Two years

It really has been two years since I last updated this blog. Well, technically, two and a half. Excellent job, momma.

Once I figure out how to update this thing all over again, I'm going to attempt to make this into a once a month thing. AT LEAST. Yeah, right. Goodness. Consistency is not my best quality.

Whats new?
Well, lets see. Moved across country. 800 miles.While pregnant. Oh, yeah, also, had another kid! We call him Bear. Ha! I'm now a mom to 3 boys.Totally squeezed this last little dude out in the bathtub. HOMEBIRTH ftw. I'll never go back to the hospital for a birth. Downsized from a house to a tiny apartment, after a hop skip jump into my in-laws house for 10 months. LOVE that family, so thankful they were there for us when we needed to make the move, but at the end of 9 months, everyone was. so. done.

We are starting legit homeschooling this year. I really wanted to unschool, and we still are, KIND of, but at the same time, I'm using curriculum from EasyPeasy this year so I sort of feel like Bug is really learning something. That's what I tell myself. Honestly, I just have no idea how to homeschool other than to do a curriculum, and its really hard to unschool when your husband comes home every day, asking the kid "what'd you learn today?" At least this way, he's got a progress report.

We now live a block from the beach, The ocean happens quite often. This is what I've been looking forward to for the last 5 years. Sand, sun, tan lines. The kids adjusted well. I think having grandparents close by really helped with the transition. Little had some regression in potty training while we were living at the in-laws. Totally normal. Totally aggravating. Little also had to have oral surgery at age 3, which was the most devastating thing I've ever had to experience in his life.

Lets see... Bank of America screwed us royally. Thanks, guys! The house we left behind is still sitting empty, and we could still be enjoying life in the big Indiana, but we would be missing out on our little piece of this dream, so its a damned if you do, damned if you don't kind of event.

I find it amusing that I haven't updated in a couple years, yet consistently get a couple hits every few months. I am trying to keep off facebook more and more these days, so I keep coming back to here. I finally figured out how to merge two of my blogs, so now there's just this one and the paleo blog. That's pretty much it! Stay tuned, I'll try to update this thing more often. At least more often than every two years. Yep.

29 days

Oh, my poor neglected blog(s). Both of my blogs are suffering, and I go back and forth on whether I want to just scrap it all and call it quits, or go ahead and halfway neglect it, write once and awhile, and leave it as it is. For now, we get the half-neglect.

I started the other blog, planning on doing all my foodisms there. Take a regular meal, and paleo-ize it. I really like converting food!

I tried to do the project 365, and failed. I signed up for the picaday February, and guess what? We'll see if I can win that one.

Forget it. Who am I kidding. I'm no good at this consistent blogging thing.

So anyway, on with the writing!

Cheap ass Cloth and Care 101

Someone asked me the other day how I go about cloth diapering my kiddo for so cheap, so I decided to make a post for it :)

theluvyourbaby.com has 10 covers for around $50, free shipping, stuff those with prefolds you can get from craigslist or a diaper swap page, and you're set. Depending on baby's age, you'll need between 6 and 12 inserts per day, which I got a ton of from CL for $21, I was set for 3 days worth of diapering, and that was when Little was 2 months old. You'll want to wash on or before day 5 to keep the funk from setting in. Rinse first, hot water, then wash in hot water with soap on the 1 line, and two rinses after, one hot, the other whatever you want it to be. If you clean them right, you'll very rarely need to strip them. Rinse, wash, rinse, then 3 drops of dawn in the machine, wash, rinse til the bubbles stop coming back, 1 c vinegar in that cycle, then one last rinse.

And cloth is SOOOOOO easy. It really is.

If you have a heavy wetter at night, you'll need to invest in some hemp inserts, to keep baby dry at night, otherwise you're going to get pissed almost immediately. If you decide not to do cloth overnight for that reason, or you decide not to do cloth in general, sign up for amazon mom, and use the subscribe n save option. You get 30% off diapers and wipes. AND you can stack the amazon coupons you'll find in parents magazine on top of that. My last $40 box of diapers (7th generation, even) cost me $9.

Oh, AND , parents magazine is on sale from barnes and noble for $1 right now

http://www.thriftyandthriving.com/2011/03/barnes-noble-year-subscription-to-parents-magazine-only-1/

Little is 11 months, we go through about 5 or 6 diapers a day, and I use sposies at night because he is a HEAVY wetter.

So what will you need in all? What do you do for messy poopy diaper?

I you buy the ones from luv your baby, the only thing you'll need are the covers and 30 or so prefolds. You fold them and lay them in the diaper, and lay babe on top, then pull the dipe up and snap it or velcro (I got snaps, which I love). Check the YouTube link for video how to :) second one down looks good to me.

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=prefolds+and+covers&aq=0

Is baby's poo solid? If it is, you just shake the turd into the toilet and flush, then put the insert into storage. If it's still runny, just put the cloth & cover (it will be rare that babe misses the cover if it's runny) into your storage place (separate hamper, bucket, I store mine in the washing machine unless I know I'll be doing laundry every day), and on day 4ish, throw them all into the wash and proceed. Don't dry the covers, hang em, they'll last longer.

And for wipes, you can either continue using store bought, or you can use your gerber baby washrags, wetted with warm water. If you use regular wipes, you've got to keep em separated, pitch the wipes, and throw the dipe in the laundry. With a baby washcloth, you can roll it up in the dipe and forget about it :)

Stain tip: if you have stains, wash them like you normally would, then hang them in the sun to dry one super sunny day. The sun will bleach the poo stains right out (that reminds me...)

Good Luck, and have fun with diapering!

Let's Go Krogering

Now that Mr Daddy is back to work, I've had to change our schedule. Today was the first day I've went grocery shopping on a Sunday since before I had kids. Normally, weekends for me mean clean up and spending time relaxing in house... I hate crowds. I hate having to shop elbow to elbow with the masses of people who 9-5 it Monday through Friday. Monday is my normal grocery day. And Monday is also clearance day at the grocery.  Today is Sunday. And today, I shop.
I decided to leave Bug at home today, so I could just get in, out, and on my way. What should take an hour 45 total, tops, usually works out to about and hour and 15 minutes in Meijer, and an hour in Kroger with a 3 year old. I'm not complaining, but today I really just wanted to get shopping done instead of looky-loo'ing at everything. The time it takes to unload and load children, plus the 20 minutes we spend perusing the toy aisle, and the 15 it takes to get through the checkout, well, let's just say grocery day is a long day for me. And yes, I shop two stores. Price checking makes our grocery bill lower.
I spent a little more than usual this week, since we were literally out of everything. There were a couple boxes of spaghetti, a can of tomatoes, and some green beans left in the pantry, and condiments and a bag of raisins in the fridge. We still had a banana in the fruit bowl, and last nights leftovers for lunch today, but other than that, we were empty.
Surprisingly, Sunday afternoon wasn't too bad for shopping. Both stores netted me front row parking, and I only "ran into" a couple people. That may be due to the fact that I no longer shop the aisles. With our new lifestyle change, the food I buy now is on the outer edge of the store-produce, meats, cheeses, milk products. Aside from the spaghetti aisle (I don't have a pasta maker, but I'm sure if I did, I would be HOOKED on homemade pasta) and the pretzel aisle (with a three year old, you MUST have pretzels on hand at all times), and the baking goods aisle (flour, sugar, salt, etc), I have no use for the other aisles. Occasionally, I am forced to go down the canned goods aisle, and stock up on non perishables, but once I get canning learned, I won't even need that aisle.
So this weeks groceries, with 8 days of dinners, lunch food for Hubs, the big pack of TP, and plenty of chocolate, cost us... $85 at Meijer and $55 at Kroger. Not bad, considering we had nothing left to eat but the cardboard boxes the food came in, and I hadn't shopped in about 10 days.

Master of his Domain

Well, it's official. Little runs the homestead now. He's boss, and don't let anyone try to tell you differently. The world revolves around him. Or, at least, our world revolves around him. Fluffy little cute thing that he is.

Yesterday, Bug called me from the kitchen, "Mom! Mom! Come look! Brother is on the stairs!" Now, this isn't the first time that alarm has been raised. The other times, I come rushing in to find Little... On step one, sitting on his duff, smiiiiiiling oh so pretty as you please, like, "hi mom." So I'm standing in the kitchen doing (?) and Bug starts calling me, and I stroll on into the living room to see what he's shouting about, and lo and behold, Little is halfway up the stairs, huffing and puffing, pulling and pushing his little chubby legs as hard as they can go. With each step, I hear him, "hah", or "uh". So what do I do? Well I grab the camera, of course. I have to let him do his thing, I want to see just what he can accomplish, how far he can go. He makes it all the way to the top, up over the top, turns around and just GRINS the biggest grin ever. He *knows* he's done something spectacular.

And now I *know* I've gotta keep a gate up from now on. Ha!

Dad goes to work

Well, it's official. Mr. Daddy is back to work. Making $300 less a week than what he was making, but these days, that's a lot better than what most people are offering, if anyone is offering at all. The next six weeks will be training in the stores around Indy, then once the main man figures out where Mr Daddy fits best and where he needs him, he'll have a permanent place to call work. I'm crossing my fingers that he gets the store that's 10 minutes from us. That's where he's worked this week, and it's been nice. He's been able to take lunch and come home to visit, spend a little time with the boys and eat lunch. Bug isn't handling his return to work too badly, but Thursday evening, he had a meltdown of massive proportions, then eventually told me, "I just miss my daddy, and that's why I'm so upset." I'm glad he can explain to me what's going on in that head of his. At the same time, it saddened me. He's gotten used to Mr Daddy being home for the last 6 months, playing with him daily, and just generally being able to go to him when needed. Now, he has to wait for lunchtime, or evening time to see him or talk to him, and it's understandably hard for him. Thursday was the day Mr Daddy had to work a later shift, and it was close to bedtime, and Bug was tired, it was just a lot to take in for a 3 year old. I explained to him that Daddy would be home soon, and that he had to work so we could pay our bills and afford the things in life that make us happy. (like food! Ha! I really didn't say that!)
We are still going to lose the house. We've already turned the truck in, and we're down to one vehicle. The house phone was turned off about 4 months ago to save money, and we've made cuts here and there to keep from having the electric or gas shut off. And the heat is on 67 at night most nights. Now that spring is arriving, we can turn the heat off during the day completely. We are still trying to figure out what we will do for housing once we move out of the house. For now we're just taking it day by day, that's all you really can do in a situation like ours.
Once we turn in our paperwork stating Mr Daddy has a job making X amount of dollars, we will, of course, lose our food stamps. Little will still be insured, since he's under 1, but Bugs insurance will cost a little money each month. We'll move over to package C for him, and once the case worker calculates the dollar income vs the allowed income, we will know how much we have to pay. It won't be a big dollar amount, when Mr Daddy was making a decent income, we still qualified for package C, and only paid $44 a month. Technically, the only reason we even sign up for insurance is *just in case* of a true emergency visit. The kids are never sick enough to merit a doctors visit. Extended breastfeeding and lots of vitamin D (via the sun) has really built up the boys immune systems. I can count on one hand the amount of illnesses Bug has had, and the same is holding true for Little.
"Back to work", for me, means learning to handle the kids alone again. It's not been easy. The last time I had the kids alone all day was when Little was 4 months old, so I'm learning all over again, how to get things done by myself. And I'm actually doing better than I thought I would. Naps are being taken care of, dinner is getting made every evening, and I've even done a load or three of laundry, which is awesome, because I don't do laundry. Well, ok, yeah, I do, occasionally, but not often, and not very well.
*sigh* We miss Dad.

Spring has Sprung!

Please excuse my absence. The whole family's been sick for the last 3 weeks, and I am the last one to get catch it. Thankfully my immune system was strong enough to kick it within a few days, and as of today, while I wasn't feeling great, I didn't feel awful, either. Which was nice, because today, the temp reached 70
Spring is officially here! The groundhog was right? I don't get what the groundhog signifies, to be honest. Every year, we pull a groundhog out of a hole and scare the bejesus out of him. He either sees his shadow and runs away to hide, or he doesn't see his shadow, and what? Hangs out with the mayor and tells us spring is just around the corner? How does that work, exactly? *shrugs* Either way, the ground hog didn't see his shadow this year, and here it is, mid March, and 70 degrees. Love it!
So today, 70 degrees. Woo! We have been cooped up in this house for faaaaar too long. I strapped the kids in the stroller and took them for a long walk. We walked to Aldi's, and strolled the aisles. I didn't actually expect to find anything suitable to eat, but on the last aisle, the ice cream aisle, there were these lime pops with no artificial ingredients. No, they weren't organic, but yay! I was able to treat Bug for being so patient on our walk with something that wasn't bad for him. The ingredients in most foods at Aldi's reads like a science experiment, but the lime pops were less than 5 ingredients. And they were delicious, and messy, and Bug was a sticky mess by the time we got back to the house, and Little was fast asleep. He of the screaming car seat, he of the crying stroller walk, he fell asleep without a peep.
After the much needed nap, I took the boys back outside to play. Little got to experience grass again. He hasn't seen that since fall of last year, and he was really unsure of the prickliness on his feet. Actually, it made him cry, he of the crying earth touch. But we soon fixed him up and got him comfortable, and both boys got to enjoy the rest of the afternoon outside. No more cabin fever! Hope this weather sticks, because we love it!