Better Basket Blog Hop

Annie from Mama Dweeb is participating in the Better Baskets Blog Hop and tagged me as well as urged me to help out! For every blog post written today and linked up Hershey's will donate $10 to the Children's Miracle Network! Every year we try to help any small charities we can so I thought what a better way to help out. We aren’t usually able to donate much, but every little bit helps. I am really hoping that I can raise at least another $50 for them – are there at least 4 other bloggers that will participate with me?

I am giving this basket to 10 other bloggers and I really hope at least half of you can do a short post for Children’s Miracle Network. I realize this is short notice (I just found out minutes ago, and well it’s almost 1am) so if not, just enjoy this beautiful basket and know that I thoroughly love and enjoy your blog!

1. My 2 Blessings
2. Keep Calm & Carry On
3. The Land of Marie’s
4. The Nut House
5. “Popp”ing out One Letter at a Time
6. Through Jenny’s Lens
7. Little BGCG
8. The Rev & The Missus
9. 3 Guys, a Girl & a Prim Place
10. Welcome to the Zoo

Take some time to browse these great blogs if you have a chance! They are all sweet mama bloggers and I love reading what they write, but I treasure their friendship more!

So, how can you get involved?

“HERSHEY’S BETTER BASKET BLOG HOP RULES

* Copy and paste these rules to your blog post.

* Create a blog post of giving a virtual Easter Basket to another blogger – you
can give as many Virtual Baskets as you want – from just one other blogger to an unlimited number

* Link back to person who gave you an Easter Basket.

* Let each person you are giving a Virtual Easter Basket know you have given them
a Basket.

* Leave your link at http://betterbasket.info/bloghop/
where you can also find the official rules of this #betterbasket blog hop and more
information about Better Basket with Hershey’s.

* Hershey’s is donating 10$ per each blog participating to the Better Basket Blog
Hop to Children’s Miracle Network (up to total of $5,000 by blog posts written
by April 4th, 2010).

* Please note that only one blog post by each blog url will count towards the
donation. ”

Wordless Wednesday . . . A day at the Children’s Museum

 

The see through elevator leads you to the most magical places.

My little Postal Employee’s!

  

And then we’re off to the moon.

There was face painting.

 

Along with dressing up.

   

Finally the big “obligatory” picture in the big chair!

  

A Special THANKS to Aunt Bridget who came along!

And one more of my new haircut….cause well now it’s really growing on me! :)

Guest Post Diary of a First Child – Why Reusable?

Hello all, seems I’m a bit under the weather again. Yesterday I wasn’t exactly feeling the best, but sucked it up and took the kids to their dentist appointment. It was that time of the year again when we have to get their teeth cleaned. It was even Kaitlynn’s first trip to the dentist!!! Of course though I was still having problems with my dreaded wisdom tooth, and so I had them look it over. Of course the stupid hole is infected and I’m now on antibiotics!  On top of that I seem to have caught some sort of flu bug, and so now I’m just hoping that I get over it before anyone else gets it! It’s not fun!

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Meet Luschka, she’s an awesome mama who lives in London with her husband and 5month old Daughter Kyra. Luschka feels passionate about all things natural living, as well as Cloth Diapers. She writes about it all on her blog Diary of a First Child. Go ahead and check her out, and leave this awesome mama some love!

Why Reusable? A Mother Makes the Choice

I had always planned to use cloth diapers. I hadn’t really thought about it, about the logistics of it, but I had always thought that was what I would do. I even put a starter pack of trial terry squares on my baby shower gift list. Instead, I received 996 disposable diapers. Yes, I counted them.

I remember sitting on the floor in my living room arranging disposables by size and being overwhelmed by the sheer volume that roughly six months worth of diapers took up. I imagined, say, three times that amount for my baby alone and felt appalled at the sheer mass of space we would be taking up in our landfill. Then I thought of the four babies on our block, and actually felt quite distressed.

And that doesn’t even take in to consideration the millions of trees cut down to produce disposables every day. Nor does it include the toxins that return to our waterways after they have been made.

My desire to use reusable's goes beyond my eco-conscience, though. I take special care not to bathe my daughter in anything containing Sodium Lauryl Sulphate (which sadly cuts out most ‘baby’ products). Instead we use lavender essence in her bath water, and saffron oil to moisturize her.

Why, then, do I want to put diapers made up of chemicals such as Sodium Polyacrylate (the stuff that makes it absorbent and which has been linked to Toxic Shock Syndrome in women who used tampons prior to 1985) on my baby? We have no idea what the risks of this are, because no studies have been done. And that’s just one of the potentially dangerous chemicals.

A further reason to at least look at reusable is financial. Yes, the upfront cost is a real problem, and has certainly hampered me from making the switch. But the cumulative cost of disposables is far higher (unless you’re buying the super-leaky supermarket own brand variety that we had two bags of!). In addition, there is a relatively good resale value on second-hand diapers. Although cheaper than buying new, it seems most parents make a fair bit of their money back by selling used diapers on parenting forums.

But, having no reusable's, and bags upon bags of disposables hidden behind couches and on top of cupboards, I decided to use them up while I explored the world of reusable's. And wow. What a world. I had no idea how far we have moved on from terry squares! The diapers available, the different types, brands, colours and styles are amazing.

Although it is quite difficult knowing where to start, there are plenty of web resources available to give a helping hand.  The best one I have found is from Fill Your Pants. This site is definitely worth a look.

So, as I set off on my journey of discovery with reusable diapers, I hope to end up being one of those mothers who never look back.

Mommy & Me Monday

 Welcome to a fun new Meme hosted by Krystyn. Where you’re encouraged to get back into the pictures with your kids. If you’re like me, you know how few pictures you have of just you and your kids. I try to get in at least one picture every time I pick up my camera, but it doesn’t usually make the “cut”.   Here is one of Mommy & Kaitlynn this weekend at the Children’s Museum. It also showcases my new haircut. I wasn’t sure I liked it at first, but it’s growing on me now!

Favorite Fluff Fridays – The Diaper Sprayer

Welcome to week 7 of Favorite Fluff Friday’s! Can' you believe we’ve been doing this for almost 2 months now? When I started this I was hopeful that it would take and we would be able to keep spreading the Fluffy love, but I also had my doubts. We’ve got more great reviews scheduled and so it looks like Favorite Fluff Friday is here to stay!

In the two years I’ve been cloth diapering I haven’t had a diaper sprayer. I know you cloth diaper parents out there that have one, are thinking I’m crazy, I on the other hand didn’t think it was a big deal. Until I received our Diaper Sprayer. I’m not sure now how we did it before. 


The day we received our diaper sprayer I was super excited to get it installed. It took just a few short minutes for Joel to get it installed. But there were problems. It had a slow leak out of the connection to the tank. Here I am thinking fail. It wasn’t a huge leak, just a few drips per minute. I went ahead and emailed Alan (head guy at Diaper Sprayer) told him we were having issues. The next morning I decided I’d give the customer service number a call and see who I could get. It was around 9:30 CST when I called. I got a receptionist who informed me that the person I needed to talk to wasn’t in the office but would be in around 9:30PST. She gave me his voicemail and he was prompt in calling me back.
Alan wasn’t quite sure what was going on but graciously offered to send me another Diaper Sprayer out to see if it was just one bad one. Long story short, the next one leaked as well, on BOTH toilets in our house! After talking with Alan again on the phone he offered to send out another Diaper Sprayer and even went to his local hardware store next door to see if he could test it out on our brand of toilets.
Low and behold the third sprayer was the charm and it worked perfectly! We have since changed up all of the GUTS of our down stairs (the one where it’s installed) toilet and I’m thinking that may have been our problem. I’m not quite sure how old the guts were, but they weren’t exactly the best!

The Diaper Sprayer is now the best thing we own! I’m not sure how I got by without it before. Baby poo’s in the diaper and you just spray it out into the toilet. No dunking required.
The Diaper Sprayer comes “complete with all attachments needed to quickly and easily attach to a standard 3/8 inch compression water valve (valve behind toilet). Each unit comes packaged with a hand sprayer that is protected by Microban®; a flow control t-valve; 4 foot reinforced white NSF Approved PVC hose; built in check valve in sprayer (one way valve); step-by-step picture instructions; and a matching wall bracket including screws & plastic anchors. Each unit takes approximately 5-10 minutes to install when using a standard adjustable pliers.” – From The Diaper Sprayer website


Buy It:
Head on over to The Diaper Sprayer website and get your own.
Use code: mess10 from 03/12/2010 - 04/12/2010 for 10% off

Win It:
One lucky reader will win their very own Diaper Sprayer

Mandatory Entry:
Must do this before all other entries will count
Go on over to the Diaper Sprayer website and tell me what one feature you like the best.

Extra Entries: (1 entry unless noted)
Follow the blog publicly
Follow me on twitter
Tweet about this giveaway, including @amongthemess in your tweet (1 per hour)
Add our button*code at the bottom left* to your blog, and let me know where it can be found (5 entries)
Bring a friend over, make sure I know you sent them (10 entries each)
Become a Facebook Fan of The Diaper Sprayer (5 entries)

Top To Bottom Baby Winner

 

Amanda is a super sweet lady who has been there for me when I’ve needed her! (And well MacKenzie likes to just call her up outta the blue when she’s playing with my cell phone.) You have to go check out her blog, she’s got 4 sweet little babes with another on the way! She’s one strong mama, and I wish I was more like her!!!

Thanks everyone for entering, Amanda you have 48 hours to respond to my email.

Boys will be Boys – Wordless Wednesday

And in case you were wondering….yes that is mud.

And he wasn’t the only one in the mud. So we came home, made them take showers, and made Pizza.

We decorated Cup Cakes the next day before it was time to go home.