Teething & Gardening

These are the themes of our weekend, apparently. :) N is teething hard core - getting her top eye teeth in. The happy part? These are her last teeth until her 2 year molars!! So, hopefully we will have a good long break from teething now for a bit. The last few nights have been rough. We used to have a king and queen bed set up in our room. It was quite luxurious, and we were getting spoiled. The queen bed was my SIL's bed, and she needed it back, so we got N a "big girl" bed. It's a toddler bed and it's absolutely adorable. But small. :) So she is adjusting. Our bed has been full the past couple of nights, let's just say that! :) With the teething, she wants to nurse ALL NIGHT LONG. Two nights ago was horrible. And last night, she didn't go to sleep until midnight. But she slept better! And she finally went down for a nap at 3:00 today. I am looking forward to our post-teething life!

Gardening - ahhh. I love to garden. It's another gorgeous day, so we went to Lowe's to get some plants. I took out the old nasty dead flower carcasses from our front flower bed and replaced them with some Japanese Boxwoods. They look much neater and will make our yard look more manicured. We also got a pot for our front porch, and DH and N planted geraniums in there. It's quite cute.

Tomorrow morning I will work on the back yard, pruning the old and possibly adding some new.

I'm sitting here now (having just finished an hour of Beautiful Katamari - I'm addicted.) drinking my V8 and listening to classical music. It's been a good day. DH is at the movies w/ his folks and us ladies are holding down the fort.

Spring!

It's spring here in the Southwest. At least it feels like it. The air is fresh, we are getting up to the 70s/80s... I LOVE this time of year!! I just want to spend all day outside.

So yesterday I signed up on the wait list for our local Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) organization. It's $200-$300 for either two months or three months, and you get a ton of produce from local farms each week. This was one of my goals about a year ago when I started focusing on being more green. Better late than never, right? These changes take awhile, and they really take some getting used to. I read about becoming more environmentally aware, and I see blogs of people that live frugally (economically and environmentally), and it all seems so simple. But when you are used to being a consumer and using resources without much thought, it's hard to adjust!!

We have been using the biodegradable diapers for a bit now, and I must say that we love them. Seriously, for you diaper users out there, check these out!! I believe diapers take 500 years to break down in a landfill. Each diaper. That is a long time, and a huge imprint on the earth. After I started using cloth last year, and came back to disposables, that really stuck with me.

I'll leave you with a picture of my little doll-wearing toddler :)

Product Line of the Month - my new favorite!

Cleaning Products

These are amazing - they smell like "real" cleaning products, so I still feel like I'm getting a good deep down clean. But I also feel good about using them. Yay!

Two Months?

Wow, two months went by without a post from me!

Let's see -- we left on 12/26 for Pennsylvania to go to my brother's wedding, and then N and I stayed there for a couple extra weeks. We got back on 1/16. I had bronchitis for a week, and then we had a couple of weeks where we finally got to go out and enjoy the fresh air. And then N started teething for a week, and now she has been sick for a couple of weeks. She is finally better, but still has a runny nose and a cough, so we are hanging out around the house.

That brings you up to date! :)

I set this up yesterday so N could play outside without us having to go anywhere:

She is really enjoying it, and I'm enjoying being able to sit outside and relax while she plays. Ahhh...

Beyond the kid stuff -- I'm really rooting for Hillary, and I'm getting worried about the numbers!!! So I'm constantly checking CNN on primary days. I'm a dork.

That's it for now. Happy Valentine's Day everyone! :)

Oh, the guilt.

So I can't take it anymore. The SMELL that emanates from the Fuzzi Bunz cloth diapers we have been using for about 9 months now. I have tried *everything* -- and it will be fixed for awhile, but then it comes back. It's because we have an HE washer, I think. There just isn't enough water there to get them clean.

So we have switched back to disposables. I will be contributing to the landfills now. The only consolation is that I got these online, and they are biodegradable. So at least I am still being green, right?

I just so loved using cloth diapers. Boo.

A few odds & ends

Last week, we got our Advent wreath made:


And made some construction paper ornaments to hang on the tree:


Natalie is doing a great job of participating in crafts. I'm so excited!! She really focuses and gets involved and way excited about everything. I think we'll try finger paints again this week, to make some crafts for people for Christmas.

This weekend, we put carpet tiles in the nursery at church. It's really coming together! I'm so excited about that. This weekend, I may put some paint on the walls. I'm going to look for some wall stencils, maybe with a Bible verse about children. I think that would be really neat.

Here is Natalie helping with the tiles:




I'm also working on Natalie's stocking. DH and I have stockings that my mom made -- my mom made them for the whole family, as each of us was born. I'm recreating that, and it's coming out really well! I'll post a picture when I'm done w/ it.

Today I am mailing Christmas gifts out, and hopefully straightening up this place a bit. It's getting a bit cluttered!!

Oh, and I'm hosting Christmas this year!!! I'm very excited about that. I love organizing and planning stuff, so I'm thrilled. I wanted Natalie to be able to just hang out here on Christmas, and have people come to her. And I also wanted to cook dinner. :)

My girls are coming back!! Hurrah!!