Saturday, April 28, 2012

Second hand books

I have always loved second hand books due in part to my literary loving mother (thanks Stacy!) so I'm planning to pass that down to Hadley. We found some classic Golden Books at a garage sale yesterday along with a few good board books, so her library is continuing to grow!
**At our baby shower, everyone was asked to bring a book and write a note in the front so that definitely helped start her collection. She really has amassed quite the children's library at her current 13 months though with over 40 cherished pieces and growing. :)
Much love for books and reading!!

Thursday, April 26, 2012

Baby Proof

I've been working for 2+ hours to babyproof our kitchen cabinets and it's been a fight... and the cabinets are winning. :(
One and a half cabinets are marginally babyproofed so I think I'm going to say this has been a big fail so far. Boo!
UPDATE- Jim finished up the rest of the cabinets in about 20 minutes... I am just not great with tools (yet).

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

lobster necklace

We went to a wedding in Detroit Lakes this last weekend and I wore the cutest necklace... yup a LOBSTER necklace! :)
I'm still chasing around our little crawler which is great but she's definitely a little whirlwind tossing stuff everywhere! I thought it was tough to balance my time before she was this mobile but now I'm chasing her around to make sure she doesn't break anything, hurt herself or stick a finger in an outlet... oh the joys of having a little toddler!!

Thursday, April 19, 2012

My birthday

I've had a fun day of chasing around my new crawler!
My parents gifted me an amazing travertine patio dining table and 6 chairs with a cantilever umbrella!! Amazing! :)
Jim worked half the day which was nice since he got to be home with us for a few extra hours. He surprised me with a Mickey cookie/sandwich cutter that he had bought at Epcot for me!! So cute. What a great birthday :)

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

she's CRAWLING!!!

Hadley began crawling on her knees on Sunday and its been amazing to watch her get more confident. I just watched her chase the dogs out of the room so we're definitely going to be chasing after her very soon! She also has 7 teeth now; pretty amazing since she only had 2 teeth on her first birthday 3ish weeks ago!
In other news, my friend Janell is officially on her way to the hospital to deliver their little boy!! So exciting :) We had her shower {http://babyrenneberg.blogspot.com/2012/02/janell.html?m=1} AND she's been ready for him to arrive for the last month so we're all anxious to greet him! Now off to check out cookiesbydesign baskets for new babies... that was my favorite new baby gift once Hadley was born-- just so dang cute! ;)

Saturday, April 14, 2012

Princess Diana exhibit at Mall of America

Today, Hadley and I met {auntie}Peggy and {gramma}Norma for lunch and browsing for home accents for Peggy's house at Ikea. Afterwards we went to Mall of America and visited the Princess Diana traveling exhibit of her beautiful gowns including her phenomenal wedding dress! We also got to go to JCrew since Hadley was being such a good girl :) and I got a new dress, cardigan and lucky lobster necklace(!!) to wear to Jim's friend's wedding in Detroit Lakes{WAY up north MN} next weekend. Hadley and I also went to a birthday BBQ for a friend/acquaintance tonight and Jim is at a bachelor party so now it's just us girls tonight well unless you count Cooper but an 8 pound male maltipoo doesn't really count right? ;)

Monday, April 9, 2012

Happy Easter Monday! He is Risen :)

We had a great Easter weekend with both of our families. Hippity hop hop :)
Next year it will be great for Hadley to be able to run around and find eggs instead of being carried around everywhere haha she got the princess treatment again this Easter!

Friday, April 6, 2012

Win a BOB Revolution!

http://blog.babygizmo.com/2012/04/baby-gizmo-youtube-giveaway-extravaganza-day-25-bob-revolution-se/
This stroller is awesome!! :)

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

BumGenius Cloth Diapers

So instead of the usual day in this life style post ;) I decided to share a parenting related personal tidbit for the history books... haha.
We decided to use BumGenius cloth diapers for Hadley and they are really great! An awesome and fairly comprehensive review of our diapers can be found here: http://www.younghouselove.com/2010/08/the-much-requested-cloth-diaper-post/
Washing: Before we put our dirty diapers in our special dirty diaper laundry bag (its pretty smell proof and not gross honestly) we use a diaper sprayer that's attached to our toilet and spraying them keeps them much cleaner and easier to maintain. We wash our cloth diapers at home instead of using a diaper service and it's not gross like I thought it would be when I first heard about modern cloth diapers. I use natural detergents, I started out using Charlie's Soap from our local co-op but now we use Norwex powder detergent since I'm an independent sales consultant for them now. The Norwex detergent seems to get the diapers even cleaner than the Charlie's Soap And its just as natural which is great.
Sunning out stains: The fact that you don't have to be seriously worried about staining on these specific diapers is great. Anytime their are spots or stained areas after the recommended wash procedure you can put water on the diaper's spots then lay them out in the sun and voila! Stain free in a few hours! :)
Starter diaper stash: We started with 12 BumGenius Elementals when Hadley was 5 weeks old and we now have an additional 9 BumGenius 4.0 pockets and 1 BumGenius FreeTime. I love them all but from reviews from other users, I know that all of our Elemental diapers won't last through 2 kids until potty training but we'll try to get as far as possible.
Hybrids: I got free BumGenius Flip hybrid diaper covers and stay-dry liners from one of the girls I met at a baby shower in January but the catch is that all of the Flip covers need new elastics sewed into them (just the elastic was shot but otherwise they are in super nice condition but she wanted to give them away since she uses diaper service now) so I'll be working on that project pretty soon. From video tutorials on YouTube I can tell the elastic replacement will be easy to do but it will take some time. I'm hoping that we will be able to keep more life in our diapers by incorporating the Flips into our routine. I'll have to do a full review of how I like Flips compared to the other BumGenius diapers since the Flip is considered a hybrid (you can use organic liners, stay dry microfiber liners or disposable/flushable liners).
Overall verdict on using cloth: Cloth diapering and BumGenius as a line of diapers is great! We love our system and I am honestly surprised by how relatively few times I've felt an ounce of regret over doing cloth diapers... most of the regret moments have come over seriously NASTY dirty diapers ;) haha right?! We have saved money and Hadley's bottom has not had nearly as many diaper rashes as other babies which has been a bonus.

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Cybex Ruby Giveaway

http://blog.babygizmo.com/2012/04/baby-gizmo-youtube-giveaway-extravaganza-day-22-cybex-ruby/
Check it out... free stuff is awesome and their 30 days of giveaways is coming close to being finished so make sure to enter!
Teething grumpiness continues at our house today :(

Monday, April 2, 2012

Stacking cups and playing with the pups

Hadley is stacking her nesting cups together really well on her own now and it's so fun to watch her do it! She tries lots of combinations and stacks them on top of each other as well as nesting them together. It's so amazing to watch her learn new things... love it!
She is also getting really great with Lucy our goldendoodle. Hadley hugs her and it's so sweet. This is such a great age!