Mommypage Interview

Remember way back when I told you I got an interview with Mommypage?

Well, it's finally here!  Head on over to read it!

The Week's Menu

A fellow blogger has started doing a weekly menu sharing over the last month, and I thought the idea to be pretty brilliant!  I'm not going to do the exact same thing as her [cause that's cheating], but I am going to follow in her footsteps of sharing a couple of meals from the last week that we as a family have really enjoyed.

You probably guessed that all these meals will be gluten-free, and when it's needed I will share my adaptations from an original recipe to make it so.

Without further ado, The Week's Menu!

Crockpot Chicken Tacos

I was introduced to this super easy recipe from he same blogger I mentioned above [thanks Angie!].  Delicious chicken tacos made of chicken breasts, taco seasoning, and salsa. Seriously, how can one not turn down a three-ingredient, two-step meal that everyone raves about?  The rumors are true: this recipe really is as good as it claims.

I know that only hearing raves about something can be obnoxious and feel really fake.  Pinky promise, this isn't fake obnoxious. It really is one of the easiest home made recipes I have ever run across.  The chicken really does just shred when you stir it. The chicken really does taste good. My husband ate it; my kid ate it; my mother-in-law ate it. It works well as leftovers.  Five stars from this blogger.

Black Beans and Sausage

I found this recipe in a desperate search trying to figure out "what on earth I was going to do with all this sausage in the freezer [I don't even like spicy sausage! who bought this anyway?!]." Points go to this recipe for being pretty cheap, especially if you find expired sausage on sale somewhere.

Turns out, I actually like this recipe quite a bit.  Enough to actually go out and buy the ingredients again to remake it for next week. The beans do a good job of toning down the spicy sausage, and while it is a recipe that requires your attention, its only for about 20 minutes. Also a great leftover meal, and kiddo was a fan [but she's a weird child and happily eats spicier things than I can handle]. I would recommend putting it over rice instead of with yogurt.  The meal stretched farther that way; plus the yogurt thing just wasn't to my liking.

Dessert?

Well, we eat ice cream.  Lots of it, in fact.  To the point that I probably shouldn't admit to just how often it gets consummed.  Let's just say its our go-to when we have to watch awful movies for Josh's classes.  Which happens...a lot.

Tried it? Liked it?  Let me know in the comments below!

The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

I promise for Wednesday to have a relatable post about yummy food and happy days.  Not for today though. This weekend took it out of me.

The Good:

This weekend is over.  And it will be "cooler" tomorrow [as in, 91 instead of 97]. And I saved 2/3 of my fabric after a small-ish disaster with the cat.

The Bad:

This weekend was National Guard weekend.  Which essentially meant there was no weekend.  It's 97 today and I found out I don't have the key to the community pool.  So I spent 30 minutes dressing/sunscreening myself and my child for naught.

The Ugly:

Wondering what that whole cat disaster was?  No? Too bad.

Saturday morning, about an hour after Josh left, I found myself following a stench to the office.  Turns out, our cat decided he didn't want to use his litter box anymore, and instead urinated all over a pile of fabrics that had been on the floor.  [I take full resposibility for leaving it there for the last nine months.] So I got to spend my entire weekend cleaning up after him.  Good news was most of the fabric was saved after a few runs through the washing machine.  Bad news was the carpet smelled and needed shampooing.  The ugly news was that the most expensive fabric isn't doing so well.  Funny thing about minky - it absorbs everything, including cat stink.

I'm open to any and all advice for a last ditch effort to get the ammonia smell out.  So far I've tried doing a vinegar rinse cycle and using cloth diaper detergent. Do you know the secret to getting these smelling fresh again?  Please, please, please let me know.

Thanks for listening, and again, happy times will come again on Wedsnesday.

Highly Unusual

We were the unfortunate winner of a nasty something this last weekend.  Poor kiddo found herself teething [we think] and then some sort of stomach bug decided to join.

Actually, we're pretty sure she was teething - four molars and two bottom teeth have been slowly poking their little white heads up in her mouth. [By the way, if you care to know, our kid's teeth come in so weird. Two bottom front teeth, then all four top front teeth, now six from all sides. It's a wonder she doesn't turn into a baby shark each time.]

The mantra around here is that you know kiddo is sick when she actually snuggles for more than a millisecond.  And when she keeps laying her head down on the futon.

highly unusual...

We resorted one night to letting her eat a 'nak [translation: "snack"] right before bedtime because she needed to eat something.  The life of a parent...

sitting in dad's lap with a blanket around her...highly unusual.

 She loves this story.

Story Time and Nak on Vimeo.

[For those of you horrified enough to know what on earth we read to our child, it happens to be The City of Dreaming Books by Walter Moers.  I highly recommend his books.]

I found that there were two particularly difficult things about dealing with your baby being sick [other than the fact that it just sucks.]  One, getting them to eat.  I have no advice there.  I was tearing through the fridge trying to find something she would eat all weekend.  Two, keeping them on schedule [if you do that schedule thing].

Here are my tips on taking care of a sick baby while not completely wrecking their sleep schedule. Babies need extra sleep while they're sick, just like us.  However, letting them sleep at random times suddenly is going to mess things up when they get better.  I found that doing these three things helped kiddo get the rest she needed while not completely train wrecking the weekend.

1] Putting her down for naps 1/2 hour early. I did ask her to to keep chugging until then.  But staying awake meant snuggles and watching movies while she was awake [not something I regularly do when she's feeling better], and some playing when she felt up for it.

2] Letting her sleep as long as she wanted, once she was asleep. By doing this, it helped shorten her subsequent awake time. This didn't work every time, however, because often she would unload a nasty in her diaper halfway through the nap.  Leading to number three...

3] Putting her back down when she woke up too early. The first time she woke up an hour early from her nap, I freaked.  There was no way she would survive being up for an extra hour.  What I found to work was this: change her diaper, and put her back to bed.  If she didn't just go back to sleep then, I got her up and let her play for about 15 minutes.  At that point, the sick-tired-thumb-sucking would kick back in and I would put her back down to finish the nap.  It worked every time, and she often slept extra-extra long.

And lastly, if the day totally crashes and nothing goes right, there's always tomorrow.  Once the day is over, lay your head down, get some good sleep, and try, try again.

What are your tried and true tips for getting a baby to sleep when they're sick?

Changes

There are going to be a few changes going on with this blog over the next couple of weeks.  Nothing too earth shattering, but you'll probably start to notice a few details here and there that will be not the same as they used to be.

Here's the deal - I've been realizing that this blog is not turning out to be what I originally intended it to be.  I thought I could blog ad nauseum about cloth diapers. Turns out, I can not.  I also thought that I could hop right in with the group of amazing food bloggers and talk about my own adventures in gluten-free eating.  Turns out, I'm not that good at taking delicious-looking pictures.

I'm not going to just stop talking about those things, because they are a big part of my world.  But there are other big parts of my world that I keep sharing on this blog, and I think its time to just be honest with myself and with you, dear reader, and make it official.

This blog is going to be morphing into what would probably be defined as a "lifestyle blog."  I'm calling it an archive-in-process of our life over these few years while Josh is getting his undergrad at ASU.

I want this blog to be a couple things - I want it to be a written story of our life as we journey through this phase of life.  And I want to hopefully be an encouragement to those reading it regularly.  In my mind, I imagine finding a bunch of other families doing the "dad's in school and mom's at home with the kids" and creating a supportive atmosphere of surviving the endless piles of homework, the tight budget, and the wondering if this is going to be worth it in the end.

And then I realize that no one is as stupid as we are.

[However, if you happen to be doing the same crazy thing, kuddos to you.  Let's lock pinkies and be stupid together!]

Anywho, here's the point - I'm going to be blogging about our life out here and about cloth diapers and good recipes I find or make up and stuff I make and about my faith and parenting things I figure out along the way... and I promise to not get boring.  The topics are widening, but they kind of were anyway.  I'm just making it official so I can move forward and quit feeling guilty about lying to you, dear readers.

Cloth Diapers at 14 Months

This last month was a full one!  We had both sets of grandparents visit, a child learning how to walk and mimic better every day, and school taking over every spare minute we've had.  It's been so much fun watching kiddo learn to mimic - she fake sneezes, coughs, and laughs, sticks her tongue out, squeezes her eyes shut, and sighs.  she also has started obeying basic commands, like putting tupperware away [I am that parent that makes her kid put dishes away already.  She likes it though!], laying her head down, and putting her hands on her head.

Hands on Your Head on Vimeo.

Adelle - 14 Months 

# of Children: 1

Gender: female

Size: 20 lbs, 28 in

Average # of Diapers a day: 9

Laundry Schedule: Every three days.

 Routine: 2 pre-folds used during awake times, all-in-ones during naps, all-in-ones with extra insert at night

Diaper Size: One size diapers - middle settings, Thirsties covers - size 2, second smallest setting, Disposables - size  3

Leaking?: I think a couple times, but obviously not worth remembering when or why.

How's the Poo?: Good, bad, stinky.  Still contained.

Did you Use Disposables?: I did for one day.  Kiddo developed a rash that got bad enough to need regular rash cream.

Any Changes: Surprisingly, no.  After all the big changes going on over the last couple months, it feels a little strange to not have her growing in her sleep or doing something crazy like learning to walk.

Any Issues: Nope.

Still Like Cloth?: Indeed.

Refashioning a Too-Flowy Top

With the changing of the weather from hot to hotter out here, I've been feeling the need to find clothes that are more appropriate for sweating in.  I'm not talking workout clothes, I'm talking tank tops.  [Yes, it is already hot enough for bare shoulders down here.]

Last week I took a trip to the local thrift shop, and found myself a couple of cute tops.  One thing I love about thrift shopping is that there's more freedom to refashion clothing you find there.  Something about buying it secondhand and for less than $5 just makes it easier to look at a shirt and go, "with a little this and a little that, this shirt will be exactly what I've been searching for!"

This tank was one of those situations.  There's a lot of love about this top [the fit, the colors, the braided straps] except the way the fabric flows right to my mom hips and makes them look even wider.  I wanted to keep the flowy look around the stomach, for both coverage and breathability. The original plan was to just shorten the length so that the top didn't end right at my widest point, but then I realized that this shirt had even more potential as a maternity top someday.

With some inspiration from the shirt off my back [literally], I realized what would make this top just what I wanted it to be.  It needed an elastic waistband.

The good news is, adding an elastic waistband is super easy.  And actually, there is no bad news.

So, here's the how-to:

You will need

• A shirt you like
• Polyester Elastic in the width you'd prefer [I used 1/2 inch]
• Sewing supplies - a machine, thread, scissors, etc.

You will do

[1] Measure out your elastic using your own body.  Wrap the elastic around where the bottom of the shirt hits [in most cases, this will be around your hips], then tighten it up a bit so that the elastic is stretched some, but still comfortable.  You should still be able to breathe.

[2] Cut off the excess elastic.  This is the diameter of your elastic.

[3] Now, cut your elastic diameter exactly in half.

[4] Sew the ends of your elastic halves on the inside of the shirt, at the hem, next to the side seams of your shirt. You want there to be about 1/8 inch of fabric that is below where your elastic ends - this is going to be your seam allowance when you encase the elastic. [That whole part might be confusing. Sorry. Hopefully this picture helps.]   Note: Your elastic will be shorter than the width of your shirt, but that is okay.

[5] Fold the hem of the shirt over, so that the elastic is encased inside.

[6] Sew a new hem around your shirt, making sure not to sew into the elastic.  I periodically pulled on the elastic a little bit to make sure it still slid around inside and wasn't sewn into.

Now try it on!

Happy Refashioning!

Happy Easter!

Happy April Fools and Day after Easter!  I really hope you had a good holiday weekend.

We celebrated with some familial bonding over eggs on Friday evening with the fun addition of  the hubby's brother, and a date night run for super delish milkshakes from here afterwards.

would you believe things got messy?

red, blue, red, blue.

red-ish, blue-ish, purple, purple.

On Saturday we got our baby fix in when we went to visit some friends and their brand new baby boy! I made him a couple of customized onesies - the left one was an embroidery design from my sewing machine, and the right one was a floppy tie onesie pattern I followed from over at See Kate Sew.

lamest easter dress picture in blogging history.

On Sunday kiddo got to participate in her first egg hunt [one-year olds are terrible, however super cute, during these things], and later in the evening discovered sand for the second time in her life. She was slightly less appalled that I dumped in the middle of a sandbox.

And then today - oh today! - so background, I have finally started getting back into running again since last summer, and it has been.so.wonderful. UNTIL TODAY.

You guys, I got attacked by a couple of dogs on my run today.  How scary is that?  Thankfully neither myself or Davi got hurt, but I am shaken.  My running ecstasy I've been in for the last week is gone.  Husband is now required to follow me whenever I step foot outside of this house to exercise for the next month. Maybe two.

Sigh.  Life can never be perfect, can it?