We had snow flurries this morning...

Ack!!! It isn't even November yet & I'm NOT in an area that gets much snow even during the winter, so it was a bit disconcerting to see the flurries as they fluttered to the ground. I do have to say they were pretty!! People are saying we are in for a long, cold winter. The next 6 months should be interesting.

Did you LOVE felt board stories when you were a kid?

I have always LOVED felt board stories. I can remember listening/watching them in Sunday School when I was 4 or 5....they were always my favorite part. I also remember going to Story Time in the library and there would always been at least one story on the felt board...it would be my favorite every time!!

When my oldest two were little, I would take them to the library for storytime & they soon shared my LOVE of the felt board. When I started teaching Sunday school & helping at vacation Bible school, the felt board was always how I wanted to tell my stories. I even bought a small one with a set of Blues Clues felt characters for my daycare when my middle kids were babies. It was expensive & the quality wasn't great, but we all LOVED using it to tell stories.

Today I happened on a contest for a gift certificate to a company that sells felt sets. They are very impressive sets. I'm hoping to win the gift certificate!!! But if I don't, I will probably still be purchasing this set for my youngest two for Christmas. I'm impressed with how reasonable the prices are & the quality looks fantastic!!!

If you loved felt stories when you were a kid, you need to check out this company!!!!

Update.....I found another contest. They are giving away one of the felt paper dolls!!!

I'm thinking about giving up disposables completely

This has been on my mind for a while. Currently, Baby Daughter only wears a disposable diaper to church on Sunday. She is only 17 months old, so not quite ready for potty training. It seems like such a waste to buy disposable diapers and since I'm almost completely out, I'm thinking NOW is the time to try an All in One or a pocket diaper.

Nobody warned me about how addictive cloth diapers can be. I started out using simple contour diapers, but I couldn't help but look around at all the options. I hate velcro and I'm not fooled by them calling it a hook & loop closure or aplix or anything else. The sound it makes when you open it grates on my nerves. Baby Daughter would have a field day stripping them off & running around naked. Fortunately, there are many diapers available with snaps. I have bought one of just about every fitted diaper I could find. They all work great around the house & even out in the car during the day. Most nights she wears a fitted diaper to bed with an extra soaker. The only slightly inconvient part about them is that they require a seperate cover. The added step of putting on a cover is more than Hubby can handle. This makes me think that the added step of a seperate cover would likely be too much for the church nursery as well. The All in Ones did not initially appeal to me because they take a lot longer to dry & they are pricey. I've heard really good things about Fuzzibunz pocket diapers, and since they are all one piece once you stuff them, I'm thinking they might be a workable solution for Baby Daughter to wear in the church nursery. Buying two of them will cost me almost as much as a months supply of disposables, but it could mean I never have to buy anymore disposables, EVER!!

I've been reading a blog called The Clothdiaper Whisperer, I can really relate. It is kind of nice to see that I'm not the only one who was slow to convert to cloth. I haven't seen any posts about addiction yet, but I'm sure they will get around to addressing that too. Her store has a special package where I can get two Fuzzibunz and 4 inserts to stuff them with for $35.90 & they are having FREE SHIPPING on everything at the moment, I'm very tempted.

Happy Birthday to ME!!!

Today is my birthday. It has been a very nice day. My oldest called & sang Happy Birthday to me over the phone. The other kids and Hubby all wished me a Happy Birthday through out the day & the 10 yr old, 8 yr old & 3 yr old baked me a CAKE!!! The 18 yr old took me out to lunch to my favorite restaurant and I got to meet his girlfriend for the first time. She is very nice.

While I was taking the 10 yr old & 8 yr old to choir practice, Hubby found a recipe online for butter cream frosting & made frosting for my cake!!! My oldest is bringing Granddaughter over in a few minutes & we will all eat my wonderful cake together. I'm feeling very spoiled.

I'm a convert....I'm loving cloth diapers

In July, I decided that I needed to find a way to reduce the amount of money I was spending on diapers every month. My 5th child had just finished potty training and the savings from not buying pull-ups anymore really took me by surprise. I started thinking about how I could cut back on the $40 per month I was still spending to diaper Baby Daughter. I had switched from Pampers to Luvs a few months before, but that only saved me about $10 per month.....not enough to help much.

I've looked into cloth diapers a few times in the past. I actually seriously considered them with my first, but we didn't have a reliable washing machine & the thought of hauling diapers to the laundromat really didn't appeal to me. When my second came along, I was so busy figuring out how to rangle a newborn and a toddler I didn't even give it a thought. Eight years later when I was expecting number three, I briefly considered cloth again. I did now have a reliable washer & dryer at home, but I was going back to work after the baby was born & didn't need the added work. I ended up quitting my job to start a daycare business in my home. I looked into cloth again, but the millions of choices and the expense of getting started really discouraged me. Life was stressful and money was tight when number four arrived, but the memory of the expense of buying cloth diapers to get started kept me from giving it a try. When number 5 came along, I was working long hours & had her with me in the car all day most days, cloth never crossed my mind. As she got older and my schedule lightened up, I started checking out starter packages on cloth diaper websites. I asked my friends for advice & I thought about switching. Then number six was born & I was once again thrown into the craziness of trying to meet the needs of a newborn & a toddler. The idea of cloth & of at least using it to supplement was still in the back of my mind, but it was over a year before I took the plunge.

I researched online & decided the Kissaluv contours looked like a good diaper to start with. Amazon sells them, but by the time I added shipping it seemed pretty pricey, so I looked around & found a local store that sells them. She is only open a couple days a week & finding the store the first time was definitely an adventure, but it was totally worth it!!! I bought six to start & two covers with the intention of putting them on Baby Daughter at times of the day when she wouldn't normally poop. They worked GREAT & the covers were amazing. Next I went to Baby's R Us and bought a dozen Gerber prefolds and a 6 pack of traditional rubber pants and two packages of traditional diaper pins. I started putting two prefolds in a cover for night time & it worked GREAT!!! Within less than a week I had almost stopped using any disposables. I found that I could handle a once per day poop and it wasn't the end of the world I had previously imagined it would be. I had to wash them everyday to not run out though, so I decided we needed to find a creative way to add to our diaper supply.

A couple of ladies I met on a message board suggested making my own diapers. I am not a crafty person, but my Mother has a sewing machine & will usually sew just about anything I want as long as I cut it out. I got together a bunch of old flannel receiving blankets and some fleece baby blankets we don't need anymore and used the kissaluv as a basic pattern. The outside of the diapers is fleece, the inside is flannel and we made a soaker to sew in that has a layer of flannel, a layer of fleece & then a layer of old towel for absorbency. In one day we cut out & sewed 17 of these homemade diapers!!! I now had plenty to get me through 3 days or more without running out.

We have fallen into a really easy routine. I have a bucket in the laundry room with a locking lid. I put the dirty diapers in it after each change & when it is full, I do a load of diaper laundry. I have an HE front loading washer, so I do a cold soak cycle, then a hot wash with a small amount of soap & then a second quick hot wash with white vinegar instead of soap. They come out super clean. Because none of my diapers are more than 3 layers thick, they also dry pretty fast in the dryer. My washer & dryer are pretty energy efficient & I haven't noticed any change in my utility bills since switching to cloth.

I was surprised at how quickly the cloth diapers became routine for our whole family. Baby Daughter now only wears a disposable on Sunday mornings for the Church nursery. She fusses when I put it on her & as soon as we are home from Church she is pulling at it wanting to change into one of her "regular" diapers. She definitely prefers the cloth diapers. I told a friend recently that I really wish I had taken this plunge at least one baby ago....it's not hard & I'm saving soooo much money. I did spend about $100 in the first two months getting to the point where I had enough diapers & covers to last several days without washing, but I no longer have to budget every month for disposables. I may have to buy a small package in November because I've nearly run out of "Church" diapers, but the last time I bought any was July, so that's not too bad.

I've picked up a couple fitted diapers recently & am considering trying a pocket diaper, but I'll write about that another day....this got much longer than I had intended.

A visit from Granddaughter!!!

My oldest son, his wife & daughter live less than 20 minutes away, but because of conflicting schedules and all our crazy busy lives we are lucky if we see them twice a month. Last night they dropped by for a little visit and we took a few pictures. Granddaughter is getting sooooo BIG.

CLR Tackle it Tuesday

This was a lot of FUN!!! This is my first time participating in Tackle it Tuesday. I signed up at the beginning of October to receive the CLR Bath & Kitchen Multi-Surface Cleaner spray. It arrived a few days later & I've been thinking about what to do with it ever since.


After reading the label, I decided that the inside of my ancient dishwasher was a really good first project. The pictures on the left are the before & the ones on the right are the after.

It worked really well on the lime/calcium build-up. It also did a fantastic job on the dirt on the outside of the dishwasher, but I don't have a picture for that. I was surprised how quickly it worked. Another plus is that it doesn't have an overpowering smell. It took very little to clean my whole dishwasher inside and out. The 26 oz bottle will probably last me at least 6 months.

My next project is to use it on the soap scum in my fiberglass tub....I can't wait to see if the CLR can actually get it back to the original white.