my place and yours: green

Vic at Punky&Me is starting her meme up again, and I have been thinking about potential blog posts. I loved joining memes a few years ago.  Any excuse to use my camer... so might just start up again. 

Lime green tea cup from T2

Officially the cutest cloth nappy from our growing stash - turquoise. The front one is on the smallest snap. It's tiny.... we can't wait for a little bum to fill these! I must admit I can not help but begin to get organised only 4 months into my pregnancy. A little early huh? I am seriously enjoying the hunt, and odd purchase, of baby items.

Thrifted bottles.

♥♥♥

number ones and twos

Disposables Vs Cloth is where my head was at a week ago. I decided better sooner than later to begin looking into things. Like most things that take my interest I become quickly addicted to putting ALL of my spare time and energy into researching the 'best' option/s before I make a purchase. These days I rarely buy anything without Googling it's pros and cons. Other than helpful chats with friends who are mums or pregnant I just have no clue about nappies.

So which path did we decide to keeping bub's nether-regions as dry as possible? .... CLOTH! Yep. We are hopefully going to full time Modern Cloth Nappy our babe (or MCNs as they are termed). Until last week I was certain that disposables were for us/particularly me. But the more I read into the argument, my opinion began to sway towards cloth. There are many reasons we chose cloth but to name a few that are important to us..

• not being responsible for horrid amounts of plastic and chemicals in landfill ,
• cloth is friendlier and softer on bubs delicate skin, 
• financially cheaper ~$500 for cloth versus ~ $4000 to nappy a newborn through to 2 year old, and
• MCNs are Oh SO cute, squishy, soft and plain adorable!

The cost shocked me initially (between $20-40 per nappy) but the more I dug around in the online shopping world of diapers I discovered a few lovely sales. We have ordered 24 nappies all up, which should last us 2-3 days before washing. We chose 3 different All-In-One MCNs based on product reviews and friends who had trialled and tested.

I can't wait to get fluffy mail in the coming weeks in the form of...

Pikapu... adoring the turquoise! pic source pikapu

Bumgenius 4.0 pic source nurturenappies

 and the rainbowy goodness of Itti Bitti Tuttos!!! pic via mammalovesbubba

A few more things I am on the lookout for to make the process run smoothly - a bin beside the change table, two PUL bin liners and a roll of flushable bamboo liners - no one likes to go near poo right?!  Oh, we don't expect cloth to be right for us 24/7, nor do I see myself being stressed out by washing etc if we get sick or life gets a bit tricky... so we will surely use disposables from time to time (perhaps travelling, visiting and at night if these don't hold up). 

Now.... just to look into MCN storage options and organisation - Woo!  

♥♥♥♥

finish quilt - tick

As I hand stitched the fourth and final corner of aqua binding to a vintage sheet quilt my mind raced with up and coming projects which have been filed, waiting to be let loose :)

 I am not a fan of having multiple works in progress when it comes to craft. When it comes to craft I work best to complete something under pressure. Pressure this January arrived in the desire to knit, quilt, stitch or crochet some sweet things for our first little bub.

You see I'm getting quite nesty these days. I have been content with cleaning the house for the past 4 weeks. Oh school holidays you are the best! There has been an uncommon urge of constant cleaning of our floors and carpets, organising and labelling (DYMO labeller - a household and classroom teacher must!) of kitchen spice shelves, hanging of lovely organised compartments in the laundry cupboard, putting up a new bathroom medicine cabinet .... to name a few.. I won't even go into the gorgeous things that are happening with the nursery and our old feral blue (now sand coloured) carpets!

So now that this huge sweet vintage sheet quilt is finished the creative bones in my body, which have not been exercised for quite some months I may add, can get to planning.

Previous posts about this quilt:

• flea market finds The hunting and gathering of the sheets.
• mail happiness The epic vintage sheet quilt swap.
• my creative space Just sweet Lucy snoozing beside the washed sheets.
• vintage sheet quilt The planning and cutting.
• where is my flippin seam ripper?!!?! Experiencing frustration.
• my creative space The joys of a free motion quilting foot!

An an even more exciting note - bubs has made my tummy pop over the past 2 weeks. It's really happening now! We're quite amazed by the whole rounded tummy deal ... it's been written on by the boy and is sung to daily. I am just LOVING being pregnant these days - finally :) 

♥♥♥♥

today's rain was

refreshing

extreme

and most definitely welcome.

grateful is spelt funny

Don't you agree? It should be greatful, no? Grate makes me think of grating or a grater. Okay I'm over that.

I enjoy reading Maxabella's thought inspiring posts, and plan to contribute more to select few sweet little memes (as I have done in the past) more often throughout 2012. Here is my first for the new year. This week I am grateful for -

 ... the effort we put into our garden at the beginning of each season. 

Removing dead plants, tilling soil and adding nutrients plus trying not to sulk over unsuccessful crops can be quite a chore that we honestly never look forward to. But the day the seedlings are lovingly placed into the soil and our irrigation system drips away we are both proud of our efforts and full of optimism!

During December and Janurary we have been consuming (and giving away to friends and family) silly amounts of sweet cherry tomatoes, red onions, small but juicy apricots, bazillions of corn cobs, cucumbers and mini capsicums. We will most probably repeat planting all of these next year as we had next to no failed crops. Yay!

So that's it. Effort and the rewards it brings :)

Head here to see more grAtefuls.

bubbles

Mark's mum gave all kids (yes, grown up kids included. Hurrah!) bubble wands for Christmas. What a great gift! Hanna and I went nuts.

 Love love love bubbles.