TAT: Christmas Wish List

This time of year/Christmas shopping lists are nearly IMPOSSIBLE for me since we all have our birthdays around this time of year too.  So I just shop and then I have to figure out how to distribute presents among the right dates.  I've accumulated some shirts for Everett's birthday and a stuffed owl for Callum's, and then I've gathered combo gifts for Christmas.  We're not going to go crazy this year since we're trying to save more money and really, we have too much stuff.  I plan to get Everett one new "toy" for his birthday; likely some more Trios or spelling games and I might get/make Callum a Jakey (from Jake and the Neverland Pirates) for his birthday.

1. Crayola Kid's Art Club and Tunnel Play Tent : around $43 on amazon.  I got it on sale on kids.woot for $25 with shipping and it includes dry erase crayons!

2. Thomas Wooden Railway Emily with Coal Tender : around $15 on amazon.  I got it for $10 on woot.

3. Thomas Wooden Railway Straight And Curved Expansion Pack : around $24 on amazon.  I got it for $12 on woot.

4. I got these Sugarbooger Silverware Sets for stocking stuffers for the boys at a local store for under $7 each.  Amazon has them for $8.50.  They come in a plastic case that will be awesome for picnic lunches!

5. I'm considering this Melissa & Doug See & Spell  for Everett's birthday, but we might get the Trios for the birthday and do this for Christmas so he has his own present to open.  It's $14.00 on amazon.

6. We won't be buying this LeapFrog Tag Learn And Love To Read Set for Everett since it's over $80, but I think he'd like it.

7. I've been debating getting this OK to Wake! Children's Alarm Clock and Nightlight for a long time, but I just can't bring myself to spend $30 on an alarm clock.

8. My boys would flip for this Jake and the Neverland Pirates 7 Pc Figurine Set for around $20 on amazon.

9. I'm almost done with these socks for Callum and I'll probably knit/crochet up some more things for them so they get to open more.

And me?  I just want this:

Lodge Dutch Oven
and this:

Weelicious cookbook

TAT: Diapers!!!

This week's Toddle Along Tuesday is on one of my favorite things: diapers!!!!  Too much excitement?  K, I'll tone it down.

I wrote a post a long time ago about cloth diapering Everett, but my stash has changed some, so why not write a new post?  Oh, and I wrote a couple other posts related to cloth diapering over the years.

Without further ado, here is our current stash:

Here's what we have from left to right, back row first.
Wool!  Two soakers, one shorty, three longies, all homemade but one soaker.  Two travel wetbags and one large wetbag.  A huge stack (how did I accumulate this many???) of prefolds.  Two stacks of covers stuffed with tri-folded prefolds.
Three stacks of fitteds: mostly goodmamas with a few bububebes.  Two stacks of pockets: two fuzzibunz and the rest Oh Katy!s. One stack of Thirsties Duo diapers.  One tiny stack of AIOs: a thirsties and two grovias.

We still use a dry pail, still same wash routine.
I've pretty much lost the fitted love and ours are pretty worn out too.  I only use them for our woolies because they snap and stay in place, therefore there is no threat of snagging the woolies.
Still use prefolds all the time, but we don't use snappis anymore.  Don't get me wrong; they're a great invention, but it's just simpler to tri-fold and they world just as well.  They don't hold in messy poo as well, but it still never escapes a cover.
Love our pockets.  I adore Oh Katy!s but Thirsties will always be my true love.  They're actually sleeve diapers (an opening at the back and the front), so you don't even have to pull the inserts out; they agitate out in the wash.
I just recently tried out AIOs and while the Thirsties is nice, the GroVias are so stinking adorable, all natural fibers inside, and just great.  In fact, the husband commented the other day that he likes them the best, so maybe I'll have to look into getting rid of some fitteds and prefolds and look into getting some more GroVias.....right????  :)
I love to answer questions about cloth diapering, so feel free to throw em at me!

Toddle Along Tuesday: Letter to my boys

This week's Toddle Along Tuesday is a letter to your baby addressed 10, 15, or 20 years in the future.  Since I just so happen to have two "babies," I thought I'd just go ahead and write two letters for 15 years in the future.

Dear Everett,
Well my child, you are 18 years old.  I know you did well in high school with your friendly personality and eagerness to learn.  I hope that you have found a great fit for college and are excited to attend  I hope that you made wonderful friends and had great, care-free times in your high school years.  I hope you don't yet have serious girlfriend.  :)
Don't be afraid of going far from home for college.  It's the perfect time in your life to branch out and see a new place.  Don't try too many stupid things.  I'd like you to come back for vacations in one piece.  Work hard, don't forget to relax and play.  I love you.

Dear Callum,
16 years old and I'm sure you're always trying to drive the car everywhere.  I hope you're not as clumsy driving as you are running/walking at 16 months.  :)
Remember that high school grades actually do matter.  Not just to keep you from getting grounded, but for college admission and life in general.  Don't forget to keep doing extracurriculars too.  It seems that is where a lot of kids meet their best friends for their teen years.  I know you're going to miss your big brother dreadfully in the fall, but we'll make sure you get to visit with him every chance you get.  Don't get into too much trouble little guy.  I know you have an adventurous streak but you should try to keep it in check and be careful!  I love you.

Toddle Along Tuesday: Changes

This week's Toddle Along Tuesday is about changes.  As my last post noted, Brian and I have now been married for five years and even detailed some of the changes.  Let's expand on that a bit.

	2007		2012
Dwelling	We lived in a somewhat scary 2 bedroom apartment that had one heat source and allowed month-to-month rental.  Getting ready to move to West Lafayette, IN for Brian to attend grad school at Purdue.		We live in the same town again, but now in a beautiful 4 bedroom house on a great street with awesome neighbors and a huge maple tree to shade us in the summer.
Job	Unemployed.  Had just finished my time at St. Olaf and was licensed to teach English in grades 6-12.		Self-employed.  After a couple jobs working as an administrative assistant in two different educational service agencies, I decided it was time to save money by staying home and becoming county certified to provide daycare.
Caretaking	Had a brand new kitten (well, 2 months old) who was adorable and funny and snuggly.  Although she did kill my betta.  Then I was mad at her.		Still have that cat.  And another.  And some more fish.  Oh yeah, and two half-wild little boys.  I would say fully-wild, but one does use the toilet.
Hobbies	Not a lot.  I did cross-stitching, I walked.  I had just finished wedding planning.  I would go road biking with Brian every now and then.		Indoor: knitting, crocheting, sewing, cooking, photography.  And volleyball during the school year.  Outdoor: running, toting boys behind a bike, hanging out at playgrounds, pulling a wagon around the neighborhood.
Interests	Ummm…my cat?		All things natural living/parenting: cloth diapers, breastfeeding, gardening, composting, healthy cooking
Happiness	I had just gotten married, so that was awesome.		My life is pretty awesome.  I play with my boys every day and try to make the world exciting and educational for them.  I have a great home near family, real seasons, some luxuries, and a house full of giggles and love.

Toddle Along Tuesday: My Mama

This week's Toddle Along Tuesday is about My Mom.

Where do I start when discussing my mom?  We are very different people in many ways, but we have some strange similarities too (like our tendency to make up something ridiculous, but similar sounding, when we didn't hear what someone said).
My mama has had nine babies, which alone qualifies her as crazy.  ;)  It also kind of makes her a super mom.
Oh, and she's homeschooled a gaggle of them, including me from 2nd-8th grade.

She was also a single mom for several years, which means she's a very strong and brave woman.
She's silly, kind, giving, loving, and always willing to do anything I need her to.  There's never a time that she isn't willing to take on my two insane little wild monsters even if it's just because they're driving me crazy.  And boy do they loooove their Nana!  (I'm sure the chocolate she always has stashed doesn't hurt either.)
My mama was there for both of my labors/the births of the boys.  The woman loves childbirth and it's nice to have someone with so much expertise around when you're going through something as intense as natural labor and delivery.

Here she is talking with newborn Everett

And with newborn Callum

What else?  My mama has also in recent years gone back to school and received her RN.

I don't think there are many people as selfless as my mom.  And she's everything a grandma is supposed to be.   She oohs and aahs over everything the boys do, she plays with them, cares for them, spoils them, and sends them home when she has to.  I wouldn't trade my mama for anyone in the world.

Love you mama!

Toddle Along Tuesday: Favorite Firsts

One of the most exciting things about raising a baby is getting to experience their "firsts" with them.  The first smile, steps, word, laugh, song, etc.  Each one is so awesome to see, it really makes all the hard work worth it. Of course, I love all of those things listed above (and I think babies strategically plan that first smile for the exact moment that you are about to go absolutely insane from sleep deprivation), but here are a couple recent firsts in our family.
Everett: he now sings.  She started this in the past few months and it is absolutely adorable.  Especially the first time I heard him singing along to Adele in the car.  "Oooooh, no more has!  Oooooh, no more has!" (Rumor has it, of course.)
Everett has also recently become polite.  It nearly makes me cry every time he's so sweet.  On mother's day, he kept collecting flowers and would bring them to me, hug and kiss me, and say "happy mother's day!"  Last week, he had asked what day it was and then collected a flower, hugged and kissed me, and said, "happy Friday day!"  lol  This morning, he also told me, "thank you for making yummy food, mama."  swoon.

Callum: the new words and sounds every day are just hilarious.  The first time he imitated a chicken by himself=hilarity.  The other day, he pointed at the overhead light in our van as I was buckling him in, and said "ITE!"  Proud mama heart almost burst as I said, "yes baby!  That's a light!"
He can now run, but I'm not as proud of that because it means he's constantly falling down.  : /

Toddle Along Tuesday - Things I'll Never Do

Every first time mom has a few things that they will "never do."  Being that for me, this was over three years ago, I'm having a hard time remembering what my gross misconceptions were....but I know I had them.  I think it's just natural that women plan what kind of mother they will be, not really understanding how hard it is doing this whole mom thing.  I'm sure I never thought I'd be as crunchy as I am.  That really evolved with having kids.  I blame natural childbirth and breastfeeding.  :)
I don't think I ever imagined I'd use cloth diapers.  I love those things.
I had no idea about baby wearing.  Do that too.
I do believe I thought that I wouldn't let my kids eat food in the grocery stores.  Thank goodness the co-op lets the kids get an apple/banana/carrot to munch on while shopping.
I do know that I swore my kids would never run around in just diapers.  There is currently a toddler running around in the cutest airplane diaper ever created (but cloth is WAY cuter and different than sposies).

I never thought that I would have to experience all out screaming tantrums in public.  Yeah.  Those are fun.

TAT: Bedtime Routine

This week's Toddle Along Tuesday is about bedtime routines.  We have a pretty set routine every night and if we forget a step, the boys let us know.  We try to get the bedtime thing going around 6:45 but sometimes it's not until 7 or so.  We typically have a pretty late dinner (6:15/6:30), so we're just finishing up dinner before bedtime.

Bath night (the boys don't get baths every day because they both have sensitive skin and are prone to eczema.  If they had a bath every day, it would dry out their skin too much.):
Everett picks out pajamas for himself and Callum while Brian or I get Callum undressed.  The boys play in the tub for about 10-15 minutes, sometimes they get their hair washed.
Getting out of the tub is always a fight.  We dry kicking/protesting boys off and get pajamas on.
Teeth brushing.  Callum usually takes this opportunity to grab his toothbrush and run away.  Sigh.  Chase the baby.
After they are pajama-ed and brushed, we settle into their room and sit on the floor.  I attempt to nurse Callum (sometimes he wants it, sometimes he doesn't) while Brian reads Everett 2-3 books.

There are many hugs and kisses in every direction.

Callum gets plopped into his crib with various stuffed animals, his sippy of water, all the nuks we can find, and his pillow/blanket.  He giggles and snuggles up with his stuffed giraffe.
Everett needs his Thomas blanket on first, then his comforter.  He also needs a water bottle on his headboard.  More hugs/kisses for him.
We turn on their sound machine, say "goodnight" and "I love you" and shut the door

On non-bath night, we just do pajamas, then teeth and the rest of the routine.

And if I'm lucky enough that they sleep in in the morning (I think that's happened twice), I get to find this in the morning:

Toddle Along Tuesday - What's In Your Diaper Bag?

I've never done a Toddle Along Tuesday before, but I had to jump at this one because I want to show off my pretty new diaper bag.  As a result, I look cool because there's no old receipts, ground up cheerios, or sticky unidentified substances to be pulled out and photographed.  In fact, it was basically empty and I had to fill it up.  Also, I tend to throw a lot in right before we go somewhere so it's perfect for the situation: snacks for going out, diapers (because I forget about them if they're in the diaper bag and I don't have THAT many pocket dipes), toys, books, etc., extra clothing and accessories for the weather of the day.
So here's what is in the bag right now.
The bag itself: a JJCole Swag Bag in silver drops.  It came with the changing pad, a little wristlet, and these handy dandy stroller attachments.

I love it.  A lot.  I don't care if it's not manly; Brian got over the manly diaper bag thing long long ago.

General snackage.  Klean Kanteen water bottle.  I usually bring this for myself and throw in some sippies for the boys too.  Generally the tummy ticklers bottles.  Luna bar for mama, fruit leather for boys.

My stuff.  P&S camera, wallet/mini purse, my phone, keys 

The whole diaper aspect of the bag.  A wetbag, an Oh Katy pocket, a sposie just in case I run out (they're small), and wipes.  Yes, I do just carry my wipes in an old refill bag.  I'm cool like that. 

The randomness.  Badger baby sunblock (I use this on the boys and on my face.), a pen, chapstick for Everett, chapstick for me, and a random bag of quarters that Everett gets to use when we're out and about. 

And that's all there is.  Like I said, I usually fill this thing to the brim right before we go out with things like sweaters, hats, more snacks (duh), water bottles, lots more diapers, etc.