Busy Busy Bees

We have been busy around here. In fact, I'm just going to write this post and then some time in the future I'll do an all picture and video post to go along with this narrative.

In April, Nick finished another semester of classes and now is down to ONE left! WAHOO! This means he is finished with his Bachelor's in December. Being the proud wife I am, I also would like to brag that even with having a new baby in the house for more than half of this past semester, he still did great in his classes with his lowest grade being an A-. After Nick finished the semester we took a day to clean our house really good and then took our first big road trip with Harvey down to Arizona. The drive wasn't too bad. Harvey sure is a trooper with us. He did pretty good on the drive considering he hates his car seat. We got to visit my dad and surprise two of my sisters and their families. My dad knew we were coming because we stayed with him, but my sisters had NO idea and it was really fun to COMPLETELY surprise them and their families. We had never pulled off a big surprise like that on anyone and they had never been surprised like that by anyone so it was really fun!

While in Arizona, Harvey had a lot of firsts. He got to meet some of his aunts, uncles, and cousins for the first time (I think he and Daniel will get along great. Daniel loved to give Harvey big hugs.) He went to two major league baseball games. He went swimming in Grandpa's pool. He went to the zoo. He came to the movies with us. He slept really amazing because we kept pretty busy and I also think because of the heat. We stayed for two weeks because we had no obligations back in Utah and took advantage of our last summer that we don't have to worry so much about a work schedule.

After we got back home from Arizona, we went to Davis's baby blessing and said goodbye to my grandma who was going back to Michigan. We used our pass of all passes some more to go mini golfing. We have had several parties with friends. We went up to my mom's Mother's Day weekend and went to the drive in. And speaking of that, it was my FIRST Mother's Day as a Mom. Nick made my and I breakfast that morning and we both got plates with Harvey's footprints/foot-smooshes. He kept curling his little toes in the paint for Dad :). We got a new washing machine (which works amazing on the cloth diapers). Nick's brother got home from his 2 year mission in England. Nick inherited a giant TV from his grandpa who had it in storage at his Dad's work. I'm talking the size of TV that we had to rearrange our entire living room to fit it in. I was kind of annoyed at it at first, but now I'm kind of enjoying it just as much as Nick is. We got to have a couple date nights in there since we've been back. Our neighbors are moving and we found out that some of our friends are moving in next door. Also, when our landlord came to renew our contract Nick asked him about doing maintenance to decrease our rent even more and the landlord said that would be great for him too so another yay for saving us quite a bit of money. And last but not least, we also got some soil, pots and plants and made a potted garden to the side of our 4-plex. We have 2 tomato (one larger, one smaller), 1 butternut squash, 4 green pepper, 4 red pepper, 3 anaheim pepper, and a basil plant. I've been checking on the plants each day to make sure we keep them watered since it's already getting pretty toasty here.

So far the summer has been going great and keeping us super busy. We are having fun being social and taking advantage of the extra time Nick gets to spend at home for a few months. We still have a lot more coming up too. Harvey is finally getting to the doctor (we were waiting to make sure he got covered from Medicaid and then we got notice that he was covered while we were in Arizona... then now finally this week he has an appointment.) At the end of this month, we'll be going on another road trip with his family to Arkansas to visit Nick's older brother, wife, and their new baby Liam. Then Nick will be working on a deal for his work with his dad and if that goes through, we're planning on coming out to Michigan for my cousin's wedding in July. If we can figure out how to go with a baby, I really REALLY want (though I feel like it is a need) to go to Cedar Point when we're out there. We'd be so close to it and I have not been since I lived in Michigan nearly 10 years ago! Best amusement park ever for those who are unfamiliar with it... and it's in northern Ohio. We also have a large Potts family reunion in July that will be taking place mostly down in Southern Utah.

What a long update and I could make it even longer so maybe I should start posting little things here and there again so it's not such an overwhelming catch up post every time I post! :)

Another Diaper Update

So, now that it's been a month of cloth diapering, I can honestly say I LOVE our cloth diapers. We had a few small issues along the way that were not nearly enough to make me want to quit or even issues with the actual diapers, but I will mention them so it doesn't look like this road was completely bump-free.

Problem 1 - Detergents. I ended up having to try two "diaper friendly" detergents (no enzymes, brighteners, dyes, blah blah blah) only to find out that as our regular Tide that we already used works the best... It is not recommended on a lot of cloth diaper sites because they use brighteners, enzymes and dyes, but then on the Rumparooz website it recommends you DO use a detergent that has enzymes because they claim it helps with stink and other build up.

Problem 2 - Skinny legs - At first, Harvey's skinny thighs didn't quite fit into a few of the diapers we had. FuzziBunz sized ones, Just Simply Baby, and our Bum Genius ones. Now, he fits into them just fine and I even like the BumGenius ones quite a lot now.

Other than those problems, we really have had a great experience. Oh I will also mention it took me about a week to get a washing routine down once I finally settled on a detergent to use too. Our HE machine makes it a little more difficult but not hard.

Now that Harvey's legs are getting bigger too, we don't really have any leaks. There were also a couple times that we knew he would've exploded out the back if it had been a disposable and were grateful he was in the cloth so we didn't have to clean his clothes too. Even the few leaks we have had have only been from sizing issues (around the leg) or the way we put the inserts in and not the actual diapers.

My favorite diapers! They have changed now that he's a little bigger too. I am really loving the Rumparooz (I bought two more of those and will probably buy one more soon), the FuzziBunz One-Size Elite (I bought two more of these also), and the Bum Genius (I am looking at buying a few more of these ones soon to replace the gdiaper stash that he's growing out of). The Bum Genius and Just Simply Baby didn't quite fit him around the leg until a week ago and so I couldn't really have an opinion on them before that even though we used them anyway. He is also finally fitting into the Just Simply Baby (JSB) ones around the leg too as of the past few days so I'm starting to feel better about those too. I don't think I'll get more of them, but I do like them and their inserts actually fit nicely into the Bum Genius ones so I usually put the hemp JSB inserts into the Bum Genius diapers when he's going to be in it longer like his longer sleep at night.

Other diapers. Now that he's bigger, we are actually having issues with the other ones that we used to love. He seems to have outgrown the small gDiapers. He leaks through them about 3/4 of the time now unfortunately so I haven't really used those since last weekend. I'm thinking it's probably because of sizing but I don't know and I don't really want to get more inserts/liners for that one since I'm liking other brands anyway. The GAD diapers are now really difficult to get on him since they are side snapping ones. He usually cries when we put that one on him for two reasons. It takes us longer to put that one on than the others because with side snap it is hard to get a good fit. Also, the setting that makes it tight enough around the bottom of his leg on these make it too tight at his thigh and he screams because it pinches him, unfortunately that means that the setting that IS comfortable for him right now means we risk leakage if he poos a lot because it leaves a little gap around the bottom. I was going to buy more of these ones at first because I loved them at first, but after a month, these ones are probably on the bottom of our list now. I have also noticed the most wear on these after a month. They were brand new when we got them and on one, a snap is loose and threads are coming undone. I'm sure if I e-mailed the woman she'd help out, but since I don't really like these that much anyway I don't really care about replacing them. The one redeeming thing about these diapers is that they hold a LOT when they do fit. The inserts are really great. I may get their inserts and just use them on other diapers for night-time in the future.

Overall cloth has been a really great experience for us. I am loving everything about it now. Nick and I really like them and the no rashes and less leaks deal.

How many faces can Harvey make in 90 seconds?

After Harvey eats, more often than not he's pretty sleepy. When he is REALLY out after a feeding, he has the funniest facial expressions and his eyes even roll around. I finally was close to our camera when he was done eating today so I decided to take a little video for you all. I don't know if this will entertain others the way it entertains us, but we sure think it's funny. So, enjoy the minute and a half of Harvey's many faces before he decided he still had a few burps stuck in there. :)