Summer Reading Challenge

Our library is doing an adult summer reading program during the month of July.  There are nine prompts to choose from and as you finish one you submit an entry that will put you in drawings for prizes. There are small drawings every week and then a big one on July 31st.  You can only enter and entry for each prompt once. I thought this would be a good way for me to branch out a little bit, plus I like prizes.   Here are the prompts: 1. Reread a book you loved as a child. 2. Tackle the classic you "cliff-noted" in high school. 3. Discover a book of poetry and read some aloud. 4. Read a book written the year you were born. 5. Hoosier connection: read something about Bloomington or Indiana or by a Hoosier author. 6. Choose an author or the setting of a book that is foreign to you. 7. Play opposite day: Try nonfiction if you usually choose fiction or vice versa. 8. Spend an aimless hour exploring the Main Library, Ellettsville Library or Bookmobile or wandering the website. And/or ask a librarian to show you a reader's advisory database. 9. Find a book about an exercise or diet you have never tried and try it. (gluten free? tex-mex? yoga? chair exercises?) Here are the ones I've done so far: 1. Reread a book you loved as a child. The Boxcar Children  by Gertrude Chandler Warner I loved this book, and the rest of the series, when I was younger.  There was just something about it that would fire up my imagination; it was the ultimate way to play house.  Sometimes I would pretend our bunk bed was a boxcar that I was living in.  It was fun to read it again and remember how much I loved it when I was younger. 6. Choose an author or the setting of a book that is foreign to you. Sofia Petrovna by Lydia Chukovskaya This is a story based on the experiences of the author and her friends and family during the Great Purge in Russia during the late 1930s.  Sofia Petrovna works in a publishing house as a typist when various acquaintances and other workers disapear and are accused to being traitors to the Communist party.  Sofia's son is taken and she spends her days standing in long lines at the prosecutors office hoping to hear any news of him.  It was fascinating and heartbreaking to read what kind of experiences people in the Soviet Union went through, all the uncertainty when what you believed in all the sudden doesn't make any sense and takes your family away.

Christmas in June

Ponies at Wheeler Farm with Aunt Leah

For our Christmas gift this past Christmas Ryan's parents said they would fly the four of us out for a visit to see our families.  We opted to taken them up on it after the end of the semester when there was a little less craziness and nicer weather, well the weather wasn't as nice as we thought it would be but it was a great time all the same. Since it was our first time being back since we moved to Indiana we had a lot of visits to make with family and good friends, and of course some of our favorite places.  We'd been hyping thing up with Lauren for months hoping that see would be excited to see a bunch of fun things, like the Hogle Zoo, Wheeler Farm, Temple Square, BYU (that wasn't for Lauren that was for Ryan and I). We wanted to check out some more things but figured we were trying too hard, all Lauren really wanted to do was play at grandma's house with toys, chase balls in the grass, and follow grandma's cat. Lauren did get to have her birthday party while we were out there, which she has been looking forward to and talking about for months.  Every time we talked about going to Utah she would talk about her party with cupcakes and do a little dance.  So we had a party with cupcakes and even some balloons, which are always a big hit with her.

Supervising the sheep

   We had a great time being out there with our families again and the girls were great little travelers.  We even got through airport security ok with us and all our loads of bags, car seats, stroller, and other miscellaneous whatever.  One sad travel event though, we suffered a little casualty on the way back coming through the airport, our beloved Piggy.  I'll have to write about that in another post though.

   Thank you Woolsey Mom and Dad for the great Christmas present!  It was a great trip!

 

Who knew these were at Wheeler Farm?

This is what Rachel did everywhere we went

I think Lauren wanted to see the temple more than anything else.  She
was so excited to touch it and see the big Angel Moroni on top.

The zoo was supposed to be really fun but thanks to the new
animatronic dinosaurs she spent the whole time fearing for her life.

Making cupcakes with Grandma Merkley

Attempt at family picture

Typical shot of the girls, Rachel crying and Lauren is mad because
Rachel is touching her.

 

Lauren's new birthday outfit of choice.
Thanks Sarah, Steven, and Jacqui!

Lauren and her birthday loot

Our Own Little Piece of Indiana...

  sort of, actually we are renting it.  All the same we are pretty excited about it. We decided that this year we wanted to rent a community garden plot and then I got really ambitious and decided to rent two! One is about 200 sq. ft. and the other is 100 sq. ft.  The first time we went to the garden I was already regretting renting one at all.  As soon as we started working Rachel started crying so spent most the time nursing her in the car and then the rest of the time she just wanted to be held, luckily Lauren was happy to dig in the dirt with her own little shovel and rake.  We have discovered since then that the best time to go is when Rachel wants to take a nap then Ryan and I can both get things done.  Lauren has been really great in the garden.  She loves to plant seeds and dig.

Our smaller plot

Our tomatoes :)

Hopefully our plants survive all the torrential downpours.

We also got to Utah just in time to help Grandpa Woolsey plant his garden...

Likes to feel the dirt between her toes

She's a natural

Three Years

 Tuesday May 3rd marked a wonderful three years for us.  It has been a pretty awesome, adventure filled three years. I love Ryan, he is wonderful! :)
 
Our Highlights:

• Trip to Zion (just us, someday we'll be able to do a trip like that again)
• Birth of Lauren
• Both of us graduated from BYU
• We moved to Indiana
• Birth of Rachel
• Ryan is now half way through grad school (yay!)

On top of Angels Landing in Zion Ntnl. Park

Graduation from BYU 

The day we brought Lauren home from the hospital

Rachel's blessing day

Happy Easter

 So we have had a great and rainy Easter weekend.  Here are a few pictures:

Dying eggs, Lauren thought this part was pretty cool

  

Skirts from Sarah 

Every time the skirt started to slip Lauren would pull it
up to her armpits

Easter dresses from grandma

 

Goal #1: Cloth Diapers

Since it was Earth Day on Friday, I’ll start off talking about this goal. This will probably be way more information than most of you want to know, so if you don’t care to know then skip this post and conclude to yourself that we've turned into a bunch of hippies. If you are interested though here it is…

We actually didn’t start cloth diapers because we wanted to be more environmentally friendly, though that is an added benefit, basically we’re just poor. I've thought a little bit about using cloth diapers before but my biggest hang-ups were not knowing anyone that used them (aside from parents and grandparents), not wanting to turn our washing machine into a poop can, and they seemed hard to use and time consuming, not to mention gross. Around the time Lauren was born my older sister started using them, then I started to find out about other friends or neighbors that used them. I wrote a couple of websites down but didn't really have the time to do much research. The first month after Rachel was born diapers for both girls got kind of expensive. Doing the math, we would save over $1000 a year by switching to cloth diapers. Money, in this
case, turned out to be a good motivator, so I started researching. In two and half months of researching and trying different things out, I feel like I've learned a lot and we are starting to get into a pretty good groove. After starting a stopping with Lauren a couple times, we've now had her in cloth diapers for  about three weeks. Yay

If you care to know, here are a few things I’ve learned and a few links to get more information
that I found to be really helpful:

First of all if you are handy with a sewing machine you may consider making your own cloth diapers, cloth wipes and wet bags. I know a few people that have done that and say it is much cheaper than buying them, plus you can customize them to whatever works best for your kid. Since I don’t have a sewing machine, nor am I handy with one, we bought ours. Our budget is structured in a way that I only have a certain amount allotted for baby stuff each month, so I have built up what we have over the course of a few months. It has been kind of nice to do it this way because I've been able to hit a lot more sales and try a few different things.

While looking up cloth diapers the variety is pretty overwhelming. It’s difficult to know what will work. A lot of it is really just a preference issue, if you want something really fast and easy (similar to a disposable) or if you don’t mind having to fold a cloth and then wrap it around your baby’s bum, or if you want something in between. It also depend on what works for your kid. Regardless of what kind you get though, they will be more bulky than disposables; that’s just the nature of them. We use several different kinds and they have all worked pretty well on Lauren. They are all "One-size" which means they have adjustable snaps so the diaper can get bigger as your child gets bigger. The only problem I have found with these is that Rachel still doesn't fit into them very well yet, granted she is pretty small and skinny. So depending on how big your newborns typically are you may want to get some newborn cloth diapers. There are several newborn options that that will fit babies from around 5 lbs. up to 10 or 15 lbs. By the time they are 10 to 15 lbs. they should fit into the "one-size" diapers pretty well.

The websites I've been on recommend 20-24 cloth diapers for newborns (if you wash them every other day), and then you can get by with less as your child gets older. Lauren, for instance only goes through about 5-6 a day, and I wash diapers about every other day. I've got about 26 “one- size” diapers though because both Lauren and Rachel will be using them.

Since we are now to the point that I haven’t had to buy disposables in a couple months, I’m actually really glad that we switched to cloth diapers. Call me crazy but I get a lot of satisfaction out of throwing a load of diapers into the washing machine and using them again, as opposed to paying around $100 bucks for disposables that are all going to be thrown away. I think it has been a pretty good investment and that it will now start paying off. We've spent around $250 total on everything we have (cloth diapers, cloth wipes, wet bags, detergent) and I feel like we have plenty for both girls.

Here are the websites I've used and found to be really helpful. Most of them also have really good general information on types of cloth diapers and how to use them. There are also reviews on products which I found incredibly helpful. All of these websites sell several kinds of diapers, wipes and other diapering accessories:

www.clothdiaperclearance.com Has various items on clearance, overstock, and seconds
www.cottonbabies.com This company manufactures BumGenius, Flip, and Econobum and has free shipping to anywhere in the US
www.simplewondersdiapers.com
www.jilliansdrawers.com Sells various new and gently used diapers (Gently used have been used for 21 days or less)
www.kellyscloset.com Always has some kind of sale or coupon (Check under the coupon tab near the top of the screen). Sometimes has gently used diapers for sale.

If you have some money to put into it, Jillian's Drawers and Kelly's Closet (the bottom two websites) have sample packages that let you try several kinds of diapers for a few weeks and then return any you don't like for a full refund. Used is also a really good way to go if you want to try several different kinds and don’t have a lot of money up front. The websites all have pretty good return policies but be sure and read them closely.

Goals

Even though it is way past the beginning of the year I felt like actually writing down (or typing) a few goals that I have for this year:

1) Get both girls in cloth diapers
2) Eat / Cook Healthier for myself and family
3) Exercise on a regular basis

I figure three is plenty especially since these will all take a fair amount of time and thought. I’ll try and make posts occasionally with details about they are going and if I find anything that does or does not work really well. I’d also really appreciate any comments, suggestions or recipes that have worked well for anyone else.