yum yum

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pictures with grammy

the kids had a little photo-shoot on the farm this weekend.

jael sucked her thumb and the babies cried, but i think out of the 200 photos there is bound to be one good one.  right?

wipies

i was about to *finally* order cloth wipes for the baby when i came to my senses.  what was i thinking, that’s a square.  you can totally sew that.

theoretically, anyways.  instead i chatted my aunt with the serger and asked her to do it.  some people are crazy nice like that.  and some people are just lazy.

i think she made me close to 50.  and they are reaaaaalllly nice.  i mean really.  one of these will do the job of three.  and they’re cute and they go right in the wash with the diaper.  how handy is that?  thank you aunt nancy.  shall we try this next? 

so if you happen to be in town….

i am having a party.  i’m not sure how it happened but someone said the word “pink.”  no self control.  none.  pampered chef carries a few pink things in may, so now’s the time to buy.  of course it’s always the time to buy.  who am i kidding?

i think we will have strawberry trifle or strawberry spinach salad, something pink, and i will brew up a pot of my new indian chai and whatnot.  of course you must come.  or if you just want stuff (and we all do) you can order online.  but that’s not as fun.  i’m after a few things myself.  this mean apple slicer will be my new best friend.  also, someone clued me into the fact that a good pizza slicer is the best way to dice up food for little ones and is a must have for pancakes.

and i don’t know about you, but i throw away half a tomato when i core it.  which is what this little goody is for.  and i can’t tell you how many times my mother has raved about this bread-knife.  next thing i know and she will be telling me how she chopped off her arm.  after she is done complaining about the blood she will probably conclude by saying, “that knife is awesome!”

and i’m sure you can tell i want these.  i don’t even need a reason.  *m

this is actually a post about laundry

but what do you take a picture of when you are blogging about laundry?  i didn’t think any good could come of it.  these are the mother’s day flowers i got at church instead.  how nice.

i’ve joined a group of women in boise called “keepers of the home” and it is amazing.  last monday i went to a two hour lecture on laundry – to the glory of god.  seriously.  one of things that drives me crazy is listening to sermons on practical subjects where they pretty much say, “we’re not going to make you a list of rules.  we’re not going to tell you what to do.  we just want to give you principles and like work it out with jesus.”  oh comeon, just tell me how long you want my skirt to be.  just say it.  well, this lady tells me how to fold my towels.  i am glad.  finally, someone.  so i was just going to pass on my notes.

the first things she showed us was her linen closet for a family of eight.  the backs of the shelves were painted seafoam green, three baskets – one each for towels, washrags and hand-towels.  a container for soap and one for bath beads.  she said before it was a leaning tower of towel pisa.  her solution was to pare down to two towels per person, like 4 hand towels and 6 washrags.  done.  she does laundry every night and only keeps enough towels (and clothes even) for a 2-3 day supply.  i’ve waded through my kids rooms enough to see the genius in this.  so the first rule is to pare down.  if you do laundry every day, how many clothes do you actually need?  she does a whole season with two pairs of pants for every kid and 5 shirts, 1-2 dress outfits and 2 pairs of jammies.

so the next morning i woke up, marched downstairs and ripped everything out of my kids’ drawers.  i was practically ecstatic.  do you know how nice they close now?  i just want to stand there and slide them open and shut with a big fat smile on my face.  why was this so hard?  i have no idea.  i gave half of it to the refugees up the street and the other half i boxed up for shadrach and phinn.  although supposedly you’re not supposed to keep anything.  if you only have a few clothes for each kid they wear them out by the end of the season and you can be justified in getting rid of them.   then you can buy new/used clothes for the next season.  seriously, if you only have to buy a few things per child it almost seems feasible.  and i didn’t know this, but shopko and sears guarantee jeans for as long as your child is in that size.  i have never bought clothes.  i just file away whatever people pass down to me.  which results in a somewhat elaborate storing system.  but if you shop anyways, i love the idea of this “fly by the seat of your pants” method.  it sounds so liberating.    the other thing that was so nice is that my kids look better now.  because the five things that are in their drawers are my five favorite things and the shirt with gaping tyrannosaurus on it lives no more.  it’s not like they don’t wear the same thing every day anyways, they might as well wear the things i like.

and of course, the key to the system is doing the laundry every day.  she says i should only have two loads a day so i’m trying to believe her.  and in order to remember to faithfully do these two loads of laundry you have to attach it to something you do already.  so i put the first one in as i’m making dinner, the second one in as i’m cleaning up dinner and switch it to the dryer when i put the kids to bed.  the boys’ first job in the morning is to take the laundry out of the dryer and sort it into piles on the living room floor.  after breakfast, folding laundry has become a part of the good morning ritual.  the boys fold their piles and the towels, jael does washrags and i do the rest.  this way all the laundry is done and put away before 8:30.  oh the sanity!  before i would work on laundry throughout the day and it was in a constant state of migration.  now it only comes out at night.  and of course you have to have clothes that are easy care, which is fine by me.  not to mention, i love my pink rowenta and it loves me.

but really, it was that hard?  that hard.  i tried it, it works.  laundry is always done.  yay.  another thing she touched on was color coordinating bathroom/kitchen towels so small inebriates can figure out which piles to sort them too.  that and buying each child/size  easily identifiable pairs of socks.  get this – so you never have to match them.  yes, that hard.  if they are all the same then it doesn’t really matter if they are even or odd, now does it?  she also said this ritual has to be performed daily.  she even does it while they are visiting friends or on vacation.  next month’s talk is on chore assignment, which i am really looking forward to.  for instance, she assigns her kids a bathroom to maintain and part of their morning ritual is to spruce it.  what is funny is that they do this on vacation too.  so her kids will wake up in the morning and ask their host where their cleaning supplies are.  ahhh, feeling the love now aren’t you?  and then she recommends a few books each meeting, this month it was doorposts – a checklist for parents and instructions in righteousness, so you could check those out too if you want.  or if you live in boise you could just come with me to the next one.  (they even feed you.  i can’t get over it.)

oh, and i almost forget.  she is also anti-hamper.  i just threw mine in the attic.  i have a laundry sorter in my laundry room.  the kids bring their clothes directly to it and sort them.  i do the same.  that way you are always ready to throw in a load and you don’t ever have a pile going on on the floor.  for little things, like washrags or baby clothes, i have an easter basket sitting at the top of the stairs.  i can chuck laundry in there if i am in a hurry and bring it down when i am going anyways.  so far, i haven’t looked back.  try it, you’ll like it.

introducing the cutest, sweetest, bestest baby ever!

my little puddle of love.  my ooey gooey gum-drop.  my little fat pat.  mmmm…baby.

anyways, the news is we broke out the cloth diapers a month ago and it’s been a dream.  apparently the second time is a charm.  you wouldn’t believe the trouble shooting that goes into the little beasts the first go.  and the money.  i would never do cloth for just one kid, since it truly only pays off the second time.  but here are some things i’ve learned, in no particular order:  i like fleece lined diapers, they keep the baby feeling dryer.  however, i was not impressed with the way my fuzzi bunz held up.  they will probably only do three kids.  i did like the heft of the fleece in the bum genius, but velcro is a nightmare to wash any way you look at it.  which means on baby number six i will probably go this route.  also known as the cheap, less fashionable route.  but i am sure by then i will be quite hardened and it won’t matter.  i am also convinced that this is the be all end all of diaperhood.  otherwise i wouldn’t be playing.  it’s flippin’ genius and that’s all there is too it.  a dry pail didn’t work for me and a woman of my delicate sensibilities would not be seen anywhere near a sloshing poop bucket.   it’s true.   also, i am not a fan of one size diapers.  the poor kids can’t fit their humungo butts in their clothes as is.  besides, i have discovered that a fuzzi bunz perfect size medium fits babies at 2 months all the way up to two years and that is “one size” enough for me.  besides, newborns seem to poop on the hour and i’m not up for that kind of wash.  the next trick is dressing their disproportionate backsides.  onesies are no longer an option.  they wick moisture from the diaper because they fit so snug.  so baby t-shirts are the thing to find.  that, and for some reason i am loving jammies without feet right now.  i don’t know why, but i will go down and hunt one out of the dryer before putting anything else on her.  i am also loving my “herbatergent.”    my definite favorite so far and i have tried quite a few.

right now i wash every three days, but i am looking to bump it up to four with the addition of a few new diapers.  with baby poo i just throw it all in the pail, with nasty poo i hold it over the toilet to see if anything feels the conviction of gravity.  if not, i just throw it all in the pail anyways, because i’m like that.  i do a spin cycle and change the water  every night.  by the time i throw it in the machine on wash day i don’t have to do a pre-rinse.  i just run it on hot with detergent and flip the “extra rinse” button on my machine, so it gets two rinses coming out.  and i can truly say that i have not even noticed that i am using cloth.  in fact, it seems more convenient than disposable because i always have them.  i do my wash when she has one diaper left.  or, if she has just pooped i will wash them all except for the one she is wearing.  it quite feels like victory.  yay.