Building the Stash

(picture of my growing diaper stash)

It's been over a month since we purchased disposable diapers. I would say it's going on two months. Last time we purchased some, we bought a box of diapers and a box of pull-ups from Sams Club. It was before I got the idea of "going green" and investing in some cloth diapers. Actually it was more the idea of saving money that made me switch and believe me, it has been a blessing to have the cloth diapers now. Without them I would have had to already purchase more disposables. With moving and not having any money coming to us until recently, this would have been a major strain on us financially.

The transition has been an easy one. We still have some pull-ups that we use when we are out of town. At this point I do not love the idea of dealing with a poop filled diaper when we are not in our house.. with our trusty diaper sprayer. Although our first poop filled cloth diaper experience was at my MIL's house and it wasn't really that bad.

A friend let us borrow a bunch of her cloth diapers. Which about doubled our stash. Now I don't have to wash everyday.. .even though some days I do.

Since we have been here... when I've had some money.. I've made two purchases toward my newborn diaper stash. Green Mountain Diapers has had sales on "seconds" PreFold diapers. PreFolds that for one reason or another were made a little off and therefore cannot be firsts. So I have on hand 1 dozen newborn size PreFolds and have another dozen being shipped to my house as I write this. That will give me two dozen PreFolds for the little one. The deals were too good to pass up and maybe saved me $10. I have yet to decide what else I will purchase for the first two months. Newborn size diapers only fit for a little while. I would love to purchase some cute AIO's but they are expensive... if the reason for me cloth diapering is to save money.

Dreaded Questions

One question I dread hearing when I'm out with all three of my kids is "Are they all yours?". Then after seeing my 29 week baby bump it is usually followed up by "And your expecting another one" The looks. The stares. It all gets old after awhile.

I don't know why I dread it. This was my choice and I love being pregnant with my forth. I guess I just wish people would be more positive or keep their negativism to themselves. After all this is my life, I am an adult, a good mother and I should be able to decide- with input from my husband of course- how many children I have. Especially being complete strangers I feel like they have no right to comment on my growing family. I find it rude. Didn't they ever hear the saying "If you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all?" All these children are obviously mine and I am more than obviously pregnant. Just don't ask. Please don't ask!

So today, we were out on a walk, J and the girls, who were riding their bikes, were way far ahead of N and I. I was pushing him in the stroller. We came upon a house where two people, a man and a woman, were waiting for someone who had run into the house(I watched this all happen).

So that feeling came over me and I couldn't help thinking "Please don't ask me about my children being so great in number and mention the fact that I'm pregnant with yet another one."

So I walk past and didn't hear the woman yell "Are they all yours?"

Her husband(just assuming that he was) yelled out of the car "Miss, she wants to know if they are all yours?"

I turned around, being already pass the house, and answered "Yes, they are."

The woman then replied, "And you're having another one."

I said "Yes, I am"

"Well, Congratalations!!" She said "We had seven."

As I continued walking I couldn't help thinking "Now, that's how that conversation should go!"

Thank you kind stranger lady.

The Day

L turned five on Thursday. We had a small celebration for her. We invited the grandparents. Mine were not able to come because my mom just got home from Africa(good excuse).

Ellie opened two presents before her birthday, one from my parents(a bag for L's random things) and one from Kathleen(a tea cart).

She also received a Ladybug tea set. A ladybug hat. A ladybug game. A fishing pole. A baby doll with a wagon and puppy. And a Tinker Bell folding chair.

She also got to pick a balloon from the store and pick out a special present for herself(she chose the third Tinker Bell Movie)

After lunch, cake, ice cream and present opening we headed out to Cran-Hill Ranch and the kids were able to help feed some of the animals, play on a playground and....

they all had pony rides.

After that M went home with J's parents and L and N came home with us.

L headed to Mt. P with J to the movie theater and Mc D's.(their annual father/daughter time)

And N and I had the whole house to ourselves.

It was a great Five Year Birthday.

Ladybug Cake

L requested a Ladybug cake for her FIFTH birthday and this is what I came up with. She picked out the cake mix. It's a double layer cake(first time I've made a double layer.... I wanted to add a cool filling but refrained) The bottom part is chocolate and the head is made of chocolate cake mix( I bought 3 small round cake pans.. they came in a pack of three) and the top layer is confetti cake(my favorite). The extra confetti cake mix we made into 6 cupcakes that we attempted to make into small ladybugs but I'm not that talented. L insisted on antennas(which she called antlers) so I had J buy some black licorice while he went out to get more frosting. The black dots are Oreo cookies(It made me want a Oreo ice cream cake.. yum yum yum)

Ladybug cake from the side.

Happy Birthday L!

Make a wish.

Good Morning Sunshine

My morning wake up call.

J brewed some this morning. I could smell it upstairs.

This is how a little man eats his breakfast.. with his feet up on the table.

I guess when we go shopping we need eggs, milk, juice and a Micah...

even though we already have a Micah.

PBS Kids.. girls took turns playing on it in the morning.

This is our source of homeschooling at the moment because all the curriculum is still packed.

Little man love.

Nature

Banana Bread

BANANA BREAD

Who knew it would be so frustrating at first but I was determined.

We had one nasty banana that I had been saving for the past couple days to make some banana bread. So I found a recipe online. Mashed up the nasty banana with a fresher looking one then searched for our baking soda. Found out that it is either #1 missing or #2 we don't actually have any. So I searched online for substitutes. Found that you can substitute 2 teaspoons of baking power for the 1 teaspoon of baking soda. But then you have to take out the acidic liquid in the recipe and add a non-acidic liquid. I looked at the recipe again and the only liquid I was adding was vanilla. So I searched online to make sure that is acidic-it is. So then I searched for a sweet liquid that was non-acidic, that we had. I searched first for substitutes for vanilla. Came up with Maple Syrup but that is acidic too. Saw on the same site that honey is not acidic. I had honey so we added that. Phew! With all the researching done I could make the bread... praying that it would actually turn out alright and all my time wasn't wasted.

The small loaf was made for Ellie, we had a little bread pan.

I added chocolate chips to her bread.

We LOVE banana bread!!!

Hopscotch

The girl's first hopscotch experience.

It's a warm and sunny day.

There's no need to be inside.

So we went outside.

And I decided to show the girls what hopscotch is.

So I drew some up, with numbers and told them how it works.

Eventually they were counting while they hopped.

M tried counting backwards while hopping backwards

(a difficult task since she had to read the numbers upside down...

it worked for about four squares).

Then L hopped backwards.

Then M drew up a new course.

Moved In

Wow. Going to be real short and sweet here(yeah right). We packed the moving truck last Sunday(May 1st), drove all day May 2nd(heading out at 4:30 am and arriving at 12:30 am) on minimal hours of sleep(mine was like 3 hours) and unpacked the vehicles May 3rd. My days and times are still out of whack. I am finding it hard to believe that it is May 9th already. I feel like this first week of May has been a blur and soon we will be planning birthday parties(one next week and two in June), summer activities (swimming lessons, camping, conferences, retreats, reunions) and then the new baby(due in early August). Time is going by too fast.

This new town we live in seems to be the biggest city in the county(which is not saying much) , other than the Walmart, Meijer and Save-A-Lot I have yet to find a grocery store. The Walmart is a super Walmart.

The girls marvel at the quietness of the stores. I am amazed at the city streets being so quiet. We took a nice walk around our neighborhood. It was very peaceful. We found the community pool(3 blocks) and the elementary school that has a playground(4 blocks).

We are slowly getting everything unpacked.

We bought a grill and have grilled out a lot since we have arrived. I'm loving it.

Our dishwasher is not working right, we have yet to investigate the reason why. But I am loving doing the dishes(If you know me at all you know how weird that is... I LOVE dishwasher and HATE doing dishes). We still have two clothes washers and two clothes dryers. But the washer will be changed out soon.

Cloth diapers.

I started cloth diapering with Nathaniel. We have 8 of them. So it has been a wash every day process and trying to use the rest of the disposables that we have. I love them. I'm not sure why I didn't switch to this earlier. We have not had any leaks yet and we have had 3 poop filled diaper experiences. Still loving it. I know I will need to invest in a few more in order to do this full time with Nathaniel and probably soon, I'm trying to only use the ones we have today to see how many he goes through.

Well.. there is so much more to say but I've been online all morning.