"It's Leprechaun Day!"

Last week, I gave the kids some craft supplies and they made a pretty impressive leprechaun trap. It had a ladder up the side of a tall box with leprechaun enticing things inside: a bed, a box of "gold", some lucky charms (always good bait) a few pennies, and a rock path that Reese made with glue and string. The idea was that the leprechauns would climb up the ladder on side of the box and jump inside, but not be able to get back out.

I didn't get a photo of it, but Reese used a cut pepper to stamp green shamrocks all over the box. It was pretty cute.

The leprechauns could not be fooled, and left a trail of skittles and leprechaun cookies to show us just how they escaped! Tiny glitter footprints were found on all of the rocks, and it was found hanging over the side of the box. They used it as a ladder! Those sneaky sneaky leprechauns...

They also left us a message in gold glitter on the side of the trap.

Until next year, leprechauns...until next year.

Luck o' the Irish

There was a leprechaun party up in here, last night! Rainbow Skittles and chocolate gold coins were left behind near our new books.

And the last of the milk? GREEN!

It will taste nasty because milk is disgusting delicious in our Lucky Charms cereal (which now has an unacceptable marshmallow to cereal ratio).

Top o' the morning to ya!

Cloth Diapering Day #1/60

Whoa! Baby got BACK!

How HUGE is that diaper booty? It's like a regular diaper that's been in a swimming pool and is now swollen to maximum capacity.

It's still pretty cute.

Here he is practicing his Heisman.

Impossible to get a still photo.

That face is so naughty, it kills me.

This kid is soooo cute.

All the time.

Even more so in his rocket ship diaper.

I can do this for 60 days.
I can do this for 60 days.

Cuz after 60 days...it's money in my pocket.

Recycle

I have wasted a small fortune on plastic baggies since Reese started school.

You can only fit so many plastic reusable containers into thermal lunch bag. I recently restocked my baggie supply and discovered that I had spent $9 on plastic bags. $9 freaking dollars! What a waste! I know they hold a purpose and all, but $9?

But I just can't live without the convenience. At least, I don't think I can...and I don't want to. It is absolute torture when I really need a ziplock bag and don't have one available.

I still feel like I threw $9 away.

While all of this was on my mind, I was reading a book about a pioneer, and it described her wrapping contents of her lunch (jerky, nuts, slice of pie, etc) in brown paper, or fabric napkins.

I'm not about to put a piece of pie in a napkin.

But it did help me to look around and think about what I would do if ziplocks weren't available.

I didn't discover some superb alternative.

But I did find that I'd been throwing away even more than $9 worth of plastic bags.

A lot of the food we buy already comes in a plastic bag or container.

bread

apples

oranges

bagels

butter

cool whip

english muffins

A lot of people already think to reuse plastic containers, but why not reuse plastic bags, too? I'm not about to wash and reuse something 100x, or save the bag my frozen chicken came in, but why not shake the bread crumbs from the breadbag and fill it with something else, at least once? That's one bag I don't have to buy.

My favorite re-usable so far, is the tortilla bag.

We eat a lot of tortillas, and they come in a ziplock bag.

Tortilla crumbs have been shaken out, and now the bag is keeping the leftover white bread from going stale.

Look around your house and see what containers can be reused for another purpose before they get tossed or recycled.

Do you reuse or repurpose something in your house? Tell us about it.

Bummer

Corbin's little bickies are about to go all natural.

If you had asked me 6 years ago if I would ever consider cloth diapering, I would have laughed in your face and called you a hippie.

Right before Corbin was born, I started to actually consider cloth diapering, but I looked around at the mountainous supply of diapers that I already owned (thank you, wonderful friends of mine), and didn't see a need to purchase diapers, since I had almost 6 months worth of disposables waiting to be used.

Fast forward to when the supply ran out. I considered it again. The upfront investment is $75-$100 to get started. Um, yeah at that point, I was spent on both energy and cash and it just wasn't worth the investment just to "try it out".

But now, we're sinking into a nice little groove. Corbin is 20 months, and I probably won't even attempt to potty train him until a year from now.

So for the cost of 3 boxes of diapers, I bought enough to "try it out". 4 Bummi covers, 6 prefolds, 3 snappis, and a box of disposable liners (because solid poop in your washer is nasty).

3 boxes of diapers would last us about 2 months.

So I figure, If I can do this for 60 days, I'll have broken even with what I've spent, so far.

Anything after that will be money still in my pocket. If I continue, I'll spend another $20+ to get another dozen prefolds for the diapers, and maybe some other diapering supplies I don't know about yet, but I think that's still worth it, considering I currently spend that amount every few weeks on disposables.

Even if it is totally gross and more work, I think I could stand to see these little rockets on Corbin's bum for 60 days.

So, the adventure begins.

I will use disposables at night.

I will use disposables when I send my baby to a friend's house, have a sitter, or go on road trips, because I still have a box of them to use up.

And also because I am not 100% certain what I have gotten myself into.

But I can do anything for 60 days.

If I hate it after 60 days, the cloth diapers will be lovingly tucked into our 72 hour kits, and I'll never look back.

As a bonus, I won't have to worry about replacing the diapers in my 72 hr kids every time my babies grow into a different size.

Is it worth it?

We'll see.

Stay tuned.

It should be noted that I gave myself a few pats on the back for purchasing these online. Whaaat?!

Go me.