It's All in the Cloth: The Final Chapter a.k.a. Sorry Al!

I intended for this little series to be much longer. But due to unforseen circumstances the cloth diapering has been put on hold indefinitely. Here's the scoop:

   

   I recently ordered three diapers from Fuzzi Bunz. The shipping was superfast and the diapers were so cute (I ordered one in red, apple green, and a purplish-blue). They are also SO soft. If they made them big enough, I would probably give them a whirl myself! Fuzzi Bunz have snaps, which is nice for a toddler than has figured out velcro (and has a fondness for being naked). Brenna wore this diaper for a few hours, kept her dry and wasn't too bulky! Over all I was pretty happy with the performance of the diaper. However, after using these diapers she ended up with a really bad rash. It wasn't a diaper rash and it wasn't on her baby booty, it was like severe baby acne on her hips. To be completely fair, I also had changed the type of disposable diapers we were using, the type of detergent we were using on the cloth diapers (although I don't that was the issue, I'll discuss the detergent more in a bit) and Brenna is extremely fair with very sensitive skin. So who knows what actually caused the rash. But after a few days of lathering her hips in creams trying to get it to heal, we decided to just go back to disposables. In fact, she is now wearing pretty Princess Pull-ups to help move along the potty training!

 
Here's a quick review of some of the other products I've tried:

- Bum Genius AIO 3.0's are probably my favorite cloth diaper. They are super easy to use and we never had an issues with leaks. At night we did have to double up on the inserts, but that's pretty expected with a toddler since they are heavy wetters.

- Rocking Green detergent well, ROCKS! It's formulated for cloth diapers, but can be used on anything. I've used it on towels that have been wet at the  bottom of our hamper and it got the 'funk' out! There are tons of online shops you can buy it from, or buy directly from the website. Their shipping is pretty quick!

    I like having my stash of cloth diapers as kind of a back-up. And I'm still tempted to put the cute things on her occasionally. But for now, we aren't cloth diapering. So, sorry Al. Someone else will have to save the world from the millions of disposable diapers!

Too Darn Hot!

Sunday was SO hot. So we broke out the kiddie pools and spashed around!

The dogs seemed to think that the pools were their own personal drinking/splashing pools.

After we played for a while, we loaded up in the car and went to The Chief (the local AWESOME ice cream shop). We came in to put shorts, etc. on and Brenna decided she needed to be a little fancier.

Menu Plan Monday

I love having a month of menu's planned out. It's made things SO much easier. On the other hand, this is the week when I started running out of ideas - so it's full of all new recipes! Yikes! Luckily they are pretty simple (because I don't cook anything gourmet!) so I'll leave the links. Give them a try too!

Sunday - Chicken and Noodles
Monday - California Club Sandwiches and corn on the cob
Tuesday - Mexican Tortilla Soup
Wednesday - General Tso's Chicken - this is one of our favorite Chinese dishes and it's hard to find it made well. I'm excited to try it out on my own!
Thursday - Leftovers or Crockpot Chicken Cacciatore
Friday - Chicken Salad Croissants
Saturday - Hot dogs - we hardly ever eat hot dogs! But summer weather calls for it and I imagine there will be some decent sales on them this week for Memorial Day.

Caffienated Randomness

- In the ten minutes I've been on the computer so far, my kids have dumped two board games and a tote full of trains.

- In a similar thought, I often consider hog tying my kids while I clean - just so they can't follow behind me and make more messes.

- I'd like to know how people get their little girls to let them fix their hair. Trying to even go near Brenna with a comb is like trying to catch a spider monkey on crack. And one of us usually ends up looking like this:

- I've found that if I don't shower very first thing in the morning (even before Jeff wakes up) I will not shower until the last possible minute which will result in rushing, being late and lots of yelling. It's taking me over a year to figure this out.

- I've learned that I shouldn't judge other parents for letting thier kids listen to Ludacris if my kids know the "Family Guy" theme song by heart.

- I'm really beginning to wish I was more of a 'finisher' and less of a 'starter' when it comes to projects.

- Even though I'm incredibly excited about having a third baby, I'm also beginning to seriously wonder how I'm going to handle three kids.

- I'm thinking this random blogging thing works just fine for me. Because that's how my mind works anyway. :-) 

For more caffinated randomness, check out Andrea's blog Under Grace and Over Coffee. (You SHOULD check it out! It's a great blog!!)

I think I'm in love!

I absolutely loved this. The guy in khaki's and a plaid shirt kind of reminded me of my husband when we first started dating - but he wouldn't be caught dead doing this!!!

Distraction

To distract you from the fact that I haven't posted in a looooong time, here's a picture of Miss Brenna FancyPants during high tea at Rudd Manor...

Will there ever be new posts from the Mighty B? Only time will tell. But I'm hopeful! :-)

Menu Plan Monday and Moppin' it Up

I finally sat down and planned out a menu for the entire MONTH! I plugged it all into my Cozi calendar and now I'm set until June. So here's what is planned for this week...

Monday - meatball subs
Tuesday - Enchiladas
Wednesday - Chicken Stir Fry
Thursday - Spaghetti
Friday - BLT's
Saturday - Steaks
Sunday - Crockpot Beef Stew

I even planned out weekends! Normally they are just kind of a free-for-all where we end up eating really late or just eating out. Hopefully this will help us avoid eating out so much!

Find more menus at Org Junkie!

Under Grace and Over Coffee is now hosting Mop it Up! Mondays. If you've never read this blog, you certainly should!  The purpose of Mop it Up Mondays is to find a task and get it taken care of. So I decided to dive in this week and take up the challenge. This week I'm going to go through all of the kid's books and toys. This will have to be done on Tuesday and Thursday when Riley is at school and Brenna is napping. I'm hoping the short time period will help me be ruthless and get the clutter O-U-T! She also challenges us to work on a morning routine...which I rebel against but desperately need.

Hop over to Under Grace and Over Coffee to follow along with some other ladies doing the challenge!

What do YOU have planned for this week?