We Love Cloth Diapers!

We have been using cloth diapers with Irie since she was about a month old and we LOVE them!  Here are some photos of some of the different kinds we have used and currently use with our baby.  We like to use All-in-Twos (i.e. an insert inside of a diaper cover) the best.  

To come... some tips, how to's, and pros & cons of diapers we've tried (+ more pictures!).

Kissaluvs

Kissaluvs

Contour diaper (with a Snappi)

gDiaper

gDiaper

Best Bottom

Flip

Flip

Best Bottom

Econobum

Happy Holidays!

Yes Ma'am, Time Does Fly!

It was approximately a year ago to the day when I found out I was pregnant.

Wow.

To think about where I was sitting there and where I am now SO MUCH has happened!  This has been a very eventful year, to say the least.

Cute Pictures of my Cute Babe

Read, Read, Read!!

Reading Tips for Parents of Babies

By: Reading Rockets (2008)

It's never too early to read to your baby. As soon as your baby is born, he or she starts learning. Just by talking to, playing with, and caring for your baby every day, you help your baby develop language skills necessary to become a reader. By reading with your baby, you foster a love of books and reading right from the start. The tips below offer some fun ways you can help your child become a happy and confident reader. Try a new tip each week. See what works best for your child.

Snuggle up with a book

When you hold your baby close and look at a book together, your baby will enjoy the snuggling and hearing your voice as well as the story. Feeling safe and secure with you while looking at a book builds your baby's confidence and love of reading.

Choose baby-friendly books

Books with bright and bold or high-contrast illustrations are easier for young babies to see, and will grab their attention. Books made of cloth or soft plastic (for the bathtub) or "board books" with sturdy cardboard pages are easier for a baby to handle.

Keep books where your baby can reach them

Make sure books are as easy to reach, hold, and look at as toys. Remember, a baby will do with a book what he does with everything else — put it in his mouth. And that's exactly what he's supposed to do, so you may only want to put chewable books within reach.

Talk with your baby — all day long

Describe the weather or which apples you are choosing at the grocery. Talk about the pictures in a book or things you see on a walk. Ask questions. By listening, your child learns words, ideas, and how language works.

Encourage your baby's coos, growls, and gurgles

They are your baby's way of communicating with you, and are important first steps toward speech. Encourage attempts to mimic you. The more your baby practices making sounds, the clearer they will become. Go ahead and moo, woof and honk!

Give baby a hand!

Encourage your baby to pick up crackers or peas, touch noses and toes, point to pictures and grab toys. The muscles in those little hands will grow strong, agile, and ready to turn pages.

Develop a daily routine (and make reading a part of it)

Routines can soothe a baby, and let a baby learn to predict what will happen next. The ability to predict is important when your child is older and is reading independently.

Sing, Read, Repeat

Read favorite stories and sing favorite songs over and over again. Repeated fun with books will strengthen language development and positive feelings about reading.

"Read" your baby

Pay attention to how your baby reacts to the book you are reading. Stop if your baby isn't enjoying the story and try another book or another time

Cloth Diapering

I am LOVING using cloth diapers on my little Irie bean.  I am currently using Kissaluvs size 0 (quickly getting too small!) with a Flip diaper cover.  So far so good!  I'm about to send back my Kissaluvs rentals and since I LOVE the all-in-two's/hybrid diapering systems I am looking into buying some Best Bottom or Weehuggers, which are similar to the Flip system and have such cute prints!

Check out this adorable video I stumbled upon this morning.

Irie

'Peace with the Universe'
'I Respect I Eternally'
'To be at total peace with your current state of being.
The way you feel when you have no worries.'
'Everything Be Irie Mon!'

urbandictionary.com

Baby's Firsts

"When the first baby laughed for the first time, the laugh broke into a thousand pieces and they all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of fairies. And now when every new baby is born its first laugh becomes a fairy. So there ought to be."

-- James Matthew Barrie

First time in mama's arms

First car rideFirst night at home

First time meeting Addyson

First tummy time

First time being held by a Jamaican

First family photo with the Ashbaughs

First trip to the mallFirst softball gameFirst time wearing sunglasses

First bottleFirst frowny face

First graduationFirst cloth diaperFirst smile (happy to be in cloth!)First smile (in swing)First staring contestFirst Mariners gameFirst time hanging out in diapers with AddyFirst fireworks showFirst wedding

My Mary Poppins Birth

It was "practically perfect in every way.."

On Friday, April 29th, we went camping. Why we went camping when I was about to pop I do not know. Okay, okay... so I do know why. Chad insisted on going camping even though it was an HOUR further away from our hospital. After all, I was only pregnant; it still seemed out of this world that we would have a baby soon. Why not do the normal stuff we'd be doing anyway?

So we went camping in Clearwood (Yelm-ish area) on Friday night and we were planning on staying Saturday night as well. My father-in-law gave up his nice, large, comfy bed in the motor home the first night so it wouldn't be bad to sleep in it just one more night, right? After a nice day of fishing a weird glob of goo came out of me. "I lost my mucus plug," I thought. Then I took a nap.

Upon waking up from my nice nap an odd, childish argument took place... and I thank Chad and Clay for having this silly fight because this is perhaps what sent me into labor and what sent us home that night. After shouting, tears and a confused beagle and pregnant lady, we were locked out of the motor home and the sun was setting.

I passed the hint a few times that it would probably be better to go home than to figure out where to sleep. So we got in the car and headed home!

Let's keep this part short: We arrived home around 11 pm, we were all showered and ready for bed by midnight, I squirmed around in bed feeling antsy thinking about what my baby looked like and feeling kind of sick to my stomach until about 3 am, I got up and made myself a bagel and put a movie in, I heard a "pop!" sound inside of me, I walked into the bathroom... nothing. So I laid back in bed and watched some more of the movie, when I had a sudden urge to go potty (gross!), so I ran into the bathroom. As I stepped foot on the tile my waters went everywhere. I exclaimed "OH SHIT!", Chad came running in frantically asking what was the matter, I pointed to the wet floor, his eyes grew huge, he gave me a high five, he ran to pack the bags, and I sat on the toilet crying.

After he convinced me to get up I called the hospital, they said to take my time, I walked around crying, my mom came over, we did not take our time (good thing), and we got in the truck...

Around 5:25 am we arrived at the UW Medical Center. Not until THEN did my body start hurting. So that's what contractions feel like... I was told to lie on a stupid bed and the last thing I wanted to do was lie down, I was checked how far dilated I was (for the first time ever) by some doctor who said "about a 3... and I see hair!"... HAIR?! Yeah, that was more than a 3. Slowly but surely I was moved into the special room with a yoga ball, a jacuzzi tub, and all the lovely luxuries I was excited about. I bounced on the ball a bit, a stinky-breathed anesthesiologist came in and I was very rude to him as I told him I wanted nothing to do with him, I was checked again and was an 8 or something, and then I was asked if it felt like I could have a bowel movement. It did, so I said "yes".

"CALL HER MIDWIFE NOW!!!" Apparently when the feeling of needing to have a bowel movement occurs that means it's time to push. I didn't know that so I was just casual.

The midwife came in the room just in time... push, push, push... and then my perfect newborn baby was in my arms at 7:34 am. A perfect morning. I pulled my darling baby up to my chest (her color had already changed from purple to beautiful baby color) and she nursed within the first thirty minutes of life. After about an hour everyone was eager to know how big she was and they all wanted to hold her so I decided to let others hold my happy, healthy, beautiful girl.

Born May 1, 2011 at 7:34 am
6 pounds 11 1/2 ounces
20 1/2 inches long

And there you have it... my "Mary Poppins" birth.

Week 39 - A VERY Eventful Week

Tuesday - Irie's cousin Addy was born.

Wednesday - I worked my ass off on my Capstone project... 9 1/2 hours later it was ALMOST done.

Thursday - I finished and submitted my Capstone, and that was a very good thing.

Photo taken on Thursday... three days before Irie's arrival.

Following two photos taken on Friday... two days before Irie's arrival.

We took these pictures right before we left for camping. Why we went camping when I had a really strong gut feeling that I was going to go into labor I do not know. But we did, and I went into labor that weekend. :)

Sunday - Welcome baby girl!

Welcome Niece Addy!

Last night baby Addyson Kay was born! On Monday Tiffany got her membranes stripped and then it all began!!! I am so proud of my sister. She did amazing (no drugs... go sister!) and she kept saying, "I can't believe I just did that!" I love her and I love that baby girl. I'm excited to have another beautiful niece.

7 lbs and 20 inches... only moments after birth (about 30 minutes)

Proud mama!

Happy uncle!

Easter, Baby Bellies, and Kidlets

Easter was weird this year. It started out with Chad and I taking Leo for a walk. It seems to not much matter what we try... basically our dog sucks at going on walks. Whatever. We still try.

We were both going to to go Chad's mom and dad's house in the early afternoon, but it ended up not working out timing-wise so Chad went over there before he played a show and I went to my grandma's and the two of us drove together to Cheryl's. It was a lot of fun once we got to Cheryl's and it felt nice and normal except for Chad not being there and my dad not being there. The family man is in North Carolina with his work guys doing clean-up after the tornado disasters, which I think is absolutely wonderful! I'm thankful that there are people like my dad who are willing to go help people in need. Though he will miss the births of his daughter's baby girls I don't think it really matters because he will always be in their lives and it is an amazing thing what he is doing. Plus, he gets to see the country! So far he has a shot glass and a magnet from every state they've crossed through, which is about ten!

The kids had fun hunting for eggs, and the sun even made a little appearance!

We managed to get some belly photos in before the end of the evening. I like this one of us girls and the colors we're wearing are super Springy.Though Chad wasn't there to join me in the photos I was finally able to get in some good belly photos with Cheryl, and I am SO GLAD! I have a feeling this baby is coming within the week, so I'm glad I was able to get some photos in.

The votes are in! Three people are calling April 28th, one says April 29th, and a couple of people think the first few days of May. I also think it is going to be sometime this coming week, and I think Thursday (the 28th) would be great! Let's see what this baby thinks.

Week 38

There has been quite a bit of action going on this week inside of me. I have been going on plenty of walks, have been eating pineapple and spicy foods, drinking a lot of red raspberry leaf tea, and doing the other things that supposedly help labor to come, and I have been feeling many exciting things happening.

On Wednesday night during my sleep I could feel the baby get lower down. I was contracting all night long and it was making it difficult to sleep because 1) I was excited and wanted to feel the contractions, and 2) because they were adding so much pressure to my bladder and making me need to get up to pee very frequently. I felt a sudden jolt of back pain and I thought, "is this it?" Everyone keeps telling me, "Oh, you'll know..." so I ignored the feeling. I knew that if it was the actual start of labor that I would know, and since I was able to ignore it and it went away that meant that it was not labor. My body is definitely getting ready though.

Then a couple of nights later I felt her drop yet again. This picture shows that now she's kind of starting to hang. When I walk and contract I feel like I need to hold her up. We'll see what the coming week brings!

Week 37

This week marked my final week EVER as a student teacher, and oh my was it a busy week. I got little to no sleep because I had so much planning to do for my last week with my kids. But I made it through and it feels wonderful!

Here's the belly.

On Tuesday in class my classmates totally surprised me and threw me a little baby shower celebration. It was so incredibly nice of them and I was not expecting it at all. During the break during our class I was talking to my professor and they were setting up the party behind me without me knowing. When they all shouted "Surprise!" I thought it must have been my professor's birthday and I felt bad for not knowing. Haha. They're so, so sweet to me!

They gave me gifts and goodies and so much!
Here are my lovely classmates. :)
On Friday, my last day, my kids and the teacher with whom I work told me I need to go see the principal (an attempt to get me out of the room) and when I walked back in there was pizza and soda, a beautiful cake and diaper cake, and little notes from my students. It was wonderful. The kids couldn't keep their cool all week so I know they had something planned but I wasn't sure what. The teacher I work with told me they were all so glad I left early on Tuesday because that's the day they made the diaper cake. The kids helped roll the diapers for it. This is the most immaculate diaper cake I've seen!

These roses are from the student of mine who gave me the most challenging behaviors. The day before my last day he told me, "you're the best teacher I've ever had" and then he gave me a dozen roses. Such a sweet boy.

On Friday night Chad played a show at Hell's Kitchen to celebrate Blake's birthday. I stayed out too late after a long week.

On Saturday Cheryl, Grandma Fran, Tiffany, Evelynn, and I went to go see the tulips in the Skagit Valley. It definitely was not the best weekend to go, as the weather was not great and most of the tulips were not yet in bloom. It was still a fun day.

Daffodil field on the side of the road.
A not super flattering picture of us... but I like showing updates of our bellies.
Oh, beautiful Spring!

Saturday night after the tulips I went to the Rainier's game with the boys and it was SO MUCH FUN! They drank A LOT of beer since it was free. The only bad part is that we were out really late again... and I was so dang tired by the end of all this.

Sunday was nice though because I had my last prenatal yoga class and I did not have any stress about what to plan to teach for the week since I was all done teaching at this point. Woo! Now I only need to finish up my classes, my crazy amounts of homework assignments, my Master's project, and my competency notebook (I guess that's still quite a lot...).