I would post pictures of the kids playing on it, except that I cannot put ANY photos on my blog right now! Apparently I haven’t been able to do so for months now. Hence the lack of new pics of the kids.
Anyway, I found a good price on a playground on Craigslist and it was right around the corner from us. The boys seem to love it. Once I can figure out why WP won’t let me put any pics up and I have some pictures of the thing, you will see the kids climbing all over it. Maybe I’ll take some video and put it on youtube.
Last week, when I was at the canning party, I was speaking with another Mom who uses cloth on her baby. We sat around swapping advice on washing the diapers for a little while and I sent her an email later on detailing how I launder my diapers. After months of trial and error in cleaning them, I seem to have come up with a system for keeping the boys diapers clean.
I now always do an initial cold water wash with a few spoonfuls of baking soda. After that I do a hot water wash with some Arm and Hammer perfume/dye free detergent (as per the diaper makers suggestion.) I add one important ingredient to the detergent though! To my bottle of detergent I always add tea tree oil. This seems to be my magic ingredient in keeping the diapers clean and odor free. I find that twelve or thirteen drops does the trick.
After the hot water wash I do another cold water wash, adding vinegar to the fabric softener dispenser. I use the vinegar to restore the ph balance of the diapers after using baking powder.
A majority of the time, this system seems to work the best. Occasionally I have to do a second or third hot water wash with the detergent/tea tree oil mixture. Never more than three, though. This has been a great improvement considering that before I started using the tea tree oil I was having to do six to ten hot water washes to get the smell out, on top of the cold water washes.
I’m glad to have a system that finally works!
On a side note, two of my older sets of cloth diapers are falling apart. I got a bunch of diapers on Craigslist for really discounted prices and some of the diapers were pretty old. Right now I really wish that I had a sewing machine to fix them. Since I don’t I’m ordering two more sets of Fuzzi Bunz and I am going to try two Happy Heinys at the suggestion of a friend. She has been doing cloth with her boy a lot longer than I have and has tried many different diapers. According to her, the Happy Heinys run large. Just what my kids need!
Last month I decided to splurge on a little something for myself and I went to the DHC website. I got a bunch of products to take care of the skin on my face, and it was worth every penny! I got myself two cleaners, a toner and a mineral mask. I cannot remember the last time my skin felt this nice. I am soon going to get myself a moisturizer from DHC, since I am almost out of my AVON stuff. I figured since I have been using the same moisturizer for years that it is time to try something new. Only problem is that DHC only makes one moisturizer with a sunblock already added. If you want to try something else you have to purchase the moisturizer and the sunblock separately.
Anyway, I have taken to pampering myself once a week by having a spa night. I use my mineral mask and soak my feet in the tub, give my feet a little massage and lotion and give my face a massage. I used to do this stuff all the time before the kids came along, but it seems to have been pushed aside these past three years. There is nothing like not having the time to do something to really make you appreciate it. When I used to have spa nights for myself it didn’t feel as indulgent as it does now.
I have been so busy the past two days. Yesterday I held preschool class at my house (as part of the preschool coop that I am participating in) AND I went to a House Party sponsored by Ball, the canning company. Today I took the boys on a trip to a local lavender farm where we picked bunches of the stuff, did crafts and had a picnic lunch. This evening I also went to knit and gab, the first one I have been to in over two months. Usually I get so stressed out by keeping myself this busy, but I seem to holding together pretty well, even considering that we were going almost nonstop every day last week. At least we have tomorrow off, and Caitlin is coming to visit with her dogger, Brody, and her good friend Chandler is tagging along as well. They will get here on Friday and should be here for about a week, so that’s cool!
Anyway, I’m so jazzed about everything that has been going on the past two days. Preschool is starting to go really really well. We started doing that back in March and had a lot of trial and error runs, but now the kids seem to be getting used to the routine. We were even able to bump up the number of preschool days from meeting once a week to twice a week. We have been going through the alphabet and are just getting to the letter G. I had the letter E, so we focused on elephants since we have so many around the house from Trent’s past obsession with them. That seemed to go over really well with the kids.
The canning party last night was so AWESOME! I went without the kids, which was so totally energizing. I have been really in need of getting away from the kids and my daily routine for quite a while and spending time with other Mom’s last night really seemed to help. We made salsa and peach jelly and played Trivial Pursuit. I discovered that I am horrible at that game. On the drive to that party and back I had the windows to the car all rolled down and I was BLASTING Nine Inch Nails on my car stereo. I felt horrible when I checked my phone and discovered that Garrick had texted me an hour prior saying that Hunter needed me. Of course by the time I got back home Hunter was passed out.
Good thing, too, since we had to get up early to go to the lavender farm this morning. That was such a lovely experience. The farm we went to to is Seven Oaks Lavender Farm. As soon as I got out of the car I could smell the lavender plants. The boys had a really wonderful time since we went with the Joy Troupe and a couple other groups, so there were a lot of children running around. The farm also has a great play house for the kids to use while Moms are out in the field picking the lavender or making a craft. I tried to take a bunch of pictures, but they are mostly of Trent since Hunter spent a good chunk of the time on my back. It was so nice being on a farm and not worrying too much about where Trent was and what he was doing. I made a sachet with him, and I wanted to make a Lavender wreath but that craft was too involved for me to concentrate on with both of the kids. I picked up some pet spray for Icesis’ beds since they are all so stinky and I also got a recipe sheet and culinary lavender to cook with. I was very impressed with the farm, I wish I could do something like that… Maybe someday! Check out this YouTube video about the farm, it’s cool stuff:
Since I had all that fresh lavender, I decided to bring one of the bunches I picke with me to Knit and Gab to pass out to everyone. It was great to see all the Knit and Gabbers. It was a full house, too! Well, anyway, look for pics to come of the boys at the lavender farm, and even a few shots that Trent took.
I’m way jazzed that back in February Trent and Hunter started getting into “Blue’s Clues.” I kind of like that one, plus Aunt Dottie got Trent a Blue doll for his first Christmas and now he really knows what it is! I have a picture of him with Blue to come…
My oldest child is going to be three next month. The closer he gets to the three year mark, the better his speech seems to be getting. The sentences just become more elaborate and the words more understandable. He has also been watching a lot of shows and movies that have princess characters that wear big frilly dresses; his current favorite being the Super Mario Brothers Super Show, from 1989. (It’s Instantview on Netflix.)
The other day I put on a night gown. My Mom made it and wore it when she was pregnant with me and I wore it while I was pregnant with both the kids. I haven’t worn it in a while and when I came into the kitchen wearing it, Trent took a look at me and said “Mommies a princess!” I know he said this because the night gown is big and billowy and probably reminded him of all the princess’s he’s being see on DVD, but it sure made me feel good. That boy got the biggest hug!
A couple of weeks ago Garrick took Trent to go and see the new Iron Man movie after he got home from work. So, it was just the baby and I to cook dinner for. I was really jazzed about this because Hunter is much easier to cook for then Trent is. I also had some asparagus to use up and Garrick doesn’t really like that. I proceeded to cook a nice non-meat dish for Hunter and myself. I had two boxes of pasta that were a quarter full that have been sitting in my cabinet for months, so I went ahead and used those up. I threw the asparagus in the water with the bowties and elbows and while those cooked I took a half a stick of butter and melted it in a small pan, threw in some very thinly sliced red onion and garlic, added some vinho verde and cooked it down nicely. Next I opened a can of Cannellini beans, rinsed them and threw them into my butter mixture and finished that off with some fresh Basil and Mint. After I drained the pasta and asparagus, I combined everything. It turned out so amazing! The baby and I feasted. Hoorah for experiments in the kitchen!
