Princess Birthday Party

We like to tease my sister for the over-the-top birthdays she throws for her kids. She still throws a good party, but she is learning to scale back {a little} with the decorations and food and is figuring out how to get her party to do list {which was 8 pages long} done well before the day of the party.

As a family member that tries to support her party endeavors – being available to help with decorations and food, I can appreciate that she has improved vastly in this area. 

The first year I helped, I think we were up to close to midnight blowing up balloons and sewing streamers together.

This year the party was contained to the bonus room, but she made all of the grownups help with hanging streamers from the ceiling to form a tent-like feeling in the room. 

It was much easier than previous years, but still took some effort on behalf of everyone {especially the males in our family since they are tall... they also grumble the most}.

Anyways, the party was a big hit {I didn't expect anything less}.

The biggest project that Angela and her husband completed was a huge castle that they made out of boxes. 

The girls attending the party loved it {as did the two 1.5 year old boys who were running around}.

As usual, Angela hit a home run with her cake – this year making the ubiquitous "barbie" cake from a Belle barbie doll. The little girls loved it.

Besides playing in the homemade castle, the girls made crafts in the form of coloring crowns and making bracelets.

They also had a tea party – complete with Grammy's tea sets from Hong Kong.

Finally the cake. It was delicious. The little boys were happy to walk around and scavenge food {and cake} from the plates the little girls left in the wake of their playing.

Once again, great job little sister on your excellent party throwing skills! I will be relying on your help come November when a certain little boy turns 2!

I think that if my sister ever quits her job of delivering babies for a living, she could probably make decent money as a party planner for kids birthdays. 

Past Birthday Parties: Finding Nemo (age 2) | My Little Pony (age 3)

Play Date: KidVenture

Yesterday Jack and I headed to Madison, Alabama to meet up with friends at KidVenture for a little bit of rainy day fun.

KidVenture is basically a huge indoor playground that is located in a warehouse. 

There are two large rooms with equipment that appeal to kids ages 0-10. Tables are provided for eating snacks or lunches that you can bring. They also have aquariums with all sorts of lizards to look at.

Jack had a great time. His favorite was riding a little roller coaster in the 2 and under corral. He could push the car up the track and then ride down it. He did this over and over. At one point I caught him standing on the car (at the highest point).

Another big hit for him was the train track that had a wheel that you turned with your hands to move the car on the track.

There are two large bouncy slide things. Jack wanted to try these but got intimidated any time he climbed on and started bouncing (these are definitely more for big kids).

We enjoyed visiting with our friends. The best part is that until age 2, KidVenture is FREE. We will definitely be back to visit in the future.

The only negative to the day was that right after we arrived, I took a moment to change Jack's diaper before we went inside. As I finished up, I heard a loud noise followed by a crackling sound. The entire rear window shattered and continued to shatter over the next 5 minutes. Thankfully the tint held it together and I was able to drive home. I have no idea why it happened. There was nothing on the ground that indicated it had been hit, moreover there was no one in the vicinity. This kind of threw me off for the rest of the day.

See Jack {late April 2013}

This is an ongoing series of videos that I am sharing so that our extended family can keep up with how Jack is growing and changing in these early years.

See Jack help "pack" for our camping trip.

{late April}

See Jack in our tent during our first family camping trip.

{late April}

See Jack play with his remote control car. He could do this all day.

{late April}


See Jack sweep. He is getting to be quite the pro.
{late April}


See Jack "change out the batteries" on one of his toys.
He is practicing for later.
{late April}

Cloth Diapers, A Follow Up

Once upon a time I wrote about our decision to use cloth diapers and I reviewed the brands of cloth diapers we were using. Jack was 2 months old at the time.  Jack is now 18.5 months old and we are still rocking the cloth diapers so I thought an update would be good for those who may be curious.

PROS

We have saved a ton of money. We own 30 one-size-fits-all cloth diapers and spent about $300 upfront on our diapers. We did end up purchasing 3 additional BumGenious 4.0 for nighttime (our boy pees a lot) and they seemed to do better than the cheaper Kawaii's and Just Simply Baby brands that we originally purchased. This brought us to a cost of about $360 not including the cost of washing said diapers (which is about $2/mo for water and $15/every other month or so for detergent).

We have never experienced a blow out. Maybe we just got lucky here, but I think that cloth diapers do a better job of containing messes.

I don't have a real point of reference on this since Jack is my only kid, but he definitely knows when he is wet or dirty (in a good way). Around 16 months I started asking him if he needed a diaper and he would jump up from playing and head to the changing table. At 18 months, he could say "bi-per" (aka diaper) and will still run for the changing table. We have purchased a potty (he knows to call it potty) and he practices sitting there. We are not necessarily ready to potty train, but I like that he is aware of things and we are exploring this next step.

This is more of a personal preference, but I like that cloth diapers don't have a smell to them. When we put him in disposable diapers (we use them on trips that will be more than 4 days), the smell of disposables kind of grosses me out. They smell strongly of plastic, which I am not a huge fan of.

Laundry is really easy. I must admit that once Jack started solids, I was worried about the laundry situation. 90% of the time, I can just dump the poop directly into the toilet. The other 10% of the time is not so pleasant. If you are considering cloth diapers and are concerned about poop getting into your washing machine, the truth is that even with disposables you will still probably put dirty clothes into your machine (if your kid has blowouts, yeah). It happens. I do an extra rinse and I have never experienced any smell or found anything extra left in my washing machine.

CONS

Our diapers take up a bit more space than disposables and you have to carry around the dirty ones after they have been used. We have a wet sack that will easily hold 4 diapers, so this isn't really that big of a deal, you just need to plan for this.

Laundry. While laundry is not harder, if you hate doing laundry, this could be a deal breaker for you. I do a load of diapers about every 3 days or so. And you have to stuff all of the clean inserts into the diaper shells, which seems to work better with small hands so Daniel gets a pass on this job. This isn't a big deal to me, but if laundry isn't your thing or you are already doing a lot of laundry, this could certainly be seen as a con.

Velcro. We only have one diaper that uses Velcro and I am not a fan. Jack likes to pull open the Velcro while I'm changing him. The diaper is a Rumparooz and while I like the extra gussets in its design I am not a fan of Velcro as a closure. Also this particular diaper is a bit more bulky than our others.

That's about it. I really can't think of anything else good or bad. We have been really pleased with our experience. Cloth diapering is not for everyone but it has worked for us.

Books I Read in May (#11-13)

Picnic at the Iron Curtain by Canadian journalist Susan Viets is a first hand account of Viets' experience living behind the Iron Curtain (in Budapest, Bishkek, Chornobyl and Chechnya) as a journalist during the years of 1988-1998. I really wanted to like this book, but I think I was looking for something more. Her experiences were interesting, to be sure, but I felt like her telling of said experiences left me wanting to know more. I gave the book 3 out of 5 stars on Goodreads.

Sparkly Green Earrings is a look into motherhood by blogger Melanie Shankle. I thought this book was decent bedtime reading with the typical anecdotes about parenthood, but nothing amazing. I gave the book 3 out of 5 stars on Goodreads.

I try to read at least a couple of classic books every year and this month I read Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. This is probably my third reading and it didn't disappoint. I love all of Jane Austen's books and enjoy thinking about them in context of the time period and culture they were written in. I gave the book 5 out of 5 stars on Goodreads.

I am still reading The Story in conjunction with the congregation I worship with as well as The Explicit Gospel in conjunction with the Life Group we meet with.

Lowe Mill Docks Concert Series and a Hike

We finally made it to a concert at the Lowe Mill in Huntsville. Unfortunately it is the last one of the season and we have to wait until September for it to start back up.

Before going to the concert, we made a pit stop at Blevin's Gap for a 1.5 mile hike in the woods. We love that there are trails so close to civilization. If we ever have a chance to move to Huntsville, we will try to buy in the Jones Valley area – it has Hays Nature Preserve for biking, trails at Blevins Gap for hiking or running and the Flint River for paddling. We LOVE this area.

After our short hike, we made our way over to Lowe Mill. We were starting to doubt the GPS, when Daniel said, "I see razor wire... we must be close." Sure enough, Lowe Mill was right around the corner. Why are art districts always in sketchy areas of town?

Anyways, we unloaded our camp chairs and blanket and settled onto a grassy spot in the back with a full view of the stage. The event was very relaxed. Most people brought their own food and drinks. We had water and snacks and Daniel went inside the Mill to score some sandwiches from Happy Tummy. They were delicious, but because of the concert, it took him 40+ minutes to secure our food.

   
Thankfully Jack was too busy enjoying the concert and people watching to notice.

Our boy loves music. He would bounce up and down to the music and he clapped after every set.

Can you spot Jack and Daniel in the crowd?
 

There was a 30 minute intermission at 7:30 and I wandered through the Mill to look at the various art galleries. It made me nostalgic for college... the smell of turpentine and linseed oil was strong from all of the oil painting studios. There were graphic design studios, painting studios, a print shop, a used book store, and even a theater for local filmmakers. I was impressed. If we ever live in a city again and I am in the mood to expand my business, I would be very tempted to rent studio space somewhere like this.

Overall it was a great family date night. Jack held up well for the evening -- we left about 8:30. He was mesmerized by the water tower that changed color after dark. He chatted the whole way home and went to bed without a hitch. I am so thankful he is easy going and we can do fun stuff like this.

See Jack {early-mid April 2013}

This is an ongoing series of videos that I am sharing so that our extended family can keep up with how Jack is growing and changing in these early years.

See Jack ride his horse.

{early April}

See Jack try on his new bicycle helmet for the first time.

{early April}


See Jack tell me what a cow and a sheep say.
{mid April}

See Jack put his sunglasses on {and take them off}.
{mid April}


See Jack play with his remote control car. 
Getting it to drive off the furniture is one of his favorite pastimes.
{mid April}