Homemade Popcorn

I've been meaning to try this for awhile. Tonight I was in the mood for a slightly salty snack, but I was trying to keep it on the healthy side. I grabbed a brown lunch bag, put 1/4 C of popcorn kernels in it, folded it up, and put it in the microwave. Less than 2 minutes later, I had a nice warm bag of fresh popcorn (listen for the pops to be a couple seconds apart just like with the commercial bags). The best part is, you can add whatever toppings you like - plain, salty, sweet, spicy. Spray the popcorn lightly with cooking spray or a mist of cooking oil, then sprinkle with your favorite herbs, salt, sugar, whatever you like. Tonight I had a little bit of salt and cinnamon. I look forward to sharing this trick with the little boy.

Oreo Cheesecake Cookies

These Oreo Cheesecake Cookies from Brown Eyed Baker are delicious! They melt in your mouth, and the original recipe is egg-free. A delicious recipe is even better when I don't have to make modifications on my own. I did double the recipe since it says it makes 1 dozen, only to end up with 3 dozen cookies, so I'd say the recipe makes about 18 cookies. The little boy enjoyed pretending to roll the dough in the cookie crumbs but mostly just ate the crumbs. We had fun making them and had a huge mess at the end. I hope you enjoy them as much as we did.

Still excited about gdiapers after 20 months!

Today I ordered a case of gdiapers biodegradable refills. I looked back at my last order, and it was December 27th! When I switched over to gcloth on a trial basis, I never thought we'd last 6 months on one case of the disposable gdiapers (and they aren't even all used yet). The disposables are saved for when we don't time laundry well and run out of cloth (or are being lazy), when we're on the road, or sometimes for the heavy wetting times of day. What's amazing about gdiapers is the ease of switching between cloth and disposable all in one system. I can't say how much we've loved gdiapers the last year, and they even have wonderful customer service. Extra bonus!

For cost comparison, we used to go through a case a month. That's $175 (cheapest I can find, usually would cost about $260) in savings, minus our initial investment of about $60 for gcloth (that was on the low side since I used credits from all the other diapers I bought and got some for free). Of course I'm not factoring in extra water usage, but none of these diapers go to the landfill, so that's additional savings. And even more, we rarely deal with diaper rash issues. Happy baby means happy me.

Some things that have made cloth diapering easier include a couple wet bags to keep in the diaper bag and bathroom and our homemade diaper sprayer. I am thankful for a cloth diapering friend who pointed out both these tips. I'm sure there are other great ideas out there. We're still learning but love how well cloth diapering has gone so far.

First Harvest

The little boy reminded me a couple days ago when it was time to water the garden. When we went in the backyard, we found these. Yum! Looking forward to more soon.

Bunny Friend

I loved this little guy from the moment he crawled out of his shell. I had to wrap him up quickly so that neither the little boy nor I would decide to keep him. He was even given a place of honor amongst the toys after a hug and a kiss. I used this pattern and especially enjoyed using a recycled pair of jeans so my bunny friend would be soft and ready for a baby's arms as soon as he was complete.