Stash census!

Well, I decided to do a stash census to see what diapers I need to get for Man-Puppy and Baby Bird. I thought I would share my findings with ya'll!

I have about 50 pocket diapers, about 20 of them are ones that I might sell because they are all clouds, which gets kinda boring at times. I have two swim diapers, but Man-Puppy has outgrown his, but the girl swim diaper is a toddler one from last summer before Miss Tornado potty trained, so Baby Bird needs a new one as well. I have about 15 cloth wipes, a wet bag, 24 prefolds for the next newborn, 5 covers for those prefolds and four snappis. So I need to get new swim diapers for the two diapered kiddos, and a couple more girlie pocket diapers for Babybird so she doesn't run out of diapers faster than her brother. I will probably sell some of the cloud diapers and use that money so it doesn't come out of the clothing budget. Believe it or not, my stash is much smaller than the stashes of a few friends of mine. :-) Cloth diapering is addictive and has changed so much since I was a kiddo running around in prefolds!

I dropped Man-Puppy and Miss Tornado off at childcare the other day so I could go to a Bible study and after I gave the "Man-Puppy is not circumcised, so do not retract the foreskin, only clean what is seen" speech I mentioned to the 70 year old woman that Man-Puppy was in a cloth diaper. She said she knows those very well and asked me if I was using flats or "square diapers" (prefolds). I told her, "cloth diapers have changed quite a bit" and pulled out a pocket diaper. Her reaction was funny, her jaw almost hit the floor! Whatever edginess she had when I told her that Man-Puppy was intact was gone when we started relating over cloth diapers. :-)

Here are pictures. I didn't include all the cloud diapers and the diapers that were on Man-Puppy and Babybird at the time (obviously)

Here is my storage solution! A three drawer plastic bin with a basket on top. The basket just has odds and ends and extra diaper inserts so I didn't include it in the picture.

Shaving cream painting!

Yesterday I had a great day! Baby Bird had her 6 month appointment and she is 50th percentile for weight and height and for once the pediatrician wasn't freaked out! We are still dealing with Man-puppy's growth and weight gain issues, so the pediatrician freaks out over anything about Baby Bird. Whn Baby Bird had dropped from 95th percentile (when she was born) to 50th percentile at 4 months the Dr was flustered, however, I knew that she was just fine. She didn't have any of the failure to thrive issues that Man-puppy had, but that didn't stop my jumpy pediatrician from scowling as she looked at the chart. Since Baby Bird was 50th percentile again the Dr relaxed, at least until I said that I hadn't started solids yet. Ya can't win with that woman. lol At least she doesn't even ask the vaccination questions anymore and leaves me alone about putting the kids on vitamins filled with food dyes and crap. I guess I can put up with a few exasperated sighs from her over the other stuff. lol

A teenaged girl from our small group watched the kids for me during Baby Bird's appointment and then watched all three kids while I went to the mall! I got my fuzzy caterpillar eyebrows waxed and had a quiet lunch and headed home so much more relaxed than I was before.

SOoo.... I decided that the kids and I needed to do something MESSY and FUN! Cue fingerpaints, shaving cream, and construction paper!

I put shaving cream in a tray and squirted finger paints into the shaving cream. The website I got the idea from said to use acrylic paint, but I figured fingerpaints would work just as well. I then cut construction paper into page sized easter eggs.

The beginning

 My sweet little boy!

 Then we swirled the paints in the shaving cream and pressed the paper into the shaving cream. We left them there for a little bit, then pulled them out. I let them set with the shaving cream still onthem for a little bit, then sqeegeed the shaving cream and paint off and was left with these beautiful swirls!

 My rule following first-born Miss Tornado

 Here mom! Let me paint YOU!

Now I am going to send one to DH so he can feel like he is still part of what is going on here. <3 I love you honey!

They are growing!

The plants have finally sprouted and started to mezmerize Miss Tornado. She was so happy to report to her Daddy on the phone that the plants were growing. :-) Here are some pictures from the process already!

Miss Tornado pouring water over the dehydrated peat pellets

Oops! She spilled the water, which is why mommy had the foresight to have her do it on the kitchen floor. lol At least 2 sq ft of my kitchen floor got mopped!

Man-Puppy looks on as his sissy plants seeds!

What we are planting!

Telling Daddy on the phone about it!

Two days later! These are the sunflowers. The broccoli is also sprouting, we are still waiting on the tomato plants though!

*Sigh*

Well, the inevitable reality of most military families has come to pass, another deployment has started. I have done all his laundry and put his clothes away. We have talked a few times. Miss Tornado is old enough to understand that daddy isn't coming home for a while. She tells me that "daddy is on a trip" "daddy went on an airplane". It is difficult seeing her struggle with the concept of daddy being gone for a while. She did get to have her first *REAL* phone conversation with him on the phone. Man-Puppy has been cuddling and nursing more often, but I think he will adjust here pretty soon. Baby Bird is still young enough that the change hasn't visibly stressed her.

It's been tough for me, I hired a cleaning service to clean the house and they failed by leaving the house half undone. I was so upset and disappointed, but I'm looking at other services now. I am also interviewing babysitters from sittercity.com to watch the kids weekly so I can get some down time so I can be a less stressed mommy for the kiddos.

It's almost Easter!

So the other day I went to the craft store and bought wayyy too much! What I really went to buy were plastic easter eggs to a new wreath idea that I saw on Pinterest. The wreath was on a blog http://thesweetsurvival.blogspot.com/2011/03/yarn-egg-wreath.html. Here is what the blogger's wreath looked like.


After a while, wrapping the eggs with yarn was a bit tedious, so I decided to tweak the idea to something a mommy with three sick kiddos could do in an evening. Here is what came of that!

I am actually quite proud of my new creation. I think it is very "Easter-y". :-) It was actually very fun to do and kept my hands busy while I watched Whose Line Is It Anyway (UK show) on youtube. Now I need to get back to St. Patrick's Day crafts with Miss Tornado!

Homework for two!

Today I went to a Dr's appointment to find out more about my Hashimotos disease and then took all three kids to the craft store by myself after we dropped DH off at work. I got so inspired while I was there and I ended up buying much more than I anticipated! The good news is that I am now half done with my Easter shopping!

After all the fun we came home and I got the two younger kiddos off to naptime. Miss Tornado doesn't nap anymore, so I had to find something to keep her busy so I could work on my homework for my International Relations class. At the craft store I had seen a mix bag of beads and a segmented plastic container and decided that it was time that Miss Tornado learned how to sort and string beads. I sat her down at the table with her new treasure trove and put a bead into each segment of the container and told her to put all the colors where they belonged. This went much better than I ever dreamed!

Here is Miss Tornado getting started!

There were more colors than segments in the container, so we used snack baggies for the other colors

 Mommy's "busy work"

The look on her face is a bit goofy, but here is my proud Tornado! She did the ENTIRE bag! I started her off with a quarter of the bag, expecting her to lose interest quickly, but she did all this in an hour of sitting (mostly) still! She did suffer a fall off of the chair and a bump on her chin, but that is par for the course with her!

Seeing her proud of her achievements makes my heart feel so full!

Dairy Free Adventure!

When Man-Puppy was 6 months old we found out that he was allergic to the dairy in my diet that he was getting through my milk. He eventually grew out of it, but I had a terrible time missing dairy.

Well, Baby Bird is now showing some of the same signs and I realized I had to give up dairy once again. So now I am going on 48 hours of dairy free, no changes in Baby Bird yet, but it can take a while for the dairy to leave the system. This time I am much more prepared. I found a website godairyfree.org filled with great recipes and restaurant tips. Our health food store even carries Soy Milk Ice Cream!Today I cooked my first meal from the dairy free website. Sticky Coconut Chicken! Talk about yummy! Miss Tornado liked it, Man-Puppy didn't, but it was a spicy for him. It was just me and the kiddos tonight, so I don't know what DH has to say about it, I will find out later tonight when he gets home.

Sticky Coconut Chicken
8 boneless, skinless chicken thighs

3/4 cup canned coconut milk, full fat, shaken before use

1 T fresh minced ginger, or 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

1/2 teaspoon fresh ground pepper

1/2 teaspoon hot chili flakes

1/2 cup rice vinegar

2 Tablespoons wheat-free Tamari (for gluten-free) or low sodium soy sauce

1/4 cup honey

1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper (optional)

3 green onions, cut into small slices

Prepare Chicken: Rinse the chicken and pat dry. Pull the thighs open and lay flat in a shallow baking dish. Add coconut milk, ginger, and both kinds of pepper to coat chicken. Cover and chill for at least 1 hour, and up to one day.

Cook Chicken: Bake in an oven preheated to 350 degree for 20 to 30 minutes; or sauté the thighs over medium high heat until cooked through.


Prepare Glaze: While the chicken is cooking, combine the rice vinegar through the crushed red pepper in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat and cook until the mixture is reduce to about 1/3 to 1/2 cup, about 8 to 10 minutes.

Serve: Pour the chili glaze over the chicken and sprinkle with the green onions. Serve over a bed of brown rice or quinoa.

Sticky Coconut Chicken." 2004. Web. 2 Mar. 2012. <http://www.godairyfree.org/Recipes/Entrees/Sticky-Coconut-Chicken-Gluten-Free-Nut-Free.html>.