Wordless Wednesday

"Laugh With Me!" - Part 2

February 14th

We spent Valentines Day at Grandma and Grandpa's so we were able to watch some of the Olympics (we don't have a TV). I was watching the pairs figure skating and Bug came in and sat down with me. She kept talking about the Daddies and I couldn't figure out what she meant. Another pair came out and she ran to the TV and pointed to the man. "Is that the Daddy one?" I thought maybe she thought he was the daddy because he was so much taller than the girl of the pair. Later when we were upstairs she asked Daddy to throw her in the air and I realized that she has only seen daddies throwing people in the air. She saw the men of the pairs doing lifts and naturally assumed he was the Daddy. :)

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February 17th

I made waffles with strawberries and whipped cream.

Bug: "Mommy, what's this?" (pointing to the white)

Me: "Whipped cream" (watching her stick a finger in and taste it)

Bug: "Oh my goodness! This is my favorite forever!"

After a few minutes of eating...

Bug: "Strawberries are my best! I LOVE them!"

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February 18th

Daddy took us out to Mexican food, yum! We always tell Bug to say thank you when we leave so on the way out of the restaurant she yells out, "Hey Yellow! Thanks for dinner!" The waiter was wearing a yellow shirt. He was also Hispanic so I'm really hoping he didn't think it was some sort of racial slur!

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February 21st

Bug is really into cooking and wants to do it all the time. Anytime I start to make a meal she runs into the kitchen and says, "I want to help with you!"

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February 23rd

When Boo woke up and I got her out of bed, Bug ran in her room to give her a hug and said, "Oh Mommy, she is soooo cute and peh-cious and dor-able!"

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March 10th

Conversation during dinner

Bug: "Noni got married?" (looking at pictures on the digital frame)

Me: "Yes"

Bug: "You're married to Daddy?"

Me: "Uh-huh"

Bug: "I married to you?" :)

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March 14th

It was a nice afternoon so we decided to go to the park. It was our first trip since last fall so since we hadn't been there in a while Daddy was explaining what we would do there.

Daddy: "They have swings there!"

Bug: (so excited) "Mommy! They have swings there!"

Daddy: "And they have slides there!"

Bug: "MOMMY! They have slides there!"

(getting more excited by the second)

Daddy: "And they have teeter-totters there!"

Bug: "MOMMY! They have TATER TOTS!"

Rollin'

I finally got Boo on video rolling over! She is so funny. She would roll and roll and then as soon as I would get the camera out she would just lay there stock still. But I finally got it. :)

I thought that I had prematurely made the claim of her sleeping through the night b/c after that morning of waking up at 6:15 the next two nights she woke up at 4:00 and then 3:30, BUT the last three nights she's done beautifully. We had a 7:15, 7:50! and this morning was 7:40. Yahoooo! SO nice to get a night of uninterrupted sleep. Love it. :)

Partially-Wordless Wednesday

Instruction:

"Bug, please clean up the kitchen floor."

Action:

Apparently she was playing with a bag of rolls? :)

Easter Blessings

I think it is quite obvious that our two biggest blessings this year are our two sweet girls! They bring so much joy to our lives and we are so thankful for them.

Children truly are a gift.

Yes, it isn't always rosy. They can frustrate me faster than anything else on God's green earth :) but I love them to pieces and wouldn't trade them for the world!

Our little family all dressed up for Easter! The more I look at the girls the more I think Bug looks like her Daddy and Boo looks like me.

Noni and Papa with the girls at church.

This is the only picture I got of Grandma and Grandpa on Easter. (Sorry guys!) I'll have to get a better picture of the girls with them next time we see them.

After naptime we let Bug do an Easter egg hunt in the house. I spent all of yesterday trying to upload a cute video of her hunting eggs but for some reason it wouldn't load. Any of you computer people know what I am doing wrong?? I just don't understand why sometimes they load perfectly and other times they won't work at all. I thought it was the time...it seemed like anything over a minute long wouldn't load, but the one I was trying to do yesterday was less than thirty seconds so I'm not sure what the problem was.
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Me and my little Bug. :) She is getting so big! I can't believe she is going to be three in just a few weeks. Time sure flies.

Bug after her egg hunt.

Next year she'll have a little competition as I'm sure Boo will be walking all over the place by then. :) As I type this Bug is playing with the Resurrection eggs one last time before I put all the Easter decorations away. I really like the way those helped us tell her the Easter story. It was a very tangible way for her to get the story straight. Next year I'm sure she will understand a lot more. I'm looking forward to it already!

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We hope you all had a wonderful Easter!

Instead

Easter is always a wonderful time of reflection. This year I seem to be focusing on the word "instead". The concepts that Easter time brings are very hard for an almost-three year old to understand so we've been trying to make it simple for Bug as she asks questions about why Jesus had to die. Our best explanation seems to be "instead". Jesus had to die "instead" of us. Yes, all of our bodies will die eventually but because Jesus sacrificed Himself for us, if we accept His gift of love, we get to go to Heaven.

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I've been reading a book series and I just finished it last night. It has nothing to do with Easter time but I was struck by the final paragraph and how perfectly it fit my thoughts this week.

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God no longer sees me as a sinner. Because of His Son's blood sacrifice, He looks at me...and sees Jesus there instead. - Beverly Lewis

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Those few simple sentences pierced my heart. I read through them several times and just let it sink in. There was that word I'd been using to explain it all to Bug.

Instead.

Instead of you.

Instead of me.

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Good Friday.

Today is the day, all those many year ago, that Jesus died.

Died for me.

Died for you.

How very much He loves us to have allowed Himself to be tortured and killed by some of the very ones He was saving. He offered Himself up as a sacrifice, taking OUR sins upon Himself, so that He took the ultimate punishment INSTEAD of us.

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But as we heard in our Good Friday service tonight, "It's Friday night, but Sunday's comin'!" We can remember this terrible night with JOY and HOPE and thankfulness for the LOVE of God, because we know the end of the story. Jesus didn't stay dead. He rose again, on the third day. He is alive today. Alive in Heaven and alive in my heart, and the hearts of all those who love Him and have accepted His free gift of love. And all I can say is I'm thankful. Thankful that He loved me enough to die for me.

Thankful.

Pure and simple.

Thankful for the love of Christ.

Fuzzi Bunz

We've got us some Fuzzi Bunz! And by that I do not mean our baby's bottom is molding. :) Fuzzi Bunz is a brand of cloth diaper! Since I was the first in my circle of friends to have a baby I didn't really try anything I thought would be too hard with Bug.

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Then my friends started having babies and almost all of them tried cloth diapers at some point. Bug's little friend Rowen was in cloth diapers when I used to babysit him and I was surprised at how not-difficult it actually was. By then Bug was already a year and half and I was thinking about potty training so I didn't want to give it a try for just a short time, but I always thought I'd try it with the next one.

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So after talking to several friends and doing a little research I decided that Fuzzi Bunz was the brand I wanted to go with. They are more expensive b/c they are called an "all-in-one" meaning that you get it ready after you wash it so when you are ready to put it on it is just as convenient as a disposable. No pinning, no cover that you have to put on over cloth.

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Thankfully I found a set of six on ebay that a lady had bought and realized were too small for her daughter, so with shipping and tax I got them for $11 dollars each. They are $17.95 (not including shipping and tax) from the website, so that was a pretty good deal. Although, as my accountant husband figured out, I am going to have to use them 74 times a piece for them to break even with the price of the disposables we use. I think I've cycled through them 9 times so far. :P As you can see they just have little snaps, so you put it on like a regular diaper and just snap it together, and there are multiple snaps for growing room. Boo is on the first set on the top and the second set on the bottom part. The one and only drawback for me is that they make her little booty more puffy-looking in her pants, but they are far less bulky than other cloth diapers I've seen.

The website claims "No rashes! No leaks!" One of the main reasons I wanted to try them was for the rash-factor. Bug always got rashes when she was a baby, including some really bad ones that were really hard to get rid of. Boo had already started getting rashes at about a month old so that's when I decided to go for it and try out the cloth. I am happy to report that we have seen nary a rash since we started using them! Even though we don't use them full time! Since we only have six I have to wash them every day so if we are gone for the day they don't get washed. And we only use them at home so that we don't have to cart wet cloth diapers around when we are out and about.

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The other claim of "no leaks" made me skeptical but since that wasn't my main goal I didn't really think much of it. BUT...we have only had TWO leaks! Two. She leaks out of her disposables at least once a day, if not two, so two leaks in two weeks is incredible! When you put the Fuzzi Bunz on they can get kind of tucked up around the leg so that is why they leaked those two times. If I make sure it is folded out they hold everything in...and I do mean everything...she has tested it to the limit! :)

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The only other thing I was worried about was washing them, and that has turned out to be easier than I thought as well. You do have to buy a special detergent...I chose All Free and Clear for the simple fact that Walmart had it and it wasn't any more expensive then my regular detergent. Then you just wash once in cold, then again in hot, and toss them in the dryer. Any stains you can get out with the sun. I had never heard of that before but all the cloth diaper websites said to put them, stain up, in the sun and the stain will fade away. I was not hopeful but it is true! The sun just burns any stains right out of there and they are left sparkling white! Okay, maybe not sparkling but it's incredible how well they come out! I am going to have to try it with other kinds of stains...maybe I can stop spending so much money on Shout products (Bug is pretty messy). :)

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So, while they are expensive and I'm going to have to use them many more times to get my money's worth out of them, I am extremely pleased with their performance and would recommend them if you are wanting to try cloth diapers. We think they are great!

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"Yay for Fuzzi Bunz!"

P.S. Bug spent the night at Noni's last night! It is going to be her new Spring Break tradition...even though it's my mom that's on spring break, not her. :) We are very proud of her as she is getting more brave and independent. We went out to dinner last night and shopped at the mall for a bit (although we had a little boo with us b/c I forgot the bottle of milk). :P It was fun and I know Bug is having a ball with her Noni. I think one of the best parts about her spending time with my mom (for me) is that it makes me miss her. I love her to pieces but she can frustrate me faster than I can say "Ugh". :) So whenever I'm away from her it makes me appreciate her even more and, even when she has gotten into some random thing yet again and made a huge mess, it makes me enjoy the time we do have together. Remind me of that tomorrow. Hahaha:)