Books, woolies, and moving

A couple things.
Alice is getting curiouser and curiouser so I bought her some books to read to her and some for her to just look at. I'm very picky about our reading material. I'm a bit of an elitist when it comes to books, I'll admit. I went through all of the baby books in Borders and picked out these.


I've also been working on my own pattern for snappible wooley soakers. I've made four so far, but I think the 5th one will be the one that I remake and sell, hopefully. Each one is good, with a thing or two amiss with them, but I think I've finally got it down. My father-in-law gave me some start-up money, so I bought a snap press and $100 worth of used 100% wool sweaters. I've used just 2 sweaters so far. I plan to make colorful wooleys with prefolds dyed to match :)


All of that has to be put on hold for now. I'm moving from my beloved home of Alaska, to Lucas' home-state of Florida. Sigh. Things just aren't working out for us in Alaska, financially. I'll also be able to spend all of my time with Alice. If we stay in Alaska I'm going to have to go back to work soon and leave Alice with a sitter. I can't be the mother Alice deserves right now if we stay here. Hopefully we'll do better in Florida with his family there to help us. We'll be back in a few months, but probably just to pick up my stuff from storage, but only God knows.
Our original plan was to drive down to Florida and take only what we could carry in the back of my pickup. But that just felt like I was being made to jam up and try to fit my whole life in the back of my truck and drag it across the country. So Lucas is renting me out a storage unit and we'll come back for my stuff soon.

Earth bound diaper

I today made a diaper! Its not the best diaper, and I need a lot more practice, but I made it!
Here it is:

I made it out of 2 t-shirts of mine that I never wear. The outer part is made from an Earth Bound fan t-shirt my brother gave me, its his favorite game. He's at boot camp right now, I'm going to print these and send them to him. I think he'll really like it. The shirt didn't even fit me pre-pregnancy, so it'll definitely never fit me again, especially now that I'm post-baby.

The elastic on the legs is really hard! But I'll get the hand of it.

Here's the first diaper I made out of a prefold and a flannel blanket:
I think I'm getting better.

My Weekend

This is a picture Lucas took this weekend when he, baby and I all went down to Portage Glacier and camped out for the night. I went kicking and screaming because it was raining at first. But all this week Lucas has been working really hard all week at his new job, so he dragged me kicking and screaming to enjoy his weekend in the wilderness.
I complained while we packed, I complained while we rode. In the end though, it turned out to be one of the most enjoyed times we've spent together since becoming a family.
We got off to a rainy late start. Lucas set up the tent while I breastfed Alice, then we all cuddled into the tent together. It was so relaxing and beautiful to fall asleep to the sounds of birds chirping and the sounds of the river while cuddling with those most beloved to me. It was awesome waking up in warm sunshine.
Today Lucas has gone back to work, so it's just me and baby right now.
I make this delicious homemade sandwich bread every once in a while, and today me and Lucas decided that I should make a loaf or 2 a week from now on, so we can stop buying store bought pre-sliced bread. I'm pretty excited. I've actually been thinking about doing that for a while, and was pretty excited when he brought it up first.
Store bought bread scares me a little.

Here are the ingredients of typical store bought whole wheat bread:
Whole wheat flour, water, wheat gluten, high fructose corn syrup, contains 2% of less of: soybean oil, salt, molasses, yeast, mono and diglycerides, exthoxylated mono and diglycerides, dough conditioners (sodium stearoyl lactylate, calcium iodate, calcium dioxide), datem, calcium sulfate, vinegar, yeast nutrient (ammonium sulfate), extracts of malted barley and corn, dicalcium phosphate, diammonium phosphate, calcium propionate (to retain freshness).

Here are the ingredients in my homemade sandwich bread: White whole wheat, salt, sugar, egg, olive oil, water, milk, and yeast.

I don't know about you, but I don't know, and can hardly pronounce, a lot of those ingredients. I like to know what I'm eating.

Cloth diapering

I contribute to another blog, solely dedicated to cloth diapering and all its wonderfulness. Here's a link to my post on that blog, about how and why I cloth diaper.
This whole week has been like Christmas to me! All the stuff I've been ordering online has been coming in. My turkish spindle, my pretty pink roving, and cloth diapers galore!! Earlier this week I got 4 dream eze diapers my mother in law bought for Alice from Baby Half Off and some snappis from ebay. I can't believe I've been cloth diapering for 2 months with not ONE snappi until now...now I have nine :D
Today's present from the post man ha been my favorite by far. I received my custom order of size small fitted cloth diapers from Little Owls (she's the brains behind the other blog btw)

Now here are some pictures of my beautiful baby girl, sporting a few of her awesome new diapers! (the photo at the top is credited to the lovely seamstress who made the diapers, Jessica, here's her blog)

Sigh

So, my boyfriend, my daughter, and I have just been evicted over an awful mix up. But I'm going to see this as the beginning of something great. My MIL is going to talk to the FIL about co-signing for a home for us. We've had the worse luck, home-wise, and it's not because we're irresponsible, its just...lame. I think Alice can feel how upset I am, she's being a little fussier, and a lot cuddlier.
I really hope this all works out.

My Miracle

One of the most rewarding experiences of motherhood is breastfeeding my daughter, and watching her thrive on what only I can give her. When I nurse her, I can feel my heart swell for her. When I breastfeed my daughter, I feel like the most special person in the whole wide world. I feel a peace, close to the same peace I felt when I used to curl up with my Mommy when I was little. I can't even imagine feeding her a powder from a can when I have everything she needs within me. A friend of mine were talking about breastfeeding. She asked aloud why so many mothers are able to breastfeed, but choose against it. I told her that breastfeeding is a mother's commitment to her child, and not all mother's are ready and willing for that kind of commitment.
And then I told her that it's a good and bad thing that formula is readily available. It's bad because many families fall back on it, and its such a loss too! Women need to believe in themselves! It's a super ability! But its great at the same time, for adopting parents, mother's with AIDS. If formula wasn't available and affordable for them, things would be pretty bad.
Our society just needs to bring back wet nurses!