Recipe - Chicken & Rice Casserole

Tonight we're having chicken and rice casserole, so I thought it'd be a good opportunity to share the "recipe".  I put the word recipe in quotes only because it's a bit on approximations, but that makes it easy to remember.  It is also what you'd call "semi-homemade".  This means it's a combination of packaged and fresh ingredients.  Make no mistake, this recipe is pretty high calorie, and may not present well for anything formal, but it makes a great hot, comforting meal for a family.  Also, because of the approximations used in the recipe, it is easy to double.  The directions below will be for a family of two, or two plus a toddler!  It takes approximately 10 minutes to assemble and an hour to cook and cool.

You will need:

1 box Rice A Roni (used Creamy Four Cheese tonight)
Butter
1 can cream of chicken, or cream of chicken and mushroom, or cream of mushroom depending on preference
8 oz sour cream
Grated cheddar (or other cheese of choice)
Water
2 breasts of chicken
Broccoli (optional)

First, brown the Rice a Roni with butter per the box instructions.  Once browned, pour rice into a square baking dish.

Meanwhile, mix together the can of cream of chicken soup, approximately 8 oz (or eyeball half a 16 oz container), the flavor packet from the Rice a Roni,  approximately 1 cup of grated cheddar cheese, and half the water indicated on the box of rice instructions.  Whisk this together and pour over the rice mixture.  Give a loose mix, just to get the grains of rice mixed a little.

Then, rinse and dry the chicken breasts and place them on top of the mixture.  In most cases the chicken will sink below the liquid level, but if not, spoon a bit of soup mix on top so the chicken is covered.

Tonight I did a side of vegetables, but sometimes I add broccoli to the casserole.  In this case I cut the pieces into flowerettes and stick them in the soup sauce between and around the chicken.  Again I spoon some of the mixture on top so that the surfaces are covered.  This just helps things get cooked more evenly.

Lastly I add another cup or so of grated cheese to the top and cover tightly with foil.  Bake at 375 for 45 minutes.  Then remove the foil cover and cook another 5 to 10 minutes.  Remove from oven and let sit at least 5 minutes or more before serving.

 The finished product is a bit soupy, but like I said before, it tastes so good and it's such a warm comfort food you won't complain!

Linen Closet Organizing...

Call it spring cleaning or call it nesting, either way I have been wanting to clean out our linen closets for some time.  We have two in our hallway, one you would designate for towels since it's closer to the bathroom, and one that would be bed linens.  These lines became a bit grayed, items were folded and stuffed in any which way, and it had been driving me nuts for months.

Our closets had not been relined since we moved in.  The previous owner had lined the shelves with this horrid floral tack paper.  They didn't even bother taking out the tacks from the liner before that!  The edges were all peeling up because the paper was only attached to the tops of the shelves, not wrapped around the front or anything.  You can see a sample of how this looked in the picture of the other linen closet below.

Finally I'd had enough.  I consulted my resident expert, Martha Stewart, on the best approach to cleaning up our act.  I had my birthday recently and I'd put a few of her books on my Wish List, one being her Homekeeping Handbook.  For closets she recommends taking inventory of what you have first, getting rid of items you haven't used in a few months.  Then for towels, sort the items by room then by size.  We have two bathrooms, the master and the hall bath.  We had a million old towels from even college days, so it felt so good to get rid of them.  I saved a few to put in our fish tank and I used one old one for pieces I'll eventually try to make wipes out of.  Other than that it left two sets for the master, and two sets for the hall bath.  Also in the hall bath I needed to include baby hooded towels and washcloths.

I removed all remnants of the previous inhabitants, and lined the shelves in plain white.  Then, I went and got media storage baskets to hold the washcloths.  The master hand towels and washcloths are in a DVD basket on the second shelf and the baby washcloths are the right width for a CD basket on the fourth shelf between the two types of towels for the hall bath.  We have space at the bottom of this closet to store our random sleeping bags, and the top shelf is holding our TP, tissues, and baby bath seats.  The space at the top of the closet is under utilized for sure.  Perhaps an additional shelf in the future might be nice.  We even have one more shelf I could put more items in (I put our case of wipes there for now), but since the closet has such a nice clean look at the moment, I don't want to randomly stuff anything in there.

I've taken the first step with the bed linen closet (status seen in top picture above) and cleaned out the items we don't use anymore, but that's as far as I've taken it as of today.  That might be my Sunday project!

Wipe Making...

Last night I finished my first batch of home-made baby wipes.  I chose to make the majority of them out of flannel.  I showed you the original fabric selection in this post, although I also cut up one of the receiving blankets we received at the birth of our son that we rarely used.  All the wipes I've made so far have been dual layered.  I put some "knit jersey" fabric on the back of some.  I even cut up pieces of an old towel to put terry cloth on a couple.  The rest are dual layered flannel.

I chose to cut 8 and a half inch sized squares.  This size allows for an approximately 8 inch square wipe, large enough to cover your hand.  I used the technique of sewing the two squares right sides together.  Then I trimmed the corners, leaving a few inches un-sewn so that I could then turn the wipe inside (or right-side) out.  I pressed the wipe and top stitched the entire outside to hold it together.  In some cases I tested out the zig zag stitch on my lovely machine (which I definitely need more practice using).  I think the end result looks pretty, but function becomes the next discussion.

Lastly I washed and dried the wipes and folded them to fit in a Huggies disposable wipe container.  Again, my praise goes to YouTube and to the maker of this video, a great demonstration of how to fold, store, and use home-made wipes.  I ended up with 12 wipes to start.  This will work for the time being since my son doesn't need many diaper changes a day, but when the infant arrives this will be inadequate.

I saved a few pieces of the receiving blanket as well as the old towel to try a completely new technique I'll have to blog about later.  When I was looking for instructions on how to make wipes, I found a few designs that suggested using a serger or overlock machine.  I happened to ask around and a good friend of my mother in-law had one she'd never used.  To be honest it's still in the box, but that's on my list of things to try before the baby arrives.  In any case, with the serger I can make single layered wipes, rounded edges, I look forward to experimenting.

See, single layered wipes might work best, especially with the terry cloth model.  I used one of the dual flannel ones today with the morning change.  This was just a pee diaper though, so it wasn't very messy.  In any case, I use an eight ounce travel bottle with pull nozzle to store the wipe solution.  I have a Clean B concentrate that I then add water to.  The solution did not absorb into the wipe quickly.  This makes me want to change my solution container to a spray bottle as suggested by the YouTube video.

Prefolding...

While I have branched out to the more fancy diapering systems, I still rely on my good ol' prefolds with a simple cover.  We were given the gift of a diaper service when our son was first born, and we were so spoiled with it, as well as scared to have to wash poopy diapers on our own, that we keep the service up for the first 18 months of his life.  Using a prefold does come with a learning curve, but when you change 10 to 14 diapers a day, you get the hang of it quickly.  Infants are relatively cooperative with diaper changes.  They may cry, but they hardly squirm, so you can install a prefold when they're lying down.  If you're curious what the standard wear looks like, watch these videos.  They cover how to diaper a boy and how to diaper a girl.  In general the technique is the same.

I, however, do not have an infant.  In fact, I don't even use the changing table anymore.  This is actually good so I can move it into the nursery for baby girl to use when she arrives.  I have a toddler who loves to test mommy's patience when it comes to diaper changing time.  He will lay down on occassion for Daddy or Yamma (grandma), but he pretty much refuses to lay down for me (unless I put an iPad in his hands).  So I've adapted, and learned to put on a diaper, using the same fold and Snappi, while he's standing up.

Basically I fold down the front of the diaper a few inches first, then fold the front into thirds.  I leave the back opened up.  Typically I add a flushable liner to catch poop, or in this case since he was getting ready for a nap, an extra insert for absorbency.





Most of the time my son will spread his legs some when I tell him to so I can get that diaper situated.  Then while he faces away from me, I use my knee to hold the back against his bottom and I can reach around the front, securing the sides of the back around the front with the Snappi clip.



In the case of this afternoon when these pictures were taken, I had a pull up variety cover, but you can use a similar technique when putting on a snap or aplix cover.  Pull up the pants, and boom, done.

We did have a recent episode with a bacterial infection, so I've been extra cautious the last few days when cleaning up after poop.  This standing up change doesn't really give you the best view of all the possible creases and cracks that might need cleaning.  So, I have been lying him down when there's a poop.  But, I did notice how shoddy my technique has become when putting the diaper back on in this position.  I'd better get practicing for when the infant needs me to change her!

Faster Drying...

Now this project was one where a simple idea, and a little too much time on the internet, snowballed into something way too complex.  I would go as far as to agree with my husband on this one, I'm a crazy person...

I was poking around, looking for solutions to hard water.  I came across this ball that has some magnet in it or something that causes some reaction to the compounds in the water, causing them to rinse away easier rather than build up on your clothes.  But really that doesn't matter.  That topic began my search about dryer balls.  Some people in my cloth diapering group brought up "eco friendly" or wool dryer balls, and how they got them on Etsy.  When you search on Etsy for wool dryer balls, you will be amazed how many there are available.  These balls cost anywhere from $5 to $8 a piece, and they recommend you use at least four for there to be any positive effect.  What effect are we talking about here?  The theory goes that these balls cause there to be air gaps and this speeds up drying time.  Also, dryer balls cause a small amount of friction that then decreases static.  I don't usually experience static with my diapers, but these balls can be used for all types of laundry.  So the price seemed steep to me, so I looked around for instructions on how to make your own.  Essentially all you need is 100% wool yarn and the patience to wrap this yarn into a ball.  Think this has gone far enough?  Oh boy, are you in for it now.  Some people don't buy new wool, but they do what's called "upcycling".  They take wool sweaters, unravel them, and use their yarn for other things.  I was going to go all in on this one, I was going to take it all the way.  That is what made me feel crazy, at many points along the way, as you'll see.

First I had to learn how the heck you unravel a sweater.  Turns out there are YouTube videos for everything, including one I highly recommend that teaches the proper technique.  Then I had to get the sweater to unravel.  I had visions of finding a sweater as awesome as the one unraveled in the before mentioned video, but that's not what happened.  I went to Goodwill, where sweaters weren't the $1 I was hoping.  After almost an hour flipping through rack after rack I narrowed down my choice to two sweaters, one chunkier light reddish number, and a neutral, much finer yarned merino wool sweater.  I went with the neutral colored sweater because I thought I could get more out of it, and it was the whole 50 cents cheaper, costing me $5.49.

I took the sweater apart as best I could.  Whenever a string would be broken, I'd just tie knots to connect the next strand.  I started off thinking I would unravel the sweater and then once the whole thing was unraveled I would then wind up the dryer balls.  Really this turned out to be more like double work, more craziness on my part...  I unraveled both front and back as well as the neck piece before realizing it would be easier to just unravel and wrap onto a ball in one effort.  Also, with the yarn being so fine, it was taking forever to get to the four to five inches in size that the directions were asking for.  I also began to realize I wasn't going to make the four or so balls out of the one sweater.  But, I'd started this project, I was going to finish!  I gathered three more packages of wool yarn from a fabric store and used a white to make the inner section of the balls.  I was going to make five in all.

After you have your four to five inch sized balls, you put them in a knee high and separate them with a tie of non-wool thread.  Then you wash on high and dry on high, to felt the wool.  It's sort of like taking a wool sweater and washing and drying it on high.  The fibers sort of shrink, soften, and stick together.  After felting once, you wrap more yarn to make the balls six to eight inches in size then repeat the washing/felting process.  Then, the balls are ready to use.  My finished products came out in varying sizes because of the yarn supply and my color choices.

I thought this would be a nice project because I'm really pregnant now, and sitting on the couch is pretty much what my evenings have entailed lately.  I figured I could wrap yarn in a ball while I sat here and it would be simple and satisfying.  I'd say now that I'm done it maybe had that effect, but there were many moments sitting here that I felt like I was losing my mind.  And is all the effort worth what I'll get out of it?  I will be drying diapers with these balls, especially soon because I can't hang dry in this weather, and I would like to try and decrease my energy consumption.  But, the idea I had in the beginning, of making these as gifts for friends because it seemed so quick and simple, not so much.  I'll pass on the info about how to make your own, that's my gift to you.

Here are the instructions if you're interested:

http://blog.bummis.com/2010/10/make-your-own-felted-wool-dryer-balls.html

Failing...

I started my leave on Friday, and so far I'm failing on all three of my leave resolutions.

First off, I have not blogged every day.  I don't want to say I'm running out of steam.  More like I have a few topics to blog about but I want to wait until the projects I'm working on are a little further along before reporting.

Secondly, I wanted to hang dry my diapers on laundry days.  Well, this one's not my fault, but it's raining cats and dogs here in Northern California so I'm handcuffed to using the dryer (I guess I could hang dry around the house, but I'm not that patient).

Lastly, I was hoping to take my son out on our first day together, but life has a way of throwing you a curve ball every now and then.  The rain makes it impossible to go do something outdoors, and bacterial infections that require a doctor's visit and a trip to the pharmacy keep you from checking out the local library...

Let's not also admit that we've had fast food for lunch the last two days also.  At least I have a home cooked meal planned for tonight!

Crib Decorating...

While we have most of the staples in place for the new baby, the baby's room is not complete from an organizational and design standpoint.  Luckily when we first repainted the bedrooms, I chose a light lavender colored paint for the nursery.  I guess back then I had wishful thinking we were going to have a girl.

Then, we were given a hand-me-down crib from a good friend.  This was a blessing because we're really not ready to move our son out of his crib yet, and this way his life doesn't have to have one extra disruption when the new baby gets here.  The new crib is white, while our son's is wood.  I am so excited to give the new crib its own look without having to spend a fortune.

The set up for our son was pretty simple.  We were given the crib that my husband, his siblings, and his cousins had actually been raised in.  For the age, this crib is in incredible shape.  While the bar spacing is not within the regulated requirements, I wasn't that concerned.  I had read not to use a bumper with an infant, so really I just used sheets that coordinated with the paint (at the time the nursery was a light orange because we did not know the gender of our first born until he arrived) and I used a mesh breathable bumper.  Then, I asked my grandfather to get us a USC horse mobile.  We also had a stuffed bear who contained a little sound box that made womb sounds.  Swaddling worked so well for us, that honestly our son didn't move much when he slept, and I'm sure we could have gotten away without the bumper entirely.  I haven't yet decided if I'm going to use it on the new crib or not.

However, I also wanted to change a few other things up as well.  I chose two themes of bedsheets.  One is a butterfly pattern with pinks and purples.  The other is a purple tulle pattern, which also goes with a green and purple tulle changing pad cover.  Above the crib I am planning to use these hanging butterflies from Land Of Nod instead of a mobile.  Lastly, I registered for a Fisher-Price Ocean Wonders Deep Blue Sea Soother.  Where the mobile we have is great if the baby is awake and just needs entertainment, it's not good for sleeping because the music and movement only last as long as you can keep it wound up.  This soother can play soothing ocean sounds or music for up to 18 minutes!  Maybe this new baby couldn't care less, but I thought it was too cool not to try.

The last detail is I ordered a white small wall shelf to put on the wall near the crib.  With our son, we just propped the baby monitor between the crib and the wall and it sort of sat there precariously.  Looking back if he was more mobile during this time, that could be a real danger with the cord hanging so close to reach. This new little white wall shelf will hold only light items, like the monitor, and maybe a tiny stuffed animal for looks.  My husband says this shelf will be tough to hang, and then won't be able to hold anything heavy.  That's OK though, that's not its purpose.

Swapping (Update #2)...

I had a second ThredUp box selected this evening!  I'm two for three at the moment.  This time the person chose my smallest box, clothing from three to six months in size.  I threw in an old-fashioned green Pooh lovie that Logan never got attached to.  This box is going to a family in Massachusetts who have a new baby on the way.  There is something really satisfying about knowing this is going to someone who will appreciate it.  This recipient even sent a note to me when they picked this box about how excited they were to receive it.

My first box was picked up this morning and this new one will be picked up tomorrow.  I can't wait to get my reviews when they're received!  This is just so exciting!

Swapping (Update)...

Ever since listing my boxes I've been intently watching my email inbox, waiting for the exciting moment when I would hear one of my boxes had been chosen.  Well, this morning was that moment!  My box of 9 to 12 month sized clothing was selected and will be going to live with a lovely family in Ohio.  It makes sense to me that this one would be the first picked since it clothes that were the largest sizes.  Typically you receive so many items at showers for a younger baby (hence why I had so many to give away) and by the time they've grown out of them they've hardly worn them at all.  My 9 to 12 month box also had the most items in it.  It did contain one shirt that had a couple stains on it, which was something that concerned me.  The shirt came with this pair of brown pants that as a coordinating outfit were absolutely adorable, so I felt like I needed to include it.  I just put a note on my listing that explained the situation and tried to make it as obvious as possible.  I also added a handwritten apology on my packing slip when I prepared the box for shipping this morning.

Once I got the email that my box was picked, I went on the website and printed out the packing slip and shipping label.  The sender's address is kept confidential, but of course since the box goes directly from the sender to the recipient, you can see the recipient's address.  You have to assume that everyone who participates in this swap is honest and well intentioned, but any risk really lies with the person ordering the box.

The pick up will be tomorrow.  Then it takes a few days to get there.  I hope I get a good rating!

Wet Bag Sewing...

I started and finished a project in one sitting!  I did watch videos and read instructions for a few days prior, but when it came down to actually assembling the wet bag it went really fast.  That did not mean that this project was without challenges though.

I had never sewn a zipper on anything in my life.  There's a zipper at the top of the bag.  I suppose there is a proper foot to put on a sewing machine to add the zipper, but I don't have one.  I watched a couple videos, pinned the PUL fabric, outside fabric, and zipper together and got started.  I guess this is where frustration #1 comes in.  PUL fabric is pretty uncooperative.  It stretches and slips around on fabric.  Then if it's the bottom layer, it sort of sticks to the sewing machine table as you're trying to feed it through the machine.  This caused puckers where I forced folds of PUL through the machine to keep things lined up, both with the zipper and also when sewing the sides together.  I tried to fix the sticking problem by putting a paper towel underneath the bag as I was sewing, and this helped a little.

I was so excited to assemble the zipper and the bag that I forgot how I wanted to add a strap for hanging the bag.  If I wanted to attach the strap discretely I should have tucked it in behind the zipper so the edges were hidden in the layers.  This was a total afterthought, so I added the strap to the outside.  It still functions well though.


All in all this project took me about two hours and I put my first dirty diaper in the bag at this evening's bath time.  That was my real reason for wanting this bag.  Every night I take off a wet diaper and I walk it to the laundry room.  The convenience of letting a few diapers build up on the back of the door just saves me a trip when soon, this trip will be more of a challenge.  And that also sort of has me excited about bathing two kids in the tub at the same time.  That moment is right around the corner!

Box Building...

I made my husband drag down my storage containers of clothing, from newborn to 12 month sizes, as well as my infant toys.  I have three containers of toys not in use...  This was all so I could build my first boxes to swap on ThredUp.  You be the judge if I actually made progress, but it feels good to be getting rid of some of the excess we have around here.

First I separated the clothes into four piles:
Clothes that would work fine for a baby girl to keep
Clothes that have sentimental value we could pass on to my sister
Clothes for the swap
Clothes with stains or that were in worse condition that I could give away to Goodwill

Then I took the clothes I wanted to swap and put them in piles based on sizes.  I was able to segment these items into three boxes of 15-18 items each.  I wanted to give some blankets and other things away so those were included as added bonuses.  The minimum number of items per box is 10, so I could have technically made 4 boxes, but really I wanted my boxes to be full and well stocked.  I'm hoping for a good rating out the gate!

I made lists of my items in Excel so I could sort and categorize the boxes.  This worked great because when it came time to build the box on the ThredUp website, I could just copy and paste the cells and all the info and descriptions were ready to go.  I also created a Flickr account so I could upload pictures of the boxes to include in my box description.  While I personally picked my first box without photos (and I think that's part of the excitement of the swap) it's easy enough to include so I went with it.

If you have a ThredUp account and you read this in the next few days, check out my offerings!  I'm hoping someone grabs these up quick!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/59445909@N04/5440311135/in/photostream/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/59445909@N04/5440357077/in/photostream/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/59445909@N04/5440382909/in/photostream/

Resolution Setting...

My maternity leave is so close I can taste it.  Including today I only have five more days of work, woo hoo!  This has me thinking about what I'm going to do, and what I'm going to be able to do, with my few days off before the new baby arrives.  I'm setting a few goals for myself, and I'll see how it goes.

1) Leaving the house every day
I know this one sounds easy, maybe a bit lazy, but I can very easily stay home with my son and play all day and never leave the house.  Since my time with him as an only child is extremely limited, and I work full time, I'd like to make up for that by taking him out and doing something fun as much as possible.  Even if this only means taking a walk with his push trike down to the park.  There are a number of fun things in our area I'd like to visit:

Happy Hollow, San Jose
Head to the beach in Santa Cruz or Half Moon Bay
Billy Jones Wildcat Railroad (we went there for his 2nd birthday)
Public libraries for child book readings

2) Hang dry my diapers with every wash
I can only hang dry these days if a wash day falls on a weekend and the weather is nice.  If I'm home any day of the week, I don't have to limit myself to doing laundry at night, and it would be so great to spend time outside in the sun.  The last time I sunned was last weekend, and my son handed me clothespins and diapers to hang, he was a big helper!

3) Finish a few sewing projects
I've stalled out on a couple things, mainly because in the evening things are getting too uncomfortable, and we've got a cold sweeping the family.  I can't get our son in bed any earlier than 8:30 these days which doesn't really leave me much time.  Enough excuses though!  The wipes and the wet bag are really not that complicated so I need to just buckle down and finish.

4) Maintain and improve the blog
This one I might even get to in the next few days, since my workload is diminishing every day...  I'd like to add labels (keywords) so people can search my entries easier.  I'd also really like to keep up the trend and post once a day.  Finding topics to blog about means I also have to keep myself busy with the things I blog about.

Next is just balancing everything I want to do with the time and energy that I actually have.  Sounds fun and exciting to me!!

Blog Milestone #1

I have to admit, this isn't all that exciting, but I'd like to report that my blog has received its first 100 views. I've posted 14 times (this will make it 15) and I have a whopping 5 followers (please refer your friends to follow me if you get anything out of this blog).   I've been on the air for a day shy of two weeks.  I'm hoping the next hundred views come faster than that!

I also thought you might find the demographics of my audience interesting:

Thanks for reading, and there's a lot more to come!

Packing...

I had my 35 week doctors appointment this week for the usual check up.  I have been experiencing a number of Braxton Hicks contractions over the past week or so.  While this is normal, I do think that these are more frequent and intense than they were with my son.  In any case, we were informed that at this point there would be no intervention if I went into labor.  I'm almost full term.  She asked us if we had the bag packed.  We said no, both feeling like it may be a little early?  It would be a good idea to have our bag packed we were told.

So tonight I started to get things together.  I could technically run out the door with what I have packed, although there are a few details I'd like to get in order if I have time.  For now my bag holds the following:

3 pairs of underwear I don't care about
2 nursing bras
2 pairs of nursing pads
Nipple shield
2 pairs of socks, one fleece fuzzy pair and one normal
2 pairs of pants, one leggings and one pj pant
3 teeshirts
1 hooded sweatshirt that has a low v-neck
Q-tips
Saline solution and a contact case
Toothbrush
Comb
Face wash
Lotion
1 soft burp cloth
1 fuzzy blanket

Things I still need to get prepared include:

Comfy shoes or slippers
Magazines
A take-home outfit for the baby girl
Infant car seat cleaned and outfitted with padded insert

I will probably head to the hospital in some comfy shoes so I'm not that concerned about packing those.  Some day next week I'll head to a bookstore and pick up some magazines and try not to read them before getting to the hospital.  Then hopefully this weekend I'll put the car seat on my "honey do" list.

Now the take-home outfit is something that is important but probably won't be ready for a while.  We took our son home in this adorable bear on-piece suit.  It was actually a gift from a coworker, but the second I saw it I knew that's what I wanted to use.  One option is to use the same suit but I personally want each baby to have their own special outfit.  If that really is the case we don't have the item for the girl yet.  There are a couple chances to receive gifts, and there's also time to shop.  Honestly I've purchased so little in the way of clothing, and yet the girl's closet is almost full.  I'll keep you posted with what we come up with!

Reviewing (EcoBumz AIO)...

As I mentioned in my Stashing post, I recently ordered another couple EcoBumz diapers.  They arrived today!  Previously I had only one, in the Size 2, for my son.  This time I bought another Size 2 in aqua and a Size 1 for the new baby in white.  I also got a second one to give to my sister at her baby shower, that's how much I love this diaper!  The price could not be beat for an AIO (all-in-one) at only $12 a pop.

The diaper is one piece, but it also comes with an extra insert for added absorption.  This can be stuffed in the pocket in the back of the diaper.

The outside is a sort of shiny material, a recycled polyester polyurethane laminate, which makes the look of this diaper truly unique.  It comes in snaps and in aplix.  Aplix is essentially like Velcro.  Personally I prefer aplix diapers because they can be fastened at any length and allow for a truly customizable size.  The inside contains a top layer of organic bamboo velour over four layers of an organic cotton/hemp blend.  The insert is another three layers of bamboo/cotton.  

The company claims that this diaper can absorb up to two cups of liquid.  I wouldn't doubt it.  While my other AIO couldn't handle a night without leaking, this diaper has never failed.  It's also a great diaper to use when we're taking a long car trip.  I think this is the combo of the absorbent materials as well as the reliable cover.  I also love how soft it feels, and how in the 2 months or so I've been using this diaper, it has held up this comfy texture.  

The only improvement that I feel could be made with this diaper is in the aplix design.  In other aplix diapers, there is an extra strip of the material inside the diaper where you can fold back the tabs so they don't stick to other diapers or to their soft insides (see example on left).  This also allows the diaper to open wide when it's being washed.  This diaper has to be fastened in the front and then turned inside out when you wash it.  Really it's a small price to pay for such a great diaper overall.

Sewing and Stuffing (Steggie Stage 2)...

Back to my pull-dino project.  I received word that one of the walkers this toy is intended for is indeed taking his first steps, so the rush is on.  Even bigger deal than that is I found it to be pretty uncomfortable sewing last night with a belly full of baby.  The discomfort would have been tolerable had I not gotten so frustrated with some if the steps of the pattern.  I got through it, 99% anyway, so here's where I ended it last night.

Sewing the body together was pretty straight forward.  My machine (which will require it's own post in the near future) had a little struggle top stitching the felt spikes, but once those were done assembly went smoothly.  Even sewing the underbelly on wasn't that bad.  When I got to the part of sewing the felt feet on, that was sort of another story.  The feet are just about an inch and a half diameter circles.  With an inch of velcro sewn on.  I did not use the right technique to fix the circles to the legs I'm sure, but somehow it worked.  Then when I went to turn
the dino right side out, I noticed that a small space under the neck as well as under the tail weren't properly sealed.  There is something about how the underbelly joins the main body at this point that creates a weakness.  I must have turned that dino inside out and and right side out three or four times before I finally felt it was secure and didn't look like a jumbled mess.  That's why I give my self a 99% for completion because I might still mess with it a little.  I have to mention my favorite tool for turning things inside out like this is a grabber thingy I found in my husband's tool collection.  It helps you push out points and such when it's hard to reach.

By this point it's after 11 at night and I refuse to give up until I can get some stuffing in this little beast.  I didn't struggle this much to not stuff any fluff.  At least that felt a bit therapeutic.  The only other issue I noticed is that now when the feet are right side out, the velcro takes up more of the surface area of the foot than it shows in the picture.  I'm not sure whether this bothers me yet or not, I was too tired to care.

Now he still needs button eyes and his tail sewn shut (the space where all the turning inside out was done from), but that shouldn't take me long.  Do you think my Steggie looks at all like the one in the picture?  His legs look a little short to me...

Stashing...

As my due date quickly approaches I find myself nesting, shopping, organizing, and stashing!  It's not a uniquely clever term, but with cloth diapering your collection of diapers and covers is called your stash.  I'm slowly collecting diapers two or so at a time when a deal comes around from one of my favorite online retailers.  I looked at what I had so far for our little girl and did some calculations to figure out what I will need to get a decent stash.

The general rule is you will need enough diapers to get you through two to three days of wear.  For our son who's just turned two, that can be roughly four to five diapers a day, so we can get away with having 15.  For a newborn, you can expect to change about 10-12 diapers a day.  That will mean eventually we should have about 30 diapers to fit her little bum.

My mom gave us a three month diaper service contract for our son, and the plan is to do the same for the next baby as well.  (Of course we used the service until our son was 18 months old, and we should have quit a lot earlier than that!)  Because our first few months are set, I'm not rushing out and buying all the prefolds I will eventually need.  But, we do need to supply our own covers.  Currently I'd say the ratio of diapers to covers is about three to one.  With a newborn it could be as bad as two to one.  So, I'm estimating I'll need about 15 or 16 covers to be prepared.

I've got a picture of my current stash below.  My diapers are on the left, and the covers are on the right.  from left to right, my stash (excluding diapers for the two year old) includes the following:

Top Row:
2 Sustainablebabyish fitteds - completely untested, will require Snappis as there is no applix or snaps
2 Bottombumpers - also untested
Package of disposable inserts (for poop disposal)
3 Gen-Y covers
4 Thirsties covers - one of my favorite covers I use now for our son
5 Bummis covers (3 Whisper Pant, 2 Super Whisper Wraps) - the whisper pant was the main cover we used for our son until I got "all fancy"

Bottom Row:
1 Ecobumz AIO - I have the larger size for our son and it is one of my favorite diapers at the moment
1 Bummis EasyFit - I also love this diaper, but it is the one that didn't make it through a night on it's own so it's more of a daytime diaper I'm guessing
1 Thirsties Fab Fitted - these are no longer being made.  Thirsties now makes them in "one-size" so I had to get the XS pink one while I still could
Snappi clips - a must have
Thirsties Fab Doublers - Use these in the boy colors currently, so the girl needed her own

All in all that means I have 12 covers as well as some AIOs I could fall back on if I had to.  Today I bought a couple more Ecobumz on Baby Half Off cause they were just $12 and I love them so much.  And like I said, our go to diaper is a standard prefold, so whatever I've accumulated through deals and gifts until the day we ditch the service will be supplemented by enough prefolds to make it between laundry nights.

By the way, I must say my stash looks pretty lame at the moment, but only because I have a strong will that is holding me back from going diaper crazy.  Check out some pictures I found on Flickr of some crazy collections of cloth diapers (it really can become an obsession easily):

http://www.flickr.com/photos/girlonthewire/2252120716/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bella_catalina/2539970830/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sophiaka/45721633/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dazed81/2676270674/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/biggrownupmommy/266356877/

Baby Quilt Reminiscing...

I found out completely fabulous news this morning, a good friend of mine is having a baby!!  Including our #2, that now means there are four pregnant ladies that I know who will bring bundles of joy into the world in the next few months.  This had me thinking about the baby quilts I've made through the years, while I try to inspire myself for the next round of handmade baby gifts.

The first baby quilt I made was for friends who had a baby six weeks before my son.  I started the project in the late summer of 2008 and gave it as a gift at the baby shower in October.  I enjoyed this quilt a lot because I got to use such a wide variety of fabrics.  I started working on this quilt the second I heard that the baby was going to be a boy, and I wanted to use blues and greens.  I enjoyed the hunt for fat quarters from fabric store to fabric store.  The pattern is an adaptation of a log cabin with fabrics arranged randomly.  Only the centers of the squares and the border were the same fabric.  I absolutely loved the end result.

It took almost two years to the day (July 2010) before I had another excuse to make a baby quilt.  Thank you iPhoto for dating my pictures because it looks like it took about the same span of time to finalize this quilt.  This was for an old school friend of my sister's who we hadn't seen in years.  As a result, we made this a sort of team effort.  Again this was for a boy and I liked to use blues and greens, but I wanted to go a bit brighter.  The friend had her wedding photos on Facebook and I noticed she really liked red, so I wanted that tied in as well.  This quilt involved more randomization in sizes and arrangement, but it added another element of surprise.  We essentially assembled the quilt with squares in straight rows.
Once that was completed, you made two cuts along specific locations so when you reconnected the three pieces, the rows then became diagonally placed.  You never know what the end result will look like until the very last step.  My sister has a knack for the actual quilting so she put a lovely random design on the large squares.  We finally got this one shipped off in October and again, it turned out really nice.




Then finally you remember my post about my latest baby quilt.  The rag quilt pattern was a ton of fun to make because again it was a completely unique process to me.  Again this was for a boy (there must be something in the water my friends are all drinking) and so the main color was blue, but I brought yellow more into the forefront.  I loved using a ton of randomized different fabrics.  I guess that's sort of the common theme between all the baby quilts I've made.  I also love collecting fabric, as I'm sure you'll read more about in future posts.

Pump confusing...

So I've never had good luck with soap pumps for some reason, let's start there. Last night was diaper laundry night, which I always enjoy. I was so stoked when my new Charlie's liquid detergent arrived on our doorstep, two gallons that came with a pump!  I promptly attempted to install the pump, not realizing the container was full to the brim. Overflowing detergent on the washer, OK, no biggie. Then there are two sections to unscrew, but I really only discovered one. How come the pumping top part wasn't connected anymore? Maybe it's the spring in the tube installed wrong? OK, flip the spring (for no real logical reason), and the whole thing now filled with detergent still doesn't work... The pump is in two pieces and that really doesn't seem right.
Only thing to do now is to call in my dear husband to save the day. I'm so cute, he says. Well at least I have that going for me. I'm still so pleased with the concept of the pump since I was just pouring the gallon container before, and this will also help standardize the amount of detergent per load. Thanks Charlies!

Cutting (Steggie Stage 1)...

Yes, I did just buy fabric for diaper accessory projects, but I have another project in line ahead of those that I already had the supplies for.  I must again thank my sister for an awesome Christmas present, One Yard Wonders.  In this amazing book are a ton of great sewing projects, but I decided to start with a pull-along toy named Steggie.  If all goes well, I'm planning to make at least two Steggies for a couple almost-walking kids that I know.  Plus, there's a little bit of wood construction involved in this one so my husband can help me with that step when I get there!

I love trying new things when it comes to sewing, and since my experience is pretty limited, that means there's a lot out there for me to learn!  This will be my first experience with using a real pattern.  I did use a pattern of sorts when I made toddler aprons for Christmas, but that was super simple and barely counts.  This book is great in that it has the patterns in one nice neat envelope in the front of the book.  However, it was a bit of a struggle to get them out of the envelope, figure out which ones I needed, and then to get them back in the book without doing too much damage.  Off the bat I was thinking, uh oh, I'm in trouble if I'm struggling this early!

Finally I got the pattern pieces cut out and pinned onto the fabric.  My first Steggie is going to be this red and brown fabric with a dark blue set of spines and feet.  I did my best to cut close to the pattern, but I always battle with perfection vs. efficiency.  I just reminded myself that any imperfections will get covered up once the sewing starts.



All in all it took me just over an hour and a half to get all nine pieces cut.  That's about all the time I have in the evening so I had to call it a day.

Leaking...

My morning routine is usually a simple one since my childcare consists of grandparent care while I'm at work.  My son typically wakes up just before I need to head out the door so I ship him off in the PJs he went to bed in.  If there is time and he's in a cooperative mood I can change him but that is about one day a week if I'm lucky.  This morning he woke up a little late, as usual, but we had a diaper leak.  This has probably happened as many times as I can count on one hand, so I needed to analyze the situation.

We did use a different diaper combo than we usually do at night.  I typically use a standard prefold with a cover (like the one pictured here).  Last night I went with an AIO diaper for the fun of it as well as the fact that we had a cranky toddler on our hands who was being difficult.  This could have been part one of the problem.

In the past few months I've added a Thirsties doubler on top of the prefold for added absorption.  For the occasions I haven't had a doubler available (I only bought 3 so if it's diaper laundry night there might be a chance I've run out) then I'll back up the prefold with a hemp doubler.  The doubler is practically another diaper, so in an effort to slim down the package, I purchased some hemp inserts from Etsy.  I put one of these inserts in the AIO, which was probably part two.  The hemp insert is about the same size as the doubler so how much could I really expect it to absorb?  Also, you should wash hemp diapers and inserts 4-5 times before they reach their maximum absorbency.  I believe these have only been washed once or twice since they're brand new.

Finally I have to assume we had the perfect storm in terms of diaper conditions.  The original diaper wasn't really designed as a night time diaper alone.  The insert wasn't sufficient either, but probably wasn't prepped completely.  And we had a big night in the bladder emptying department.  That diaper weighed a ton when I took it off of him.

Back to the usual routine tomorrow until I find another combo that works just as well.

Pre-Starting...

Last night I had high hopes of starting another sewing project, but pregnancy has slowed me down a bit so I had to settle with just thinking about my next projects.  I've had two diapering accessory ideas for a while, and I had to go to the fabric store anyway to take advantage of a coupon, so it seemed like a good time to stock up on supplies.

The first thing I've wanted to do is a wetbag.  I have a small, blue Bummis wetbag that I use when I go out as well as when I take my son to his grandparents' while I'm at work.  It fits about four diapers which works perfectly for this purpose.  I also have a large, purple (first color my son could say) Planetwise pail liner that holds all my dirty diapers between washes.  I'd like something a little more in the middle for two reasons.  First, the majority of my weekday diaper changes are at bath time.  I'd like to have a wetbag hanging somewhere in the bathroom so I don't have to carry the dirty diapers to the pail every single day.  Also, when the infant arrives, she'll be going through a lot more diapers than four, so I could use a wetbag by the changing table that has a larger capacity as well.  I found a couple pattern ideas, but the concept is the same.  You need a PUL fabric for the inside lining, and a decorative fabric for the outside.  I found a remnant, which meant it was 50% off, and the PUL was on sale too, score!  Then I got a black zipper to keep the bag closed.  This will be my first zipper, so that part should get exciting!  

The second project I've wanted to try is cloth diaper wipes.  People think I'm crazy enough for cloth diapering, but using cloth wipes takes this one step further I'm sure.  Actually, my husband completely disagrees with the idea.  But, I figure I'll be home full time soon and I'll be doing 80-90% of the diaper changes, so if I want to use cloth wipes that's my prerogative!  Anyway...  At first I was looking to buy wipes from some of my favorite diaper companies.  But then it hit me, why not sew some myself?  A lot of cloth wipe advocates just use flannel receiving blankets that they cut up and sewed the edges.  Some just use well used baby wash clothes.  If I do decide to go this route, I want my wipes to at least be attractive.  Cuteness keeps diapering fun, so I'm sure the same goes for wipes.  A few pattern ideas I came across either used a double layer of flannel, or else flannel lined with another material, like cotton jersey.  Another idea is to use terry cloth.  For my first round I bought a couple patterns of flannel and some white knit jersey type fabric.  I'll make a couple different combos and see how it goes.