Cloth Diapers

Here is a post I wrote for my friend's site www.thankfullythrifty.com during her online baby shower. Its a brief overview of cloth diapering. I'll probably write more on this topic once the baby comes.

Cloth diapers, cloth wipes, make your own wipes?!? There are so many ways to save when you’re having a baby!

Cloth diapers: Are they worth the price? If you like to be thrifty, they are very economical and definitely an easy way to save money. I was going to write out some facts and figures but when I went to Bum Genius’s website (my favorite cloth diaper brand) I found that they had already done some research. Here is what I found on their site: You can save up to $1,200 a year by using cloth. Translate that into the approximate two or three years your child is in diapers times the number of children you wind up having which equals a LOT of money saved! I also discovered on their site that they’re having a sale – buy 5 get 1 free. Super good deal. I would recommend 12-18 diapers which may seem like a lot, but when your child needs a new diaper after each feeding during the first few months, you’ll be doing laundry constantly if you don’t invest in enough diapers. To be even savvier, hang your diapers outside instead of drying them in the dryer. The sun will naturally bleach them and help sanitize them as well. Approx total cost for 15 diapers: $225, one time investment vs $1200 plus (according to BumGenius’ site) if you use disposables.

Cloth wipes: I plan on going this route when my new little one comes along in a few weeks. If you’re already using cloth diapers, using cloth wipes isn’t going to create anymore hassle or laundry for you. You can use anything from baby washcloths to hemmed flannel squares. Again, you will want to really stock up on these, but you can use them over and over again. Use the recipe for make your own wipes below for these. Approx total cost for 50 wipes $100, one time investment.

Make your own wipes: This is a good option if you’re out and about or if you don’t want to use cloth diapers but want to cut your expenses somewhere. This is super easy to do and costs almost nothing. You’ll need a serrated knife, a roll of paper towels, a Tupperware or like container that’ll fit half a roll of paper towels, baby oil, baby wash, and water.

First, get a roll of paper towels. I like to use the slightly more expensive ones so they’re a bit softer. Using a serrated knife, saw the roll in half so you now have two equal sized rolls. Grab the cardboard tube and pry it out of the middle of the tube.

In a pot, boil 2 cups of water, let cool and then add 2 tbsp baby wash and 1 tbsp baby oil.

Put one of the rolls into your container and pour the solution over the paper towels. Close the lid. I usually flip the container upside down after awhile to make sure every inch of the paper towel roll gets soaked.

Depending upon how absorbent your paper towels are, you may have to adjust the water amount.

Approx cost per roll of wipes: $1.00 vs. at least double for the same amount of store bought wipes.

Maternity Clothes Part Two

Now that you have a game plan to acquire maternity clothes, what do you really need?

Here's my essential list, though depending upon what you do in life yours may be different:

1 -2 Belly bands - I didn't have one with my first pregnancy, but I LIVED in one for most of my first trimester during this pregnancy. You can make this. Stay tuned for information on that one.

2 pairs Jeans - I bought a pair from Gap for pregnancy #1 which sadly didn't fit for pregnancy #2, but a good pair or two of jeans are worth the money if you hang out in jeans all day long like I do.

Comfy underwear - seriously. Your current ones probably won't fit by mid second trimester. I recommend ones that don't have seams down the side. You spend a lot of time sleeping on your side and the seams will dig into you.

Yoga pants - or another pair of comfy pants to wear around the house.

Jacket - if you're going to be pregnant during the winter, acquiring a jacket that fits is a really, really, good idea. I bought one on clearance on a whim during pregnancy #1 and it was the BEST idea. Polar fleece from Old Navy not the warmest jacket, but I live in Texas and pregnancy makes me hot.

Comfy flats - your feet will swell. Some of those sneaker mary janes are great. I taught in a pair for the last trimester. Decently comfy and they stretched as my feet swelled during the day.

I think that's all for my essential list. Granted you need tops, but depending upon what you do for a living you'd need different kinds. I had maybe 5 by the end of pregnancy #1 which I rotated through two skirts for at least a month. I don't think I still have any of those shirts or skirts anymore I was so sick of them by the day I gave birth.

One more thing, you'll be wearing your maternity clothes a bit past d-day so finding some that would double as a nursing top is always a bonus.

Ikea Black Friday Breakfast

Go to Ikea the Friday, Saturday and Sunday after Thanksgiving and get a free breakfast.

The Internet - A Luxury that Pays for Itself

In order to be able to stay home with my children, my husband and I have made a lot of lifestyle choices that keep our monthly bills very low. But one bill we dont skimp on is our Internet connection. Although we pay around $60 per month for our Internet connection, we find that this bill more than pays for itself. Here are a few things that we do with Internet to save us money.

Craigslist. We buy and sell on Craigslist. When my husband was laid off from work this summer, we paid our bills by selling various things that we knew we could live without. We realized quickly that selling things on Ebay isn't as lucrative as it used to be, because Ebay takes a big percentage of what you sell your item for. By selling locally on Craigslist, we were able to keep ALL of our money and save on shipping costs, too.

Education. I find a lot of children's curriculum for free just by using search engines. I find free worksheets, free handwriting paper to print out, and free education games for children. I will talk more about this in a later post.

NETFLIX. Because of the awesome power of Netflix Instant View, we are able to walks hundreds or thousands of dollars worth of cartoons, movies, and educational shows, for less than $10 per month, using only our Internet connection. This is commercial free viewing, so my kids are watching programming that doesn't give them the "gimmes".

Work. I do part time work from home through the Internet, designing websites and e-mail newsletters for small business clients. I communicate through email or through Skype. I also find a LOT of cheap or free graphics resources that make my designs more beautiful!

Skype. My husband and I use a Skype phone number as our primary home phone. We do keep a cell phone for emergencies, but with our subscription to Skype, we pay less than $75 for the entire year for unlimited long distance phone calling.

School. I am attending classes on-line through our local community college. I have attained more than half of my associates degree without leaving my house except to buy books and for the occasional proctored exam (and at a much lower cost than the bigger online schools, by the way).

Opportunities. I read many money-saving and mothering blogs which keep me "in the know" for great deals on gifts, photos, things to do, clearance sales, and more than I can possibly recount.

What is your favorite money-saving aspect of the Internet?

The High Cost of Raising Children

Out of my four pregnancies, only one was specifically planned - the second one, because I wanted to have a playmate for the first! When my husband and I got married, we both agreed we would wait awhile to have children - wait til we were financially "ready". I was on the pill, but I became pregnant after a few years. I was afraid to tell him - he says I apologized a bunch of times. But the birth of Elijah was easily the best thing that ever happened in our life together. Parenthood forced us to grow up, to start taking responsibility for ourselves. More than that, our son's arrival made us both deeply happy.


Having children has cost us almost nothing financially, and yet at the same time it has cost us everything. With my first three pregnancies, family and friends threw us huge baby showers and anything we really needed was given to us - and a whole LOT that we did not need. With the fourth child, I decided not to have a baby shower at all, though there were many people that would have been willing to attend one! - I already have enough hand me down clothes to dress the new little one for years. I have cloth diapers that will last until he is potty trained. I don't use a crib, preferring to keep little ones in the bedroom with us, and I breastfeed until they are at least one, never using expensive formulas at all.

What about food costs? The fact is, we already cook enough food to feed two or three more people - food in our house, like many other American houses, is thrown out at the end of every meal. We spend food money smarter - more bulk meat, less hot pockets - so for a family of five I need to spend less than $100 a week on groceries, not much more than we spent before we had children. The older two children, who I don't have hand me downs for, get their clothing from a second hand shop. I buy nice t-shirts and pants for my kids for less than a dollar a piece. I buy my own clothes second-hand, too, and get a lot of hand me downs for myself, so I really don't spend any more on clothes than I ever have, either. The older boys clothes get passed down to his brothers, and my daughters clothes are donated back to the second hand shop when we are done with them.

The biggest financial cost we have incurred for our children was a "new" vehicle - a pretty 1998 Ford Windstar minivan. We spent less on that nice vehicle than most people spend on their compact cars.

That being said, if we had waited until we were financially ready to have children, we wouldn't have them today. As my husband is trying to find out what his passion is in life, and I have chosen to stay home with the kids rather than work, we are financially poorer than we were when our first son was conceived eight years ago. But we have three good children who bring us joy and excitement, and we are raising them to be good people, hard workers, pleasant neighbors, givers, people who will contribute to society in a positive way.

Most people won't choose to live on as little as we do, so a lot of the ways we choose to save money are for us, but not for others. I know that breastfeeding doesn't work out for everyone, and I respect that. Another example, rather than have a mortgage, we saved up cash and bought a mobile home. We pay a very small amount each month for "lot rent", which includes the land our house is on, trash, sewer costs, and water cost. Not everyone would be content to live in a trailer park and wear second hand clothes, but it enables us to have the kind of freedom we need to be happy.

Sorry this is so long, but I do have one final thought. While children may not have cost us much in the way of currency, they have cost us our entire lives. We can't travel like we want to - do you know how much it would cost to put five people on a plane? Or how stressful the flight would be? Our house is usually untidy and almost always messy. There are fingerprints everywhere and the baby is always walking off with my husband's shoes. Plus, the children all have emotional needs. They need to be listened to and talked to. Our daughter in particular never stops talking! It's not always easy for an introvert like myself to focus on the never ending words of a needy five year old. My kids have been sick for the last few weeks. They passed around a major cold, a minor stomach bug, and an eye infection. At the end of it, I was so weary from being thrown up on, wiping boogey-noses, dispensing medicine, comforting tired tears, cleaning and bathing sick eyes, waking up overnight - all while being eight months pregnant and the size of a house, lol. And yet I am "just" a stay at home mom (and at the moment, a struggling student). The "cost" of having children - it costs everything you have. It's worth every bit.

Maternity Clothes on the Cheap

Maternity clothes! I realized I have A LOT of clothes today. But do I? Granted we just unpacked from living in Germany so some of my clothes stayed in Texas and some went with me to Germany. I acquired new clothes in Germany because of the COLD weather. Once we moved back here, I acquired quite a few new items because I was pregnant and it was summer time. I didn't start to need maternity clothes until I was about 5 months pregnant the first time, and wasn't totally in maternity until a month or so later. I was working the last time I was pregnant, so spending some money for clothes wasn't that big of a deal. This time, I needed clothes the minute I hit 12 weeks and I was going through summer into fall into part of winter needing clothes. This presented me with a need for a much larger wardrobe even though I now stay at home. Thankfully, my mom took me on a little shopping spree for the summer clothes. I know she would have taken me shopping for the other seasons, but I like being thrifty and getting more for my money, so I went another route for the rest of my clothes.

There are some thrifty ways to acquire maternity clothes I discovered this time.

First idea -

Borrow from friends!!! I couldn't do this with my first pregnancy because I didn't know anyone who was pregnant, but this time everyone I know has kids! As soon as my first trimester passed, I started thinking of everyone who was about my size who had kids during the winter time and therefore would have clothes that fit the season. Besides being thrifty, this idea is fun. You may get clothes to borrow that aren't quite your style, but are cute nonetheless. A friend from church lent me some clothes and I never would have picked out some of them on my own, but they are ADORABLE and I really like them.

I also found that when asking friends, you may run into one who may not be having anymore kids and may just give you their clothes. Again, you may get things that aren't quite you, or may not quite fit, etc. but hey, who can argue with free clothes? Again, I had a friend from church that wanted to purge her closet after the birth of her second kid. She had been given maternity clothes from other people so there was quite a mixture of sizes and styles, but again, I got some great pieces that I really like.

Second idea -

Shop around in the regular sized department first. I got some cute skirts from Old Navy that were made out of knit and had a wide waist band. Super comfy and cute and fit for quite awhile. Skirts with elastic waist bands in a size larger than normal are always a great go to as well. I've heard of people who are able to just buy bigger jeans their whole pregnancy and never get into the maternity ones, but I have never had that luck. Plus with going to the rest room so many times, I get so tired of zippers and buttons by the end of the first trimester. Shirtss these days are very gathered and flowing. I found a shirt at Ross in the jr. department for $7 that I wore until I gave birth the first time.

Third idea -

Make your own. I didn't actually wind up doing this like I planned because I had some great friends and mom who supplied my every maternity need this time, but I did find some great websites that teach you how to turn regular clothes into maternity clothes. Here are a few that I found:

http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Make-Maternity-Jeans-Using-Regular-Jeans-an/

http://kojodesigns.blogspot.com/2010/04/kojotutorial-girly-ruffle-y-maternity.html

http://kojodesigns.blogspot.com/2010/03/more-maternity.html

http://modestmaven.blogspot.com/2009/11/converted-maternity-pants-tutorial.html

http://pinkpicketfence.typepad.com/pink_picket_fence/2009/04/thriftstore-refashion-maternity-edition.html

These are just a few links. There are quite a few out there, but you get the idea.

Fourth idea -

Husband's clothing. This one I didn't really try, maybe a t-shirt here or there, but some people are able to do this. My problem with this one for starters is that once I get into my second trimester I weigh more than my husband. So I've already outgrown my clothes and his! I can wear his pj pants under my belly and his t-shirts around the house, but that's all. My other issue with this at least for out of the house is by the third trimester I feel huge and I want to look cute and not frumpy because, well, if you've been pregnant you've been to the third trimester, you know how it goes!!

Fifth - consignment sales!! I got a great Old Navy trench coat for $6! Granted its pink and not exactly a shade of pink I would have paid full price for, but for $6 its great. Bottoms are harder to buy at these sales since you don't know which ones will fit well, but tops and coats are easy to estimate.

German Advent Calendar Thoughts

Advent is coming up. In Germany this is quite the tradition. When I was little, we would get cardboard calendars that had one door for each day of December that hid a small piece of chocolate behind it. When I got a bit older I realized this chocolate wasn't very good tasting and that ended my fascination with the whole ordeal. We bought calendars for all of the guys in the dorm last year. Chocolate calendars were only about 50 euro cents in Germany! Anyhow, while we lived in Germany I would often go to a German new site that had the news in English. Close to Christmas I found this article about the craziness Germans go to concerning advent calendars. I'm sure not all Germans are this touchy about their advent calendars and I'm sure there's some joking going along, but nonetheless, its still a funny article.

http://www.thelocal.de/opinion/20091130-23631.html

Here's an idea, again from Homemade by Jill, on making your own advent calendars. Not as crazy and competitive as the Germans, but perhaps a fun tradition to start with your children this year. I think I'll save this for next year since I've got a huge list to accomplish this year.

http://homemadebyjill.blogspot.com/2010/11/would-you-like-to-sew-along-with-me.html

http://homemadebyjill.blogspot.com/2010/11/advent-sew-along-week-2.html

http://homemadebyjill.blogspot.com/2010/11/ornament-templates.html

She's still posting about making this calendar, but this is all she has up at the moment so you'll have to follow her on your own.

Thrift Store Clean Up!!

Here's an example from Rachel about a thrift store find:



Today, the children spotted this. It was in a grab bag that we had to pay three dollars for. It was drawn all over and looked pretty junky. But I had done my homework. I knew what I was looking at. These bad boys go for $30 new on Amazon. The pages are erasable. They are laminated. So I bought the bag, scrubbed the notebook down and wrote Julius's name in the book in a nice dry erase marker.

One thing I've learned is that when you go to consignment sales, thrift stores, garage sales, etc. it helps to know what you're looking for and how much an item is really worth. Who would have ever thought that this notebook retails for so much? Pays to do your homework and keep a running list of things you're looking for.

Ikea Food for Free!

Ikea is running a nifty little special. Spend $100 before tax in the home furnishings department, go eat some lunch (or dinner), bring your receipt to the check out and have the cost of your meal deducted from your final bill. We needed to buy a couch for our new place since we don't have one anymore, so we picked one out, got some lunch with the in-laws, paid for our items (minus $27 food receipt) and signed up to have the furniture delivered. They have a flat fee delivery rate of $59 plus tax for the metroplex I live in. I imagine the delivery rate is the same for any Ikea and its surrounding areas. Now through Nov 14.

Oh and if you buy three kid menu items they get a free little stuff animal as well. I needed to ask the cashier about it when we paid for the food since she forgot to give it to us. I didn't taste the macaroni and cheese but my three year old ate it up and usually meals are a struggle for us.

Replacement Parts

I love going to consignment sales and I know that Rachel loves hitting up thrift stores. Since my child is still young, I get his birthday and Christmas presents at these sales. Sometimes when you buy things that are used, parts may be missing, broken, dirty or scratched up. If it is a well known brand, this shouldn't discourage you in buying it. Most companies sell replacement parts very reasonably. Here's one recent example:

I found an adorable firehouse for him for Christmas this year that I know he's going to love playing with. The only problem was that it came with only one fireman. I bought the set hoping that I could get more firemen for him to play with. It was such a great deal (the firehouse was $25 used where new I've seen it for about $80) that I knew I could rectify it somehow. I contacted Kid Kraft, the manufacturer, and learned that I could get two new firemen for only $3.50 plus s&h! Yay! Almost every single piece of this play set can be bought separately in case it breaks.

Checking out Ebay or Craig's list is another way to replace parts that you may be missing from a play set. I know that Little Tikes also sells replacement parts for their products and I'm guessing Fisher Price and most kid toy makers do as well. It makes parents happy to not have to pay to replace the WHOLE set when only one piece is missing or broken.

You may just need to think outside the box. Sometimes all you need is some elbow grease and Goo Gone, sometimes you need some paint. Its fun to get such great deals when you're creative about fixing them up.

Woot

I just learned about this nifty site today while at my mommy group. It's www.woot.com. They have a deal of the day which apparently pops up at 12am and when they're sold out, they're gone. There is also woot kids, t-shirt woot, and wine woot. The mom who told me about this said she's gotten some good deals from this website. May be worth checking out but I could see myself staying up till 12am to check out the deals each new day! Shipping prices seem reasonable as well.

One of Those Days

Ever have one of those days with your kids? We've been having those lately...well actually on and off since we moved back from Germany. I love #1 so much but there are days where we just butt heads or don't get along. I hate days like this. We seems to be constantly in transition these days and I think that's causing the chaos in our relationship. I am looking forward to finally moving into a place that is "ours." I think it will do the kid a lot of good. Changes in life are inevitable, but with kids they seem to be even harder. An older lady once told me that our demeanors as parents give our kids clues on how to act. And I've found that it can be true. When I feel like I'm in chaos tends to be when #1 also has a hard day. Just another day in the life of a SAHM.

Who's Responsible For Your Baby's Health?

Here's a funny story to share with the group. Well, it's almost funny. And by almost funny, I mean that it might be funny someday when the crying stops ringing in my ears. It happened about two months ago, so I give it another ten months or so until it's really funny.

Gabe, my youngest of four, had a rash. He was aboout four months at the time and we were going in for a "well child checkup" anyway. And the doctor had diagnosed him with "apparent MRSA rash" earlier, so I thought the rash might be worth looking at . Just in case.

"Apparent MRSA", by the way, does not mean he had MRSA. It means he MIGHT have had MRSA. It means he kind of sort of LOOKED like he had MRSA, and since he had been born in a hospital, and hospitals are a great place to pick up MRSA, maybe he really did.

Anyway, when the doctor asked if all was well, I informed him that the baby had a rash. He looked at it and said it was definitely not MRSA, maybe just a few mosquito bites? But in the meantime, he said that the baby had a high fever, and would be please drive into the city and get blood work because the combination of a rash and a high fever might mean something.

The baby had a what now?

So I drove home, feeling despondent. How had I not noticed that my child had a fever? Every other day, I KNOW if the baby has a fever. Even a mild fever I notice immediately. We cosleep with the infant, have the toddler in the room with us, and homeschool the older children. I KNOW THEM. I BREATHE with them! I KNOW IF THEY ARE SICK.

But I didn't know that he had a high fever.

So I picked my husband up and we drive into the city. Getting blood drawn out of a newborn is awful. They pricked his foot and squeezed drop by drop into three vials while he bawled for forty-five minutes. It was heart-rending. But it was for the best. After all, he had a high fever. And a rash. That the doctor had said wasn't a rash.

When we got home again, I called the doctor to get results.

"The bloodwork is fine," he told me. "And, funny story, three other kids after yours came in with high fever and no other symptoms. Turns out our thermometer is broken."

I'm not mad at the doctor - actually, to be honest, he's growing on me. But we have to realize that doctors have been trained to think a certain way. And our culture has trained the entire medical establishment to respond a certain way. If the thermometer says the kid is sick, he's sick. If the doctor ignored a number on a chart, he could be sued for malpractice.

But who is ultimately responsible for your child's health? You are. You are their mother, you have the highest stake in their well-being. You also have the greatest access to all the information about their health, their demeanor, their appetite, their actual temperature, their nutrition, and their development.

It is very common in today's age for a mother to take her child to the pediatrician as soon as they have the sniffles. "Jojo has the sniffles today. Going to take him to the pedi tomorrow and he'd better give him an antibiotic this time so he doesn't keep this cold for three weeks like last time." This is the mentality of having given up our responsibility. In the future, we will talk more about these things.

I am not advocating not taking your chil to the doctor, just remember that the responsibility is yours. If I had more confidence in myself last time at the doctors, all I would have had to do was ask them to check his temperature again. They could have used a different thermometer and saved me and the baby both a lot of heartache. Next time I will remember - if the baby has a fever, I, his Mommy, will be the FIRST one to know.

90% Coupon Savings

I, Kristina, was very into couponing before we moved to Germany. Since we're back, I'm trying to get back into the swing of it. Here was one of my most successful shopping trips that I had last summer. I'm going to share tips and ways to use coupons in some following posts.

A shopping trip

1 pkg Juicy Fruit gum
3 Pillsbury brownie mixes
1 bag Kroger tortilla chips
1 bag organic baby carrots
4 bags Quaker Quakes rice cakes
2 bags Birds Eye frozen veggies
2 bottles Suave conditioner
2 bottles Suave shampoo
2 Suave deodorants

Final purchase price: $2.88

I was super excited when I got the ad that morning in the mail because I knew it was going to be a great shopping trip. I actually went back the following day and bought a few more brownie mixes,deodorants and shampoos to put in a box for the food pantry. I've decided that this is a way that I can contribute to those who can't even afford good food without breaking my limited grocery budget. I think on that second trip I only spent about $1 to buy 6 items to donate. And everything was a name brand.

Making Vapor Rub

To kick off the new direction, I'm (Kristina) copying a post from Rachel's personal blog.

After I received my order of beeswax from Mountain Rose, I realized I was going to be able to make a lot with it. A pound of beeswax goes a long way for a small family! Today we made homemade vapor rub, and early this summer we are going to make a big batch of lip balm with Nana to share with all my sisters.

I wanted to make two variations of vapor rub - a strong one with camphor for my husband, and a mild one with lavender for the babies. Camphor is very strong and I don't want to use it for the little ones.

I used 8 ounces of olive oil, about 2 ounces of beeswax. I warmed the oil over a double boiler (actually a cheap pot of water and a small bowl I picked up at the thrift store.) The oil goes in the bowl over the gently bowling water, so the oil doesn't burn. Next time I make this, I want to use oil infused with some kind of mint to add extra strength to it - I know we will have a garden full of mint this summer. I melted the beeswax gently in the oil, and took it off the heat as soon as it was melted.

I poured the wax/oil into two tubs - repurposed from butter tubs. A real herbalist probably wouldn't reuse old plastic butter tubs, but what can I say? They were the right size.

Then I added the oil. I used 15 drops of eucalyptus in each tub. I added 10 drops of lavender to the children's tub and 10 drops of camphor to my husband's tub. Since this is my first try, I have no idea whether those ratios will be strong enough and I encourage anyone who wants to try this to experiment and see what works for you. Especially for kids, less is more.

The finished products smell really good. If they don't turn out to be strong enough, I will remelt them.

I used:

Available from Mountain Rose:

White Camphor Oil

Eucalyptus Oil

Lavender Oil

Beeswax

Olive Oil (I bought mine on clearance at the grocery store)

Repurposed:

Butter tubs - metal tins or glass jars would be better

~ Rachel

Slightly New Direction

My friend Rachel and I are taking this blog in a different direction, so instead of my random babbling, there will be more direction. We're going to talk about what I like to call our slightly crunchy parenting ideas, ways to save money as a stay at home mom, creative things to do with your kids, excerpts from the mommy land, blogs we like to read, etc. We hope that you'll be entertained and informed!

Cute Comments on the Baby Sister

#1 is quite the funny man. He's had some pretty amusing comments about my pregnancy.

Him: Where baby come out? Up, up, up out your head?

Me: Umm...no.....

A few days later....

Him: Baby come out up your head or out your bottom?

Me: Bottom

Why elaborate with details? lol. Smart kid though. He's got things figured out about where things enter and exit the body.

The baby was kicking a ton the other day and I said something about it while he was standing by me. He said "Baby sister is trying to get out!"

His theological thoughts on the baby:

"Jesus no live in your tummy. Baby sister lives there. Jesus lives in your heart."

Baby sister is his official name for the baby which works well because we don't have a name for her either at the moment. He has also suggested Melmo (Elmo, when he was obsessed with Elmo) and Sippy (after his water bottle he used to be attached to).

And on Halloween candy and the baby:

"Baby sister likes my candy but she's not out."

Yes, baby sister does indeed like his Halloween candy....

~ Kristina

Bony Butt

This little one must have a very bony butt because she's constantly shoving it up into my lungs! I never had actual pain from when I was pregnant with #1 and his womb antics so this is totally a new thing. I think its her head because I was told at my last appointment that it felt like she was head down and I totally believed that because #2's little knee was the object stabbing me in the side. Well, she must have turned her body inward and her hiney outward and is now using that little bony hiney to torture me. The other day in church during the sermon she stabbed me and I literally jumped. I hope this is not a sign of things to come of torturing poor mommy her whole life. I really hope she decides to turn around again. Her knee was much easier to deal with then her hiney. The only thing that's worked thus far is stretching my torso when she does it and using my hand to push against her backside when she starts ramming it upward.

~ Kristina