Roll over

Adella rolled from front to back for the first time this week!  She's only done it once but gets close every time.  She is soooo strong and holds her head up really well!

(Almost) 3 months!

Today since it was a "little" chillier here, I was able to put an outfit on the babies that had pants.  After I did it I had to laugh because it was the same outfits that we brought the babies home from the hospital in nearly 3 months ago and they are still a little big!   Don't judge me, we had no idea what to bring and no frame of reference for how baby clothes fit!  

First 3 pictures are 4 days old

And two days shy of 3 months!

Yes someone is a complete ham for the camera, and notice how much Charlie has filled out!  

Fluffy Bums : My great cloth diaper adventure, or the post I never thought I would write

Had you asked me a year ago if I would be writing a post about cloth dapering I would have thought you crazy.  Yet here I am!  Its funny what actually becoming pregnant will do to your ideas and preconceived notions.  I thought cloth diapering was CRAZY!  All that wrapping of diapers, swishing them in the toilet, safety pins and rubber pants!  My ideas were ALL wrong, today's cloth diapers are not your momma's diapers!   I don't remember where I first saw present day cloth diapers, all I know is that I immediately thought oh my gosh those are cute!    Which brings me to my reasons why we chose to cloth diaper.

Number 1 reason is MONEY!   If you have multiple kids in diapers you know how this is, when we started adding up how much we could save it was staggering.   Even buying the most expensive diapers out there will save you money.   We however went for cheap china diapers.  Our whole diaper stash cost about $250 and will (hopefully) last until they are potty trained!  Yeah, we'll have paid that off in a mere couple of months!

Number 2 is definitely the cuteness factor.  I don't know why but I'm not a fan of babies in just a diaper, especially in pictures (not trying to offend anyone here, so please don't get mad at me if you post pictures of your kids in just there diaper!   I just don't like how they look is all!).  Right now with their diapers, their little bums do look large and in charge, but guess what we are home by ourselves most days so I am the only one who sees it!   I love changing their diapers and putting a super soft diaper on their little bums.

Number 3 diaper rash.   I had heard that cloth diapers result in less rash, I also heard the opposite.  Luckily for us its the former!  Adella had horrible diaper rash right after she was born.  She would scream and scream when we changed her and every time she pooped.  I literally cried with her many times.   With our pocket cloth diapers her rash is gone (and I rarely rarely have to put any cream on).

Number 4 early potty training.  Obviously this is yet to be seen, but its also said that babies in cloth potty train earlier.  We shall see!

Number 5 the green effect.  I am not a super environmentalist but I will say it makes me happy to not be throwing tons of diapers (literally) away.   I know there are so many reports as to which is actually better for the environment, so I'm not really gonna go there.  You can research it if you want and decide what you believe.   This one wasn't our primary reason, but like I said it does make me happy.  We also line dry our diapers, and since we are in Arizona we can do it all year!

So there you go, all you who think we are crazy can hopefully understand our reasons!   We've been going strong for a month now.  We do use disposables at night and for the sitter, but mostly that's because we have so many that were given to use.  I plan to go full time at night eventually (or at least try) but we'll probably keep disposables around for sitters.    So who else of my friends cloth diapers?  Anyone wanting to try?   I'm not an expert but I'd love to help if I can!

The bike lesson

Charlie enjoyed reading The Bike Lesson with Daddy!

Cousins!

Yesterday we went and visited Alisa, Brycen and Maryn.  Brycen and Maryn had a fun time taking caring of their cousins!
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Maryn helped feed Charlie

And Brycen tried to get Adella to go to sleep by singing and rocking her in the bouncy seat.   As you can see, she wasn't even close to sleeping, but she did have fun teasing him!

Loving the outdoors

Today I needed to take my cloth diapers outside to line dry and the babies were being fussy so I decided to take them out there, even though it would only take me a few minutes to hang everything up.  Well they LOVED it!  I haven't really taken them outside just to hang out, we've gone on walks and they've been outside at some family functions, but never to just lay there and look around (don't worry, they are under the porch in the shade).   I seriously couldn't believe how good they were.  Not one time did they cry.  I decided to clean the pool a bit since they were enjoying themselves so much.

45 minutes later they were still sooooo happy!   

I would have stayed out longer, but I myself was too hot!

I think we might be doing more of this!!!  

The boxer

I think I mentioned before that Charlie has an obsession with his fist.  Seriuosly, he stares at it ALL the time!!  Hopefully he is working on his hand-eye coordination, because otherwise I don't know what he is doing.  I didn't need to wait around to capture these photos as proof, if he's awake, he's doing this.  

The first picture is preparation, fist is made and arm is straightened.

 Arm goes up and eyes are locked in!

Wait for it, wait for it...

 Stare 

 Stare

Serously, ALL the time and 90% of the time the right arm.  Anyone else have a funny kid like this?

A fair resemblance

We finally figured out who Charlie looks like

Bazinga

Would you like some bath with your bubbles?

Ruffles

OK, excuse the bib, and poor backdrop, but isn't this the cutest thing ever?   What's better than a little girl in ruffles?

I put my blue jeans on

I couldn't resist any longer, so even though they are still too big, I had to put jeans on the twins!  (The only reason they are staying up at all is because I have cloth diapers on them!)

 11 weeks

 Charlie does this with his arm all the time.  He makes a fist and then straightens his arm out.  Most of the time he then stares at his fist.  Pretty sure he's practicing his boxing moves.

 And then when I thought it couldn't get any cuter, I just had to take close ups of those tiny feet poking out of the jeans!

 A few close ups thrown in just because (and for Grandma and Grandpa's sake)

 And then I had to make it even cuter by putting socks on!  Haha!  

Sunshine in a box

I have a friend who has a very very sick little girl.   Her name is Lily and she has been in and out of the hospital more times than I can count over the year.   Last week she had to have a surgery under anesthesia.  This is a scary thing for any 1 year old, but especially for Lily who has so many medical conditions.    So we went to visit Alix, Lily's mom, while Lily was having the procedure to help distract her somewhat from everything.  I brought this "sunshine in a box" to help brighten up their day!   It was so much fun to put together, I even made a couple of hair bows to put on the special little lady.   If you are interested in reading about this special girl and her trial, here is her blog.   http://lilsmom.blogspot.com/   I promise you its a great read and you'll come to love this little girl too!

What did you say?

Charlie was very happy..........

Until I told him it was Friday the 13th