Venturing in to the world of cloth diapering....

Yes you read that right: cloth diapering. I know I know, yuck! When I had Sydney there is no way I would have thought about doing this and in fact I was quite grossed out. Maybe those first couple of years with her softened me to the idea though. There's something about cleaning up multiple messes of "waste" :), midnight sick sessions, boogers, being pooped on, peed on (those last two--thanks to Gavin!) etc. that makes you feel like you can tackle just about anything you previously considered "gross", "nasty", or "disgusting." So when my cousin Traci e-mailed me about these diapers she and her husband were thinking of trying with their new baby it reminded me of when I had first looked at the same diapers earlier in my pregnancy with Gavin. And that got the ball rolling. Every time I would buy a box of Pampers (each week!) I would cringe because I thought to myself how I very well could buy all of the diapers he would ever need in his diapering career in one fell swoop--initially for quite a cost, but over the course of just the next few months they would pay for themselves. I figured that in Gavin's not yet 3 months of life (I rounded up to 3 months just for kicks and grins) we had already spent roughly $250 on diapers....that is $50 shy of what it would take for us to buy all of the cloth diapers we would need to use until he is ready for potty training! I decided to give it a try and ordered a 3 pack of diapers just to try them out and get a feel for them. So far so good! I have been spending many naptimes researching different kinds and figuring out which ones I think I'd like to try. I'm pretty excited about it but Joe has pretty much told me he thinks I'm silly (in not so many words) but will still change these diapers--he just won't wash them!

I find I am trying some things that I didn't try when Sydney was a baby. For one reason or another I just feel like the stigma attached to a lot of things that I was afraid of has lifted. Was she my guinea pig baby? Because it seems more and more like Gavin is! :) Or is it because she was my first and I was scared to try anything new and seemingly more difficult? The new thing now is the cloth diapers and we shall see how it pans out. I'll keep you posted--rest assured though that if it doesn't work out you'll all be able to hear my husband yelling "I told you so!" :)

pssst...I think she's potty trained!

I whisper this only to hopefully not jinx us! We are into 4th week(? I think...) and so far (insert crossed fingers here) she has had all but one accident since the second week. She has made it a few day trips of 30-45 minutes in big girl underwear (with a towel in her seat and with me asking her quite frequently if she needed to potty!)-we just pack up the potty and she goes in the back of the van (thank you 3rd row folding seat!) so I was feeling pretty confident.Yesterday was the true test. We had an hour and a half long drive so we put a pull-up on her just to be safe and she stayed dry all day! So I don't really know when to officially declare her potty trained, but I think we're doing pretty good so far!

Happy Father's Day!

Joe celebrated his third Father's Day Sunday! He is such a wonderful father to Sydney and Gavin and a wonderful partner in parenting to me. I have no idea how I'd do this without him! I am so blessed to be able to experience firsthand how great he is with our children.

To begin his day we made him breakfast in bed of biscuits and gravy with eggs and some fresh strawberries. He decided he wanted to go to Kansas City so we ate a late lunch at Famous Dave's BBQ, then we went to Cabela's to feed the fish (but the fish food was gone!), and then to Nebraska Furniture Mart to look for a couch and t.v. for our basement. It was such a hot day but a wonderful one! We had so much fun watching Sydney run around and just chatter the whole time. :) And Gavin just took everything in stride!

Joe with his babies!

Our little "lady" :/ looking at the fish

Helping Dad with his lunch

Suprise present for Father's Day!

Monday of last week I snuck the kids up to Shawnee to get their pictures together. We don't have any of them professionally and I wanted to do that as part of Joe's Father's Day gift. We got there and I felt as if I were moving in to this woman's home. She was fabulous by the way...let us set up Syd's potty in their bathroom, held Gavin while I had to coerce Sydney to sit on said potty, held Gavin while I ran out to get the pretzels to bribe Sydney to keep smiling for "just a few more pictures!" Let me feed Gavin in their living room, etc. :) By the end of the session, we were both sweating but we were rewarded with some beautiful pictures of our beautiful kids (I couldn't resist!).

Silly summer days!

I feel like I do the same thing day in and day out...feed Gavin, try to help him fall asleep, feed Gavin, help Sydney use the potty, feed Gavin, make Sydney lunch, feed Gavin, help him fall asleep. :) The days go by SO quickly for doing the same thing all day! However, while there are some moments when I feel like I could rip my hair out from the chaos....there are more moments of just pure awe when being with our children. I am so very much in love with our kiddos and am so very blessed to be able to spend these treasured few months at home with them. They are both growing and changing all of the time and never cease to amaze me. Sydney warms my heart every single day in so many ways. Gavin just has to smile at me and "talk" to make my heart pitter patter. We are so blessed to have such amazing kids that are healthy and happy and we are blessed to have been chosen to be their parents. Here are just some pictures and a video of our summer thus far!



Listen closely...you can hear Sydney make an announcement! Silly girl...

Here she is with her Dora shirt from Tiffany (one of her favorite people!)..the neck is a little snug and it always gets stuck on her head. This night she deemed it her "hat." :)
Hanging out with her brother. :)
Now with Daddy and Gavin
She made the folding book into a "trap" that she sat in...Joe had to rescue her.
And she loves to take pictures of everyone! "Cheeseburgers!"
Gavin with his turkey from Cabela's
Reading with his big sister
Bright eyed sweetheart!

Busy weekend!!!

Thursday we started serious potty training with Sydney. The first day she had several accidents and it was crazy hectic--I was SO exhausted by the end of the day...almost worse than when Gavin was first home! I can't describe how tired I was after bouncing between two kiddos all day! :) However, the hard work and chaos paid off because by day 2 she was having no accidents! (Thanks to Jess for the recommendation on this "method"!) Here she is with her wonderful, colorful potty chart! Smilies are for trying, Dora and Diego are for actually doing something. :)

Also this weekend, Joe converted Sydney's bed into a toddler bed. He's been wanting to do this for quite awhile but I kept putting it off. (mostly because giving her free reign of her room kind of, well, terrifies me!) BUT she seemed really excited about it after we discussed it and I told Joe that if he did that I wanted to get her some new big girl bedding, to make the occasion even more special. So here is the end result!

And now she's showing us how it works... :)
Earlier in the week Joe had gone to a garage sale while on his way somewhere else--who knows where :) and this was his wonderful find! A Fisher Price Rainforest swing that swings side-to-side! Our Graco only swung front to back and neither kids have liked it. Gavin already has sat in this longer than he has the Graco, in all the two months he's been here! ;)
To wrap things up, some sweet baby smiles. :) He was talking with Daddy!

2 months old!

June 3rd, Gavin turned 2 months old! He's really starting to do more and his personality is coming through even more. Not to mention all the SMILES we are getting now. :) It's so wonderful to see his sweet smile in response to us!

Here are some things he's doing now (or that I've figured out!):

• smiling-lots!
• talking--he's such a chatterbox!
• kicking and wiggling around--shouldn't surprise me! :)
• when he's tired, he likes to rub his face on your shoulder and burrow his head in your armpit area. :)
• he's also been caught hanging on to his ear as he falls asleep--so cute!
• follows you--he loves his sister! He follows her everywhere she goes (with his eyes of course)

Memorial Day weekend

We headed to Delphos for Memorial Day weekend. Here Sydney is passing the time by reading her Dora books! It makes me so proud to see her flip through her books and actually pass time by "reading" them. She looks so grown up!

Playing in Papa Rod's boat with Dad. Here she is with her worm for her princess fishing pole!


Here's Sydney's first fat lip! I'm sure I'll see a lot more of these once Gavin gets older--yikes. (I swear I am going to need anti-anxiety meds! I can't stand to see my children hurt but I don't want to be a helicopter parent either!)

Playdate with friends!

A couple of weeks ago we headed to Topeka to play with our friends Tiffany, Noah, and Lily. We also played with Tiffany's niece, Akadia. It was SO hot outside, but that didn't stop the kids from running themselves ragged around the park! We first met at Tiffany's house so I could feed Gavin--as we were pulling up to their house Gavin was fussing and I heard Sydney tell him (without taking her eyes off of her movie of course) "it's okay Gavin-we're almost to Noah's house." She's such a good big sister. :) Then she started to tell him about playing with Noah's Diego toys (good memory!) Once we got to Noah's house she knew exactly where to find them, but I kept telling her she needed to wait on Noah to get them out-he tried giving her a pen but she pointed to the green basket that housed the Diego toys and said "no Noah, that one." Stinker! Of course all along Tiffany was telling me she didn't care if she got them out--but I didn't want her to be "that" kid that just plopped in and rummaged through everything! :) After Gavin was done eating, finally, we headed to the park. We packed a picnic lunch and then let the kids run around. Sydney loves Tiffany--in fact she wanted her to go down the slide with her and to push her on the swing more than me!

Sydney and her friends Tiffany and Lily
It was Gavin's first play date! Here he is with his friend Lily!
Our big boy :)