hanging with Duck and Bill

We had a blast with Ashley and Chase this weekend! I'll let the pictures speak for themselves...

Crawford meets the Rhineharts

Per usual, this post is super overdue... whatevs.

While we were in Columbus, we spent an evening at the Rhineharts' introducing Crawford to one of my favorite families! It was SO special, yet so bizarre for me bring my child to their house! I babysat for them so much, I felt like Craig and Denise should have written me a check, driven me home and I should have left Crawford there. After all, they know how to take care of a baby! Not me!

Regardless, it was super fun and way too short. In order to remedy that, they are coming to visit in a few weeks! We can't wait!

Parker, Wesley and Amy Grace with Crawford

I forget to hold C like this, but clearly he was enjoying it with Craig!

Barney was checking him out

funny faces

lots of loving with Craig

And, of course I neglected to get a picture of Crawford with Denise! We'll fix that when they come in a few weeks.

phone photo dump

*Beware... I take a lot of phone pictures!

play group friends: Pierson, Ella and Max

play group again: Ella, Ben, Stella, Pierson and Crawford the outcast (who needs more sitting up assistance than the big kids)

little grin

so funny... dressed like a little man. 

morning snuggle time

cracks me up! David calls his bed a paci farm (one in his mouth, one in the bed...) and he always sleeps with his knees flopped to the sides. Usually his legs are inside his swaddler, but he was hot.

meeting Trey and Bonnie White at a lacrosse game 

ha... notice Harley's tail!

family walk downtown

this kiddo loves bath time (and his paci!)

My grandma sent C some adorable bibs, burp cloths and a onesie. Apparently peckish means "somewhat hungry" or "rather irritable". 

first road trip

This past week Crawford and I took our first road trip together. He was a trooper, and a great little travel buddy. I wanted to go visit my parents in Columbus during the week for the first time so we could take our time and be flexible to Crawford's schedule for the driving parts (rather than rushed after David gets off work Friday, etc.). We left right after his doctor's appointment Monday morning, and he did a good bit of sleeping on the ride down. I knew I would need to stop to feed and change him, and I made a few other quick stops to reinsert his paci. He did a great job! Especially considering that he had his first shots and took Tylenol for the first time, he was a champ. 

We LOVED spending time with my mom and dad. It was so nice to have them all to ourselves, and I think they enjoyed having their grand baby on their turf :)

This child never lacks for attention, but especially not with these grandparents nearby!

I mean, seriously.

Bella was SO interested in the little man. 

C got LOTS of good Grandy* snuggle time in. Dad loves to nap and cuddle, and coincidentally those are two of Crawford's favorite pastimes. 

We had lots of sweet people to visit while we were in Columbus. We went to see LaVerne and Miss Mary at their houses and Courtney came over to our house. The little man was a hit, and such a sweet boy everywhere we went. He can sleep anywhere!

Miss Mary's hands! They've seen and done a lot in her 91 years of living. 

We hung out with the Rhineharts one evening, and it was so fun. I took lots of pictures there, so I'll share the rest in a separate post.

On our last morning in Columbus, we visited Wai-Po** at work. Everyone had heard about our little man, so she was excited to introduce him around. 

*Grand Andy
**Chinese for "mother of the mother". My grandma grew up as a missionary kid in China, and my mom considers that a big part of her heritage!

our cloth diaper journey

We've been cloth diapering Mr. Crawford for about a month now, and it's going so well! We've gotten a pretty good system down so far, and we both really love it. I didn't know what either of us would think, but I really think David appreciates the process as much as I do. He can probably see all the money we're saving :)

So, here's the deal. We have 14 one size diapers:

3 Flips

6 Bumgenius

2 Best Bottoms

1 Fuzzibuns

1 Charlie Banana

1 Bumkins

We got a lot of them as gifts (we registered on Amazon), and I bought the 3 miscellaneous ones off Zulily before C was born and I was being spontaneous (it's really not a good deal because they get you on ridiculous shipping prices). Because of some great advice from the lady at our local store that sells CD's (Retail Therapy), we've been using BumGenius diapers like Flips- we don't put the insert inside the pocket. It means we can often (but not every time) reuse the shell with a different insert. We go three whole days on our 14-diaper stash! I think that's pretty good. Granted, we have a TON of inserts. My sweet friend Denise passed down her CD stash that she used with Amy Grace (almost 9?! years ago), and it was chalk full of goodies. She also gave me lots of sized diapers that we'll be using when C gets to be big enough. 

Denise also gave me a ton of cloth wipes, so we've started using those. They are awesome! I just made a solution of 2 c water + 2 T baby soap in a spray bottle, and I spray the wipe before using it. I have a small bottle that stays in the diaper bag with a few wipes for on-the-go changes.

Our system is pretty straight forward. Take the diaper off, put it in the pail. I have just a regular trash can with a wet pail liners (we have 2 planet wise ones) and it works perfectly. I go ahead and take the insert out of the pocket (if that's the case) and strap the velcro down to the sides (I only have 2 aplix diapers though) so the bag is ready to be emptied straight into the wash when the time is right. If I use a regular wipe (which I hardly have since starting the cloth ones), I just toss it in the regular trash can. 

We wash diapers every 3rd day, usually after C goes to bed. I hang the covers to dry and sometimes set the poop stained ones out in the sun (but it's annoying because then I do have to wash those again and I usually just wait until the next wash day). We have a high efficiency front loading machine, and I had heard that they are the worst to use for cloth diapers because they (efficiently) don't use a lot of water. I've had friends say they pour water into their machine or run up to four cycles per load, but I found (per a suggestion I read online) that adding a few "dummy" towels to the load does the trick. 

I should say, we are still using disposables at night for a couple of reasons: 1) we have a bunch of them that we got as gifts (we're using Nature Babycare right now and we love them! Their wipes are my favorite too.) and 2) Crawford has such a great sleep schedule at night, I'm just afraid to do anything that will mess him up.