Month: March 2012


Mar
2012

Frugal Friday: Our Trashy Family

categories: baby, frugal, green living
Check out our new jogging stroller.  Guess how much we paid for it.  I’ll give you a few hints.  It is a double jogging stroller, made by the Baby Jogger brand.  It is a few years old, but new ones retail for $400-700.  Give up?  We paid $0.  Jed actually found this stroller on the side of the road, during the lovely time of the month in Dallas called Bulk Trash.  I’ll tell you more about the glories of Bulk Trash later.  First, here’s the tale of the stroller.  Jed was out on a run and saw this sitting on the curb.  He looked it over, grabbed it, and brought it home.  It looked like this… 
Not so pretty.  My genius husband saw potential there and persevered.  He looked over the frame and saw it was in good shape.  The problem was the seat.  He removed it and washed it thoroughly.  It is still a little stained, but looks much better.  We look a little silly rocking a double stroller with only one kid, but I don’t care.  The Bear loves it and kicks his little feet like crazy whenever we take it out.  
Does your neighborhood have a bulk trash pick up?  Ours is once per month, and everyone puts out any large items they want to get rid of for the trash collectors to come and pick up.  This cues every resourceful person in town to drive around and pick through the good stuff before the collectors make their rounds.    Friends have found furniture and all kinds of treasures during Bulk Trash.  We found a jogging stroller.  We are just doing our part to keep good stuff out of the landfill.  Bulk Trash rocks.  One family’s trash is another’s treasure.  
Does your neighborhood have a Bulk Trash pick up?
Would you ever take something home you found 
on the side of the road? 

Mar
2012

Call Me

categories: Uncategorized
The Bear is showing off one of my favorite Christmas gifts.  Jed bought me this awesome Moshi phone attachment off Amazon and I’m obsessed.  I just bought my Dad one for his birthday.  It is an old school phone receiver that attaches to your cell phone.  It is one million times easier to balance on my shoulder while baby wrangling, and I hear so much better through it.  My iPhone is carefully wrapped in an Otterbox case because I am oh so slightly accident prone.  Seriously, my nickname is the “Spill Queen”.  The case makes my phone almost bulletproof (or drop proof), but it also makes it a little hard to hear the conversation.  I know, I’m weird, I actually like to talk to people instead of text.  I’m old fashioned like that. 
PS- I’m not affiliated with Amazon or Native Union (the manufacturer).  I’m just obsessed.     

Mar
2012

Out the Door

categories: baby, family
The Bear is constantly on the move, crawling and pulling up wherever he can.  I know he will be walking in the blink of an eye.  How is my baby already 10 months old and so big?  I love every stage, but each assertion of independence is a little bit hard on my mommy heart.  He is already starting to fight his way out of my arms to get down and play.  Thankfully he still loves snuggling up to nurse and needs lots of sweet hugs throughout the day.  I just want to soak up every second because he will be grown and out the door long before I’m ready.  
What moments are you savoring this week?  

Mar
2012

Of Spring and New Life

categories: jesus, love
You Have Redeemed My Soul 
by Don Chaffer of Waterdeep/Enter the Worship Circle
You have redeemed my soul
from the pit of emptiness
You have redeemed my soul
from death
I was a hungry child
A dried up river
I was a dried up forest
and no one could do anything for me
You put food in my body
water in my dry bed
and to my blackened branches
You brought the springtime rain
of new life
nothing is impossible for You


Mar
2012

The Great Cloth Diaper Trials – 11 Brands Tried and Tested

categories: baby, cloth diaper, frugal, parenting, review
  When we made the decision to use cloth diapers, I had no idea where to start.  I started reading every blog and website I could find that had information to help me.  I entered lots of diaper giveaways and won a few.  I asked the few friends I knew who had tried cloth.  There are so many options out there, and it was hard to know where to start.
Here the Bear is modeling his SoftBums Hot Diggity Dog Diaper.  Does it have wiener dogs on it?  Why yes, yes it does.
clothdiapertrials

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Mar
2012

Frugal Friday: Choosing Cloth Diapers

categories: baby, cloth diaper, frugal, green living, parenting
If you had asked me 5 years ago if I would ever use cloth diapers, I would have looked at you like you were crazy and said “Not possible.”  Now we are 9 months in and loving our choice.  If you are an expectant mama or want to have kids (or more kids) someday, I hope you will read on and consider cloth diapers.  Why did we choose cloth diapers?  There are so many reasons.
1) Cost
Here’s a calculator that will show you exactly how much you can save using cloth diapers, including cost of water, detergent, etc.  We broke even after about 4 months and will save well over $1000 after 18 months.  If we continue to use our cloth diapers with future children, the savings increase exponentially.  The average savings per child are between $1500-2000.  Nice.  Hello, starter college fund.  We went with one size diapers, and love some of the more expensive brands.  We could have saved even more using prefolds, but we couldn’t get on board with them.  We love the ease of use of our one size diapers and were willing to pay a little more initially.  Our favorite brands are Soft Bums, Apple Cheeks, and BumGenius.  I will explain our cloth diaper trials in a post coming next week.
2) Environmental Impact
Did you know that each baby using disposable diapers creates about a ton of landfill diaper trash during their diaper years?  It’s true.  Disposable diapers create over 3.6 MILLION TONS of landfill trash per year.  HOLY CRAP.  Literally.  Some folks argue that the additional energy used to launder cloth diapers negate the environmental positives.  Not true.  We do maybe 3 more loads of laundry per week than we used to do.  We line dry our diapers whenever possible, so that saves on some energy usage.
3) Safer for Baby
Disposable diapers contain so many chemicals, synthetics, and toxins (like dioxin) that I would rather avoid putting next to my Little Bear’s skin.  We have to use disposables occasionally (for Mother’s Day Out, church nursery, MOPS, etc) and know that when we do he is prone to get diaper rash.  He never gets it from his cloth diapers.
4) Functionality
Cloth diapers work better than disposable.  Really.  We have had very few leaks or blowouts with our cloth diapers, really almost none.  Disposables are a whole other messy story.
5) Cuteness
Cloth diapers are just so cute.  Seriously.  They come in a million fun patterns and colors and you can match every outfit.  So fun.
I plan to most more about our cloth diaper
decisions and routine soon.
Do you use cloth diapers?
Why or why not?
Would you ever use them?
Do you think we are crazy?