Cloth Diapers!!

I wanted to let you know I started using cloth diapers! We use them during the day, and disposables at night. I should say that I began to toy with the idea before Jackson was born (15 months ago!) and couldn't get myself to take the big step (let's just say I was tired). But right now I've got lots of energy and they aren't much different from disposable diapers! I have to admit, I'm still in the excitement stage so I just get excited each time I get to change them. I think I'm so weird like that. I remember when I first began to put our food storage together and I was excited about that also. I'm just the type of person that gets more satisfaction out of being busy and accomplishing things than sitting around and resting. Even when I need rest!
One of the reasons I made the switch is because it's a lot less messy. Plus, to be completely honest, I HATED making trips to Walmart to pick up diapers. You've got to find a parking space (daunting), make your way through the crowd (horrifying), wait in line (bore-ifying), and rebuckle everyone in their carseats. I'd rather change 10 cloth diapers than rebuckle 3 kids once! It must all be about priorities...
I also started doing them because of self-sufficiency. What would happen if we couldn't afford disposables? I'd be scrambling around using all of my clothes as diapers. That would be horrible! I like to be prepared! Anyway, I'm so excited and I'll let you know how great it is going to be.

A Fun Week

I always check everyone's blog like it's none of my business and I expect them to update theirs every other day and it's so challenging just to keep up mine! I have so much to say and so little time to type it in.

On Monday we spent our time off very well when we hiked to a waterfall as a family. It was a very easy hike that was only .8 miles there. It's about all the girls probably could've handled anyway. Jackson was an angel and barely made a peep the whole time. The girls walked the entire way up and had fun throwing rocks into the stream. I said it was time to leave when Jared picked up a rock equal to his weight and tried to impress the girls by throwing it in (I think they were shocked by getting wet~!)

The girls also went to a Daddy Daughter dance on Friday with Daddy and Grandpa Juett. They had a blast! I curled their hair, did their makeup, painted their nails, and got them dressed up before they left and they looked so cute. I'm glad that they could have such a fun time with the men in their lives!

Today we had family home evening about being a mommy and things mommies do to make their family's lives happy. We focused on cooking and put a little meal together. We started off by roasting hot dogs over the stove (very carefully!). We talked about being inventive (for instance: we didn't have hot dogs buns, what looks and tastes like a hot dog bun that we can use?), we made mashed potatoes for dessert and snacked on grapes. It was fun! I love these little adventures we have as a family and it's these little times when we're learning something new and working together that really add the substance to my life!

I haven't written in a while. Mostly because I'm taking care of Jackson. He's getting to
that age where he's super-aware of what I'm doing and I can only fit in two seconds worth of keyboard time between his all-knowing glances. If I look like my attention isn't riveted on his every move, then I will be the receiver of his petulant cries. All the same, I adore his attention and his cute little attitude. But it sure does remind me occasionally of when I only had Rylee. One baby is infinitely more difficult to take care of than three (in my opinion) because they generally keep each other occupied. Case in point, Rylee running around and laughing is much more fun that mommy sitting and reading books. :) Why is it that children have such short attention spans? And all of you mothers out there know that with a one-year old you rarely can read the pages of a book in order because your child is flipping back and forth, cutting your sentences off and mixing up subjects. It sure does make for some extreme reading, though.
We've been sick often at our house. We should probably write Quaratine on the front door. I'm trying to figure out why my immune system is bad right now and I realized it's probably from all the cleaning I've done lately. I don't know if there are any research surveys out there to prove my point, but don't moms always catch things because they're always cleaning?
We're trying to prep Rylee for Kindergarten this coming August. How weird that will be! I lie awake at night and think of all the effects of being a slave to a School Schedule. I've enjoyed this fashionable freedom of mothering small children and being where I want when I want (to a certain extent, I've got responsibilities you know) and I hope having to meet the bus won't cramp my style. I'll still be riding wild in my cool minivan, though, so I still have a lot riding for me.
Jared and I have almost met our year mark for being in a house! In the past you know what that would've meant...time to move! But I think we've got some roots growing from the soles of our shoes because we are REALLY wanting to stay in this house for a long time. And to accomplish that we'd have to buy it, so we're really waiting until we feel right about it. Consumer confidence is really at a low, but we're trying to wait for some Divine Assurance also. So we continue to try to be great renters and we've just gone thru a million boxes of junk that we couldn't (and wouldn't) face when we moved in. We just shoved them in the closets and closed the doors in our minds, forgetting about them until we could get over the jarring effects of a large move. I'm in a sell-all, give-all mood and I've sold some things and given some things away. There's NO WAY I'm going to lug all this stuff somewhere else!