Kissin Cousins!

We've had a nice week or so just hanging around the house. Nothing too new or exciting to report, but it's been fun nonetheless!

Here are a few pictures of Emma and her cousin, Luke, from their visit. They were SO cute together - they really seemed to like playing together this time. When they've seen each other in the past, they've been so young that they didn't really pay each other too much attention. It was sweet to see them playing together. Luke even gives Emma some sugar! There's nothing like kissin on your cousin in front of the bear pt


Emma's now OFFICIALLY unswaddled!! PERMANENTLY! Like I mentioned previously, it was a long time in the making, but pictures like these make it all worthwhile.

It's taken her awhile to get used to her new found freedom. She's been taking shorter naps because she'd jump right up and start singing and jumping up and down. Luckily, that time has hopefully come and gone. She's now taking her usual 1.5 hour (sometimes longer) naps twice a day. She sometimes likes to lay in her crib and play with her seahorse for awhile before she falls asleep, but she eventually crashes. In fact, this morning she slept until 9:15!! I thought I was in heaven! Emma also had another big "first" this week. She had her first Chick-Fil-A kids meal! It was "Cow Appreciation Week" at Chick-Fil-A, and Emma got dressed up in all of her finest cow-inspired apparel. She even had on a cow diaper cover that you can't see in the picture. She got her meal for free. She LOVED the nuggets! I gave her some veggies rather than the fries, but she HAS had them in the past. She had been having a few days of eating nothing but crap, so I felt like it was a better move to try to sneak in something healthy with her chicken nuggets. She didn't mind ;)

Emma also took her first step this week! She isn't walking yet, but has taken a step here and there. As soon as she's a little more stable when she's standing, she's gonna be off! I'm NOT READY!!

Speaking of cow diaper covers, you all probably know by now that we cloth diaper Emma. We have since she was about 3 months old, though I now wish we had started earlier. We primarily use prefold diapers (see picture) with Thirsties diaper covers (also in picture). We've NEVER had a diaper blow-out!



This week we actually did the math. I've spent approximately $600 total on cloth diapers. They will take Emma from when we started to potty training. That's approximately 2 years of diapering for $600. Had we used disposables, we would have easily spent $2,200 for those 2 years, not including wipes (we often use re-usable wipes). Can you believe that?? AND, the diapers that I have purchased for Emma will EASILY last through another child using them for another 2 years. So, $600 rather than $4,400! Why would you NOT use cloth?? I truly don't mind the 2-3 extra loads of laundry per week, and it's really not that big of a deal. I'm considering doing a cloth diapering post sometime soon and I will show you exactly what's involved and how easy it can be.

For now, I'd like you to click this link and head over to the blog post that a friend of mine recently posted. She saw a facebook status update that I made when I was talking about the new Pampers Dry-Max formula and the chemical burns that it's causing on babies behinds and how glad I was that we didn't have to worry about that with Emma. She emailed to ask me some questions and I gave her the run-down of the different options available and linked her to some great informative websites. She completely converted from disposables to cloth for her second child! I'm so excited about that! Check out her post here.

We're heading back to Carrollton for a few days to spend some time with Amber and Jason. Brad heads back to school pretty soon :( and it's the last time we'll get to go for awhile. I'll post pictures of the trip when we get back!