Ride 'Em Cowgirl

A couple things Aubrey is loving right now is her horse Aunt Kathy got for her for Christmas. She climbs on that thing, rides it, puts her dolls on it to ride, seriously looooves the thing. Obviously you can tell. Ignore the Pebbles ponytail we do that at home to keep her hair out of her eyes. Her hair is sooooo long, speaking of which so is mine. I'm tossing around the idea of cutting but I don't want to yet, hmmmm, decisions, decisions.

Another thing she is loving right now is a silly show we found a DVD for at the library called Yo Gabba Gabba.  It's such a weird show but for some reason she is fascinated by it, it has a lot of dancing in it I think that may be it.  Aubrey now knows how to turn on the tv and she'll turn the tv on and then point to the Wii remote so we can put Yo Gabba Gabba on through our Netflix.  This is what she does during the theme song and this is even calmed down usually she's spinning all over the living room.  It's pretty stinkin cute.

Cloth Diapers, Part 2

So if you want more info. on cloth diapers click this first video and I show off our diaper routine, way fun...not.  Aubrey is pretty cute at the end though I'm not going to lie.

If you'd rather watch crazy cuteness and lots of Aubrey shrieking laughter click this video.  Kyle and Bailey are a little nuts and yes this is how crazy our house gets sometimes.  Enjoy....

Cloth Diapering, Part 1

Well we're doing it we're a cloth diapering family.  I'm late in the game of cloth diapers and to getting an update on the blog because we've been doing it for about 2 months now.  I've especially LOOOOVED not having to buy diapers anymore.  We do the occasional disposable when we're on vacation, out, or just don't have any cloth ones ready to go, but only once in a blue moon does she have to wear a disposable.  After a lot of research I finally asked Kyle how do you feel about using cloth diapers and he said yuck, are my cloths going to smell like poop?  No our clothes don't smell like poop. I watched a video on Omyfamily and then read a lot of blog posts on which diaper to go with because it has come a long way since the white diapers and pins.  They are super cute now and way easy to put on.

So I decided on Gdiapers and I got them from Babies R Us with the last of our baby shower gift cards.  I thought I was going to love them, welll   wrooooonnnnggg.  They are good but not great.  They are a hybrid diaper which means they can also be disposable with these disposable inserts.  They are a pain because of a few reasons.  1. They have 3 pieces you have to put together.  2. The insert is directly on Aubrey's tush and she sometimes gets a diaper rash.  3.  There are 3 different sizes and even the large is kind of small on Aubrey. 4. They are way expensive, and cost about $20 for 2 diapers and don't even come with inserts.  The good thing about them is you only need a fewer amount of diapers just more inserts.  You can use one diaper for most of the day and just change out the inserts.  I guess that leads me too the price of cloth diapers is definitely more than disposables when you get started but in the long run you wind up saving a TON of money.  We've already gotten our moneys worth just after using them for 2 months.

Ok, the second ones we have are bum genius from my wonderful friend Jessica!  Thanks Jessica it's helped so much to have more diapers.  We like these, they only have 2 parts the diaper and the insert that goes inside.  The have great coverage and always use them at night but they are a little more bulky.  The only downside to them is they have velcro on them that get worn out kind of easily.

The last diaper we got I absolutely LOOOOVEEEE!  It is a knock off of Fuzzi Bunz which run about $15 a diaper, but the ones we got come from AlvaBaby are only $4.79 yep and they come in the CUTEST colors.  It is a company out of China so they shipping takes a couple of weeks but they are great for several reasons.  1. They are one size fits all with a ton of snaps to make them smaller or bigger.  2. They are only 2 parts so you just throw the whole diaper in the wet bag when it's dirty and don't have to mess with unsnapping like the Gdiapers.  3. They are super cheap.  4. They don't leak and can hold a lot of toddler pee.  5.  They have super cute colors.  They also sell wet bags on there for way cheaper than a lot of other places so I've gotten 3 from there.  I've ordered a total of 10 diapers from AlvaBaby and for the next baby (no time soon don't worry) we'll definitely get a few more of these to add to our stock pile.

The last thing I have to add is the whole washing thing I'll explain on part 2 but I've gotta have some RockinGreen detergent.  I tried All Free and Clear because dyes and fragrances really funk up diapers so it actually worked for a couple of weeks and then the diapers started to smell like pee even after washing and drying.  One time washing them with Rockin Green smell is gone and it works perfectly.  It seems a little expensive at about $14 for 40-90 loads but you only use 2 tablespoons of this stuff so it goes a long way.  We're still on our first thing of it.

Our diapers include 4 Gdiapers, 4 BumGenius, and 10 AlvaBaby pure diapers.

Our diaper bin that I'll explain on the next post.

Well that's all I've got for tonight, sorry it's such a long post but for my momma friends that are curious about cloth diapering here you have it.  I'll explain how we do our diapers tomorrow but I just wanted to get how we started out there and we've definitely figured out what worked best for us. 

Aubrey helping stuff diapers and put them away.  She likes picking out a diaper when we go to change her diaper now. 

A little blog redecorating

Well I hung new pictures on the wall at our house so I figured why not put new pictures on my blog too.  I'm loving this new gray and yellow whole design and I don't have the motivation to redecorate our rental so here's a creative outlet that I can change and not have to worry about painting or anything.  I like a little change every once in a while.

Style File

Ok so many of the other blogs I follow show their ridiculously cute outfits and I love checking out what they're wearing.  I love Dear Baby's maternity ladies room fashion shows, GeorgieGirlNYC used to have some awesome outfits she showed, and now recently I've loved following AdoredAustin and JenLovesKev.  So I've decided although I don't have ridiculously cute outfits, Aubrey sure does so every once in a while we're going to do a mommy/daughter style file.  I promise I will take better pictures next time too.  I think it will be neat to look back and see what I wore when I was a new mom (and no there will be no '"mom jeans".

So this is what Aubrey and I were wearing at church today.

Cardigan- Papaya
Tank- Old Navy Clearance rack
Skirt- Crazy old skirt from high school I think
Belt- Ross
Shoes- Walmart Clearance last year I have them in like 5 colors
Bracelets- Forever 21

Hair I tried this awesome hair trick I learned from GeorgieGirl and DearBaby uses it too.  Really long video but worth watching and giving it a try, super cute no heat curls that take hardly no time.

And Miss Aubrey
Dress- Garage Sale but it's a Target dress only $1 people
Sandals- Children's Place
Bow- Target
Necklace- Osh kosh b gosh (she loooooves playing with necklaces)
Beautiful Baby Blue Eyes- All from her Dad!

Wonderful World of Oreos

So I was a bad mom and on our way back from Kroger today I needed to keep Aubrey happy and awake so I introduced her to the wonderful world of oreos.  I gave her an oreo on the way home from Kroger and she kind of loved it.  And here's the aftermath.....
One happy, chocolatey little girl!

My SD card is ALiVE!

So I hadn't posted pictures in a while because I was waiting for my SD card to get fixed on my computer. It wasn't allowing me to upload pictures and what's a blog post with no cute pictures of Aubrey. Kyle has been busy doing ER this month and has had to work some nightshifts, he finished his last one yesterday!  Yay!!  We now have him home for a couple of days.  I even got to sleep in this morning which was A-MA-ZING!  Since Kyle has been working nights he's been on a crazy sleep schedule and so that he's been able to sleep in the morning Aubrey and I have found things around Cookeville to do in the mornings.  Aubrey now goes to music class on Wednesdays and we've been going to the library for story time on Tuesdays or on Thursdays.  At story time we even met a new friend a little boy a month older than Aubrey named Ryker and her mom Leena.  We went to the park last week to hang out with Aubrey's new friend and we had a great time.  Well here are a few pictures from some fun stuff we've been doing with our days out.

Gotta love our pool with the splash park, don't know how many days left we'll have here.  August makes me sad because it means summer is almost over, as a teacher I used to have a love/hate relationship with August.  Loved starting a new school year, hated summer being over.

 

Ok not that cutest face at all, but I was trying to show the pure relaxtion she was having here.  She had her leg propped up on a pillow and laid back into the couch, which she can now climb on an off by herself I might add.  Toddler=climbing on everything in sight!

Climbed on the couch again but this time to read her bible.  This was the neatest thing to see as my little girl climbed up by herself and started looking at her bible all by herself.  Her favorite is the story of Noah and the ark with pictures of elephants and the story of baby Moses and Baby Jesus, of course anything with a baby in it.

I know this picture looks absolutely disgusting but we've been doing a lot of painting and coloring so we decided to paint with pudding well it was going to take too long to make and for it to set up so instead we improvised with what we had and used strawberry yogurt.  Yes it was ridiculously messy but it was delicious I bet.  She was happy, dirty and messy, but happy.

Licking it off of course. Wouldn't you?

Another painting activity.  I was spray painting something outside, don't worry I'll finally update with pictures of all my spray painted pretties.  Aubrey grabbed the paint brushes and started playing with them instead of telling her no and taking them away, the teacher in me came out and decided to let her paint outside with water.  It worked great because she loved getting water all over the porch and it helped clean up the chalk we've been playing lately.

She then tried to sit in our paint I mean water, oooops.

Kyle then had a much needed day off so we headed to a beach about 20 minutes away and spent the day playing at the beach.  Aubrey had so much fun playing in the very shallow, and rocky sand and loved floating out in the water.  Best swim/float thing ever it's this like a floaties/ring float thing.  It's US coast guard approved and it keeps her afloat by herself and the added bonus she loves it.  She hated the other life jackets I had bought and tested out because it went around her head.  I sweat by this thing, I absolutely LOVE it.  If you're looking for something for the pool/lake this is it.

And I'll end with a picture of something that is very rare. I'm relaxing out in the lake all by myself :)  It only last about 5 minutes but they were 5 whole glorious mommy minutes which were much needed. Thanks Kyle for manning the sand castle building so I could have my moment.  So that's what we've been doing, more to come later.