Little One's Room Update

Rob and I are kind of getting in the swing of doing some tasks around the house. Taking necessary breaks of course. For example, yesterday we did absolutely nothing, some laundry, yes, and Rob worked out in the living room while we watched the Olympics, but overall nothing. And it was love-a-ly.

Saturday, I organized all my craft stuff...I didn't realize that I had so much craft/artsy stuff until it took three 42 qt plastic containers to store it all. I was able to slide the containers right under our guest bed. It felt so adult-like to get that all organized and tidy. :)

While I was doing that, Rob was working on our baby's room. It's definitely not a glamorous or exciting job at all right now, seeing as how that room looks absolutely crazy. A few weeks ago we had to remove these huge wall-mounted mirrors that were there when we bought the house. And by saying "we", I mean my mom, Leah and Rob...I just photographed and stayed out of their way.

We were left with this lovely bright blue and yellow striped wall with some dry wall torn away and some paint ripped away as well. My mom said maybe the previous owners wanted to pay a tribute to Ikea, hah!

So now the dilemma is that only a portion of the blue paint tore off easily (like it was bubbling off), the rest would need to be scraped off with a scraper. Rob was willing, but I don't think I could subject him to that torture of hours and hours and days and weeks of work. So we're going to trying sanding it out to smooth the varying paint levels down. Here's Rob's progress so far...

Almost looks like a baby's room, huh? :) I might have to do one heck of a wall collage on that wall if it doesn't look good after being primed and painted, lol, but we'll see.

Once it's painted, we'll move on to shopping for new carpet for our three bedrooms. Ah, how nice that will be. Fresh carpet, free of previous owners pet hair and stains as well as Jack's stains he left behind when he was a pup. Aw, speaking of Jack, our boy turned two this month. I'll leave you with a sweet picture of our boy...so grown and so mostly-good. :)

Oh Christmas, How I Miss Thee

Lately, I've been noticing that I've been singing some Christmas songs randomly. I guess it's my mind telling myself that I wish it were Christmas. This probably does happen in the middle of our brutal summers, when I'm over the beach stuff and heat and ready for winter...not even fall...but winter. (Florida winter is like an up north fall, but I'll take it)

Anyway, I thought it would be fun to sit back and reminisce on the Christmas season. Just looking through pictures to post on here made my heart feel warmer, lol.

 Ah...isn't that nice? All this stuff is nice, but the real cream of Christmas for me is remembering Jesus' birth and being surrounded by all of my loved ones. Ah Christmas season, come soon! (even though that means I'll be 9 months pregnant by then!) This will be quite an interesting season!

Merry Christmas in July to you all! I'm soooooo ready for a break from these highs in the 90's. Eek.

Cloth Diapers (I can't believe I'm posting about this, hah!)

Today, I found Rob and I having a conversation about cloth diapers, and after we hung up I had to just laugh at the fact that we're definitely on a new adventure if this is something we're interested to talk about. :)

There's this great blog that I follow called Young House Love that mostly posts about DIY home projects, however, they also have a little girl and they tend to share different projects and adventures they've encountered in parenthood. One of them being the adventure of cloth diapering. (Dun dun dun!)

All I can say after a little bit of reading, is that it's not what it used to be. I probably never would have looked into it if I hadn't seen this informative blog post. The process is a lot easier from the days where it was just a piece of cloth and a safety pin.



bumGenius sprayer

Now-a-days there are cloth diapers with snaps, no pins, and are adjustable as your child grows, so the whole one-size-fits-all works for these. They aren't just a piece of cloth, they have built in liners that absorb all the goodness, lol.

The clean-up apparently has been improved as well. Once removing a dirty diaper, if it's wet you can just place in a bag for storage until laundry, if it's soiled then you take the diaper to the toilet...and here's where I think the newer part is...many cloth diaper-ers have a sprayer hooked up to their toilet. So right away, you take the soiled diaper to the toilet to rinse everything off, then place in the bag.

Now, the next thing I'm learning about is the bag you place the dirty diapers into. They have washable bags that are meant for dirty cloth diaper storage, they're called wet bags. The bag is specifically made to help hold in the odors. The great thing is that when it's time to wash the diapers in the bag (I hear about every 1 to 1 1/2 days) you simply pour the diapers out of the bag into the washer machine, then toss the bag in with the diapers to be washed! Pretty cool and easy in my opinion. This has been found to be a better alternative than just tossing the dirty diapers in a bin with a plastic bag in it, and then not often getting around to washing the smelly bin.

So now let me mention the cost, cause honestly, the main reason I'm entertaining this idea of cloth diapering is for the savings.

The family of the link that I posted above only purchased 12 cloth diapers and have found this to work for them. The ones that they use and recommend are called bumGenius. For 12 cloth diapers, the cost is $265. They've used these diapers since their baby was 9 weeks old up until now, they're child is now two. So the cost savings of not having to buy disposable diapers is really astronomical. When washed with the appropriate care, they also come out looking really great! On the family's blog, they did an update a year later taking a picture of the inside lining to show if there were stains, and all look stain free and like-new. I should also mention that the wet bag mentioned above can run for about $19. Here's a link to some that I've found.

I should also mention that they come in a bunch of really cute colors...definitely can coordinate with anything. (there's more colors than these pictured below)

Overall, I'm a thrifty person, and can totally see the money saving benefit and even ease of going this route. Surprisingly, Rob was already on this train of thought of cloth diapering (oh the things I learn!) So we'll see, but it looks like we may be leaning in this direction.

My Barely There Bump

I took this little questionnaire from a friend of mine who just had her baby (yay!). It'll be interesting to see the changes in my answers over the months. All I can say is that I'm appreciating my sleep while I have it. :)

How far along? 16 weeks tomorrow (Second Trimester)

Total weight gain/loss: Gained 1 lb

Maternity clothes? Almost, I'm waiting for some cotton skirts to arrive! I'm over unzipping all my pants, time to be comfortable!

Stretch marks? Nope

Symptoms: Haven't had any nausea (thankful, and sorry to those who have to deal with it!), only symptom so far is having to empty my bladder a lot more often

Sleep: Sleeping great! Only have to get up once a night to relieve myself...goodness my bladder is sensitive now

Best moments this week: Getting to hear our baby's heartbeat on Monday and scheduling the appointment for our anatomy sono! Next month!

Movement: Nope, don't feel anything yet

Cravings: Nothing that I wouldn't normally crave pre-pregnancy (I'm a natural craver) :)

Gender: Unknown

Labor Signs: None

Belly Button in or out?  In, and Rob likes to think that the baby can hear him better when he talks through my belly button, like it's microphone or something...oh my man :)

What I miss: Soda and subs :(

What I am looking forward to: Finally seeing our baby on a sono and finding out the sex next month, AND getting my skirts in the mail...I have a feeling I'm going to live in them!

Weekly Wisdom: I received a sweet card from a friend of mine with some advice that had been given to her during her first pregnancy, "Always remember, you are the perfect mother for your child and your child is the perfect child for you..."

Milestones: Making it to the second trimester, time is just flying by right now, however, I've heard it can slow down the further I get along. Also getting to cross off my list of who I need to tell the news to, it's finally all out and public...such a relief!

Love to you all!

-Lisa