FLATS!

By far my most favorite cloth diaper is the Flat. It can be folded in an array of ways and fits EVERY size baby out there. They dry 1/3 faster than any prefold and can take a beating. These large pieces of cloth have been keeping my youngest butt nice and dry for the past 3 months and I couldn't ask for better absorbency, comfort and trimness. 


The only problem?


 My husband wont change his diaper.


 He has been getting a lot better at the pockets with the older one and occasionally stuffing them in the morning when I forget to get them done, and thankfully has never touched my beloved diaper laundry! 


Now back to the flats. When Tucker was super small I used the origami fold, I will admit I got SUPER excited about the different folds, tried a bunch and this is what stuck... till he out grew it. Now were in a flat rut. So for the time being I have been doing just a tri fold the long way. 

Best recent picture I have, and its perfect because you can compare the flat and the Alvababy with a MF and a Hemp insert. LOVE how trim this is and we haven't had to size up any any clothing even jeans! 

The only downside to flats that I can see happening is once we start solids the spraying out process will get super messy so it looks like we'll be going to all pockets in a few months. 

If I could do my cloth diapering all over again 1. Id start from the day one, in the hospital. 2. Id do a lot more flats and prefolds! So easy and they like a lot less of a hassle for laundry. 

Super Baby!

Wordless Wednesday

Super easy BBQ pulled pork

Tonight's supper is one of my all time favorite meals BBQ pulled pork sandwiches in the crock pot! 

What you'll need:

A crock pot, 4 or 6 quart works. 

1 pound pulled pork roast

1 cup (one of one of the mini cans works really well) Ginger ale

1-2 large onions (optional) - all depends on how much you like onions I started with doing half a large one sliced on the bottom and the rest sliced up on top

approximately one cup of BBQ sauce, in my house the sweet baby ray original is the sauce of choice any suace will work

Buns or Hoagie rolls

Prep time: 

With onion about 10 minutes

Without 2 :)

Place half the onion sliced on the bottom of the crock pot fallowed by the pork roast and the rest of the onion on top. Pour the cup/can of ginger ale over the entire thing. 

Cook for about 6 hours on low.  At the 6 hour mark or so take out all the contents, put the onions in a bowl or plate off to the side, discard all the fat and juice in the bottom of the crock pot.. I use a large bowl for all of the pork to shred with a couple forks then mix in about a cup of BBQ sauce and the onions and put back into the crock pot on low for another hour or 2 depending on how long you'd like.

Everyone loves this is my house hold from the 22 month old to my uber picky husband. Its also MSPI friendly and could also become a gluten friendly meal by serving the pork and onions on top of some rice... YUM!  

Ode to Coconut Oil

I think the biggest thing that has changed since having kids has been my understanding of what is going in, on or around them as much as possible. With my first I really wanted to do cloth diapers but I was not able to but I did make his food from scratch the first year... but that is for another day. 


Today is about my love for coconut oil. I first found out about the wonderful solid/liquid through cloth diapering forums as a nice "safe" diaper rash remedy. Once I had my hands on the wonderful smelling white substance I started finding all sorts of ways I could use it! First thing I tired was a pre treatment for my hair, my kids haven't really gotten diaper rashes since switching to cloth. I put it in about an hour before I hopped into the shower and wrapped it up in my towel, showered and shampooed my hair twice and it came out soooo soft! I fell in love! Next was homemade deodorant the recipe I used was from CrunchyBetty.com and so far so good, works just as well as my old Secret Stick, but even better because I knew it doesn't have aluminum in it :) We use it a few times a week as a after bath lotion for the boys or if I'm being particularly lazy ill just toss a bit into the running water and let them soak in it. I used a small spoon of coconut oil, a few drops of teatree oil and a splash of olive oil mixed together to treat a fungal infection I kept getting from the community pool at camp. and the most recently tho was the most unexpected use for the magical coconut oil... PLAY DOH! I got all excited because as I was going through my kitchen to find something to do with Jack after supper... found flour... food coloring... and I thought might as well make some play doh... till I realized we had only the salt in the half filled shaker. So instead of giving up we Googled play doh made without salt. 1/2 cup water 1 cup flour and 4 table spoons of olive oil. Then I realized that I didn't have any olive oil (come to find out we did... right on the kitchen side board!) so I added the coconut oil instead and it came out great! not only did it work well but it also made our hands super soft while playing with it :)

Needless to say he had a blast! Enjoyed this MUCH more than he did the cheap play doh we played with last time. 


Coconut has defiantly been my Go To product of choice, it hydrates, smells good and is the solution to a lot of different situations.

Kitty Cat Watermelon

I guess its about time I get back to the blogging world. I've found myself coming across a lot of stuff I really want to share but not sure who to really share it with. Its taken lots of searching for different little things and getting them just right to make them cheap and easy from cooking to cleaning and crafts with the kids!


Ill start from today and work my way backward unless something new comes about that day and or week that might be more useful or more pertinent to the time of year. Bear with me while I get my fingers back used to typing and figuring out the best way to explain what I did or what step to do! :)


To get the ball rolling  we'll start with today's project for the BBQ, a Watermelon Bowl that became a Kitty Cat Watermelon bowl. My mom picked up a watermelon, cantaloupe, honeydew melon, blueberries and strawberries. I started to cut a light layer off what would have been the "bottom" but went a little too deep so I flipped it over and did a sliver off of the opposite side, just enough so it wouldn't roll. The opposite side that I had cut too deep into I slowly kept taking off more and more until the hole on the top was what I thought was big enough to get a spoon in and small enough that it didn't seem like half of the watermelon was gone. I then used the large side of my double ended watermelon scoop to scoop out all of the watermelon into a bowl. Once all of it that could be scooped out I used the melon scoop to scrape off the rest of the red part and thin out the edges around the opening.... this is where the accident happened. I was flipping over the watermelon to dump out the scrapings and juice into the sink when it slipped from my hand and into the sink, my poor watermelon got a good two inch brake right down one side :/ So instead of crying over split milk (that's only if its breast milk) I made lemons into lemon aid and started to make the crack into a large V. That V looked odd so I took some of the top of the melon I had cut off earlier and they looked sort of like ears. I used some tooth picks to stick them in and used my melon scoops small side to scoop out some eye holes and tooth picks to hold blueberries into the holes and then tooth picks for the whiskers. Once the shell was complete I continued onto cutting open cantaloupe and honeydew melon then scooping out the insides with the large side of melon scoop and putting them into Tupperware bowls. I diced up the strawberries and washed them off along with the blueberries. Once everything was prepped I layered in the fruit back into the bowl, packaged up the rest and took it over to my mums so that she could bring it to the BBQ for us ( one less thing for me to remember to pack up). And now for the picture of the finished product!....

I hope someone else enjoys making one of these as much as I did making it and everyone enjoyed eating it!

SLEEP!

WOOO HOOO! Last night was crazy! I put Jackson to bed about 10 pm last night just like the night before and when I woke up this morning I was expecting it to be at the LATEST 4:30 am ... to my surprise it was 7! I brought him in bed to feed and sleep a bit longer and my boob was enormous! We finally rolled out of bed at 9:30-10ish and he has been a very happy mellow baby (eating a bit more than usual) and just went down for his long nap at 12:15 instead of 11. I think I can really get used to this sleep thing... but I really hope my supply wont be affected by his extended sleep so I maybe getting up in the night to pump or pump before bed... either way he's finally getting the long stretch of sleep that he obviously needed.

Vintage Jackson 11 days old

To top it off this morning was the first snow storm of the year and I'm really contemplating taking him out all bundled up but at the same time he still has a bit of a cough and isn't really big enough do even crawl through it... we will see.

Ginger (gram cracker) House

So today we went to a Ginger bread making party that my mothers friend hosts every year. I thought it would be cute to do a small version out of gram cracker not realizing that the ginger bread house that my mum got was the whole village and was all miniature. Budha was fussy once we got there because the whole way there my sister talked and played with him so he was totaly spent and tired.

Once he soaked up everything around him he finally passed out for a good hour and woke up in a wonderful mood.

Also he got a bumbo and LOVED it!

1st time in the Bumbo

Gram Cracker House

My mum and I put together the house for him and it came out adorable!

On the way over one of my sisters finally got his fake pout on camera!

 It is the most adorable thing... once he does it and you tell him to stop faking it he gets a HUGE grin on his face...sucha ham already!

All in all a very busy day with target afterwards for some xmas shopping and not enough naps.