The Spring Sickness!!

Every March is seems that sickness spreads around town like CRAZY!!! This March is just the same. Joseph has been out of preschool since last Tuesday, he had a fever and now just has a runny nose and horrible cough. On Thursday Hunter got the fever and it lasted a couple days longer than Joseph's did. Not only did Hunter have a fever but he was also teething, coughing and dealing with the runny nose. Now he is in the same boat as Joseph (Runny nose and cough). Guess who got it next? Yep that is right! Me!!! I have such bad sinus pressure that it hurts to drive into town since we live on a hill. I am hoping that by the end of the week I am feeling better.

I cannot believe how much I have neglected my blog! :(

The Winner is...

The winner of the $15 CSN Stores gift Card is lucky number #13! Congrats to kagome57!!! I just sent you an email you have 48 hours to respond or I will choose another winner.

CSN Stores $15 Gift Card GIVEAWAY

As I had said in a few earlier posts CSN Stores gave me the opportunity to do a review on their products. I have been really excited. How this review from them worked is, they sent me an email with a gift certificate code and I am suppose to go to their site and buy whatever I want. Well I did and since I live in Alaska the shipping would have cost three times as much as the baby silverware and snack bowl that I wanted.

So I have decided to give the gift certificate code away to one of my blog followers!

How to Enter:

You must complete the mandatory entry for any extra entries to be valid. Please remember to enter your email address with each comment.

When you see the +1 & +2 next to the tasks that is letting you know how many entries you will receive for completing the task. If it says +2 or greater you would  need to leaving two separate comments for that task.

Mandatory Entry (Please complete first!)

+1 Follow me via Google Friends Connect and go to CSN Stores and look through their products then come back here and tell me what you would buy if you won!

Extra Entries (all extra entries are worth on

• +2 Go like me Alaskan Mommy of 2 on Facebook then come back here and leave me a comment with your Facebook name

• +2 Go follow me @kelsey_akmommy2 on Twitter then come back here and leave me a comment with you Twitter name

• Refer a friend to like me on Facebook (1 additional entry for each friend you refer just comment with their name)

• Refer a friend to follow my Blog via Google Friends Connect (1 additional entry for each friend you refer just comment with their name)

• Share about this giveaway on Twitter, Facebook or your Blog comment with the link (Can be done daily for an additional entry) Make sure to tag me in the post!

*This Giveaway is open until March 15th @8:00PM Alaska Standard Time or 12:00PM Eastern Standard Time*
The winner will be chosen by Random.org and will be announced on March 16th! Good Luck and help me get some more fans so I can do more giveaways!!!

CSN Stores and an Update on Crying it Out

A couple of weeks ago I was given the opportunity by CSN Stores to do a review! This is my very first review and I am very excited. Did you know that CSN Stores offers everything from Modern Office Furniture to Baby Gear to Bedding to Pet Supplies and more! I cannot believe how many different products they carry!!!

It has been about a week since we started to let Hunter "cry it out". He only cries for about 5-10 minutes now when we put him in his crib. But he still has not slept through the night. One night I tried not getting up to nurse him when he cried and that really didn't work. I am just happy that eh is sleeping in his own crib and when he wakes up to nurse that I can nurse him and put him back in his crib to sleep.


Also before I forget.... I ordered some diaper fabric! And am going to start making diapers as soon as it get here! I am very very excited!!!

Well that is all for now! Time to go spend some time with my boys before bed!

If you don't already follow my bog please do so and tell your friends there is going to be a lot of exciting things to come!!!

Crying It Out...

Last Saturday Hunter hit 10 months! I cannot believe how fast my little boys have grown, when Joseph was an infant I savored it all. The days didn't go by as fast as they do now. It is crazy to think that this time last year I was pregnant and working full time! Now I am a cloth diapering mom, I have a rambunctious loud Preschooler (this time last year Joseph was very shy and soft spoken), and am jobless(by choice)! I am brushing up on my sewing skills and plan to make a line of baby products in the near future. If you would have told me last year that I would be cloth diapering and sewing. I would have thought you were nuts!!!

I got sidetracked there a little!

Since Hunter was born  he has slept with us in our bed. The main reason for this is that he was born prematurely via C-Section and had some reflux issues. It was easier to have him right next to me for nursing and diaper changing. Each month has passed and we have tried to get him to sleep in his crib but he wants nothing to do with it. He just screams and screams. So what do you know he is still in bed with us. SO after reading an article about breaking sleep habits I decided to give it a go, what do I have to lose?

On Wednesday I bumped up Hunter's evening nursing by a half hour so that he doesn't fall asleep while he is nursing. When he was done nursing I put him in his crib at about 9:00 and told Cody not to go in to him. After crying for a half hour he finally fell asleep and sleep. He did not sleep through the night but he only woke up twice once at 2:30AM and again at 5:30AM and after each nursing I put him back in his crib and he didn't fuss he just rolled over and went back to sleep.

Thursday morning I woke up feeling pretty good! I was thinking "Yay, finally he might sleep through the night!" I did the same thing Thursday night, nursed him early and put him in his crib at 9:00 he cried for 10 minutes and then fell asleep. Cody and I were feeling great and thinking that it would probably only take Hunter a week until we don't have the bedtime battle. I think that we go a little excited too soon because Hunter woke up a bunch, at 11:30, 1:30, 2:30, 4:30, 5:30 and 6:30. So once he woke up at 6:30 I gave in and let him sleep in bed with me until 8:30 when I woke up.

Friday I felt discouraged and kept wondering to myself "Why on earth won't this kid sleep". But I didn't give up. Last night he nursed early and went into his crib at about 9:30 and cred for about 5-8 minutes and fell asleep. He woke up at 11:30ish and ended up falling back asleep within a couple minutes. He then woke up at 1:30AM, I nursed him and put him back in his bed. He woke up two other times but I didn't look at the clock.

Tonight we are not gonna give in, we are going to keep with the routine that we have started and hope that soon our Hunty man will sleep through the night!  It has been a very long time since I slept through the night about a year and a half I figure. I also think a lot of Hunter waking up a lot is because he has a cold again. We just can't seem to get rid of the stuff.

Last Week and Today

So last week was a completely hectic week. We had vet appointments, a preschool potluck, a birthday party, and were rearranging furniture in the living room! That is just all that I can remember. I also received an email from CSN Stores and they want me to review one of their products! I actually thought that the email was a scam so I sent an email to CSN Store with  a copy of the email that I had received just to make sure that it was legit. And it was!!!

Over the weekend I received my sewing machine!!!! I am so excited, it is very light and seems pretty simple to use. I am hoping to start my own line of baby products but I am sure that I have a while before I will have anything ready. I have been searching all over the internet for fabrics and I am going to start making fabric purchases in the next few days. Once I do get products made I am going to be needing TESTERS!!! But I am probably a few months away from that!

Now on to  this week! Today is one of those Mondays that I can actually say "Wow today was definitely a Monday". The temperatures have really started to decline (again). Just when I start to think we might actually get an early spring, it either gets really cold or snows and over the last few days it has done both! I don't mind the snow it is a little too cold for me when with the windchill it is 35 below zero! This morning when I went out to start my car today take Joseph to school it took me five minutes to get his door opened it was frozen shut. I forgot to pack Joseph with his swim trunks and a towel since they went to the pool. Luckily I remembered and we got his stuff to him before they left for the pool! 

Gotta love Mondays!!!

Where did the week go???

This week kind of slipped away from me. It is already Saturday and I have no idea how that happened. I guess that I have been dealing with sick children all week and still am. My poor little Hunter still has a horrible cough and runny nose. I actually took him to the doctor twice this week and was told both times that his lungs are clear. Joseph is cough too and has a runny nose but I think that he is finally starting to get over it!!!

This week I also decided on my two year plan!! I really want to start my own line of baby products. I have been busy looking at fabrics and am so excited to get started!!! In my town there are no products for cloth diapering parents, I mean NOTHING! So I am hoping that I will also be able to open up a store/shop and be able to offer products and information to parents that want to cloth diaper!

Well that is all that I have for now! I will try to contribute daily but it has been tough with the kiddos being sick. 

What a weekend...

What a long weekend we had. Joseph was coughing all weekend, I believe that he brought it home from Preschool. My ears and nose have been plugged. I have also be getting some pretty bad earaches. And our poor little Hunty man was running a fever and was constipated. So as you can see it wasn't the best weekend at our house.

I did manage to get the heavy soaker hemp prefolds cut and sewed. So now instead of having only the three I have nine!!! At night I have just been inserting one of the hemp inserts under the micro terry insert and we have yet to spring a leak!!!

The Hemp Soaker Before

The Hemp Soaker After

FuzziBunz Micro Terry to the right

I ended up having to use my mom's sewing machine since I don't have my own. So tonight I am ordering one! It is a Brother  CP-7500 Computerized Sewing Machine. And I am getting a steal of a deal on it! I purchased it from amazon.com for $174.54 and it is normally $379.00!!! So I saved $204.46 or 54%, I am very pleased!!! And I got free shipping couldn't have got much better of a deal!!!

I love the Pink Accents!!!

Put the Hemp to the Test

Well last night was the big night, I put the hemp prefold soakers, add ins and inserts to the test! Like I said yesterday I got these from FuzziBunz Store! I would have to say that these are great products and overall I very pleased. The only issue that I ran into was with the trifolds. When I folded them into thirds and stuffed them into our FuzziBunz and then inserted the micro terry on top. It was so thick! In the picture below you can see that Hunter has like 2 inches of padding!

 

He did end up falling asleep in this big bulky diaper until midnight. Then he woke up pretty angry and I am sure it was because he couldn't straighten his legs. So I took him out of the diaper and put him in one with one of the hemp inserts and put a micro terry insert on top. This did the trick and he slept great! There was no leaks our anything. He woke up at six in the morning and I changed his diaper. There was no way that it was going to leak!!!

The Heavy Soaker Prefold

Heavy Soaker Prefold in thirds

 Organic Hemp Jersey Insert

Hemp Add Ins

I think I have decided to cut the prefolds in thirds and use them as inserts, that way we will be able to get use out of them and Hunter will be comfortable and able to straighten his legs!

New Diapers!

So late last week I had placed an order through FuzziBunz Store for some hemp inserts. I received them on Tuesday and am so excited to get them washed and get them put to use! At night I have been still using disposable diapers since Hunter pees so much during the night so I think tonight will be the night that we put the hemp to the test. I am nervous because I don't want to wake up with a big pee spot on the bed. I am excited because I really want to be done with disposables. I also decided that I want to try out a few other diapers so I placed an order through Kelly's Closet. I order a couple bumGenius, a rumparooz and used the coupon code FREENEW to receive a new diaper free with my order over $29. I got a Kawaii diaper as my free diaper and a pretty excite to try it out! I received this order on Tuesday as well. I am impressed with the reasonable shipping cost that both FuzziBunz and Kelly's Closet offer and I received my orders really fast for living up here in Alaska! 

So last night I was washing the new diapers and inserts. I am still washing all the hemp products today it takes quite a few washes (8-10) for them to get absorbent!

Rain, Wind and Ice

Whenever Cody is gone I worry. But last night when the wind started to pick up I really started worrying. It probably doesn't help that I went and looked at the marine forecast and seen how windy it is suppose to be for the next few days. I know that him and his dad are very water smart and spent many winters on the water. But it still scare me.

When I woke up this morning my driveway looked like an ice skating rink! And it still does! I am happy that it is raining because I heard a plane fly and am expecting quite a few packages in the mail. I am patiently awaiting the FuzziBunz Hemp inserts for Hunter's diapers. I really want to get him out the the disposables and try to sell the ones that we just stocked up on at Costco.

I read an article the other night about disposable diapers and I never knew that chemicals were added into the disposable diapers.

Here is some of the things that I read that really scared me:

"Disposable diapers contain traces of 

• Dioxin (an extremely toxic by-product of the paper-bleaching process.  It is a carcinogenic chemical, listed by the EPA as the most toxic of all cancer-linked chemicals.  It is banned in most countries, but not the U.S). 
• Tributyl-tin/TBT (a toxic pollutant known to cause hormonal problems in humans and animals).
• Sodium polyacrylate (a type of super absorbent polymer (SAP), which becomes a gel-like substance when wet) A similar substance had been used in super-absorbency tampons until the early 1980s when it was revealed that the material increased the risk of toxic shock syndrome by increasing absorbency and improving the environment for the growth of toxin-producing bacteria."

In May 2000, the Archives of Disease in Childhood published research showing that scrotal temperature is increased in boys wearing disposable diapers, and that prolonged use of disposable diapers will blunt or completely abolish the physiological testicular cooling mechanism important for normal spermatogenesis.


I found this information on: http://www.realdiaperassociation.org/diaperfacts.php

The article is definitely worth a read.

My children!

Hunter snoozing after dinner!

 

Joseph snoozing before dinner!

Snow snow and more snow and the beginning of my cloth diapering experience!

It is finally starting to look like winter here! Right now it is snowing so hard I won't be surprised if we have almost two feet tomorrow morning!!! The only downfall to all this fluffy white stuff is Cody is leaving at 3:00AM tomorrow to go on a deer hunting trip. So if it keeps snowing this hard I could be stuck home for awhile! I also will be in charge of caring for EVERYONE that means: the boys, the two dogs (Tug and Kasey), Funny Bunny our pet rabbit, the two gerbils we are watching and the nine chickens! Looks like I am gonna be busy for a few days. It will all be worth it if Cody comes home with Deer Meat!

One another note I have made a decision to be more "green" I have switched Hunter my nine month old to Cloth Diapers! My mom thought that I was nuts doing this but I must say that cloth diapers have come a LONG LONG way since my mom had diapered my brother and I! There are so many different types of cloth diapers to choose from and they are all really cute!

I actually decided to give cloth diapering a try after I won four free FuzziBunz! I really had no reason not to give it a try. Ever since a week and a half ago when I put Hunter's first light blue FuzziBunz on him he has been a lot happier. When he first got it put on him and I set him down on the living room floor to play he had a big smile on his face and was bouncing up and down. I can see how wear cloth diapers would be more comfortable that disposable diapers.

I still have Hunter wearing a disposable diaper at night because I am waiting on my more absorbent inserts to get here. I am also starting the process of looking for training pants for Joseph that he can wear at night instead of his pull-ups which cost a fortune!

I wish that I would have known that cloth diapering was this easy when I had Joseph just thinking about all the money we could have saved (my car would be paid off right now) and all the trash we could have kept out of the landfills is upsetting.