What I Love About You ~ 11 weeks

I Love...

• the way you look at me.
• the way you smell.
• the softness of your skin.
• your adorable new hair growing in.
• your stylin' outfits...
• your amazing blue eyes and eyelashes that get longer every day!
• how cute you looked sitting in your Bumbo for the 1st time this past week...
• seeing a picture of my 3 kiddos together...
• finally having a family photo with YOU in it...

We are complete with you!!!!

I Won!!!

Remember when I told you about this give away? Well, guess who won? MEEEEEE!

Well, ladybug won this...Isn't it SO cute? It's a custom made snake teether, that I can put on her wrist when she is teething, she can chomp away on it!!! If you want one of your own, go visit this great Etsy store: The Freckled Elephant.

Trying Different Dipes

I have ordered a few more cloth diapers just to try and I will be giving my thoughts here on each of them. I am going to have Ladybug wear them each 3-6 times before I write but just so you know what's coming, here's the ones we are currently trying out:

Knickernappies One Size, Side Snapping

BumGenius One Size Organic AIO

We also have 2 more on the way:

Fuzzibunz One Size

Monkey Doodlez AIO (sized, this is the on sized dipe I have ordered)

Stay tuned for pictures and my thoughts on all of these!!!

Remember if you place an order from Squishy Tushy and mention my name, we BOTH get FREE FLUFF!

Fluff Friday

Once again they are giving away an awesome assortment...

4-Thirsties Covers

4-Swaddlebees Prefolds 6pks

4-Snappis 1pk (given by the manufacturer)

I really want to try some prefolds so I am hoping to win this one-just like all of the others I enter each week!!!

Found a few more for ya

Man, they are just everywhere...these cool give aways. I found one for something I really need, and you might too! It's for a Jam Tots Wet Bag---you know a bag to replace the plastic bag you use to put wet swim suits in when you're leaving the pool...or the used cloth diapers while you were out...or anything else, you know-wet.

I made baby food for both of my boys and plan to with Ladybug too, here's a great give away I HOPE to win, for a Fresh Baby So Easy Baby Food Kit!!!

Also, here's a give away going for a Seventh Generation Baby Kit...in case you're not gonna give the cloth diapers and wipes a try along with me!

OR-you can try to win some gDiapers to try it out in a much easier version!!!

Finally here's a cute LADYBUG :) hair clip!!! It ends 6/27 so gotta hurry to that one!

What I Love About You ~ 10 weeks

I Love...

• your gorgeous blue eyes, that are getting prettier every day! You are getting eyelashes like your brothers too!
• the way your mouth looks all crooked sometimes...
• how big you are in your princess seat, I can't believe you went from this...

• to this...

• how much K loves you and always asks to be in pictures with you...

• your adorable little legs in all of your cute leg warmers your Nanee made for you...

• your coos and sweet "talking" noises.
• seeing your face light up when you see your Daddy.
• your big cheesy dimpled grins!!!!
• snuggling with you any chance I get because I know those days are passing too quickly.

Go Win Some Baby Stuff!!!!

Here's a few baby give away I have found recently, good luck (yea yea I don't really believe in luck-but you know what I mean)...

Sleepy Wrap Baby Carrier
(ends 6/26/09)

Apple Cheeks Cloth Diaper
(ends 7/3/09)

Baby Legs
(not sure when it ends)

Itzbeen Timer
(Yup, the same one I wrote about!!!-ends 7/6/09)

100 Cloth Diapers for Ladybug!!!

I crossed the 100 mark today! I have used 101 cloth diapers on Ladybug so far (I know this because I keep a spreadsheet of our savings-I know I am a dork)!!! We are still loving it and have no plans of going back to disposables anytime!!!

In my journey with this I have come across a few wonderful blogs all devoted to cloth diapering!! Here's the great blogs I have found so far, and learned a lot from...

The Cloth Diaper Whisperer, home of...

All About Cloth Diapers...

Cloth Diapers
(the creators of bumGenius)

Cloth Diaper Blog

There was also one more I found that I really liked and now I can't find it...ahh, I can't believe I didn't save it in my Feedly in the right place, and I can't even remember when I was there, but I will add it if I find it!

I never thought I would even like cloth diapering, let alone write posts about it, and NOT mind washing them at ALL. It didn't even bother me when Ladybug had her biggest poop yet and we had a bit of a mess (NO leaking, but still a mess as she stuck her foot in it and got it on her dress...). Now I am even hoping to get a few different brands to try! We'll see...

What I Love About You ~ 9 weeks

I Love...

• your fat cheeks, double chin, chunky thighs, and round belly.
• your deep blue eyes-the first true blue eyed baby in our family we believe!
• when you cry. I know it sounds horrible, but you do it so rarely that when you do it's just so cute. Plus you stop as soon as I hold you.
  
• your long little triangular tongue...
• your new blankee..it's so bright and pretty, and you look very cute all wrapped up in it!
• seeing you cuddle with your Baba this week while he visits us...
• your gobs of matching papi clips and hair bows that your Nanee has made for you...one for each new outfit she sent up with Baba this past week!
• holding you on my chest after nursing you, you are so peaceful and I just love snuggling with you every chance I get.
• going to get you in the mornings while you are fussing and seeing you instantly smile as soon as you see me there.
• your new big girl outfit...

Can't believe how much time has passed. Can't believe I once thought our family was complete without you. Can't imagine life without you now.

Welcome Lion Cub!

My bloggy friend, "Mama Kenz" had her baby finally (15 days overdue)!!! He is just precious and she wrote up a beautiful post all about her home water birth!!! It was awesome to read, as I always dreamed of having a water birth but ended up having FAR from it with 3 c sections! Head on over to welcome her new blessing and read his amazing birth story!

Charlie's Soap!

I don't even want to share about this because I want to WIN so badly, but then I realized how selfish that is and I am not selfish. not-at-all. ;) I share the love.

The Cloth Diaper Whisperer is giving away 3 bags of Charlie's Soap!!!!!! Head on over here to try and win. But if you win, you gotta give me a bag-K? Just kidding (sorta).
Can you tell I am on a give away hunt lately?

Win Some Cool Makeup...

My bloggy friend "Mama Kenz" is hosting a neat give away for some KT Naturals Makeup! It looks really cool, I hope I win :) but you can try too...the give away ends June 18.

Go here to enter!

Cute Giveaway

I have been finding some really neat give away blogs, as I am thinking about starting that here at Lil' Ladybug :) (stay tuned...). I found a really cute one today over at...


It's for an adorable hand made (etsy) snake teether, it's so cute!!! Head on over to try and win one (just don't beat me-ha ha!!!)!! This giveaway ends tonight!!!

edited: GUESS WHAT????? I WON!!!!!! I am SO excited!!!!

What I Love ~ 8 weeks

I Love...

• your SMILES!!!! You smile all of the time now, even for my camera!!!
• your new cloth diapers, I don't really know why, but they make me smile!
• the way you arch your back, stick your bottom lip out and stretch when I first start to burp you after nursing.
• your chubby cheeks, you are so round and roll-y now...it's so cute!
• watching you with your Daddy. Seeing you in his arms is one of the greatest joys in my life.
• your new little Minnie Mouse socks...
• getting you all dressed for church in your matching dress, diaper, bow, and papi clip :)
• oh yeah, have I mentioned how much i LOVE your smiles????

Thoughts on bumGenius...

We are almost a week in and I am still in love with our new bumGenius cloth diapers!!! I am absolute proof that a Momma who NEVER thought she would EVER use cloth diapers is now using them happily and successfully!

For those of you reading along with me who are considering giving them a try, I thought I would share some details about how we do things around here. And for those of you already using them, maybe you can offer me some advice if you see something in my process you might do differently or better!!!

First, here is where we put the dirty ones, in our lovely pale yellow FuzziBunz pail liner. I LOVE this liner, and plan to order another one to keep downstairs too, I think. It is gathered at the top and has handles so I can easily lift it out, or even hang it on a doorknob or hook. It also has a zipper at the bottom which I unzip to get the diapers into the washer-NEVER touching them at all, or smelling anything!!! We put ours in our old kitchen trash can, as you can see. It has one of those hand sensor lids, but that part doesn't work. It has to be manually opened to dump the dirty ones in but I have yet to smell a thing!Before putting the diapers in the pail, you need to make sure the velcro tabs are stuck to their little "holding spot" or else they will stick to each other in the wash. You also just pull out the liner and toss the outer and inner into the pail all at once (along with any cloth wipes also).

Right now we own 12 diapers and I have 6 more on the way. I am washing them once per day right now, which is fine with me, since I am home most days. I wanted at least the 6 more so I can go every other day, and will probably get 6-12 more on top of that eventually.

We have 10 BabyKicks cloth wipes and I have 10 more on the way, this is plenty and the cloth wipes are just as easy to use as the diapers-even easier. I made my own wipes solution using the recipe from this link (we made "Easy Peasy"). I also am using the dissolving cubes. Both are in little spray bottles I got from the garden section at Target for $1.99 each! I spray both sides of the wipe before taking her diaper off and then just use one to wipe everything, even when it's a big poopy. I don't think I will ever go back to disposable wipes (although we have a huge box left over so we'll use those when we are out and on vacation).

I am washing our diapers using Charlie's Soap (powder) and it is working well. No fabric softener, no dryer sheets, nothing else. This is the way we are washing our clothes now too (except we put a little Ecover fabric softener in with those). We began our cloth diapering right when we got a new dryer, so we didn't have to worry about detergent build up (which you can get form most detergents. Go here to read about recommended cloth diapering detergents.

I run the diapers/wipes through a cold rinse cycle, with no spin-which takes 6 minutes. I then wash them on hot. They are also dried on hot, and I throw a dry towel in there to aid the drying. Before I did this, the liners wouldn't get completely dry.

After they are out, I stuff them all in a basket to wait to be stuffed...
Each diaper has to be stuffed, which can seem like a pain but it really doesn't bother me. I am using the newborn inserts right now, but the diapers also come with a regular one (we have ours stored away for now). I timed myself stuffing today just so I know how long it takes. It took me exactly 3 minutes to stuff 9 diapers.
I then bring the basket to her room, where I put them all in her top drawer (below her changing pad)...
Ladybug is wearing cloth 100%, even at night and while we are out (so far). I do plan to use disposables when we are on vacation, but that's probably it. I am also keeping track of how many I wash each time and how much we have spent to see how long it takes to save what we spent to get started. I will write another post about that later!

I have also re-purposed our basket, which now sits in her room on the dresser where we change her. I just dump the cloth wipes into the middle section (what's the use in folding them?) and keep the spray bottle there too. I do also have the regular wipes and diapers just in case a guest changes her or we don't have clean cloth for any reason. I also keep her little hair bows and gel in the basket too!
So, as you can see, it is working well for us, I have to thank Laura again, who finally convinced me to give it a try with her great article on Totally Tots. I also appreciate so many of you who gave me so much encouragement! I am thrilled to now be a part of the "cloth diapering club" ha ha!

Remember if you decide to order from Squishy Tushy, we both get credit! Be sure to mention my name! I continue to love ordering from Teresa!

If you missed my cloth diaper posts from the beginning, click here to see them all!

They're Here!!!!!!

Never in a million years did I think this sight would make me smile...Aren't they cute? All washed and ready, she's already worn 2!!! I am so happy and so is her hiney!!!

What I Love About You...7 weeks

I love...

• your tiny smiles coming more and more each day.
• seeing you be Daddy's Date each night as I go up to bed. You spend your late evenings rocking with your Daddy.
• your fuzzy hair that is growing and almost looks curly at times!
• seeing you sleep like a big girl in your crib, even making it 8 hours, 1 night at least!
• your adorable girly outfits and tiny hair bows (I never thought I would say that).
• the way you sleep like you are still in the womb...

• the way your brothers still can't get enough of you...

• that you took your first bottle (breast milk) without any problem last week...

Ladybug, you are just the sweetest addition to our lives, we thank God for you everyday!