Santa and Painting

I didn't realize how much of a traditional lady I am until we got to the mall and found out that their not-so-santa-looking santa cost a ton of money and we decided not to go through with it. Later in the parking lot i was nursing Keegan and got a little sentimental about the whole deal and started crying cuz their lame santa cost $20 for one photo! After a lot of calling my mom and looking at the other santas on the internet we decided to bite the bullet and pay the money for the memories and go to the awesome santa at the macy's in downtown portland. i grew up going to this santa. It's pretty cool they have a whole "santa land" down there you can walk through and then after seeing santa they stand you next to a big screen and you get to see all the many shots they took of your little one, create your own packet and even get a cd of your photos. sooo much better that the OTHEr santa. psh. It was so fun to go back to where i went as a child with my own child. He liked santa. He likes pretty much all strangers. until he realizes his parents aren't holding him...he almost cried but he held it together. way to be a man Keegan.


Keegs got a lot of great presents for christmas! He's loving his band in a box that Grandma O got him. He's big into making noise. This toy below is a stand and play toy my mom got him. Also a fav,

We got him finger paints for Christmas. He made his first masterpeice the other night. it was so fun to watch him get all messy. We hung his art in his room. It's pretty good!

Thank God for nontoxic paints!

It was a great first Christmas!

oh mom...

I've been waiting 8 months in anticipation for this little guy to move, now he's going crazy. He won't stay still when I change him, i have to totally pin him down to get a diaper on him. Today he was going from sitting, to crawling, to his knees, to standing over and over again. He's a monster!! haha While i was putting clothes on him i caught myself saying "will you hold still!" I couldn't believe after so many months of craving his moving independance that those words came out of my mouth. I've got a bad case of the "the grass is always greener"

Anyhow here are som cute shots of Keegs moving around and in cute "long john" onsie with even a button butt!

We're Crawling!

It's kind of funny that I've waited for this day for what seems like SOOo long and now that it's here it doesn't feel as amazing and exciting as i thought it would. BUT It's here and it IS exciting and so cool to see Keegan changing and gaining independance and confidence. To see him make a decision and go for it. I love being able to see what he is thinking by seeing where he goes! Soooo Keegs is crawling!!! Here's proof. He started inching two days ago and then yesterday took some great strides. Today he doing an occiasional crusing. It was fun to celebrate thanksgiving and have the family here to see his brand new trick!

Cloth Diapering day 3 and 4

So. I finally used the Fuzzibunz!
I had some ladies in my Mommy and Me class help me figure out how to fit it well. They are so cute! I wasn't able to get the full wear out of them for Keegan because both times i've used them, Keegan was ready for a nap. So he napped in them and they withheld the naptime great but needed to be changed shortly after.

A few tips on washing that i've discovered so far:
1) Don't worry too much about stains, they come out! Even if they turn a tinge yellow the sun will get the rest out. Crazy? but True.

2) Just take out the inserts and throw them in the washer. No need to pre-soak the diaper or insert. The first couple days I was soaking and ringing out the insert. I know it sounds gross but for some reason i didn't mind doing it. (I didn't even wear gloves...eww) I guess not being grossed out is a mother-thing.

3) After wash, try an extra spin cycle. If the inserts are still damp ring them out, and then put them in the dryer. I was doing about two dyer cycles and then i decided to ring them out by hand. SO much faster to dry after that.

4) Don't dry the outter diaper in the dryer. They dry super fast on the rack/line/whatever you use. Plus it helps with overall diaper life and from keeping the velcro to fray.

5) If you have one size diapers don't forget to unsnap them to full size when drying. It may add an extra step when stuffing them comes along but they dry faster in full size.

6) Purchase more than six diapers. Six was a good number to start and test drive in. Seriously now, I think I'm sold on the whole cloth diapering idea, I just need more diapers so I can do laundry less! (www.weebunz.com)

7) If you have a Diaper Champ, no need to get a "wet bag" for home. They work like a charm and keep the smell in! I love my Diaper Champ! You can keep one hand on baby and use the other to put the diaper in the pale with one swift motion. No lift and twist stuff like the diaper genie. AND no special diaper liners, just a simple garbage bag! woo! I will invest in a wetbag for traveling though, no stink=my friend

Cloth Diaper Day 2

Day #2

Today we only went through 4 diapers... I'm not sure how that worked out to be... they are difficult to tell when it's time to change because the insert is so absorbent! We don't use them for naps so that is partly why we went through so few diapers.

My Husband actually changed and put on a new cloth diaper today! He didn't have too much to say about it, I think that is a good thing! If there was something difficult or weird about them I'm sure I'd hear him make a comment but it went smoothly! And he put them on just right, not too tight, not too loose. I think that has been one thing that is hard to know about these cloth diapers. With a disposable you mindlessly stretch and velcro the diaper without worry of them being too tight. But with the cloth you can get them too tight and the elastic can leave a red mark on baby. Which is no good and I assume can lead to future chaffing. Yet if they are too loose then they leak like the other day. I suppose that is where all-in-one "grow with me" diapers aren't as ideal as fitted cloth diapers? I'm still going to use them. I LOVE the idea of him wearing them til he's potty trained.

So here is what I'm doing with the dirty diapers for now. Basically just rolling them up and throwing them into the laundry room. That won't last long I bet, i heard they can get smelly. Haven't noticed yet. I have so few the smell isn't adding up. AND because i have so few, i launder them everyday. so i just throw them in. I like how the Heiny's roll up better than the Bum G's

See how much tighter the dirty Heiny's roll than the Bum G's? I think that helps with smell.



Below is a picture of how the Heiny's advertise the laundry tabs. Just attach the velcro to itself and it should stay that way while washing. Not true. A fellow mom told me today that she attaches the velcro as if her daughter is wearing them and throws it in the machine. I'll try that and hope for no diaper chains or stains.

Here is a picture of a few of the diapers and how i keep them ready for service. I pre-stuff the inserts and pre-line the diapers with the flushies so they are ready to go. no thinking required. I hope that was a help when my husband changed Keegan yesterday.

The flushies come in a roll like pictured and you just line the diaper with it and then toss that and the poo in the toilet when soiled. SO easy! and not so yucky as scrapping poo.

After wash i toss the inserts in the dryer and hang dry the outsides. When keegan wakes up for his night feed i go in the laundry room take the inserts out or the dryer (they are usually still a little wet) and hang them for the remainder of the night. I figure I'm up and awake might as well stroll over there and get the diapers ready for morning. takes two seconds.

Still haven't used the fuzzibunz. A friend in my Live and Learn class told me she LOVES them and is glad they are snap because her velcro is starting to ware on her others. Her baby is 7 months old and she has been using them from the beginning. Her baby is just as wiggly if not more than Keegs so I guess the snaps are doable. I'm trying them day #3, tell you more about it later.

I don't have much more to say. Still liking the cloth diapering. And still finding them not as much work as i thought. I am nervous every time i think he's going to poop though. I'm dreading the first "bad" poop. bleh.

Cloth Diapering Day 1

Cloth Daipers Day #1

I think it went pretty well!! Keegs looked pretty darn cute in his new big booty cloth diapers. I read somewhere that cloth diapers might slow your baby from moving around and maybe make it so they don't crawl until later but Keegs isn't crawling yet anyways so no troubles there. a little extra fabric didn't make much of a difference for Keegan today.

We had one mishap. I think I didn't fasten one on of the happy heiny's tight enough, and we had some leakage at a potluck. It could have been my lack of Velcro skills or the fact that Keegs was in the diaper or nearly 3 hours. who's to know? ha.

We had two poops. The cloth diaper liners "flushies" worked like a charm!! I love them! You just lift the liners out and flush them down the toilet. no touching or scraping the poops = one happy mom. The poop left a little mark on two of the diapers so i was pretty curious how and IF they would come out but while folding and stuffing the diapers this morning i couldn't tell which diaper had been pooped on. I thought that was pretty amazing! They came out perfectly white.

As for my thoughts on the different brands of pocket diapers..

I think I might like the Happy Heiny's the best. I love the thick velcro and how the velcro overlaps eachother. It makes it easy to roll up the diaper after use and velcro it closed on itself. A downside of them I found is that in the laundry they get all tangled up.. i tried velcroing them closed but they came apart and formed a diaper chain in the wash. The diaper that leaked earlier in the day was a happy heiny but i truly think that was my error.

The Bum Genius are pretty good too. I'm not a big fan of how small the velcro is, i think it makes it hard to trust how secure I'm just unsure i'm getting them to fit right. compared to the Happy Heiny's the Bum Genius velcro just isn't my cup of tea. They don't roll up and fasten to themselves (when the diaper is dirty) very well but maybe that's not a big deal for other people. I sort of like to do that. But they fit great and work great and I love that the pocket part of the diaper; it has a flap that closes in the insert. And their laundry taps work great, they don't attach to the diaper chain in the washer.

I didn't use the Fuzzibunz yet. Keegan has been a little cranky and wiggly lately so i'm thinking the initial fitting of the Fuzzibunz might take some time. they have adjustable elastic on the legs and snaps on the waist that i need to make sure fit securely, that might be tricky at first but once that happens i'm sure they will work just fine.

Here is a picture of my sons poop diaper! oh joy right? I just wanted to show you how poopy it was after the use of the "flushie" and tell you that YES IT ALL CAME OUT! the diaper is perfectly white now! I'll take an after photo sometime.

These cleaning solutions are what i used to wash the diapers. It was a suggestion by a friend (http://www.woollybums.blogspot.com/) I got her recipe on her blog. It's just a mixture of each of the three solutions (1 cup each) and then you just put two or three tablespoons in the washing machine. take out the pocket inserts from the diapers. lock down the laundry tabs to help insure you don't get a diaper chain, close the door and wash on hot. DONE! SO easy! I thought cloth diapers would be a ton of work but its simple.

I put the inserts in the dryer and the outsides to try on a drying rack and by morning all was dry and ready for use. the inserts took along time to dry though, i had to put them in the dryer twice and they were still a little moist. So i hung them to dry overnight and they were all dry but one by morning. i guess that is good news though right? super absorbent?

Anyhow i think the first day went pretty well! He wore the diapers for probably two and half hours max each. one leak. (my fault-pretty sure) two poops. no stains. happy baby! successful cloth diapering day. I think we used a total of 5 diaper today because we didn't use them during naps or bedtime. I wasn't ready to venture that far. So far we only have 6 diapers so i'm glad we're doing the system that we are for now. soon i hope to invest in more so we can launder less often. But I'm excited to be saving the landfills diapers six cloth diapers at time!

hope the info helps. if anything its good for me to process my experience. I'm surprised how much i enjoy using them! I thought I would kind of dread every diaper change but I get excited when its time for a diaper change! haha oh the little things a mom takes joy in.

Day two coming soon.

Cloth Diapering?

There's a whole world out there that I was too overwhelmed with motherhood to even think about before now. It's called "Natural Parenting."
Who knew what I was putting on my babies bum was unnatural parenting? who are these people telling me how i parent is unnatural?
anyhow, i'm discovering an aspect of so-called "natural parenting" and it's called... DUN DUn duun.... cloth diapering.

Once I babysat for a family that did cloth diapering. I think I was around 11 and the baby had to have been just a couple months old. the mom was around the house doing errands or something, so when baby cried crazy she would come and help. I remember the first day when she showed me how to cloth diaper. I was freaked out by the saftey pins. and stink. and wetness. but was only 11 and so i didn't get stressed out. who gets stressed as a preteen? not me.
so when it came to having my own child and thinking about cloth diapering that memory is what came to mind. The thought if it made me a little stressed. "No thank you" thats what Brent and I both thought. Plus, Keegs is baby number one, there were enough new things to overcome i wasn't ready for the cloth diaper challenge. UNTIL now. He's nearly 8 months old and i am JUST NOW starting for feel more grounded in this mommy business. I've been doing some research and learning about this whole daunting cloth business. They have some great new cloth diapers out there now! ones that are basically as easy as disposible just but plus a laundry wash. Or at least that is what the ladies in my Mommy And Me class say, and all the advertisements, and the people on YouTube.com
so i've decided to try it out. i mean they are DARN CUTE. Cost effective. I love the idea of buying cloth diapers for Keegan that will last til he's potty trained AND use them for our next child+. I had no idea that according to a study done by the Women's Enviromental Network: "Disposable diapers are the third largest single consumer item in landfills, and represent about 4% of solid waste. In a house with a child in diapers, disposables make up 50% of household waste." Crazy. So here goes.

I took a leap and bought 6 different cloth diapers this week. All "Pocket Diapers" from what I have researched they are the most "family friendly" (ie. daddy and grandparent friendly) ones out there. supposedly they won't have as much of an odor problem which is nice for my smell sensative husband and curious Charlie-dog.

I'll be writing about the ins-and-outs for a bit i think. So sorry for those of you that might read this and not be interested. I figure i have no clue how many people actually peek at this blog so i might as well just write about it. AND since researching i've found that other mom-blogs have been the most helpful in finding information on cloth diapering so if i can be that resource for other curious moms then, great!

First Firestation Trip!

This last weekend we went to a Lakeside Bible Camp Staff reunion party on Whidbey Island. One of the people that currently work at the camp is a volunteer firefighter and so he took all of us to the firestation to let the kids romp through the firetruck. It seemed like they had a fun time. we took it as a photo opportunity. we're discovering the joy of having a baby and a cool camera = lots of fun photo opps. here's a few.

What a cutie.

On another note. Keegan has been pretty fun lately. He's mumbling all the time saying things like "baboo" "mom mom" "Da da da" and just plain trying to have conversations. last night at the dinner table my friend Christine asked Keegan if he really could talk but he was just keeping it secret and he shook his head "no" as if he was answering her question. it was hilarious.

Tonight at the dinner table it was babbling on and on and laughing at his own babbling as if he was telling a funny story. He is a real kick.

!!!!HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!
I've been wanting a cute garden gnome for a couple of year now but it hasn't really happened. we can't find the perfect one for our yard! and i dont think Brent really like them... soo this year i got my perfect Gnome...



Here's Keegan at our baby class!! look at all the cute babies in their costumes... priceless...


uh oh Georgette what do you think you're doing...

AH!

Keegan These Days

Keegan had his first "uh-oh" he pulled the plant off the stand. I wondered how Brent would handle Keegan's messes and he did great with it! we laughed it off and moved the plant up higher. So proud of my exploring son and understanding husband!


These days Keegan cruises all over the house and backyard in his walker! He LOVES it! He could chase Charlie or a ball most of the day in his walker.



This is a typical Keegan face lately, accompanied with a monkey "woo" grunt. It looks funny in a photo but in person it's pretty cute.


A couple time a week Keegan and I walk to the park and go swinging. Another favorite of his. He could be in a horrible mood until he gets on that swing. It's odd how he doesn't like the house swing we have for him but he loves the outdoor one!

Keegans first co-bath

Some friends Kelly and Ryan came to visit this weekend! Carter and Keegan took a bath together last night and it was sooo funny to watch them play in the tub! Keegan LOVES to splash! When he is in the tub thats all he does. I get SOAKED every night. Kelly and I got really wet last night while both of the boys were splashing and having so much fun.

Keegan found his toes!

Charlie and Keegan hanging out in the living room... i think they are going to be great pals. Keegan lights up when Charlie is around and Charlie just loves to lick and clean up after Keegs

This last week Keegan found his toes! Its been fun to watch him play with his feet and suck on his toes. It's great too that he can entertain him self for a few minutes.

Labor day weekend we spent with some if my college friends down in sisters oregon. it was a lot of fun but too short. we're expanding, two babies and one on the way!

Keegan celebrated his friends OSU game last weekend too. I was excited to dress him in his Orange and crack out the OSU gear friends bought us. look at that cool OSU Bottle and onsie!

Labor day we also spent time with Dean and Christel and their gals. Amy chased Charlie around all weekend. When they were leaving Amy grabbed some of charlies treat and put him on his leash and informed us that Charlie would be going home with them. We thought that was really cute that she packed him all up. We got to keep him though.

Cannon Beach!

I grew up going to the coast with my family and for the first time I got to take MY family to the same coast to the same cabin! Not sure how much longer we'll be able to do that as my parents are thinking the cabin might not be in the family much longer, so it was fun to bring Keegan up to the coast.

We did most of the typicals. Walked to Haystack rock, strolled around downtown, bought taffy from Bruce's. Sat in the sand watching Charlie chase the birds. Gave Keegan a bath in the the same sink that I too took a bath in as a baby. Christine worked at a cafe down there this summer so we got to spend some time with her too! Good times. I love the coast. Here's come pics.

haha.

Keegan misses his cousins

Some sweet shots of Keegs and his cousins.

I love this last picture of Hudson and Keegan. There were lots of pictures before that where they are happy and laughing together and then after a few minutes Hudson realized Keegan was sitting on his beloved blanket haha. Keegan's like "whats happening?"

We miss the family but its good to be back home and have some stability in life. It took Keegan just about two weeks to get readjusted and back on a good sleeping pattern. I'm soo thankful for that.

Our good friends loaded us their Johnney Jump up and it has been so fun to watch Keegan jump and jump away. Not to mention give our arms a rest from all the jumping shananigans. He LOVES it! He jumps and jumps and laughs and screeches! Its the best invention!

We also started Keegan on some rice cereal since we got home! I'm excited to start him on some food but also feeling a little sad about the process of starting to wean him. I know it still will be a while but its his first step to becoming seperate and not needing me as much!

Keegans First real laugh

Keegan did his first real laugh the other day. He's been doing the screaming with excitement thing until Brent dropped his toy on him the other day. It was pretty cute. Don't worry the toy is pretty soft.


On another note, our summer project team has been doing hiking this week. I think they hiked a total of 23 miles in three days. something crazy like that. One of the days the climbed a mountain (one of the Twin Sisters) just outside our lodge. I got to stand in our parking lot and see them through binoculars at the top! It was pretty fun. The last day keegan and I got to participate because it was a shorter hike to Oozle Falls. It was a pretty walk along the river. The National Park hikes aren't as impressive as i thought they would be though, the trails are practically paved the whole way and even have rock stairs. I guess they have to be because they are so well traveled. Here's a pic of the fam on the way to the falls. Keegan did great! He loves the Bjorn and hiking around. Its the one of the rare times he's quiet and happy.

ps. this is a funny ps but for all you moms you know how i feel. I'm ALMOST to my pre-pregnancy weight! just a couple more pounds. It's nice to fit into my clothes again but i'm still unsatisfied with the way i look. hopefully by the end of the summer i'll be feeling okay.

A few summer photos

Can you find the Baby?
This was from our first Estes Park Rock climbing trip. It was a little cold so we had Keegan in his snow suit, which worked perfect. He slept most of the time.

He's doing great with tummy time these days. His neck is getting stronger and he's not fussing as much when we lay him down. He figured out how to roll onto his back though so tummy time ends up being more of a roll over time.


At the beginning of Project we didn't have a place to lay Keegan down in the Lodge so we found an apples box for him to rest in. It was cute but didn't last long, he quickly got too long for it and we bought a real travel bed for him. He likes that much better.



This is our last week of project! Then we're off to steamboat colorado for a week with all the O'Neills and then to Ft. Collins for our national Campus Crusade conference at CSU. We're staying with Miles and Emme, which should be a lot of fun! Tell ya more later!

Keegan Poops

I finally got Keegan on video when he's doing his business. I love the faces he makes when he's pooping. he's funny. i've been meaning to post more often while we're here on project but time goes by so quick and Keegan is often not in the mood to let me do anything on the computer. I'm lucky right now he's in the bjorn looking at the computer with me.

Keegan's first swim