. I don't know. He just seems so much older than he really is.... and precious... and edible... and kissable... and ...

Halloweenie!

This year, Emma is a beautiful purple fairy and Noah is a floppy puppy dog.

Taking pictures isn't really Noah's cup of tea at this stage in his life, so that's why he's giving me the stink eye.

These are precious though. He loves his new Owl Trick or Treat bag and he really likes his costume. I'm pretty sure Emma was over there making him giggle, hence the cute face. ;)

Emma's always up for a photo op and she looked as beautiful as ever. Still getting used to the short hair, though! :)

This Halloween, Tony was in Iraq working and Mimi was out of town, so Amber and I took the kids to the PH Church down the road to the Halloween carnival they have each year. The kids absolutely loved it! They jumped and slid on bouncy things and we had hots dogs, followed by trunk or treating. It's a really great thing they do for the kids over there and it's super fun without having to walk miles through a neighborhood.

The Big Cut

Today we took a trip to see Aunt Heather in Dunn at Chateau Salon & Day Spa to get the babies some hair cuts! I could not bear to cut much off Noah's beautiful locks, I mean, look at those curls!!!

So we just trimmed him up. He's a good sport about it. He sat still like a good boy for Aunt Heather. He started saying, "I Done" after the first snip, though, so we had to hurry up through his. :)

Then Emma sat down. When we went in to get her hair cut today, her hair was almost down to her butt.

Unfortunately, I did not take a before picture. :(

But here is the after...

She looks so beautiful and so much older than she did with her super long hair.

And we donated 10 inches to Locks of Love. Hopefully a child in need will get a really beautiful wig out made out of her hair.

Sweet Babies

I know a lot of kids grow up fighting with their siblings and resenting them for one reason or another...

But mine just love each other SO very much, I can't imagine they would ever be that way.

I hope they always love each other like this.

There's nothing that feels any better as a mother than to see this kind of love flowing between the babies. It's amazing.

How Could I Forget?!?!

Okay, remember how I told you I measured 7 inches of snow in our backyard on Saturday morning and then it was practically all gone the next day?

Well, here's the proof...


Saturday Morning:

Sunday Morning:

Yeah, we were robbed!

Anyway, here are the cute pictures of Noah getting to enjoy the snow a little, since all the other snow pictures are of Emma the night before when it actually all came down.

At first, he just preferred to hide out in the playhouse.

Noah's like his Mommy, he has to warm up to new things first before he totally embraces them. But he was observing the outside from the door. Bless his sweet little heart.

Emma joined him on the porch to get him to come out and play. He trusts his Sissy, so he went ahead and ventured out in it.

I just love this picture because Livi was trying to eat the snow off Noah's mitten. LOL.. that dog will drive you crazy. Noah has learned, though. Everyday when he and Emma play in the yard, Livi follows him around, jumping up and down on him, and Noah very clearly says to her, "Nu NU!" His version of "No, NO" It's the cutest thing ever because he gives her the Mean Mommy face and turns his back on her. It cracks me UP!


And Emma was trying to blast the camera with a snowball here... it must've either went over the top or to the side, because I do not see it.

This girl loves snow so much. It's such a shame we weren't born further north. ;)