Cloth Diapers...Then and Now...Mysteries Revealed

*Update June 20, 2014- IKEA no longer sells their burp cloths! So sad! I got some flour sack towels at Target instead.

I have just about every style of cloth diaper. We started with Cloth-Ez prefolds and covers. I tried two pocket diapers(Fuzzibunz and BumGenuis 4.0), and I couldn't resist two cute work-at-home-moms fitted diapers. I tried and returned an all-in-one BumGenius freetime. I have some Flip stay dry inserts that I'm planning on selling. I have bummis, flip, thirsties, and wool diaper covers that I made from upcycled sweaters.

Does it sound like I'm speaking another language? Why do we as moms have to make things so complicated when they could be so easy? Diapers do one thing...catch pee and poop until your child is potty trained.

Do you want to know what I've learned? Buy flats! They're $1.50 each at IKEA or $1 at Target(flour sack towels), or free if you use that ratty old T-shirt of your husband's that you really hate.

Although I love my fitted diapers, I find that no matter what I try, they get detergent buildup and baby girl gets a rash if she sits in them for too long. My two pocket diapers I hardly ever use because they seem to get buildup and repel and leak if I use them too much. 

My prefolds are great ($3 each for medium wide baby size) but take forever to dry.

I just started using my own diy t-shirt flats and wish I would have just done it from the start! They wash up so easily because they're thin and you don't have to have a crazy complicated wash routine. I'm thinking I'll get a couple from IKEA(burping cloths) and use them when we travel because I won't have to worry about detergent buildup, etc, and can even handwash them if I needed to.

So for a dozen flats at $1 each and three covers($14 each), you could have enough diapers from birth-potty training for under $60! That is incredible! Ask around for family members 100% XXL t-shirts and you have free spares. Although I have to admit, I felt a little trashy using cut up t-shirts to diaper my child, but I wanted to see how I liked the whole flats thing. Yes you have to do some folding, but it's nothing complicated. Can you watch a YouTube video? I bet you can!

What if you have a squirmy baby? Rylee is the squirmiest, and always has been. Whether it's a disposable, prefold, flat, or fitted diaper, we have just as hard of a time. You learn to get really fast at pinning that diaper!

We use disposables for night time because I could not figure out a system that kept our sheets dry and her bum rash free in the morning, so I gave up around 6 months and am not ashamed at all. I do die a little inside every time I shell over the cash for a box of Huggies, but it was better than troubleshooting diapers every single night and changing sheets and worrying about rashes.

If you're interested in cloth diapering, don't get caught up in the very complicated world of modern cloth diapering. Keep it simple. Go to IKEA, eat some Swedish meatballs and a slice of chocolate cake, get some cute printed "burp cloths" for $1.50 each, and then order a couple diaper covers(I love Thirsties and they come in two sizes) off Amazon, and don't go crazy with laundry detergent. Then treat yourself to something special because you just saved yourself hundreds of dollars on disposable diapers and lots on complicated pocket diapers.

And don't forget to get a swim diaper for your little waterbaby! I have a couple Bummis swim diapers that we've liked, but again, don't get caught up in the dozens of brands and kinds.

MIller Outdoor Theater Weekend Adventure

 Friday afternoon, Rylee and I headed downtown to meet Ryan at work when he got off. We warmed up dinner in his break room and then headed over to Herman Miller Park to see the Pearl of the Orient featuring Leyte Dance Theater at the Miller Outdoor Theater. We let Rylee wander around the park and play for about an hour and half before the show started at 8. Then we took some family selfies.

She loves seeing herself on the phone screen!

She danced to the music, wandered up to strangers on their blankets, ran up and down the hill, and ate her weight in cheerios. After the show we changed her into PJs and headed home.

Saturday, we attempted to go to the Fine Arts Museum for the first free weekend of the month for Bank of America card holders, but it didn't work out very well. Something about the fragile,expensive objects within a baby's reach and big echoey exhibit halls that magnified Rylee's screaming tantrums when we didn't allow her to touch, said priceless artifact. So we went to the Children's Museum and let her burn some energy. We thought about going to the zoo but decided it was way too hot. The ¡Ritmo Latino! featuring Pedrito Martinez Group was performing at the Miller Outdoor Theater, so we decided we wanted to see that. We grabbed some sliders from Little Big's off Montrose and headed back to Herman Miller Park(my favorite place in Houston). The band had an Afro-Cuban inspired sound and was really awesome! Rylee wandered around the hillside, trying to steal people's keys and knock over wine glasses. She got really good at walking up and down the inclined hill. This is what the theater looks like.

All performances are free and you bring blankets or chairs to sit on the lawn on the big hill.
Or if you're 16 years or older and stand in line for tickets the day of the show, they
have covered seating under the roof.

She had developed a really bad diaper rash earlier that afternoon, and halfway through the show, she started screaming inconsolably. She had pooped and it had really irritated her rash, poor baby! It was already 9pm at that point(normal bedtime), so in the middle of an awesome drum solo, we packed up all our stuff and took our screaming baby home. She clung to Ryan the entire walk back to the car and finally started to calm down. She was asleep as soon as we started driving.

We had a big weekend, but it was fun as always with my two Ry's!

Random family selfie from General Conference weekend(aka stay-in-pjs-all-day)

#BecauseofHim

Check out this awesome video that my church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, put out today! Daily updates will be posted to this website, http://easter.mormon.org/, for the rest of the week leading up to Easter.

Perfect Saturday

Do you ever have one of those perfect days? Where the weather is great, children behave, and life is good?
We had one of those days yesterday. A visit to the Houston Kite Festival, the Children's Museum, and the Fifth Ward Renaissance Festival (celebrating jazz and other music, not knights and jousting).

The huge kites were way cool!

Rylee toddled about happily all afternoon.

There was a cool Chinese dragon.

The dragon!

Fifth Ward

First Daddy-Daughter Tea Party at the Children's Museum

Rylee loves to help "walk" the dog now.

I forgot to throw in this picture from our trip to Austin last weekend. My sister Delaney came for her Spring Break, so Rylee and I hopped on the bus to head over for some sister time.

First time at Barton Springs Pool. Swimming with her aunties and cousins.

Rain Rain Go Away So I Don't Spend Money On A Children's Museum Membership

We had grand plans for Saturday. It was the Bicentennial Celebration for the Battleship Texas and the Crosby Crawfish and Zydego Festival. Well, it poured rain. We went out to Crosby anyway to check out the festival to see if it was indoors and how much it was. It was coming down in buckets by the time we got there. The fair grounds were muddy, and tickets were $20 each. So we skipped it. We knew the Battleship Texas stuff was all outdoors too, so we decided to go to the Children's Museum because we couldn't think of any other rainy day activities with a baby in tow.

We could have gone on a free Thursday night, or the first Saturday of the month. But yesterday was neither, and it was raining. So what the heck, we got the membership so we can go as often as we want! Rylee loved the Tot Spot upstairs.

There's some more pictures on her blog.

There was a concert Friday night at the park near our apartment. We walked over to check it out after dinner. Rylee loved the music and the people dancing. She just wandered about with her little hands clasped soaking everything in. She did not want to go home!

I was totally dying from cuteness overload!

So despite the rain and less than desirable weather this weekend, we had lots of fun.

"It's All Greek To Me!" First Birthday Party

Last month, I happened to be cooking some Greek food and thinking about what I wanted the theme to be for Rylee's birthday party.  It occurred to me that since Rylee only speaks baby babble right now, I could describe it as "It's all Greek to me." That turned in to having a Greek themed party! These were her party invitations.

I'm obsessed with chevron and thought the pink made it girly enough.

I'm obsessed with falafel, and even though it's not Greek food at all, it's served at a lot of Mediterranean style restaurants, so I made it anyway.

My brother sneaking food.

We had falafel with pita bread, cilantro, creamy tahini sauce, hummus, tzatziki sauce,
Greek pasta salad, chips, veggies, lemon cupcakes and cherry "pi."

My "happy birthday" banner I had Ryan do in InDesign. It matched the invitations with
the grey chevron background and pink letters.

Rylee's "1" photo collage

The present table. It had this word collage below

I asked all of our family to give me words that described Rylee, and then put it into Wordle.

We opened presents.

You can see in the background I did a photo banner of Rylee from birth-12 months old.

We sang happy birthday.

I got the recipe for this little eggless/dairy free smash cake here. I
didn't put a lot of the cream cheese frosting on it though, and used a little sugar instead
of the apple juice concentrate.

The birthday girl liked her cake.

Afterwards, she got a quick rinse in the sink.

We danced to the Zorba.

Opa!

And spent time with her aunties.

Halie was making her laugh so hard! I absolutely love this picture!

Peek-a-boo with Aunt Ally. I wanted her dressed for some family pictures.

With our one year old!

Running away to play with her toys.

It was a lovely night! Four of her aunts, two uncles, two sets of her three grandparents, two cousins, my aunt and cousins, and some family friends were all in attendance. Although Rylee only took a 40 minute nap today on the way over to my mom's, she was very well entertained and didn't have any first birthday party meltdowns. My brother-in-law brought his camera and took about 6gigs worth of pictures and video, so I have lots of pictures to go through. It is, however late, and day light savings is tomorrow, so I will call it a night and leave you with this sneak peek of the immense amount of cute pictures of Rylee!

She kept calling the toy dog "Blanca!"

And as a final note, I'm grateful for the help in preparing dips, frying up the falafel, cutting veggies, and cleaning the kitchen mess this afternoon from these three guys!

And for my brother-in-law being my personal photographer for the evening. It was great to not worry about taking pictures and to enjoy the moments tonight.

My mother-in-law helped me bake cupcakes, made a delicious pie, and cleaned up after me as I destroyed her kitchen. 

My mom of course, for hosting the party at their house, even though she wasn't feeling real well, and cleaning before and after. 

And my sisters. Cassie ran after Rylee all afternoon while I was busy in the kitchen. Alex came early and decorated, taught us to dance to the Zorba, kept Rylee occupied frequently, made a yummy Greek pasta salad, helped clean up and pack everything into the car to go back to my in-laws.

I have one pretty awesome family!

Rodeo Parade and Zoo

The Houston Rodeo kicked off on Saturday with a parade! We were late so we missed the bands and floats, but caught lots of wagons and horses. We also stayed and listened to the marching bands that were playing in the park.

Stopped to swing!

Realizing it was the first weekend of the month, we used our Bank of America cards for free zoo admission again! Last time we went, Rylee had a cold and wasn't walking yet. This time, she was happy and walking around everywhere! 

It was really cute to see her explore everything with her new found skill.

We also ate yummy spicy Vietnamese sandwiches for $2.50 each at a little place in midtown for lunch. Rylee does not like spicy, poor kid!

After the zoo, Rylee crashed fast asleep! We went to Trader Joe's to stock up on food(and chocolate). We came home, ate Trader Joe's frozen Indian food and naan for dinner, and then watched "The Way, Way Back" with Steve Carrel, which is a great movie!