My Little Monkeys

A friend from work made these hats for Avaree and Jace and we love them!! (And her for making them!)

Asthma Attack

Avaree was diagnosed with Allergy Induced Asthma in December of 2008. She's been on allergy medicine since she was 6 months old. She's never really had any wheezing but Thursday afternoon, she fell asleep in the car on the way home and I noticed she was wheezing. As soon as we got home, I gave her her albuterol inhaler (her rescue inhaler for when she's coughing or wheezing) and it seemed to go away. Later that night, she woke up complaining that her chest was hurting and it felt tight, she was also wheezing again. We did her inhaler again and she went back to sleep. She woke up several more times during the night crying that her stomach hurt and was still wheezing. Her heart was racing and I woke James up (since he has asthma) and he got the steamer out and made her breathe in the steam. She didn't like that at all but it did help. I looked at her "Asthma Action Plan" and it said she could do her rescue inhaler 3 times in five minute intervals, rather than every 4 hours as usual since her symptoms weren't going away. We did that and she went back to sleep. Her "Asthma Action Plan" says to call for steroids if symptoms get better or take her to the emergency room if they do not. I kept debating on whether or not to take her, and I figured I would wait and see how she felt when she woke up. I kept close watch on her. When it was time to wake up for school, she seemed to be feeling ok and she said she was better so I took her to school. They ended up calling me about 11:30 saying she was sick to her stomach. I picked her up and she had a stomachache the rest of the day but she didn't have anymore breathing problems. I called her allergy doctor and she called her in some oral steroids to take for five days. I'm still not sure why her stomach was hurting so bad. I thought it may be because she was trying so hard to breathe, but I don't know! This was her first time dealing with asthma and I hope it's the last. It was really scary for all of us.

Christmas Pictures

We had our Christmas photos done in November by Stephanie Knowles of Jaiden Photography. They turned out great and we love them!

Firsts

The past two days have been big days in our house. Yesterday, Jace's first tooth finally broke through, it's on his bottom left.

 And today, he said "Mama" and he hasn't stopped saying it! That's all he will say and I love it! He's also trying to crawl as hard as he can! It won't be long!

Santa!

Mom and I took the kids to see Santa last weekend. Jace did good, although he wasn't too sure what was going on. He wouldn't smile, he'd just look at us with a serious look on his face. At the end, after the pictures, he looked up at Santa and got a huge frown on his face. Avaree asked for a Nintendo DS.

 

Diaper Stash & Wash Routine

It's been a while since I posted about our cloth diaper stash.  Since then, I've sold things that we didn't care for and purchased new ones! So, here's what we have now:
4 Perfect Size Medium FuzziBunz
4 One-Size FuzziBunz
1 One-Size BabyKicks 3G Bumboo
1 Medium Bumgenius All-in-One
7 One-Size Bumgenius 3.0
4 One-size Bumgenius 4.0 (snap)
4 One-Size Tweedlebugs
2 One-Size Happy Heinys (snap)
3 One-Size SmartiPants
3 Flip Diapers and 7 Stay Dry Flip Inserts
2 Econobum
12 Kawaii (our daycare diapers)
(There are a few diapers listed that are not pictured)

We keep our daycare diapers and extra inserts in this drawer.

We are using cloth wipes also. I was hesitant to try them but I love them! I still have over a case of disposable wipes that were given to me at my shower but I guess we'll use them for other things. We have flannel wipes and they clean so much bettter than disposable ones. We have a wipe solution, Punkin Booty Bits, that we keep in my peri-bottle and we just wet the wipes as we need them. Also in this drawer is a sample of CJ's BUTTer diaper ointment. If he ever gets a little red, this clears it right up. We also have some diaper liners that we use for daycare (more about those later) and two of our wetbags (Planet Wise-small and medium).

One of the main things that was so overwhelming to me when researching cloth diapers was the wash cycle. There's just so much information out there and I did not want to mess up the diapers. When it's time for a diaper change, we take the diaper off of him, fasten the laundry tabs (if it's a velcro diaper), remove the insert and throw it in the diaper pail. We just use a trash can with a lid and a pail liner. If it is a dirty diaper, we'll take it to the bathroom and shake the solids into the toilet and rinse it off if it needs it with a diaper sprayer.

We normally wash every two to three days. We just bring the full pail liner to the washer, dump everything in and throw in the pail liner to wash also. First, we just do a cold rinse with no detergent. Once that is done, I add the detergent. We use 1 1/2 to 2 tablespoons of Rockin' Green, which is excellent for cloth diapers. Then run a hot wash cycle. After that cycle is complete, we do an extra cold rinse.

Once they're done washing, everything is hung on a drying rack. Usually they dry in the kitchen (because I wash at night), but I try to put them outside to dry at least once a week (on the weekends). The sun is great for sanitizing and bleaching cloth diapers. If there are any stains, the best way to get them out is to sun the diapers. It's amazing how well it works.

Once the diapers and inserts are all dry, I go ahead and stuff them all so they're ready to use again. Cloth diapers are so easy and I'd recommend them to anyone!

Thanksgiving Rewind

This should have been done a couple of weeks ago, but late is better than never, right? We had a great Thanksgiving, most of our family from Albany came down so it was really nice to see all of them! James was sick though so he didn't really have a Thanksgiving. We kept him quarantined at home while we were at Mom's.

 After eating all day and making our annual trip to K-Mart, we relaxed for a little while and then started our Black Friday shopping! We love this day and look forward to it all year long! Mom, Jenn, and I started at Wal-Mart at midnight, then Jenn and I hit up Target (in line around 2:15 for the store to open at 4) and then Wal-Mart again (for the 5am sale).

 We didn't get home (well, back to Mom's) until around 6am but we got everything we went for (and a little more). We napped for about an hour and then we were up with the family. We did a little shopping later as well. Thankfully James was only sick for a couple of days so he did get to visit with the family a little.