present

It's the eve of my birthday and all week I have had this blog post swirling around in my head. I am not entirely sure where this will go but hey sometimes It's much more fun this way.

This new phase in my life has been brewing for some time. It's actually WAY overdue.

Last year was supposed to be the year of me... I turned 30 on the 30th and felt like it meant so much. Although we had plenty of great things happen this last year it was NOT the year of me. I felt so far from myself most days. It was a dry year for me.. of course we are thankful for Jett and for the blessing of our dream house but inside I have been dry.

I feel more settled.. I feel more complete.. I feel so ready to thrive as a woman, as a mother, as a wife.

It's like this year is a gift.. a break that allows me to focus on me and my family. I want to quit surviving and I want to thrive.

For the last couple years I chose a word of the year.. that one little word. 08 was Simplify. 09 was Choose and I didn't even pick one this year.. I remember thinking of it but it just never came to be. Well I'm starting a new trend so today on the eve of my 31st birthday my one little word for this year will be Present. To be present. It's time. Time to focus. To be present in my own life, in my own story, in the lives of my children and my husband. To be present for my friends. My year to be free, joyful, confident and happy. Time to shine. I am so thankful for a chance to be present in my every day life.

We have started to make moves to enrich our lives. I joined a Mom's program that is going through a book about Parenting called "Have a new kid by Friday" SO good!! The principles are really resonating with me. I am looking forward to seeing us learn how to parent better. We need that over here most days. My aha moment so far has been when the author describes him main motivation for following this in his own house. It's my goal to raise givers not takers. I love that.

I also was invited by a friend to join a women's bible study and we are doing Beth Moore's Breaking Free. I can't begin to tell you how this speaks to me already and we only had one meeting. It feels like water to my dry dry soul.

Its' the year of being present and my first present to myself is to BE FREE.

happy baby.

I've had some people ask me about cloth diapering... this has been something I always wanted to do. With the twins I knew it was not feasible for us. So when we were expecting Jett we knew we wanted to try. For us it was about a few things... the two major reasons were cost. It is expensive to buy diapers... we calculated we spent about $630 per kid for the first year of diapering twins... yea and we did diapers for three years!!! YIKES!!

Since moving out of town and into the village we also do not get garbage pick up. (we can opt to pay for it - but like most others we just burn our garbage in a burn barrel) so... diapers do not burn (at least not well) So in order to produce less garbage we find cloth diapering a solid choice for us.

With a minor investment we are well on our way and I actually really like it. I don't mind laundry so that's half the battle. When Jett was little I used prefolds with some Motherease covers that I borrowed from a friend. She also lent me some Sandy's diapers that worked really well. They were small though and so they only lasted a short while. I invested a small amount of money and this is what we have in our drawer.

I will always recommend local and Stacey sells great diapers. She is a distributor and has stock in her house. I like that I can go to her house and she is always great for information. I have bought covers from her and just recently purchased one Applecheeks that I use with a microfiber insert. At first I didn't like it but realized I wasn't using it right - lol. I also bought a Totbot diaper that I LOVE! This is an all in one, one size fits all diaper. It's called an easy fit and I got it in Blueberry. This is a GREAT diaper... I may end up getting a couple more.

I needed a few more options and was so curious to try the Flip system. I needed to up my stash to be able to get a few days worth and purchased Flip Stay Dry System. It comes with 2 one size covers and 6 Stay Dry Inserts. I love the ease of this system. It's simple and the inserts are so absorbent. I also like that you can change the insert and reuse the cover. The other great part is the flip system also sells disposable inserts that you can use when you are going out. They work really well and again you can just reuse the cover.

Since I was purchasing at Cotton Babies I decided to try some Bumgenius diapers as well. They just came out with the 4.0 version which has snaps and Cotton Babies conveniently offers them in packs of three. So I purchased the Bumgenius 4.0 One size Stay Dry diapers. They stand up to their reputation. Very similar to the flip system they are soft and work really well. I have had no leaks and no blow outs.

So I have diapers to get me through a few days and generally do laundry every 2-3 days depending. I purchased a well made wet bag from Stacey which we hang on a hook on the side of Jett's dresser.

When it's time to do laundry I throw the contents of the bag along with the bag in the washer. I air dry my covers overnight and we are back in business.

It's been great for us. And we are happy with our decision to cloth diaper not only for Jett but also for the environment.

23 things

1. been entering into my craft room more lately. scrapped last weekend and have been sewing this weekend. i thrive on creativity. I am making the cutest clutch purses. My favorite is brown tweed.

2. always have design ideas in my head and my diy list gets longer and longer every day.

3. spent the afternoon/early evening at stanley park today with friends and family. best way to spend the day.

4. we have pretty great kids

5. trying new things... joined a bible study group with people i don't really know (kind of intimidating.. but good), also going to a mom's program in town at a church we don't attend (kind of scary)

6. made pumpkin cookies this weekend that taste SO good. especially with cream cheese icing

7. discovered life is made better with lactose pills

8. wandered my happy place (target) this past week. i enjoyed the day with no kids, great friends and got in my "bucks" fix.

9. enjoying the backyard more and more since we got this used on PVOL. the boys love it.

10. Jett smiles - it's so delicious

11. cloth diapering is surprisingly easy and i am so glad we made this choice.

12. i discovered making iced tea/lemonade - super good.

13. trying to cut out things so we can conquer our debt. we are praying to be debt free SOON - feels like an uphill never ending battle but trying to exercise faith and self control. ah who am I kidding we need a miracle.

14. speaking of exercise.. i suck at it.

15. i love my new hair color - it's bold and fun.

16. becoming more and more introspective lately... this last year was supposed to be the year of me and yet it has been a bit of a disappointment in regards to healing and being free. i am making steps to make sure that my 31st year doesn't disappoint.

17. today i had sex in a pan. it was good.

18. i am blessed by good friends... but i want to be more open and more vulnerable and stop feeling so much self doubt.

19. i don't want to have any more kids.. dave does. yeesh.

20. i have three kids. (and yes sometimes it just randomly hits me and I am overwhelmed.)

21. my addiction to gilmore girls is getting out of control. I LOVE it. just got through season 4 and cried when luke and lorelai finally got together. it is nice that dave enjoys watching it too.. seriously good one liners. some days I laugh till I cry.

22. i am enough, i have enough, i do enough

23. I am afraid to ask God what He thinks of me.

do more

I was checking blogs this morning and came across this post over at Under the Sycamore.. it grabbed me. I have more thoughts on this but can't really put them into words right now. For now please go over and read on. So inspiring. There are ways to act too.

I did.

family. explosions.

this summer my bro and family came out from out west. it was SO GOOD to be all together.. but way too short. we had Lisa shoot some family photos one night. they were going so well...

and then he exploded...

for dave on the occasion of my birthday

Dave told me that he checks my blog every morning cause he likes to know what I'm thinking - lol. Obviously not a whole lot lately.. so this one is for you. On the occasion of my 31st birthday these are the things on my wish list... of course you do not need to (and I know he won't) buy me them all.. I may even be lucky to get one. In no particular order...

1. A ipod docking station... I like music to play in my house and I think having one would be great for in the kitchen. Nothing fancy.

2. A fuji Instax camera. I love the idea of being able to snap photos and print.. the pics come in a credit card size - perfect for scrapbooking!

3. A new coffee maker.. I love my tassimo but I would also like a normal sized one with a stainless steel carafe so I can keep it warmer longer. My old one died over a year ago and I inherited an old one from my mom... it's time to upgrade and since I am home this year I have been already drinking ALOT of coffee.

4. Jewelry.. this is hard there are many necklaces I would like. I would love something with my kids names or initials in... and anything from Armelle... especially this, this and this.

5. I love Gussy.. she makes such nice girly things. I would love this wristlet to throw in my diaper bag to carry the essentials and be able to take it out for quick trips in and out.

6. oh my word THIS GUY... and I would take him in all four colors.. they'd make a cute little family.

dining room revamp

I have always struggled with our dining room... it's a large space. it's a weird space... When we first looked at the house it was one of the first things we were unsure of.. what would we do with it. We have a small table so it felt silly putting it in there... of course we have dreams for that room. We hope to have a fireplace put in some day and I can just imagine some comfy arm chairs and a nice warm space to hang out in.. but for now there was just this big open space.

I have often seen craft nooks or reading areas on Ohdeedoh (one of my fave site's) It finally occurred to me that this was the perfect solution. Now we are also in a tight spot financially and since I married the great Dave I have become a bit more frugal. So I knew this had to be done on a TIGHT budget.. I had ideas swimming around in my head and a few trips to the basement, MCC and a friend stopping at Ikea as well as some moving of furniture this is what we did.

My fave project was the old frame turned chicken wire message board - which I saw first on Ashley Ann's site. I have always looked at MCC for a large frame and never saw one until this one day where I looked up.. I have never really looked up at MCC... they have large prints with frames above the shelves that hold all the small electronics. Big Score was this guy at $10 the boys actually called it my scary picture...

Well a million staples removed and a good coat of spray paint and we ended up with a masterpiece.

I also loved her idea of covering the cloths pins... again a random spot by the puzzles at MCC and 75 cents later I had these...

So here is the before....

and the after.

still working on updating the picture wall with recent photos.

we like it. it has also come in handy as a kids table when we have company. so on a dime it is a great space. here's the breakdown.

White Ikea Table - already owned. we used it a desk downstairs

White bookcase/bench - Rona 49.99 (with a 10% discount)

Frame - MCC $10

Spray paint - already had from another project

Chicken wire - a friend gave it to me for free :)

Puzzle - 75 cents

Ikea Picture Ledge (used to hold books) $14.99

The white high chair was a SCORE at a garage sale for $20. I plan to spray paint it the same blue as the frame and I am making a pad for it out of super cute fabric.

Everything else was already there we just repurposed and moved things around.

three

it's hard to believe you are three months old. chubby, smiley, calm Jett. we love you. all of you.

home

we had a fantastic time in Ottawa. I will post about our trip soon.. I also have some deeper topics on the front burner.. for now heres a taste.