10 & 10

Two tiny hands found two tiny feet. 

10 perfect fingers and 10 perfect toes.

Odds, Ends, and Old Barns

Anna's carseat nap yesterday was two and a half hours.  That is the longest nap to date. Eating lunch out might have to happen more often!

Anna woke up today with a runny nose.  She's had congestion problems before but now her nose is constantly running. She leaves a trail across my shirt as she cuddles with me.  She's extra cuddly today (and a little grumpy) so I don't think she feels 100% like herself.  Maybe this is why she took a good nap yesterday?

I enjoyed some homemade vegtable soup from my Nana for lunch.  As a side I had bisquick drop biscuits made with almond milk. A perfect lunch for such a rainy day.

Some of you may know this but our external hard drive died a while back.  We were able to recover some of the files but not all.  It makes my stomach hurt just thinking about it.  Being the photographers that we are, we always back up in two places.  Once on a hard drive and once on a disc.  Not every picture makes it to the disc though.  Only those deemed "good".  So while we didn't lose much we still lost some.  Since one of our backup systems is gone, I've been working to recreate it on a new drive.  It's taking me longer than it should because I keep looking at the old pictures.  10 years of pictures contain a lot of awesome memories for us.  I'm planning on sharing some of the old pictures I found.

Here's one -

I passed this old barn everyday on my way to work in Virginia.  One day just before we left, we parked along side the highway and tried to capture the mystery of the old building.  I think Allen did a good job because it's just as I remember it.  Last time we were in VA, I realized this old barn was torn down.   That's ok, I've got a picture thanks to our second backup system!

Failure



Anna's partner in crime.

We visited friends and family this past weekend and we took a total of ten pictures. 10. This number includes the pictures taken with the wrong F-stop or white balance, etc. so really the number is closer to 5....seriously?  Who does that?  I guess you could say that we were enjoying the company too much to hide behind a camera. 

We enjoyed lunch and hanging out with friends on a very raining Saturday.  I guess a trip to the zoo or a baseball game will be for next time we see them.  Honestly, just hanging out was really nice. I'm sure the kids didn't know the difference!  I really wanted to take pictures of the babies together...but it seemed if one was happy the other was either sleeping or fighting sleep, in other words, grumpy.  So it just didn't happen this time.  I'm sure there will be plenty of chances in the future.



We had an awesome dinner made by the best hibachi chef/meteorologist/pyrotechnician/comedian, I know.  He made jokes about the weather while making an awesome meal. ;)  Unfortunately, the weather put a damper on the pyrotechnics....maybe next time?  Anyway, it was a good visit with Abby and Marc.  Anna, of course, provided lots of entertainment....actually her spit up show on Aunt Abby's shirt, sweater, pants, sock, and kitchen floor could be a sub for the missing fireworks in Marc's repertoire.  Maybe she's his understudy?! 



Girl, who does your hair? I have to know!

Wait, she looks like my Mama but there's my Mama...

We had lots of time with Allen's family too.  Allen, his brother, and our nephew played basketball Friday night until it was pitch black.  I really don't know how they could see the goal let alone each other to play as long as they did.  There was also lots of Mario Karting with Carson once the rain started.  We enjoyed going to church with my in-laws on Sunday.  Three years ago the ceiling of their sanctuary fell down, and this past Sunday was their first time worshiping back in there.  The church took the "opportunity" to do lots of renovations when the ceiling fell, and it looked really nice. We had a great lunch ,which left us wondering why we don't cook steak.  Why don't we?  Oh - because I'm scared of buying it.  Where to start?  I think a good place to start would be the local butcher shop that sells grass fed beef at a great price but then there's the question of what to buy and how to cook it so until I find my big girl pants, we'll just enjoy steak elsewhere.

So I've decided not to overload you with pictures from the weekend so enjoy the few I stuck in this post! :)

Anna's dinner seat.

She "rootshed" so much she ended up like this.



I gotta go, Anna has been sleeping since we got home from lunch and I'm sure she's going to wake up soon.  Yes, that means she's in her carseat but I'm not going to argue with an hour and a half nap wherever it is! I need to take advantage of this time and get a few chores done.  Although, right when I start doing something productive, she's bound to wake up.

** Just to clarify...the only thing about the weekend that was failure was the lack of pictures to document great times!

a girl and her blankie

We've noticed lately that Anna loves to hold on.

Anything she can get - your shirt, your arm, your fingers, her burp cloth, her knees, her feet...  This especially happens with cloth when she is tired.  She will often rub it against her cheek or put it over her face when she is trying to fall asleep.  I found myself constantly taking things away from her because I was afraid what she might do her her desperate attempt to sleep.  That's where her blankie comes in. It is lightweight and the company claims it is breathable.  The fact that you can see through it made me think that this claim was probably true. But not wanting to take someone else word for my daughter's safety, I tested it out.  Must have been a sight.  A grown woman holding a little blankie over her face trying to see if she could breath through it.  As you can see from the pictures I decided it was ok. As soon as the blankie was clean and it was nap time, we tested it out.

I wish you could see her with it when she's trying to fall asleep.  I had to take pictures of her playing with it awake because the camera shutter startles her when she's falling asleep.  She holds it next to her cheek, under her chin, next to her other cheek, over her face, on her belly.  She smells it, licks it, listens to it.  She spreads it out, she balls it up, she waves it in the air.  It's precious to watch.

 

Great Day!

We took Anna to the botanical gardens today.  It was a beautiful day and we enjoyed being out as a family.  Surprisingly, it seemed like we missed the prime for some of the flowers - how can that be?  The first day of spring is tomorrow!?

Anyway - here are the best of the few hundred we took today....

Here's a slideshow with a few more pictures... There are some from yesterday when we got out Anna's Sassy Seat.  She's a little small/young for it so expect LOTS more pictures as she gets older!

3.17.11 Photoshoot

Cost of Cloth

I love Excel. I’m not an Excel master like some people I know, but I do love to make use of its great features to solve problems. I was lucky enough to be able to work in Excel all day every day when I was working. Now I have a better job, but Excel use is limited to our budget and fun little side projects. Yes, I said fun projects when referring to Excel. :) Paying attention to our budget is important these days since we went from DINKs (Dual Income No Kids) to ahh…insert catchy acronym here to describe our current state of happy family of three with a single income. Oh, that sounds good, we are a FOTSI (Family Of Three Single Income)! A family of four (or five) would be a FOFSI. Anyway, our budget is in Excel, and its fantastic and lots of fun to use. Our income is entered, along with our eleven consistent bills/donations that range from basic utilities to life insurance and church offering. We then track expenses in 23 different categories but still seem to have to use the miscellaneous category now and then. If this sounds like overkill, it probably is. However, we can tell you just how much money we have spent eating out or on clothing in the last month, two months, or two years. It is very helpful to see where our money is going or where it isn’t going. At the close of each month, we take all the data and turn it into an array of graphs that compare what we spent in each category to what was budgeted in each category along with monthly averages and number of catagories over and under budget. And when I say we, I mean we created a macro that does it all at a push of a button while also adding a new month tab. Oh yea, I use macros, buttons, and the works at home. For fun. I love it. Even when there’s lots of red and I realize I have to change my spending habits; it’s so easy to look at that it takes a bit of stress out of money issues, which we thankfully don't have much (probably due to being this into saving, budgeting, and tracking). There’s no arguing over money because the facts are there. So, Excel gets used for our budget and projects. Yesterday, I had one of the best types of projects. It included Excel AND cloth diapers.

I’ve been doing cloth diaper (or fluff) laundry for 29 days and have had 15 DWDs. Allen comments that it seems like I’m always doing fluff laundry. No, he doesn’t call it fluff like I do, he says diapers. I have it down to a routine at this point. Every other night, I throw the diapers, wipes, and every other time the diaper pail liner into the washer with just a bit of detergent to run a short cold wash to get rid of the ick. Once this cycle is done, I add some OxiClean Baby and soak overnight. If the pail liner was in the cycle I take it out to dry before soaking. In the morning, I drain the washer, and then do a hot long wash with two rinses and detergent. Once the diapers are clean, they get tossed into the dryer for about an hour. I really want to dry outside; however, I don’t have enough diapers to do this. I don’t know if it is worth buying another dozen to dry outside or not. That question, along with Allen’s thought that I’m always doing wash and thus always using water and shortening the life of our W/D which will eventually costs us, prompted the project I started yesterday to find out how much this fluff laundry is really costing me and when I’ll break even.

I know some of you are curious about using cloth with your next baby (or current baby), so I thought I'd share my findings with you!

The first thing I did yesterday was to list out all the fluff cost I’ve had. I know I listed some on my earlier post Cloth 101 but I didn’t list everything. In fact, Allen is often reminding me of things I “forgot” to count against my total investment. I listed everything that I have purchased or received as a gift. To those of you who gave me a cloth diaper accessory – cover, snappie, or wetbag, I’m going to recoup your money too! Thank you for supporting me and my cloth habits! I really appreciate it. So, first I want to break even on our investment – that’s $300. With all the gifts it totals $370. Now, we probably could have gotten away with $225 but we purchased a few things that would help the process. A diaper pail with a foot pedal (probably didn't need the stainless steel variant, but...), a diaper pail liner, a second type of cloth wipes (because I didn’t really like the ones I had, though Allen prefers them to the new ones), a bigger wet bag for full day trips, etc. So, $300 and $370 are our numbers.

Allen’s big thing is how much work I’m putting our W/D through every day. Its seems on my off day from diapers I have a load or two of our clothes to do. Laundry every day for me. So how much does it cost per load to do diapers? I found a couple of different sites that broke down the cost, and I played with the numbers for how I do laundry and came up with $1.75 a load. Don’t worry babe, this includes depreciation of the washer and dryer. I typically do 24 diapers at a time, so it costs 7 cents to wash each diaper and wipe.

Another important number is how much disposable diapers and wipes cost. Based on Anna’s current diaper size, this is 21 cents for each diaper and wipe combo.

So far; I’ve washed about 360 diapers, that’s a total of $325.24 on cloth (initial costs and washing costs) and it would have been $78.00 on disposables.

So, then I let Excel do its thing, and I figured that it will take me 2000 diaper changes to recoup my costs and 2480 diaper changes to recoup yours as well. 2000 diapers is roughly 166 days and that takes us through to August 2, 2011. That’s about 5.5 months after I started using them. August 2nd will be a big day, its Anna’s 8 month birthday AND her Aunt’s Birthday! 2480 diapers is roughly 207 days or September 12, 2011. After those dates, I’ll just be paying to wash diapers not the diapers themselves.

Cool, huh?  Even cooler when you realize that by Anna's second birthday (you know, the real ones at a whole year mark) we will have saved $1225.  Now, technically, we will have to buy a set of larger diapers, but the cost per disposable diaper keeps going up, so we will call that even...

Now, here's the coolest thing... for a second kid, we save from day 1!


Here's my lovely model wearing a bikini twisted prefold.
These are the diapers I purchased.

 

Here she is wearing a origami folded flat diaper.

My Nana found a pack of these diapers and gave them to me!

Gotta love free fluff!





Leaning Tower of Anna

Sitting with friends.

Holding fairly steady.

Getting distracted.

Starting to lean while investigating the bear.

Attempting to not lean anymore by holding on to her toy bin.

I know what you are thinking?  Why did Kate put that baby right next to an outlet?  First, it's an eye sore in the picture and second, it's dangerous. Oh wait, maybe those two should be reversed. Anyway, I thought the picture would be cute and didn't think about the outlet until I snapped the first picture.  By that point, I knew I couldn't move her and start over because I might not have the same compliant baby.  So think of the outlet as a reference point to see just how far she was leaning over before I rescued her.

Perhaps one of my errands this week should be a stop at Lowe's to buy a blank outlet cover.  Becaues let's face it, Anna's not going to be allowed to have a phone in her room for a long, long time.  I wouldn't be able to afford the bill as much as she talks!

Shhh, the baby's sleeping...

I read somewhere that baby growth and development charts are either loved or hated.  Loved by those parents who have children who are above and beyond the average because they can brag about how advanced their child is.  And hated by those who have children who are developing at their own pace or slower than average.

So who are we?

It is an average.  By definition, some kids should be above and some should be below. That's what average is all about.

Can you tell who we are now?

By three months, babies should start to develop nap schedules.  At least a morning nap lasting about an hour or two.  Should being the key word.  Miss Anna is a bit all over the map with her naps.  She like to nap. Sometimes. Other times, she flat out boycotts naps. Not like screaming at the top of her lungs boycotting more like I'm going to lay here and talk to anything I can see boycotting.

We have a naptime routine. It invovles a new diaper, nursing if she's hungry, quieting down with a lullaby or a story, etc.  After a few minutes, I lay her in her crib, say a quick prayer, and RUN.  The prayer usually goes like this, "Please God let her sleep!" (hehe)

At that point the ball is in her court, sometimes she falls asleep for a while and sometimes she starts talking to herself.  IF she falls asleep, she sleeps for no more than an hour, typically about 45 minutes.  IF she chooses not to sleep and talks to herself, I can't blame her because I talk to myself too.  I know this because as I was making dinner tonight Allen was trying to finish up a paper for work.  I was talking to him about something (honestly, I don't even remember) and turned to him for an answer and realized he was listening to music through his headphones.  He saw me looking at him and said, "Sorry, I have to concentrate to get this done."  See, I talk to myself enough to distract him! Oh well, I went back to cooking dinner and talking to myself while he finished his paper.  I digress... I typically leave her talking to herself for 30 to 45 minutes. I peek my head in now and then to see if she's fallen asleep and usually she hasn't.  We sometimes have a toy in her crib but that doesn't seem to make a difference.  She talks to the bars on the crib if there is no toy.

Thankfully, her lack of napping doesn't seem to bother her nighttime sleep.  We are all over the map there too!  Nah, there is more predictability there. She usually is down for the night between 8 and 9 and will sleep until 7ish in the morning.  Of course, I typically nurse her a time or two in  between but she sleeps for good chunks of time at night.  Sometimes she'll go 3 hours and then 5 hours or maybe 5 and then 3 hours or 4 and 4 or 4 and 3.  It's like a grab bag - you never know what you are going to get.

She always wakes up happy.  Whether it's in the morning or after a nap.  She's smiley and pleasant to be around so I'm pretty sure she's getting enough sleep.

For the record, we really don't care either way about the charts.  Yet.  :)  She's right where we think she should be for both.  She's above AND below the average depending on what we are talking about.

Anyway, just thought I'd catch everybody up on her sleeping habits since that is typically a question we get.  I usually answer that she's sleeping well because it works for us and its working for her.

Here's a picture of a recent nap.  I found out the hard way after snapping this picture that she wasn't really asleep.  She stirred when she heard the camera shutter.  oops.  Guess I won't be taking pictures of a sleeping baby anymore.

last night

All of our guests were gone last night and Anna was stuck with just boring us.  At least that's what Allen told her.

Here are some pictures or products of our boredom last night...

Standing around with Dad.

"Anna, your foot called."

Enjoying hearing about her Dad's day at work.

child of God

"Anna Noel, child of God, you have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever."

In the presence of family and close friends, Anna was baptized at our church this morning.  She slept through most of the service on her Daddy, and she didn't fuss a bit during the actual baptism.  She wore a gown that my mom made for me, and my greatgrandmother embellished with hand stitched flowers.  So that's Anna's grandmother and great-great grandmother. The bonnet Anna wore today is made out of a handkerchief that she can carry as something old on her wedding day. I had one and did this too.  Anna also used a baptismal blanket that my Gma made for all of my cousins to use.  I'm grateful for all these heirlooms because it brought all those family members who couldn't physically be with us today there in spirit.

After the service we had a small lunch at the house with our family and friends. Anna was a gracious host and mingled with the guests as happy as could be until she got hungry. :)  Thankfully lunch turned out well because it will be dinner as well!  We just had coldcuts and lots of side salads.  I made southern style potato salad for the first time. Yum.

Overall it was a great day. I'm really glad that so many members of our family could be here to witness this special event and celebrate with Anna.  Thank you all.

As a Mama the moment I will remember forever was when the assistant minister gave Aunt Abby a lit candle for Anna and said, "Anna, let your light so shine before others......"  I don't really remember any more than that because the candle caught Anna's attention and she focused in on it.  It was a really neat moment. I teared up, hence not remembering all the words, and tried to soak up the moment so the memory can last forever.

She's so precious to me. And to God.

Here are some more pictures from the weekend -

Safe or Not?

All I have to say is - ha ha.

This is how I found her during one of her naps this week. 

I'm not sure anything should be in her crib with her now.

Even her Tigger.

Especially Tigger!

What do you see?

I see a little girl looking at me....

Even at three months, this girl loves her books.

In other news, her hair is Wild, with a capital W. Make that all caps -WILD. 

I think she might start wearing hats 24/7 because I can't keep it from standing up. 

I mean, look at it! :) 

Aww, she's cute. I love her.

Oh little baby girl

May the sunlight find your face
Even when the rain does fall
And get back on your feet again
Every time you slip and fall
Keep your heart wide open
And always taking in
And even when it's broken
Be strong enough to fix it up again

Oh little baby girl
Sweet little baby girl
I wish I could hold your hand in this great big world
Oh little baby girl

And I hope your hands are steady
And never need to make a fist
And I hope that when you're ready
You get one never ending kiss
And I hope that deep inside of you
There's a sweet eternal song
And I hope the words are pretty
And that you'll always sing along

And I hope your friends are many
And your laughter's always loud
To help you when you're lonely
And pick you up when you're down
I hope your eyes shine bright love
And learn to see the light
Take the time to listen
Decide yourself what's wrong or right

Oh little baby girl
Sweet little baby girl
Be strong in this great big world
Oh little baby girl

"Baby Girl" ~ Will Hoge

We've probably each sung this song to her 100 times in the last three months.  It's one of my favorite songs on Anna's playlist. I love the message. The hope. The love. The joy.

Oh little baby girl...


2 days old

 

12 hours old

Actual three month pictures coming soon.