the luckiest

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

New Year's Resolutions, Part I

I'm a little early here, but resolutions have been on my mind recently. I thought I'd share the first few here as a way to keep me accountable.

NOTE: Basically every year before this one, my new years resolution was to lose weight. Well, not this year. There are other things in life that are more important than how I look. That's not to say I'm not going to try to be healthier (especially after this Christmas- cheese straws, fudge, cookies, chinese chewies, ladyfingers... do I need to go on?), but I'm not going to feel like a failure if I'm not down 3 dress sizes. Ok, moving on.

1. Read the entire Bible.

I'm not just walking into this one blindly! Aimee over at Womens Marriage Ministries has pointed me in the direction of the New Thru 30 plan (that's the New Testament in 30 days!) and there's even a handy lil blog frog group to keep me accountable!

I have really been slacking in reading the Word for the past... well, forever I guess. I mean, if someone gives me a verse, I'll look it up, but I'm horrible about reading it on my own. Therefore most of my conversations with God are one sided (me asking for something, or thanking for something) and that's not how it's supposed to be.
My plan is to read through the New Testament first, then go back and read the Old Testament.

2. Learn to use my camera

Hello, my name is Laura and I am one of those girls with a nice camera... that shoots on auto all the time. The first step is admitting you have a problem, right? I mean, my idea of taking a good photo is turning the flash off. *sigh* I'm going to learn, though!

Last night I stumbled across a photography blog of a girl (we'll call her Pixy) on a message board that I frequent and she had a genius idea about bouncing light (read about it here on her blog). So I tried it and here are a few shots I got- I love it! It's truly the happy medium between flash and no flash!

3. As another way to keep the camera resolution, I'm planning to do the 365 project this year. That's one picture, every day, for a year. I've not yet decided if I'll do a separate blog or a Flickr pool. We shall see.

Those are all the resolutions I can think of so far. I thought of another one as I was drifting off to sleep last night (and even thought "dang! that's a GOOD one!") and then completely forgot what it was. *sigh* My poor ole brain.

Sunday, December 27, 2009

Merry Christmas!

New Year's Resolution #45374569726342746: Be a better blogger. Sheesh.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Cloth Diaper Review

I know what you're thinking: "You don't do reviews! What blog is this? Who do you think you are?"

Well, first: calm down.

I'm bored... and don't have much exciting to post about.

Plus everyone else does them and I was starting to feel left out.

So there.

Last week, something awesome happened: I entered a giveaway on one of my favorite blogs (shoutout!) The Eco-Friendly Family. The giveaway was for a Thirsties Fab Fitted diaper and a Thirsties Duo (onesize) diaper cover- AND I WON!

WHAT?! I never win anything!

I don't think I've mentioned it on here, but Noah is a cloth-diapered (CD'ed) baby. To be 100% honest, we did it because they're cheaper (and cuter) than disposables. But come to find out they're also better for his skin, better for the environment and, dangit, a great conversation starter! PLUS they're not even nasty to wash (just ask Joe!) It's a win/win/win (Michael Scott's favorite kind of solution, btw). If I can CD, anyone can! And if MY husband is for it- then holy crap, it must be easy!

Anyways, back to my FREE diaper and cover!
They arrived within days of my winning them, and I immediately washed them and put them to use! We typically use prefolds with covers and Bum Genius 3.0 diapers- this is my first experience with a fitted diaper.

The Fab Fitted is so. incredibly. soft. I wanted to just rub my face all over it... but that would have been inappropriate. So I put it on da baby. Here it is on Noah's little tushy (it's a size small, recommended for babies in the range of 12-18lbs):

What a cute tushy.

And for size reference, that is a 9 week old, 13lb 4 oz tushy.

I tried it on with the cover that came with it (Thirsties Duo size two, smallest setting):

I ordered a size two because Noah already has a size one (reccomended 6-18lbs) and it's on the top setting with his prefolds already. And since I know you're curious, here is the diaper with his size one cover that we already had (top setting).

For good measure, here is it with my other new favorite cover, the Litewrap.

(Mini-review of this cover: I'm not gonna lie, I bought it solely for the print, but it has suprised me and I love it a LOT! It has a less-trim fit, but with jammies and clothes that are already kinda big on him, it works great! Plus, it's "un-trim-ness fits over the diaper easier. I don't feel like I'm stuffing the diaper into the cover, which is nice and I'm sure is more comfortable for him. Plus, it has great leg gussets... PLUS who doesn't love a huge fluffy heiny?)

And now, my review:

Thirsties Fab Fitted (size small):
I LOVE this fitted! I've never used fitteds- because I figure, if you're velcro-ing a diaper on your kid, why do it with one that needs a cover? Just use an all-in-one that has the cover built in. I was skeptical as to the "point" of a fitted. After using this diaper twice now, I understand! It's much softer than my AIOs and it fits so snug- there's no way poop is getting outta that thing! And if by some act of God, poop does slip out- it's not getting past this guy:

Thirsties Duo (size two):
I still love it! The leg gussets are perfect for holding in just about anything that comes out of the south end of a north-bound baby. The cover itself is made of PUL that is thin enough to be comfortable, but thick enough to not worry about leaks. With Noah between sizes, we went ahead with the size 2 (reccomended 18-40 lbs) which fit him! Sure, we velcro'ed the tabs on top of each other, but it was still a great fit in the legs!

So, 2 thumbs up from *the luckiest* family! Noah's tushy says thanks to it's friends at the Eco-Friendly Family as well! What a great giveaway!

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

We didn't really have a Happy Halloween- but we had a cute lobster!

Hello there!

Things have been a little crazy around here (could you expect anything else with an 8 week old?)

Sadly, my Pawpaw passed away two days before Halloween- he had been in the hospital for 10 months, recovering from a surgery and after bedsores, heart problems and pnuemonia, he went to be with Jesus on October 29th. We spent Halloween day driving to Georgia for the funeral and didn't return unti labout 8pm. I was happy we were able to go be with Nana that day and see all of our family, but in light of the travelling, Noah's first Halloween was kind of a bust- we only had about 4 trick-or-treaters.

However, after the funeral, I did get a few pictures of my handsome handsome brothers all dressed up (which my mom had been BEGGING me to somehow accomplish for a while now).

Eh, they couldn't stay that serious for long.

Ooh! But the night before Halloween, my aunt and uncle had a bonfire and Noah got to debut his outfit there!

So all in all, we did get a couple of things accomplished that weekend!

Thursday, October 29, 2009

So, I dyed some wool...

I'm doing a longies Knit-a-long on Ravelry with the Eco-Friendly Family board over on thebump. I'm so new to knitting I just know I irritate the tar out of them with all of my questions- but that is how we learn, no? Anyways, I decided since I will probably eff this project up to the moon and back, I'll just use some cheap wool for this first pair. I bought some of this:

Fisherman's wool from Michael's in "oatmeal". But I can't stop there. Nope- too boring. I decided to dye a small portion of it blue (using this tutorial on thejennigirl's blog as a guide) for the waitband and cuffs on the legs.

Here's how THAT went.

*insert knowing look here*

First off, this wasn't your ordinary October afternoon in the south. This is what was going on outside:

And this is what I had resorted to with Noahbeans (he was a bit fussy that afternoon):

I unwound a good bit of yarn and then tied a string around it in two places (I will not do this next time... you'll see why in a minute). Other than that, as I did just as Jenni instructed and first washed the yarn in Johnson and Johnson's baby shampoo. I then rinsed and let it soak for a sec in some tempid water in the sink.

While that was soaking, I mixed one packet of koolaide in 2-ish cups of water (I didn't want the color to be too dark, since I was going for a "natural" color of blue).

Then put it in the microwave for 2 minute intervals, letting it cool a little between each session in the micro-zap. Here's how it looked after the first 2-minute interval:

.. and here it is after the last 2-minute interval:

Can I just pause and say HOT DANG! THAT IS COOL!

The wool completely absorped the dye, leaving the surrounding water clear! Maybe this is old news for people who dye wool regularly, but I thought it was pretty dang sweet. Awesome magic trick for me to put up my sleeve for another day down the road.

Anyways... I then unraveled it REVEALING THE UN-DYED SPOTS from where I tied it up (see? bad idea!) and let it dry. (BTW, I'm not too upset about the "oatmeal" colored parts showing through.. that's the beauty of handmade, right?)

So here's what I ended up with, next to what I started with. Not bad for a first time, huh?

Especially considering I did it all during one naptime. See? Here's Noah at the end of the process.

Ah, rainy-day babies and wool.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

This book ROCKS MY SOCKS

Ok, so... I don't know how to knit.

Correction: I didn't know how to knit until this book! I mean, I could do a simple knit stitch, but I didn't know what purl/knit over/bind off/3 needle bind off or any other knitting term meant until this book!

It breaks everything down for you, even shows you pictures, to make sure you can follow a knitting pattern! Using this book, I might Noah this hat on the drive to GA for the wedding: