3:00 Daily Review

So yesterday was a semi-bust. Joe needed to go to the main office in Columbia, so the boys and I tagged along to go to EdVenture Children's Museum in Columbia. It started out as a great morning as we actually left the house on time! (Looking back, I should have KNOWN something was wrong) We got to Columbia, made a deposit at the main credit union branch and headed to DOR. We dropped Joe off and I drove us to the museum (DOR and the Museum share a parking lot). Joe was only going to be there for an hour or two so it would be perfect for us to play while he worked.

We get to the museum, I put John-Michael in the Beco and get Joshua out into the stroller. That's when everything started going downhill. I noticed that Joshua's pants didn't fit right. I looked at the tag and Joe had put on a size 6-12m pants on him instead of his normal 2T. Oh well - no other pants in the car, so they will just have to do. Then I noticed that Joshua's shoes were on the wrong feet. No biggie, I was able to swap them. We go into the museum and NO one is there. That's right, they were CLOSED. Who would have thought they would have been closed???

It worked out anyways because we ended up going to Joe's Aunt's apartment and spending time with her until we went to lunch.So all in all, not a bad day.

It's now Tuesday and I am doing my 3pm review. I am nursing as usual and reflecting upon all that I have accomplished today so far. This is the time when I find myself either deciding to relax a bit, get my rear in gear, or just keep the pace going.

Today I have done:

Gotten Sweet Mustard Pork Chops in the
slow cooker (they are finished and smell FABULOUS!) Now I just need to decide on a veggie to go with our couscous.

Easy Herb Batter Bread is about to be finished with it's first proofing. Then I will put it in it's pan and let it rise again just before baking in time for dinner.

The dining room table is cleaned off from the bags of stuff from our trip to Atlanta. Everything has been put away in it's place, the table cloth is back on the table and the room has been swept.

Dishwasher has been run with a load of dishes and emptied.

Kitchen has been swept once. But will need it again since I have tracked mud all in from clipping fresh rosemary for the bread.

Half of the family room has been swept

A load of diapers has been washed and dried

The boys' toys from the den have been washed, sanitized and are drying and then to be put away in our new organizer.

Joshua and I have had a shower and Joshua is currently taking a nap. John-Michael went down for an early but long nap and is now awake.

I still have to bake the bread, clean the family room, fold some clothes, do Joshua's lesson for today.

I am looking forward to dad being here tonight so that Joe and I can go to our barn burner of a HOA meeting that will happen tonight. Not looking forward to that one.

All in all, it's been a productive day so far.

Baby Shower Gift = Newborn Diaper Stash

So I have an awesome friend who will soon be joining the ranks of motherhood. So for part of her baby shower present, I gifted her the "love of squishiness," i.e. I made a newborn stash of diapers for her.



Her stash now includes:
~ 16 Green Mountain Diapers (GMD) Green Edged prefolds. These were all hand dyed by moi using Dylon Dyes in the colors: Ocean Blue, Bahama Blue, Sunflower, Tropical Green, and a "Blue jean" colorway that I mixed the dyes for.
~ 9 fitted diapers (sewn using the Darling Diapers newborn pattern. I made two in a Georgia Tech print with black crushed Panne inner, 2 in a Little Sailor pattern with cotton velour inner, 2 in a Zoo pattern with cotton velour inner, 1 in a Alien print with cotton velour inner, and 1 in a Hot Lips print with crushed panne inner.
~ 1 Thirsties XS cover in Ocean
~ 2 NB sized Bummis Super Whisper Pant
~ 1 Medium sized, zippered, PUL wetbag (I got an AWESOME deal on some expensive decorator fabric to use for the outer)
~ 18 Flannel and Terry cloth wipes
~ 1 Snappi Diaper Fastener
~ 1 pair of lanolized newborn wool "longies" using Malabrigo yarn with matching hat

(Sorry the basket was purchased. I have not found a love of basketweaving yet - lol)


Jessi now has enough diapers to last 2 days of cloth diapering!! We wish all the best to the soon-to-be new parents!!

Now, I just have to finish the REST of her gift! That will include 2 nursing covers and at least 1 one-sized fitted diaper. How else am I going to get this Georgia Tech fabric out of my house??? LOL

Snow Angels

So this morning, I awoke to Joe and Joshua talking in hushed voices. Joe was about to leave for work, Joshua was sitting up in bed and I could hear the cooing of John-Michael from the nursery. I asked Joshua to go tell his brother "Good Morning" and I hopped out of bed to help Joe leave for work.

As I was standing on the stairway landing and fixing Joe's scarf and kissing him goodbye, the distinct smell of baby powder flooded my nose.

I rushed the 6 steps to the nursery and found this:


Joshua exclaimed "Look Mommy! John-Michael is a Snow Angel!"

Isn't this the cutest, guiltiest look ever????


Hmm... This one looks pretty mischievous as well.


My "Snow Angel"


Happy little "Snow Angel", although he kind of looked like a white, Australian Aborigine to me. LOL






So, what a start to our morning. Luckily this week is "Zone 3: bathroom and extra room" which is the nursery. So I won't be getting out of routine by having to scrub down all the baby powder off the crib, the hassock, etc....

And we were up, showered, and dressed by 9am thanks to a very early morning shower. LOL

Weekly Grocery Savings

So after I started couponing last year, I became a Publix girl. I used to do 90% of my grocery shopping at Wal-mart because I "thought" it was cheaper. I have found that I was wrong in that aspect.

Now, 90% of my shopping comes from Publix, 5% from Wal-mart, and 5% divided up btween Food Lion, Piggly Wiggly and Bi-lo.

This week is a Piggly Wiggly week. I did no shopping at Publix this week. Why? Because Piggly Wiggly had ground beef at $1.29 a pound. I watch all the circulars and we stock up on meat sales. Bi-lo is a good place to get chicken breasts for 99 cents a pound. Food lion is great for sales on ground beef as well as mark downs on meat. I like to go to Food lion in the morning after they have marked down meat, and stock up on steaks, pork chops and the like. Then I go home and immediately freeze them.

We love our freezer and we like to keep it stocked. This gives me the opportunity to plan out what we are going to have as well as change my mind at the spur of the moment.

So this week, we shopped completely at The Pig. We bought roughly 50lbs of ground beef, and Joe and I have cooked, seasoned, strained, rinsed and froze all of them. Yes, it sounds like a lot of work. Actually, it took him and I about an hour to do the 28lbs he bought this evening. That's all. Two hours worth of work and we now have 50 something pounds to be able to grab and use at a moment's notice. The last time we stocked up was Memorial Day and we ran out just a couple of weeks before the end of the year. Not too bad.

Tonight, I was able to grab a pound, quickly thaw, throw some ingredients together and we had a wonderful Shepherd's Pie for dinner. Joe will also have some for lunch tomorrow. We now have plenty for quick meals of Spaghetti, Chilli, etc...

Here are our grocery savings so far:

Spent: $68.37
Saved: $78.26 (53% Savings)
Paper & coupon purchases to date: $16.14 (6 papers and 8 coupons in the last 2 weeks)

Total OOP: $84.51

Yearly Savings: 48%

Beco Butterfly II = Happy Baby

So, John-Michael LOVES to be held. As in ALL DAY. He crawls after me fussing all the way. My BF Ivy bought a Beco last year. I finally got the money to get my Beco!!



I chose the Lenka pattern and I bought it from Quirky Baby. For $139, I got 2 pairs of Baby Legs: Cayenne and Fern Gully, Plus a $25 gift certificate to Restaurants.com and free shipping.

John-Michael loved the carrier! Joe wore him all afternoon. When I put it on, he IMMEDIATELY wanted to nurse, and I was able to nurse him without taking the carrier off or stop what I was doing. He also took a little nap while he daddy carried him around.

Wool Collaboration

So last Christmas (2008), my parents gave me a I Taught Myself to Knit kit. I played around with it, then had a baby, then finally found some friends to help me with my knitting. In November, I started my first pair of wool longies. I finished those (nb sized) and I began my second pair for my John-Michael.

Well, they aren't the right size (bangs head). Oh well. I have a super cute pair of wool longies either to gift or to sell. I haven't decided which yet. So today I am going to go get some yarn to knit a Medium size pair that should fit my little guy.

Here is what I purchased to go with it. The longies' collorway is Forest by Patons Classic Wool. The Goodmama diaper is Chandelier and the Gymboree pieces are from the boy Happy Hippo line.

Enjoy!

A Whole New Year

So we have been pretty busy this past year. Joshua is now 2 and John-Michael is 8 months. I don't really like "New Years Resolutions." Mostly b/c I think that just sets you up to fail. Yes, set goals for things you want to change, but it's babysteps that will get you to where you need to be.

One thing I am going to try and do more of is blogging. I am setting a goal to blog at least once a week. hopefully this will turn into blogging more often.

If you are on Facebook, look me up. I usually give updates daily on things that are going on in our lives.

So look forward to more posts from me. :)

Happy New Year!!