Were any of you around when I was completely crazy buying cloth diapers for Emma? Like to the point of insanity? Like to the point of completely spending more money on cloth diapers than I would have spent on disposables? It was bad. Really, really bad.

I was going to post a picture, but I deleted all of my diaper stash pictures when I simplified (right before Emma potty-trained) so I wouldn’t have to see evidence of the fact that I completely lost my mind for a while.

You see, one of the main reasons we cloth diaper is COST. Yes, the upfront investment is more than a few packs of disposable diapers. But the overall savings is swell. As long as you don’t go crazy buying every type of diaper out there. And believe it or not, there are a LOT of different types of cloth diapers out there!

So I’ve had a few people ask me what we use on Lucy, and here it is.

(l-r) all in one’s (Bumgenius Organic One-sized AIOs and 2 XS Sposoeasy AIOs)
diaper covers (4 XS Thirsties, 2 XS Imse Vimse, 3 GroBaby (one sized), 2 Bumgenius Flips (one-sized)
prefolds (18 unbleached Diaper Rite – size small)

That’s it! I’m quite proud of myself, actually.

As she gets older, the prefolds will be rotated out for larger sizes (we already have those leftover from Emma) and the sized covers will be rotated out for larger sizes (already have those, as well).

The BumGenius Organic AIOs are one-sized, so they will fit through potty-training.

I use mostly prefolds and covers at home during the day, while Ken uses the AIOs. I usually use AIOs when we go out.

When Emma was a baby, I actually did take her upstairs to her room for most diaper changes, but since we’re all downstairs most of the day, it made more sense to create a little changing area here.

I just started using cloth wipes again (my spray bottle with solution was in the bathroom at the time of this picture), and that branchy fabric thing is our giant wetbag that acts as our diaper pail.

Since I’ve already cloth-diapered one kid, this hasn’t been hard at all. The only hard thing was waiting for Lucy to fit into the diapers that I had.

And then before we knew it, she had outgrown those. This is all going by way too fast.

links to purchase …

BumGenius Organic AIOs
Thirsties diaper covers
Imse Vimse diaper covers
Flip one-sized diaper covers
GroVia one-sized diaper covers
Diaper Rite prefolds

I also have a very comprehensive cloth diapering tutorial here, here, here and here.

And if any of you actually do wish to purchase anything I use, please be so kind as to use this referral link (or click the “diaper junction” image on the right side of my blog). Thank you!!!

Man, cloth diapers can be SO addicting. I know, that sounds so very weird to people who don’t use cloth, but there’s just something about the cute little fluffy butt that makes me want to buy tons of them.

I’ve gone through many different phases, and at one time, I had way too many diapers for one baby. But I’ve gotten past that, and we now have only a few different kinds that we really like.

prefolds & covers — I love the simplicity of these, and now that I found Fishnoodles covers, I use this combo throughout the day and for going out.

Bumgenius organic AIOs — pretty much the easiest diaper out there. It’s just like using a disposable. Except you wash it when you’re done with it, lol.

Sustainablebabyish fitted diapers & fleece covers — this is my nighttime combo since I have what is considered a “heavy wetter” at night. She can leak out of a disposable at night, so I needed something seriously absorbent.

So I’m on Twitter, and I follow several of my favorite cloth diaper makers, one of which is @sloomb, the creator of Sustainablebabyish diapers. When I saw her tweet about a contest to win a free colored fitted diaper, I immediately went and entered — and WON! Woohoo! I never win ANYTHING!!

It arrived yesterday, and Emma flipped over it.

LITERALLY!

Thanks so much, Erin! I can’t wait to get more!! ♥

I kind of thought Emma would be close to ready to potty train by now. She’s 6 days away from being 22 months old, and I hear about 18 month old kids who are potty-trained.

My mom tells me to quit reading and quit listening to others, but I don’t learn. Now we know where Emma gets it.

You see, Emma usually tells us when she pooped her diaper.

And she wears cloth diapers, so she can feel the wetness. She’ll sometimes walk uncomfortably to me so that I can change her diaper.

All things that are supposed ‘signs’ that she’s ready to potty train.

But nope.

Apparently, she told Ken this morning that she needed to pee-pee, and he ran and got the potty. She dribbled a little on the floor but finished in the potty. YAY! She got candy and cheers and hugs and more candy.

But then later this morning, she peed all over 12 of her toys.

I don’t think “naked time” is the method I want to use. I am tired of cleaning up pee.

Clearly, I should have learned from my past “trying to get Emma to do something on some ridiculous schedule” mistakes.

I tried to rid her of the bottle at 12 months, but she dropped the bottle at 16 months. On her own.

We tried and tried to get her to sleep through the night from 9 months on, but she slept through the night at 18 months. On her own.

She does things on HER schedule, and there is nothing we can do to make her do anything she doesn’t want to do. It ends up making things a hundred times harder than they need to be.

Guess I better get used to the diapers.

Twenty-four months ago, I looked like this …

27 weeks along

I loved being pregnant. Now, I was one of the lucky ones – no morning sickness, no obscene weight gain (34lbs), no stretch marks, light heartburn, little to no discomfort (other than my ribs). The only downside of being pregnant was that it couldn’t last longer. Oh, and the restless leg syndrome that had me putting bars of soap at the foot of our bed and doing crazy stretches at 3am.

on our babymoon to disney world

I understand if some of you now hate me and never want to read anything I write ever again.

And that’s okay. I understand.

I mean, you can hope that whenever I have baby #2, I’ll be sick as a dog 24 hours a day.

But please don’t.

Being pregnant for the first time was really amazing. In fact, it was so wonderful that I often think about trying for baby #2 JUST to be pregnant again. But then reality sets in, and I realize that we are paying our bills and that’s about it. Babies just don’t fit into the equation at this point in our lives. We’re okay with what starting our own business has done to our bank account, but we also know that having a baby right now just wouldn’t be smart.

But the actual point of this post was to say that twenty ONE months ago, I looked like this …

And then like this …

And then like this.

Even labor and delivery was a piece of cake …

6:15pm – water broke at our house
7:15pm – arrived at the hospital
11:45pm – got epidural
5:00am – started pushing
5:59am – Emma Grace arrived

Ever since then, life has been anything but easy.

But just as my pregnancy and then delivery was wonderful and amazing, so is our life with Emma.

She’s not the kid that’s going to entertain guests and make everyone laugh. She’s not going to be the kid who screams and yells to get attention. She won’t strive to be the center of attention or the class clown.

Instead, she will be the kid that everyone is drawn to because she’s so quiet. She’ll be the old soul that everyone falls in love with. She’ll be a listening ear and a strong shoulder for her friends. She’ll love everyone, no matter their faults or shortcomings. And she’ll be generous and kind.

Happy 21 months on this earth, my sweet soulful child.

You have brought us more joy and peace than we ever thought possible.

I love browsing through Flickr – I’ve really learned a lot from the abundantly talented people there, and I am in constant awe over the pictures I see on a daily basis. I only hope to be able to take pictures like that one day.

While perusing and browsing some of my favorite photographers, I learned about “Love Thursday” which is all about seeing the love around us in the middle of a normal day.

I see love from Emma every day. Just tonight, she was walking up the stairs to go take a bath, so her diaper was off – but she was still in her dress. I pulled up the back of her dress to pinch her nekky heiney, and she put her hand back there and giggled. Like she was embarrassed! My little monkey.

Although, she was not embarrassed earlier today when she peeled off her shirt and diaper and ran around the house naked.

Ah the life of a 20-month old.

Anyway, I am surrounded by love, but Love Thursday is a nice reminder to look for it everywhere.

Even on the ground.

images are not here due to a url change a while ago … will try to get these re-uploaded soon!

A week or so ago, Sarah asked me how I got this picture of Emma to look like that, so I thought I’d walk through a typical “photo editing” process for me.

Let me preface by saying that I am not very good at it. I am still learning every day. I am constantly Google’ing “blahblahblah tutorial” for whatever I’m trying to do. I read articles and books, and I still don’t “get it” most of the time. I am most definitely NOT a professional by any means. I just really enjoy taking pictures, and out of the hundreds I take, sometimes I get a half-decent one. And thank goodness for Photoshop Elements and Picnik for making them look pretty good.

This probably won’t be a regular segment of my blog, because I really just play around more than anything, and I have no idea what is going to look good until I’m done with it. I truly have no idea what I’m doing.

For today’s lesson (hee) I’m going to use my picture from today’s Project365 – the theme is “Bokeh Wednesday” {in layman’s terms, bokeh is the blurry background of a picture} – so I went outside while E was napping and snapped this picture of my neighbor’s tree with their green shrub in the background to give it that green bokeh.

This is SOOC (straight out of the camera)

Not horrible, but not wonderful, either.

So I opened it up in Photoshop Elements and did the following …

1. Created new levels adjustment layer – I just moved the little slider around until I was happy with the results.

2. Duplicate background layer – and put into Screen mode. Change the opacity to 35%.

3. Duplicate background layer again. Drag the Tint Blue on top of the new layer (it’s under Photo Effects)

4. Put into Overlay mode – change the opacity to 75%

5. Flatten image and save.

Now, I went ahead and uploaded it like it is for my Project 365 – you can see it here.

But then I played with it in Picnik – I applied cross-processing (my favorite!) and then rounded corners.

Now, if you don’t have Photoshop, don’t sweat it. Ignore this entire post and head on over to Picnik — it is a great GREAT photo editing website, it’s easy and fun, and you can do SO many things to your pictures.

xo

The cloth diapers hanging on the line that I took a picture of earlier today for Wordless Wednesday? Still hanging on the line at 1:03am.

It has just been one of those crazy days where I didn’t stop, and it seems like nothing went right. I ran some errands, but never found what I went out to get.

Then, I got home to realize that we forgot to pay ourselves from the business account this month. A day after all of our bills cleared. Thank goodness for an automatic credit line that kicks in.

Then supper (chicken fajitas) turned out kinda not that good … Emma didn’t like it at.all. She ate a banana instead.

So I’ve been working since she went to bed, but she keeps waking up. It’s just little whining spurts – I haven’t had to go in there, yet, but I’m just so sure she’ll for real wake up to eat in a minute. AND I need to go turn her ceiling fan off, but I’m afraid of waking her up.

[business talk]

The one great thing is that I just finished an absolutely ADORABLE top for a collab I’m doing with Little Bear Knitwear this Friday, but I still didn’t finish it in time to send to her so she could get pictures of the top and pants together. And I burnt my hand so bad on the iron that it made me sick to my stomach.

The part that I’m going to brag about for days? Handmade binding around the entire thing. Can you say HAND CRAMP??

[/business talk]

So I’m going to go out and get in the diapers, pop them in the dryer for a fluff cycle, try to turn E’s ceiling fan off without waking her up, charge my camera battery, wash my face, brush my teeth, pop an Advil for my aching back, change into pj’s and fall into bed.

See you all later this morning.

Not my legs, though. That’s what pants are for.

I shaved Emma’s knit wool. I have been scared to shave her wool for months — I’ve heard you could use a regular razor, but good grief, I can’t even shave my legs without cutting myself 492 times.

So my awesome friend Shah’ada told me about this sweater shaver at Walmart for $5.67, and after searching up and down the laundry aisles and calling her, I finally found it. Stuck WAY up in a corner next to the irons. Do people not wear sweaters anymore? Or do they just do what I do and give them to Goodwill when they look crappy?

So I came home, loaded it up with batteries, grabbed Emma’s worst pair of wool capris that another awesome friend, Robyn, knitted for her, and went to town. Shah’ada had told me to do small circles and then empty after each leg. But I don’t think she knew how bad they were — I had to empty after every few inches. *giggle*

Here they were before (I’m so ashamed)

And after

And our lovely wool hairball

These are a lot less pilly than the others, because they were Emma’s first pair of knit woolies, and they were worn when she wasn’t mobile. *love* Can you guess which leg I’ve already shaved?

So if you cloth diaper and read my blog, then go out and get yourself one of these CHEAP yet LIFE-CHANGING sweater shavers. Stat.