Just a few things.

First… the blog will be getting another facelift soon.
Second… weeks 13, 14, 15, and 16 of Mason and his Monster Puppy.

In other Mason news… Mason is scooting! I keep telling him that just because he is the size of a six month old does not mean that he has to act like one. This mommy needs him to slow down and be a four month old. It is rather funny to watch though. He gets himself up on his hands and knees, rocks back and forth, then just flings himself forward. He also wiggles about like a worm to also get where he wants. It is very – and I mean very – slow moving though.
Other than the impending start of the next school year (August 2nd!!) nothing is really up to much with the big boys. Zach did go to his first overnight – no parents – trip. He went with the church to Kidz Camp. He had so much fun, and we sent him with a disposable camera. Unfortunately, almost two weeks later and we still haven’t gotten the prints back yet. Wal-Mart apparently sent it off to Kodak without including the return store information. But here are some pictures that I got from the director. The tall boy with brown hair in two is Zach’s whole-life-long best friend. He lives behind my mom and my mom watched him from the time he was 6 weeks until he started school. And yes, Zach is short, just not that short. His friend just so happens to be three years older than him – and he is rather tall also.


No real Bella news to share. She’s an obnoxious cute loveable three year old.
Now… if you made it through all that, I have a little something-something for you.

(download no longer available)

That’s all!

Sunday Scrapbooking

I promise to come back.

For now… enjoy some of my favorite pages from the 2nd quarter of this year.
72 pages total made in April, May, and June.

April

May

June

What I’ve been up to on the computer.

For once… it’s not ((all)) scrapbooking related.

Made for a friend…

Made for a sibling….

Made to go over Mason’s bed…

Hey… that Monster Puppy looks awfully familiar…

How to shock an eight year old.

Do you know when making your child learn math turns into a bad thing?

I can tell you when it’s a bad thing.

It’s a bad thing that moment when you and your eight year old have this exact discussion…

*Friday, in the van taking Zach over to play at his friend’s house*

“Momma, you’re the same age as ------ (friend’s older brother), right?”

“Close. I’m 25 and ------ is going to be 26 in a few months.”

“Oh.” *quiet for a few minutes* “So you got married when you were seventeen?”

You see where this is going, don’t you? Me, I totally did NOT see where he was going with that.

“Huh? No. Daddy and I got married when we were nineteen.”

“WHAT??? You mean you weren’t married when you had me!!??”

That (and the following questioning and reassuring of yes, this does still make his dad is his dad, no I never married anyone else, and the fact that yes, that did mean he was almost one when I graduated high school) is the moment when teaching your child math becomes a bad thing.

On a related note…

My baby sister turned sixteen on Sunday. It’s so discombobulating. Right now, she’s the age I was when I got pregnant with Zach, and Zach is the age she was. It just doesn’t seem like it’s been that long at all, yet at that age Zach could make me a grandmother… and HE’S ALREADY HALF WAY TO IT. Say, huh? I know that getting pregnant at sixteen is super young, but since it’s just been well “Yeah I did that…” for me, thinking that one of my kids might makes it seem so much younger. Hell, thinking about my sister getting pregnant at this age is like “Oh hell no.” Thankfully, I’m pretty sure she has more sense than me and is just not having sex. She’s all annoyingly snobby and says stuff like “You are the reason I’m not having sex until I get married.” But it’s OK… she can totally use me as an excuse, I don’t want her having any babies yet also.

Baby steps.

So to a full time cloth diapering mommas this is probably a laughable accomplishments. They sigh a little, maybe giggle a little, and do that little indulgent smile as they pat my back. Those mommas who don’t do cloth will be like “Really? But WHY?”

Except for when Mason transfer to our bed at about midnight he has been completely and utterly in cloth since we got home from work Tuesday afternoon. And I’ve been keeping count! In that time we have saved 21 disposable diapers. That’s almost a half a package of size twos. Even before this we didn’t do full all-day cloth on our off days, probably about half of the diaper changes a day were cloth.

I know I mentioned previously that we were using gDiapers, but…
I don’t know what happened. The more I read up on cloth, especially now that I’d gotten my toes wet, I didn’t like them so much. Not to mention after only a month mine had taken some serious beatings getting used so much. The velcro had stopped being so sticky and it caused the tabs to sort of stick out some and he was getting really red painful looking spots where they pushed in to his sides/back. Even when I loosened the tabs enough to make the diaper almost useless. We still use them – mainly just at nap time and when I lay him in his bed from 7:30ish to midnight – I just put them on backwards.

Basically now we just use prefolds 90% of the time. I fold one into thirds and set it in another and use a snappie to hold it all together. It worked for my mom all the years she diapered us (she used cloth as well) and my momma won’t suffer using things that don’t work, so I figured it was good enough for me. And it is. I am loving this. I still want to pick up some covers because with this method we have to either switch to the gDiapers or disposables when we go out of the house, but I am so much happier with this. *knock on wood* We have yet to have a single blowout this way, and with Mason having those start of teething poops that’s a big deal. I change his diaper about every two hours (unless I notice it needs it before then) and he hasn’t ever completely soaked through.

The kids all think he looks adorable. Especially since we tie dyed three that we use as the out layer, and we got a green homemade tie dyed prefitted from a friend. John prefers the just plain white on the outside, but I think that’s mainly just due to his aversion to tie dye. lol

I think we’ve found what make us happy, it’s easy and cheap – especially since we just primarily use the 2 dozen prefolds we have and they only cost like $18 total – and it works.

Mostly Wordless Wednesday

My Parents Day Out class tie dyed shirts yesterday. I had just about 1/2 a bottle of each color leftover so I brought them home to use up instead of tossing the leftover. So we all did shirts too. (Well, the boys did – Bella and I already had in class) Bella and I did some prefolds. And I did a cute halter I have that had a stain on it.

My poor back yard cement area will probably never be the same again.

And after two tie dye sessions I don’t think my poor hands will either.

But I’d say it was worth it.

Oh… and lastly, my black and white for this week.

linking it up: here, here, here, and here (though Heidi’s isn’t up… lol)

Pout.

linking here and here