Morro Bay

We took a trip the beginning of June to Morro Bay with the Dickeys and the Hartstroms. It was Katherine's first camping trip and oyr first trip in our 5th wheel! Loved all the conveniences!

Nathan's first try at ocean kayaking! He did well, but the fishing wasn't so good!

Katherine 10 weeks

For those of you who don't get to see the baby often, here is a snapshot view of Katherine at 10 weeks. She is so alert and interactive. She loves to look at faces and interact with people so much more than toys. Her smiles are frequent and beautiful! She is very social and hates discovering she is in a room by herself. She discovered her tongue last week and amuses the other children by experimenting with it! She is also starting to learn that she has hands on her arms and she can sometimes make them go where she wants them to. She weighs about 10.25 lbs now.

Josh calls this her "mouse" look!

Raising Readers

Yes, our kids "read" a lot. The boys are just starting to get enough confidence they will try to read a book on their own. Otherwise, they all look at books a lot. I am trying to help them set some good habits now of reading each day.

Independence Day 2011

Happy Independence Day! We give thanks for the amazing freedoms we have and pray our country will continue to uphold and preserve those freedoms!

Patriotic Sunday! All the men in our family wore blue and all the ladies wore red and white!

Diaper Update

All I can say is cloth diapering has come a long way! I went ahead and took the plunge into modern cloth diapers. I LOVE them! These new diapers are like washable/reusable disposables, in my opinion. It took a little while for Katherine to fit into these diapers--I would guess she was around 8 lbs. We are still on the smaller size setting, but as she grows, we will simply adjust the snaps and allow the diaper to "grow" with her.

My diaper stash freshly washed!
I have about 25 diapers, which allows me to wash every two days with a few left to use until they dry on the line. Newborns use a lot more diapers than a toddler, so for me, 25 diapers works well. At first I had to wash every night and hope the diapers were dry by morning. After I purchased a few more, I was able to go longer between washings.
These diapers come in a lot of cute colors and prints. Makes changing a dirty diaper a little more fun. Juliana loves to help pick out diapers for me to use. Also, I can coordinate a diaper with Katherine's outfit and not worry about matching pants to cover the diaper.

I line dry my diapers, but they can be put in the dryer (which will be nice in the rainy season). Generally the diapers wash up beautifully, but if there is any staining on the inserts I just hang them in the sun for 1 hour and the sun bleaches them to a nice white again!

I think they look cute hanging on the line!

Did I mention Katherine seems to love the diapers?! So far we have had no diaper rash at all. The inner layer of microsuede of the diaper wicks away moisture so that her bottom feels dry even if the insert is soaked! I am very impressed!

This gives you an idea of what the diapers look like on the baby. The waist can go a little smaller, but by the time the rise fit her she didn't need a narrower waist. I love how the size will adjust with her growth. To use, I stuff the inserts into the pocket diapers after they are dry. Then we just pop her into one, snap at the appropriate size, dump the dirty one in a dry pail (no rinsing), and away we go! I've even started using these on short trips to town because so far I have never had a leak!

These diapers represent a significant investment, but I did the math recently and we will have paid for them in about 4 months. Yes, disposable diapers would run about $50 a month!

And just for fun, I made some cloth diapers for Juliana's doll out of fun flannel prints--complete with snaps. Thanks, Allison, for the fabrics!

Wishing for fire season

We don't get to see Josh in "action" very often. Here they are completing a drill for hose lays on a wildland fire. There are a lot of jokes about practicing this year since it looks to be a SLOW year. Josh came home drenched to the knees, but it wasn't from water in the firehose--we had 1" of rain the day before!

I definitely think he's the cutest Captain ever!

Thanks to Ken Zeff for taking these photos and sharing them with us!

Sleepy Sisters

Caught this moment early one morning when Juliana had been up late and Katherine had gone back to sleep after her 5:30 a.m. snack! Such sweet girls!

Summer Fun!

It has been very nice to have summer break from school. I am trying to get a few projects done and get caught up on things that fell behind in the last few months of my pregnancy. The kids play outdoors most of the day and are becoming strong and tanned!

We went out on the houseboat last Sunday for a quick afternoon outing after church. Bullards Bar has more water than I can ever remember!

The kids made these hilarious "glasses" out of K'nex. They enjoyed taking funny pictures!

I am guessing the boys commissioned Juliana to take this picture of them in their glasses. Oops!

What says summer more than juicy slices of watermelon? The little girl in the middle is Grace, a friend of Juliana's.

An all American boy!

Checking out the creek at the park. We were on our way to a soap box derby. Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures of the soap box racers!

New Ironing Board Cover

Recently I tried making a new ironing board cover from a tutorial on a blog. It turned out super cute and was very easy. Since I used fabric and notions I had purchased at garage sales, the total cost was >$1!!

Definitely time for a new cover! It's one of those things I never seem to notice until it looks this bad!

Much better!

To make your own, follow this super easy tutorial. www.goosegirlsews.blogspot.com/2011/04/fool-proof-ironing-board-cover-really.html