Tutorial - How to make your own cloth wipes

This is my first tutorial, so if it's awful. oh well, deal with it ^_^. Anyways, I found out a couple of days ago that Blake has apparently developed an allergy to disposable wipes (Like the Huggies or Pampers brands). So, Along with cloth diapering, we are now going to be using cloth wipes! I didn't feel like spending money to buy them, and I figured I know how to sew so I'd see if I could make some myself. After talking to some of my cloth diaper mommies on a couple of forums that I'm on, I took the plunge and just went for it. 

I headed for Johann's Fabric Store (love that place!), and lucky me, all of the flannel was on sale! Yay! I got 3/4 of a yard of 4 different patterns of flannel (Blue solid, white with dots, green jungle, and green/yellow stripes). This was enough to make 48 two-layer flannel wipes. I put the solid blue an the white with dots together, and the green jungle with the green and yellow stripes. Cute right? The photos are mostly of the blue and white combo since I did that one first. Anyways, take your two layers of flannel and lay them flat, putting the wrong sides (The less fuzzy or dimmer side of the pattern) together. I made 6x6 inch wipes, and they are great, but next time I think I'm going to do 8x8". I'll get less wipes from the fabric this way, but the wipes will be bigger. This is a lot better for people with larger hands (i.e. Pat), more coverage that way ;) Pin the fabric together..

Use a ruler or measuring tape and measure out whatever size wipes you want and pin at the measurements (either 6x6 or 8x8 or 8x6, your choice). (See below) 

Cut right next to the pins, right at the intervals that you measured out.

When you're cutting the flannel, you want to overlap your cuts, so that you know what the intervals that you need to cut are, even after the pinned areas are already cut off. Make sense?

See? Here's the first square that I cut off, from the corner. See the overlapped cuts so that I know where to cut for the next square? Easy-peasy. 

Just keep doing that, cutting squares at the intervals that you have measured, until you have a little pile of squares like this. Make sure you pin at least the centers so that the two layers stay together.

See my nice little piles of almost wipeys? 

Next, set your sewing machine to the middle zigzag stitch. Too big and I don't think that they will stick together too well, too small, same thing. If you're like me, and don't have a serger (boohoo), sewing with the zigzag stitch on your machine will work fine. However, something I learned along the way. Don't sew your wipes with the stitching completely on the fabric like this...

... Because when you wash them, the edges will fray and while it doesn't affect the way they work, it does make them look a little ratty. And for someone OCD like me, that's a little bothersome. Anyways, Instead of sewing them like that ^, sew them with one side of the zigzag on the fabric, and the other side JUST over the side, so that it doesn't punch into the fabric, but still gathers itself together. It looks a little more like a serger did it, and it's a lot cleaner after going through the washer and dryer. I don't think any of the wipes that I sewed this way frayed at all! Plus, it just looks nicer, see?

After sewing 48 of this little things, all four sides (which is 192 sides if you're interested), I was DONE sewing for a little while. But now I have wipes that don't have all that crap that disposables have in them (kinda like cloth and disposable diapers, imagine that!), and they are cute to boot (ditto)! 

Blue/white + dots

Green jungle animals/green, yellow, and white stripes.

Aren't they cute? And much better for Blake's skin, which was the point. Plus, when we're done using them as wipes, they can be used as rags, or wash clothes, or whatever. Cool way to recycle right? And it's just that much less crap we're putting into a landfill every year. I mean, I'm not all green or whatever, but if I can help out our planet a little just by not dumping lots of baby poo and everything that comes with that into a landfill to sit there for thousands of years (since they take forever to decompose), then I'll do it! Hope that wasn't too confusing. Until next time! <3

So, not a whole lot to write about today. No crafts or long posts or pics today, just a little update. I've been shopping around for home insurance for our NEW HOUSE!! Anyways, I hate insurance companies, they're obnoxious. They ask all the questions and are like "Wow, so many great discounts! We're saving you tons of money!" This is after I'd already spoken with two other insurance companies, one of which was like $400 less than that one! How does that make sense? Anyways. We had our inspection on Friday, and our inspector was raving about how good of a shape the house is in! There is only one problem. The breaker boxes, which are probably original breakers from when the house was built in 1974, are made by a company who has been proven to have faulty wiring and such. So we have to get the whole 200 amp box replaced if we want it to be safe. BUT, we got a $1000 price break on our purchase price, so it's just part of our expense of buying the house. But other than that, there's pretty much NOTHING wrong with the house, which makes me really happy! So we're probably going to be closing on or around July 9th, so I really hope that we can do that by then! My wonderful brother and sister in law are going to be coming up for my father-in-law's wedding, and I really want to be moved in (Or close to it) by the time they are here so that they can stay with us! I think that would be awesome. Plus, did I mention that we're getting kittens?! But we can't have them until we move to our new house, because we can't have pets at our apartment =[ More on them later! That's it for today! Until next time! <3

I know it's been, well, forever since I've posted, but it's been a little crazy here! Since July, Blake has learned to walk and feed himself. My baby is growing up, he turned one year old in February, and is now 16 months old already! We also took a 2 week vacation to California for Christmas, Pat and I celebrated our first year of marriage in April, and we are now in the process of closing on our first house! So, a lot has happened.  Here are a couple of pictures, just to show you how big Blake's gotten and show you a snapshot into our life!

Blake was a monkey for his first halloween, and was adorable! Funny story.. Even though my sister-in-law and best friend, Kristen, lives in North Carolina, she dressed her son in the exact same outfit for his first halloween that night! How crazy is that?

Family picture at the Monterey Bay Aquarium in Monterey, California. We went there with my parents and sisters to visit my brothers and their wives, and we had a blast! This trip to the aquarium was a huge, full family trip, and Blake loved it! He even touched a starfish!

Blake completely destroyed his birthday cake. It was a two layer chocolate on chocolate cake. At first he was really unsure about what he was supposed to do with it, but he figured it out pretty fast.

My guys after Blake's first hair cut (I had just cut Pat's hair too). Aren't they a good looking bunch? I'm a lucky girl

Married for one year, and we both got iPhones! My mom was great and kept Blake overnight, so we got to go out, have some fun, then come home and have the night for just us! It was nice.

 

And oh yeah, Blake loves video games, just like his parent's do.

Here's half of my stash of cloth diapers! Aren't they cute? If you'd asked me a year ago what I thought about cloth diapers, and if I would ever do it, I'd say they were gross and NO! However, Blake has a really sensitive little tush, and I was either preventing or treating a diaper rash, and I got sick of it! The last straw was when his little booty was so sore that I couldn't even wash him with water without him crying, so I talked with a friend of mine who CDs her daughter, she educated me a little, and we made the big switch! Is it gross? Yeah, but it's about the same as changing a disposable diaper, PLUS these save you money! We were spending $60+ on diapers EVERY MONTH! Since buying my stash, we haven't bought any diapers! In 5 months!! That's savings of $150 so far (we would have spent over $300 on diapers in that time, instead we only spent that $150 on cloth diapers, and they are reusable, that's a one time cost)! Plus, with these ones it's practically the same as using a disposable when putting it on the baby. I'll do a post going into cloth diapers a little bit more at a later date, but I'm pretty passionate about it. I mean, I totally would have used them from the time that Blake was a newborn if I'd been more educated. I, like so many other people in this world, thought that the big flat diapers that you have to fold, secure with pins, then cover with plastic ugly pants were it for the cloth diapering world! My, was I wrong!! Anyways, enough of my rambling on that subject, I'll save it for a later post.... But here's my diapers, again, aren't they cute?!

And my little man! This was just today, so it's the most recent picture I have of him. Huge, right? He walks, and talks, and I love him to death! He's still a major pain in the butt, but a cute one, so we put up with him ;)

Anyways, now that you're all caught up.. I really am planning on keeping up with this blog now. I have new inspiration, plus I want to do tutorials and such on my projects! I've been following several other blogs, and just really wanted to work on mine and keep it going, and hopefully everything that's happening in my life now will help me keep up some good and new material! So, until next time! <3

Starting (sort-of) solids!

So Blake's been eating solids (that's what they supposedly are lol) for about a month now, and he loves it! He tried oatmeal first. That turned out pretty messy |
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But he loves it! He'll eat a whole (little) bowl full if you give it to him! But we don't, because he wouldn't eat anything else after that, and solids (or the mushyfied version of them) shouldn't be the main part of a babies meal until they are close to 1 year old. There's a little bit of edumacation for those of you who don't have kids.

      Soooooo, after about 3 weeks of feeding him only cereal, I broke out my blender and started making big batches of baby food! It's so much fun, I love it! So far I've cooked and pureed* (and he's tried) green beans, carrots, bananas, apples, and sweet potatoes. He loves his carrots and sweet potatoes. Green beans not so much, but we're going to keep trying them and eventually I'm hoping that he'll like them just as much as his mommy does! He's likes his bananas and apples too, but I think that they apples might be too strong of a taste for him because he always makes a funny face when he eats them (and yes, they taste fine, I tried them, yum!). I love getting to feed him some real food, it's exciting, and fun! And I love letting him try new things and seeing what his reactions to them are! 

Here he is after trying carrots for the first time (he got very carried away, and kept grabbing at the bowl, the spoon, his mouth, trying to get more of the carrots past his little lips!)

      On top of the pureed food, we are trying a form of solid feeding called "Baby Led Weaning." This is where you give your baby larger chunks of solid food to let them chew on (or gum rather). This is supposed to teach them how to chew before swallowing, whereas normal spoon feeding the mush teaches a baby how to swallow and then learn how to chew later. It's confusing. Anyways, BLW is a lot of fun, and Blake is a huge fan. He likes to put whatever is in his hands (or near them that he can grab fast) in his mouth to knaw on, so BLW is working for us! He's tried banana chunks and french fries to far, but it's so much easier than spoon feeding (and surprisingly less messy) so once he's a little bit better at getting the food into his mouth, we might just graduate to all BLW (even though I do enjoy mixing up all those purees to feed him!). 

     I've been going to this website for all of my baby food recipes and questions: 

http://wholesomebabyfood.momtastic.com/

It has a wealth of information on there about what foods to feed at what age, which nutrients are in which fruits and veggies, what you shouldn't give your child until a certain age, what high allergy foods you should avoid at young ages, ect... It's amazing how much information on a certain topic you can find on one site! I love how I can go on there, and normally find an article on whatever my question about baby food is within minutes! It's very organized (which my OCD little self needs), and it's got pretty much everything there, even the BLW strategies! 

I also love this site: 

http://www.babyledweaning.com/

It's all about purely BLW. There are a bunch of adorable pictures of babies (even as young as Blake!) stuffing their faces with all sorts of real foods! We first started BLw because Blake now reaches for whatever I happen to be eating, whether it's a spoonful of cereal, a chicken nugget, or a cheesburger, he thinks he HAS to have it! So one night I got sick of fighting my french friends away from him and caved. I figured that they are just potatoes, so it can't really hurt him. So far, I haven't given him anything that I wouldn't give him in a puree, just to be safe. I'm still learning about this whole BLW thing, so I want to take my time and experiment a little bit with it. However, I think it will be nice, especially as he gets older, to transition fully to BLW. The main reason being that I can just make food for Pat and I, and just portion out a little bit especially for Blake. That will be such a timesaver! I've excited to keep trying it! 

So there's my little low down on feeding babies real food (just in case you really wanted to know all that random stuff). It's totally fun, but at the same time it's just another reminder that my little wittle baby is growing up =[ Did you know that in about 3 weeks he's going to be a whole half of a year old?! Time is passing too fast! I try to take advantage of being able to pick him up when I want to, put him down and be sure that the most he'll move is just to roll onto his belly. I'm enjoying being able to cuddle him to death, and knowing that he's loving it instead of pushing me away going "oh moooommmmm." Even when he's driving me nuts and is so stuck up my butt that I can't get anything else done because he wants to be held the whole day, I try to remember that he's only going to be this little for so long (and it's not going to be much longer =[ ) so I need to enjoy this whole time while he's my little baby, because before I know it, he's going to be grown, graduated, and off raising a family of his own. Sniff.. Ok, there's my sentimental moment for the day, so with that thought, I'm going to say goodbye. Goodbye ;)

glossary: mashed so much that you can't really tell what it is, and there aren't any chunks in it that your baby can choke on

So this is random, but it made me laugh so...

I was bored today, and wanted some more pictures of me with Blake. However, I'm not a fan of the normal smiley pictures, so I played around with photobooth on my computer! Here's how some of them turned out!

So this is us..

He loved looking at himself on the computer

Um, not sure...

This is what I would look like with twins, eek!

(except imagine a more tired, hazard, hectic mom, and that would be accurate)

Ahh, an alien baby!! 

( I had a nightmare about that while I was pregnant.. It was not pretty)

Just mah baby <3

And this is what he would like like if he was chunkier (still totally adorable!)

I know, I know, I'm weird. But hey! It was fun, and we got some cute(ish) pictures out of it! =]

Intros: Me and my little family.

So, since you're here, you probably want to know about me (or maybe you just want to waste as much of your time reading this post as I did writing it, your choice). Well, we'll start with me, and then I'll ramble a bit about my two boys (Hubs and our little man).

Me: Here's me..

at 1 year old =D

And here's me..

Now (rather, 3 months ago, but whatever)

So, a little bit about me: 

* My name is Stephanie Harris (duh)

* I'm 19 years old

* I'm 5 feet, 4 inches tall

* I love dancing (especially formal ballet classes)

* I love my family. They are insane but I love them (all of them lol)

* I love my two boys even more than I love the rest of my family (which is fair, I'm married to one, and          grew the other)

* I'm married to a wonderful guy who I know will stand by me through anything, and even though he can sometimes be a jerk (He IS a guy, after all), he's my best friend, I love him to death, and I can't imagine my life without him.

* I am scared of snakes, spiders, sharks, heights, and the dark. Probably a couple more things too, but those are what I can think of right now.

*I really want to be a maternity ward nurse. The Registered Nurse degree is hard, and it's really difficult to be accepted into a good nursing program, but I'm determined to do it!

* I act confident and extroverted, but I'm not sure of myself or what I'm doing the majority of the time and I actually prefer to be alone or with several people who I'm close with.

* I'm very loyal to people who are loyal to me. But if you piss me off, are rude to me, or talk crap about me and the people I love, watch out, because the inner me can be quite terrible.

Okay, on to my hottie of a hubby!

This past April I married the love of my life, Patrick. It was an amazing day, so perfect. Although most of it was a blur, I remember the look in his eyes, and the slight crack in his voice as we committed our lives to each other (sweet =] ).

So here he is!

Oh, do I love this man! He's awesome! I couldn't have gotten any luckier. He's the perfect match for me.

So a couple of facts about my Honey:

* He is 19 years old (today!)

* He is 5 feet, 11 inches tall

* He not only loves working on and playing with cars, but he's also really good at it

* He works really hard to support his family

* He's mature for his age (most of the time, he has his moments)

* He's very quite until you get to know him, but once you get him talking about something that he's interested in, he won't shut up =]

* He has this hat that he wears pretty much all the time. When our son first started recognizing faces, he wouldn't wouldn't recognize Pat when Pat wasn't wearing that hat!

And now for my baby!

Blake is almost 5 months old and is the other love of my life. Being a mom is the hardest job I've ever had. It's the most physically trying (lack of sleep), mentally (again the lack of sleep, plus the constant worry of if you are raising your kid right), and emotionally (add the two previous and you get an emotional wreck). But, it's also the most rewarding experience I've ever had in my life.

Here's my baby boy!

Isn't he cute? I sure think so. That face normally makes my day, especially when he smiles at me. Yeah, sure, he can be a huge pain in the butt sometimes, but most of the time I love him to bits. He love his cuddles, especially from his mommy, and he's got a gorgeous smile.  He eats like a little piglet, but he's not super chunky (yet). I can't wait to see how he grows and learns and changes (sniff sniff) throughout his life. It's exciting and terrifying, and it'll will be an adventure!

So, that's me and my little family! We're crazy, but close. We're small, but mighty. And we grow and learn more about ourselves with each new day.

Hi, welcome, and "disclaimer"

So, because I'm a stay at home mom, I decided to start this blog. It's mostly for me to waste my time on when I have nothing else to do. Well, that's a lie. I always have something to do. So to make that more accurate, I made this blog to waste my time on when my son, Blake, is asleep and I'd rather not be doing laundry, dishes, paperwork, cleaning, or otherwise making myself useful. And because stalking people on Facebook and reading the whattoexpect.com forums only is interesting for so long. And if you end up reading it, and not thinking it's totally pointless, then awesome! So, hi. Welcome to my blog. I might ramble a bit (or a lot, because I'm good at it), might talk about issues that are important to me. I might end up monologuing about my family, my two guys, who are my world. I might rant on here (so BEWARE!). And if, after reading that disclaimer, you still want to read about me and my life, then you are very welcome to do so. So here we go on my very first ever blogging (or attempt at it) adventure!