My 2 Year Old July 22, 2009

My baby is 2 today. At 4:15 in the morning 2 years ago my water broke (a first for me after 3 other children) and we embarked on this new adventure after only a couple of hours in the hospital. Kaia shot out of me so fast, with only 1 push, the midwife barely had a chance to catch her. Kaia’s daddy flinched watching Kaia slide towards the floor. Then she stopped slipping, yelled and yelled and yelled while they weighed her, checked her signs. Then they handed her to me to nurse and she ate with gusto for 45 min. Little piggy.

Kaia is so different from my other children in a lot of ways. She says Who-wee instead of horse and  chocklitt in a deep growly voice like her big sister did as a toddler. Her penchant for getting up between 5:30 and 6:15 is definitely like her big brother Owyn. He’s often found getting her a bowl of cereal, and then getting me while she’s happily munching. Just because the two of them awake at about the same time.

Otherwise, she’s daring, climbing trees, ladders, shelves, tables, you name it, with ease. I think she’s fallen maybe a couple of times. No serious bruises or bumps. My other kids have been covered in both to the point where I was scared to take them out publicly for fear people would think we were abusive! She KNOWS how very cute she is, and utilizes that with every breath, batting her eyelashes, fluffing her hair, the perfectly turned smile, with just the right amount of dimple. She loves wearing beautiful clothes, but has no problems with putting on a gorgeous dress, then going outside and helping me dig holes, or climb trees, or dump dirt into her water table to make mud pies.

She’s a dancer. I really believe that this little girl has got talent, serious talent. We are going to have to find the money somewhere to get her dance lessons, because talent like this shouldn’t be squandered. I danced as a child, and did ballet, until I was old enough to be on toe shoes (before my teachers daughter, who was the same age, because I was that good), but we moved, and we were poor. And I’m not built like a dancer. Never have been. Maybe a dancer for rap video’s when I was thin. But Kaia doesn’t have my body. She’s got her daddy’s body. And he’s tall, thin, and with long long legs and muscles that would be perfect for dancing (if only he had rhythm LOL).

Kaia’s almost completely potty trained now, and she did it herself honestly. She still wears diapers to bed and if we are going to be out of the house for more than 30 min. But I guess it’s time to sell off my diaper stash. I’m going to be sad to see it go. Seriously. However, and here is where birthday comes in LOL. We don’t have money for presents, and we don’t have money for decorations. But I do sew, and I do have a cretive mind.

What does Kaia need? Well she needs panties to be honest! She’s wearing her 7 yo sisters right now, and while Ingrid is very very thin, so they kind of fit, they are very saggy, and they aren’t Kaia’s. So after I’m done typing this out, I’m going to finish sewing Kaia some panties out of one of her daddy’s old t-shirts and appliqueing some decorations on them. She’s going to squeal with delight I know it LOL!  Kaia also needs more nightgowns, I got so sucked into depression with my 3 oldest children gone to their fathers for the summer that I just wasn’t capable of anything but doing normal household chores. My brain isn’t wired to be creative and to create when I’m that sad.

I’m also finishing up the birthday banner I started, and Kaia also saw this dress on a blog I was reading:

and is now DEMANDING a dress like this. Yes, she’s only 2. You’d think she’s 4 with how she picks up on the fact that ‘mommy can make this for me’

So today, it’s underwear with hearts and starting a rainbow dress for Kaia. Then finishing a banner (it’s only bias tape, I don’t know why I’m resisting *sigh*) Then MAYBE another nightgown. At least I’m helping to get rid of more of my fabric stash right?

I’m also making my ‘famous among friends’ crockpot spaghetti sauce, and the kids are already saying ‘It smells so gooooood’ and ‘It’s making me huuuuungry’ LOL, plus a chocolate brownie cake (GF) with chocolate icing. Because Kaia IS a girl (and is related to me LOL)

SparkPeople and birthdays July 16, 2009

A few things….

On loosing weight:
Somehow, I looked in the mirror and I’d gotten quite chubby for me. I’m normally overweight. Heck at my VERY thinnest – when my friends asked if I was on drugs I wavered between 125-132. I’m not only big boned, but have very heavy bones (I’ve never broken one!) and I’m quite muscular, partly from my good Pomeranian blood (yes, you heard me right, it used to be a country) and partly from years of ballet, gymnastics, basketball and football.
So I’m used to being a size 12-14 and I’m ok with that. I’ve got a little waist, a big butt, and a chest that’s large enough to balance the butt out mostly. I sag in places (hello! four babies, and 9 pregnancies!), but I never had much in the way of cellulite and I had a pleasant shape.
Not so much anymore. I look in the mirror and think *ick!*

Then I saw a blog-y friend posting about using sparkpeople. So I went and checked it out, it’s got a little thingy that I can use to input my food, if it’s not in the database, I can put it in. I can also use my fitness checker to input how much I’m excersising. It’s not just asking for push ups, jogging, walking, gym workouts and the like. I can put in pulling weeds (gardening) and how long, and it’ll calculate how many calories I’ve burned. Or the other day I painted the kitchen more, and it calculated how many calories I’d burned. So it’s pretty awesome for something FREE in my book!

On Kaia, my baby,
she’s almost 2, It’ll be July 22nd at four something in the morning that my water broke (for the first time after four kids!) She’s almost fully potty trained now amazingly enough. The first out of all my kids that not only did it before her 2nd birthday, but also basically just did it herself. She didn’t like the little toilet, and insisted upon the big toilet, and that was that! We’re still working on pulling down pants, and pulling them back up. But it’s a work in progress. I’m going to be sad to see all her old cloth diapers go onto a new home. We’ve evolved over the last 2 years into almost exclusively pockets, and I do love them. I wish I’d had them with my first!
She’s also picked up SO many words, it’s like a new word an hour! The worst of them all though is Fuck. It’s supposed to be truck.. Only…..( So amusing but embarrassing at the same time) in the grocery store parking lot, she sees a delivery truck and yells ‘I Keem Fuck!’ (Ice Cream Truck) and the whole parking lot turns to look!!  My honey  says ‘No darling, it’s a Chip Truck’ and Kaia goes ‘ooooooooh, Shit Fuck!’ (queu smacking of head and turning bright red).

I’m getting on sewing her all sorts of stuff for her birthday and her cake is inspired by this:
and this

Frogs (her favorite, she screams that word all the time and we investigate the tadpoles in the backyard every day) princess crowns, sparkles, flowers and wands. Oh yeah.
She’s almost swimming, she loves being in the pool at my friend  Skyla’s house for hours at a time, with or without water wings. She’ll float a bit, and put her face in the water and blow bubbles. Plus spinning and bouncing about LOL.  Today, while ‘helping’ me water the garden. She snuck off and got into the bell peppers (we’d found two almost ripe ones yesterday). I turned back around and she was halfway through a pepper. Held it up upon seeing me, looked REALLY cute (to get out of trouble) and said PEPPER! heheheh. Yes, I got pictures!

Tomorrow, I’m going to be posting pictures of all sorts of things I did. I’m getting good I think! However, my oldest daughter is wandering about outside with the camera at this time, so I think I’ll let her do her thing.

Oh, also tomorrow… My GF flour mix in a taste test with Pamela’s GF Bread Mix, the best bread mix for GF I’ve found so far. Who are the testers? My honey, my oldest daughter, and possibly some friends…. Tune in tomorrow LOL!!

Green Pondering over 2008 January 1, 2009

A *lot* of things have changed over 2008.

I think the two things that stand out most in my mind is my huge change in relationship status (from a military wife to single mom) and the change my house has undergone.

I’ve always been a firm believer in turning off the lights when you leave the room. Turning off the water when you brush your teeth, using dishpans in the sink, instead of wasting tons of water (and then using the water to water plants). But I’ve never really had children old enough to help, or husband who stood behind me on it (and most of the time we lived on base which really isn’t conducive to much but staying in your house and not making waves)

But this past year and a half saw us:

• putting up a clothes line and using cloth diapers (back to my roots like I’d done with my first child)
• Using cloth wipes  in the bathroom and on the baby,
• using all natural soaps made by my friend/sister Holly, that’s including in the laundry room (and adding pennyroyal and teatree oil to the detergent which in turn keeps off the mosquito’s outside).
• Making and using cloth market bags.
• Making a lot more of our clothing,
• putting greener light bulbs in every single light socket we have.
• Putting in a garden,
• saving our own seeds,
• canning,
• making my own vinegar,
• making my own bread, tortilla’s, muffins, cookies etc from scratch.
• The only pre-made snacks we buy now are crackers and popcorn.
• Catching rainwater (in my pitiful system of 5 five gallon buckets placed strategically, but it’s what we can afford) to water my porch plants
• if it’s yellow let it mellow, if it’s brown flush it down….
• replacing things around the house as we can afford it that save energy (dishwasher that does actually save us gallons of water, messing about with the toilets and adding new insides until they saved gallons of water, new light fixtures in places where the lights tend to stay on a lot or were really dim, so we used 3 or 4 lights on instead of one)
• freecycling things as we came across them and realized we didn’t use them, or hadn’t used them in at least a year.
• composting all our non-meat food waste and putting in a burn barrel (with ashes going to the composter)
• Planning grocery trips for once a month (using less gas) and planning them for the most efficient use of gas/time.
• Got started cleaning out the forest behind my house, so far almost an entire car has come out of there, not to mention literal bags of broken glass (wrapped in plastic bags seriously) old washers and dryers, whole bottles, string like you wouldn’t believe, an old fence laying down on the ground and lots and lots of rusty cans. (yes, my tetnus is up to date)
• actually USING my fabric stash instead of buying new fabric. I only bought things that I actually used right away with the exception of my Halloween dress (which I didn’t end up with time to sew) and I probably spent about 30 dollars total on fabric, and that includes PUL for cloth diaper making!

This Year, there are more things I’d like to do

• buy a pressure canner and canning a LOT more
• sell my creative endeavors in my etsy shop, versus leaving them laying about.
• put in raised garden beds
• composting all kitchen waste
• having a LOT larger garden
• planting bamboo as a living fence around my property line
• Finding a way to store my laundry water and use it for garden water
• Getting a pump hooked up on my shallow well to use for the garden and the kids pool (and maybe laundry) (this will be difficult since it’s against city code even though the well has been there forever, but I live next door to the city water guy)
• Finish cleaning out the forest behind my house and using that area for random woodland flowers, a place to hang out, and hanging lots of ‘fairy’ ornaments, mostly wind chimes and various glittery hanging things according to the kids.
• Put up an addition on the house
• fix the back porch
• getting the chicken tractor built and getting chickens
• researching whether goats are ok in town or not and getting 2 if it’s ok with town codes. Wanting a milking goat.
• most likely raising rabbits for meat
• growing my own grains for MY gluten-free flour (on my way with amaranth and beans, however rice will be a bit of a kicker LOL)
• Getting a grain mill

I’m sure there’s a LOT more that I’ve forgotten in each list, but with my 17 month old heading into nap time (we’ve been awake since almost 6am) she’s getting a bit toooo bandit like to comfortably think and stay on the internet anymore! LOL

Clingy Child slowing me down… March 27, 2008

I’ve not been able to accomplish much these past few days. Kaia’s being extremely clingy. To the point where I’m honestly just sitting on the floor and letting her play around me, or staring at the tv and letting her play around me. If she can’t touch me every few minutes or so, she just looses it. I tried letting her cry for a bit while Daddy took care of her, but the crying for a bit turned into crying for a looooong time, with no end in sight. So we both gave that one up.

My living room curtains are almost finished, I just need to sew the sides onto one, and the rod pockets into both of them.

I’ve got 2 diapers that need new elastic here at the house I need to fix, and 3 more coming in the mail. That brings me up to 9 actual pocket diapers, and 2 Wiggleworm bottoms that I cut a slit into and made into pockets, and 3 more on their way here. So I’m up to 14 pockets here pretty quick. Kaia’s just getting so FAST and super wiggly that trying to get her to lay flat while I snappi a prefold onto her is getting to be a 2 person job!

I got all my new flours in, my last sourdough bread came out tasting wonderfully, but so crumbly and moist in the middle I ended up slicing it all into pieces and toasting them to severe dryness and now have bread chunks for bread pudding and bread crumbs for meatload, fried chicken and various other things I use breadcrumbs for. I think if I’d sliced them just a tad thinner and seasoned them, they would have worked really well as ‘melba toast’

I printed out some recipes for flour mixes, and some recipes for freezable cornbread, sandwich bread etc. I’m going to try to get to those in the next few days.

Making Prefold Cloth Diapers (repurposing) November 23, 2007

So my 4 month old is outgrowing her Gerber prefolds, she’s a chunker, we are POOOOOOR right now, but I have a huge stash of fabric, a ton of stuff that people were ’storing’ at my house as we were going to have a huge garage sale, only no-one showed up to help. So I have all the leftovers from this. And I have a serger and a sewing machine… Hmmmmm
Yes, new prefolds. I’m also sewing contour diapers, but aren’t done with those yet…

I have about 7 yards of loosely woven plaid that I’ve had for about 3 years, a blue with tiny green stripes Gap polo shirt. I have flannel that was a dollar a yard, then I sewed it into a bear costume for my 9yo,  she’ll never wear it again, so it’s been cut up to make the padding.

The plaid is the outer, so it’ll catch the snappi (a pin alternative for those who don’t cloth diaper) the flannel wrapped in the bottom part of the shirt and serged is the middle (absorbent part) and the soft jersey is the inside. Kaia was quite happy in her new comfy diaper!

Next on the list? Pants made out of purple ‘tie dyed’ stretch knit for that same 9yo and a black shirt for me!

Pocket Diaper Tutorial June 21, 2007

I used a medium Fuzzi Bunz, as the basic pattern for this particular kind of pocket diaper. However, I cut the crotch down thinner, made the tabs for the velcro longer and more rounded.(I don’t like the triangular shape they use) I made the PUL fabric area for the back velcro about 1/2″ wide rather than 1″ than they do. Basically I streamlined the process, and made the diaper a bit less bulky. The diapers I’m using for a pattern are who knows HOW old, the elastic is completely shot, it was unraveling, the fleece they use as an inner was crunchy and not soft at all. Considering how much people rave about these diapers, I’m thinking this particular example must have been very very old. But I got it for 3 dollars from a mom on the clothdiapering community here on LJ Basically because I *DID* want to find some examples of very popular cloth diapers and see if I could re-create them with my own twists. (I’ve got 9 of them now in medium LOL) Oh and if you don’t have a serger, you can pretty much just replace ’serge’ with ’sew’ except in some obvious places where you can just skip the step.

What You’ll need:
PUL (polyurethane laminate cloth) in a diaper sized piece
Fleece in a diaper sized piece
2 5″ 1/4″ wide pieces of elastic
1 5 1/2″ 1/4″ wide piece of elastic
1 small safety pin

Lay out your Pattern on your inner material and cut around it, leaving 1/4″ for seam allowance. Also note: I’m saving time by cutting out two pieces of fleece at the same time. On a mat, with a rolling cutter.

This is what it will generally look like

Fuzzi Bunz(tm) have a rectangle of PUL to hold the elastic in the back at the waist. Lay your Pattern on top of the PUL. Mark where the rectangle ends, and how far up you need to cut (about 1/2″) and then cut out the PUL. Making sure to leave that extra rectangle at the back/waist of the diaper. I marked mine with pins, and then just remembered that I needed to cut 1/2 up.

See the extra rectangle on the back of the PUL?

If you’ve got something you’d like to appliqué or embroider on the back of the PUL now is the time to do it. Simply locate the middle of the ‘butt’ area and proceed. However. I wouldn’t appliqué or embroider anything on already used PUL. The brand new PUL, you can wash, then dry in very hot and it will seal the holes created by sewing so it doesn’t wick.

See here that in addition to the extra 1/2″ rectangle of fabric on the back of the PUL. I’ve also made about a 1/2″ cut parallel to the top of the rectangle. This makes it easier to sew, easier to serge and just kind of easier all around.

Heading into the serger here. See how I’ve folded all the material back? Since it’s got that cut, it sticks out a bit and makes it easier to serge (my serger has an auto cutter, scary! when working with expensive material)

Now serge the top/back of the fleece inner.

Starting at the serged rectangle (folded back, out of the way) put the fleece and the PUL together, RIGHT SIDES facing inward. And serge the two pieces together. To get the other side, you will need to serge on the PUL side, polyurethane part touching the foot. (more difficult unless you have a special foot, just remember to help the PUL along otherwise it tends to stick to the foot and make veeeeery tiny stitches)

Serge down the sides of the diaper. I have to say here that EVERY SINGLE DIAPER I have sewn, even though they were cut out perfectly even, has extra material left over at the belly section of the diaper when you are done sewing the sides. Fleece is rather stretchy when sewn on a serger is all I can think. Just continue on, and serge the fabric together at the belly section, cutting off the extra material.

Note the ‘finished project’ Inside stuff is inside. Check all the seams to make sure that you got them all very well (I didn’t on some and had to go back and re-sew those spots, annoying)

Now go and *sigh* sew just to the inside of the serged edges, this will add an extra layer of protection against seams unraveling, waterproofness etc. I used the orange thread, partially so you can see it, and partially because hey, it looks cool with black. Also notice that I’ve folded that extra rectangular piece of material down and am sewing over it, starting about 1/4″ in.

Note where you want the elastic to go. I used the old Fuzzi Bunz(tm) diaper with the shot elastic and marked on the PUL where the elastic went with a paint pen. I placed the 5″ 1/4″ wide elastic just below the paint line.

Set the sewing machine to it’s biggest zig-zag stitch

And on the next to widest stitch.


Pin the elastic down with the needle and go forward and back up to lock the thread down a couple of times. Then pull the elastic towards you as you SLOWLY zig-zag down the elastic. I say SLOW because you are trying to not SEW ON THE ELASTIC. You want to just miss the sides of the elastic. This creates a thread case that makes the elastic much more even, more elastic-y (because it’s all even, it’s not more stretchy in one spot than another) and it lasts longer because it doesn’t have much in the way of holes punched all over it.

Flip the diaper right side out. And sew a casing line around the edge of the elastic. Make sure that the PUL and the Fleece are about even with each other. Basically you don’t want all sorts of fleece sticking out from the inside of the diaper. So sew slow and steady, making sure, if anything that the PUL goes towards the inside of the diaper. Same with all outside seams.

Then sew a line around the belly section of the diaper meeting up with the casing line.

Now for the back elastic. First pinch down the side of the rectangle, making all raw edges go towards the inside of what will soon be the back elastic casing.

Now put the elastic on the inside of the casing, you want it barely sticking out. Enough that you can see it and be sure it’s sewn down, but not enough to be unattractive or draw attention to it. Pin the elastic and the folded over raw edge down flat to the inside of the diaper (not pinning the fleece!)

Note the pinning AND the safety pin at the end of the elastic. Fold down the other raw edge of the casing and pin it flat (making sure that the casing itself is flat)

Sew the casing down. Along the first raw edge and the bottom of the casing. Leave the other raw edge open still. Manipulate the safety pin until it comes out of the open end. Then pin it to the open end. Same as the other side, barely any elastic showing, but enough to know it’s there and sewn down.

Sew the elastic down and the casing closed.

Here’s the almost finished diaper. I say almost finished because the aplix still needs to be added.

The Cloth Diaper Post May 30, 2007

I’ll add more as I find them, or think of them…. Look for **new, if you check back

ACTUAL diaper patterns you can download and print
CLOTH DIAPER
62-74 cm (newborn-6 months)
80-86 cm (6-18 months)
The patterns include necessary seam allowances and is a PDF

Goodness Gracious fitted and training pants

IDEAS, talking about what other people have done, fabrics used, snaps vs. ‘velcro’, how to get materials for free, or practically free

SpiralOwl’s Pocket Fauxzi Buns
How to make contour diapers from prefolds, with measurements
Diaper Sewing Tutorials, with with instructions for fitted, AIO, pockets, covers, doublers, and mama pads
My Free Diaper Pattern, no actual print out pattern, just instructions
Fern and Faerie’s, fitted, soakers, and stuffables
Fabrics, links to ‘patterns’ and other good ideas
Sewing a fitted nappy
Sewing a Pocket nappy with gussets
Faux ‘fuzzi bunz’
Fleece Pocket Insert

Diana’s Tutorial

Diaper Covers
Easy PUL (Polyurethane Laminate) cover, no actual pattern, but using a regular fitted diaper pattern will work fine
Ultrex cover with snaps, again, no pattern included
Copy of a Mother-eeze air flow cover, again, no pattern included

Knitted
Knitted Liner
Fern and Faerie soaker pattern

Crocheted

Crochet soaker along with sweater and bonnet
Nise’s crocheted soaker pattern


Places I’ve found to buy PUL and other Waterproof material
I’m including price per yard, but not shipping and handling, you gotta figure that out yourself. I’ve also found that just because the FABRICS price might be good, they might charge ridiculous amounts for S&H, so watch that carefully and do the math

Celtic Cloth
Wazoodle PUL from 7yd to 12yd (I don’t reccomend them, everything I’ve bought has lasted about a month = sucky)
A Cut Above Fabrics 9.75 yd to 12.99yd
Sewzannes from 7.99 to 8.75

DIY ‘other’ baby Useful Patterns
Information on PUL
Making a ‘no sew’ aka ‘Moby Wrap’
Moby Wrap Instructions
Slipcover for a Boppy
Grocery Cart Cover
Nursing Shirts
Zipper Tutorial (in case you are making a wet bag, diaper bag etc)
Spiffed up Onsies
Making a ‘Ring Wrap’
Making a convertible ring wrap
Making a Mei Tei
Make your Own nursing pillow
Sleep Sack
Adding Gussets to cloth diapers
DIY baby bibs
Make your own washable wipes
Getting started with embroidery

Other Baby links you might find useful
ASL signs, most useful with a baby (Ian, Owyn, and Sam STILL use signs occasionally)
Cloth Diapers and Detergents
Diaper Rash Creams and Cloth Diapers
Prefold folds for nighttime diapering
All those Prefold Diaper folds with PICTURES!

Places to Buy Used Diapers
Granola Babies
Bid on Fluff
Diaper Swappers
LJ’s cloth diapering community

Other communities for Cloth Diapering
lj’s DIY FLUFF
LJ’s Cloth Diapers
LJ’s cloth_diapering (seems less busy)
Yahoogroups
BLT diapering
Diaper Sewing and More
Sewing4Kids
sewingdiapers

Money spent on Cloth diapers May 26, 2007

Bought an orange and purple blanket in fleece that I’m going to cut up for diapers mwhahahaha. Never mind that it has witches on it.. That just makes it cooler diapers!

Speaking of.
Cloth Diapers.
OMG some of the ladies on my list, they’ve spent THOUSANDS of dollars on DIAPERS.
Which Ok, yeah, I have to admit, some of em are freaking adorable. But to spend 12 to upwards of 30 dollars apiece on something your kid is supposed to pee on?? I’m flabbergasted.

Free
+flannel receiving blankets. LOTS from airman’s attic, from friends. I got rid of the ugly ones that’s how many I had, now I’ve just got cute stripes, bugs, pink kitties, stuff like that.
+elastic – I dunno WHERE I got it, but I’ve got a crap-ton of 1/4 inch elastic, which is what you need to make the legs and back scrunch up and keep in the crud.
+old pre-fold diapers. Left over from Morgan 13 years ago! Some of those suckers are old, holey, stained etc, my mom bought them all and really encouraged me to cloth diaper at that time. So all those old diapers are getting cut to be insides of diapers. Where their yuckyness won’t be seen, but will be eminently useful. Not to mention the stuff that Isn’t all nasty and holey, some of which was mine, and some of which Holly gave to me.
1yd fold-over elastic (buy 3 get one free from the store)
Fitted Diapers from Holly 2 really cooly looking ones, and 8 normal flannel fitteds like what I’m sewing (but they are made by a company)

Bought (including shipping where applicable)
6.99 – Microfiber Towel from Walmart
5.00 – 8 yards dyeable fold-over elastic
10.00 – 16 yards black fold-over elastic
28.39 – 6 XL diaper sized cut-outs of PUL
21.91 – 8 nb sz nylon pull-on diaper covers
9.00 – 3 sm WAHM navy blue PUL covers
5.00 – 1 pocket bluberry diaper (I wanted to see how they put it together so I could make my own, A LOT of people have complained about the shoddy manufacting, which the owner swears is because she outsourced to China and has quit that)
10.00 – 3 yards each of black and white Aplix (basically a softer, more washable version of velcro)
1.00 – 2 yards purple fleece on sale at Walmart
2.00 – Fleece Blanket from Goodwill
25.00 – various covers and diapers
1.00 – Kool-aide in various colors to dye some diapers
.88 – Gallon white vinegar to colorfast dying the diapers

Total so far
126.17 for diapers that will last me 2+ years. And then I can resell.
I *know* I’m going to buy more PUL, and more aplix, plus some cheap nylon covers in various sizes. But otherwise, I’m pretty much set….