Real Diaper Week- Day 1

Many of you have read some of my posts about cloth diapers. This week, leading up to Earth Day is "Real Diaper Week". There's also a blog hop being sponsored by The Eco Chic. Today's topic for the blog hop is Outreach.

As a product of Generation X, we have many standards that we try to live up to. Even when it comes to our kids. One of the things that everyone expects our generation to do is to figure out how to make everything simpler. A lot of modern moms figure that this means disposable diapers. But, cloth diapers are so easy! Any mom who has kids in cloth knows that. One of the toughest questions, how do we convince everyone else of that?

Simple. We share the benefits with anyone who will listen. You tell co-workers, family, friends, nurses at the doctors office, people at church, and leave a note for the mailman if you have to! I'm constantly telling people how much we love our cloth diapers. They're cute, eco-friendly, a huge price break and WAY better for my baby. I let my kid go without pants when the weather's nice to show off his diapers. When he's in the daycare at my work, I'll go change his diaper in order to keep him in cloth. We're willing to make tons of sacrifices for our kids, don't you think that it's time we start telling other parents about the benefits of cloth? Being a cloth diapering mama doesn't automatically make you a hippie, trust me, I'm still working on figuring out how to recycle!

Any questions on cloth diapering? Let me know! They're easy, cheap, and you have tons of options!

Easter Weekend and Levi Update

We've had such a busy, good time lately! Levi and I are finally starting to get onto a schedule, or so it seems. Bedtime has been around 8pm usually. He just can't seem to get to sleep much earlier than that. Last night he slept from 8pm-5:50am. Then I had to get him up at 7:30 to head to work. He seemed to do pretty good that way. We've also starting working food into his diet. He's had apples, pears, peas and green beans.

This was earlier today, eating peas. I guess he figured we weren't feeding him fast enough, because he grabbed the spoon and started shoving it in his mouth. He seemed to really enjoy the peas.



We had a great Easter weekend. We had great weather. I feel like we've finally started spring.We didn't really do too much. We had church Sunday morning. We made chicken enchiladas for dinner. They were yummy! Levi had the cutest outfit! He looked like a little man. Here's our family picture from Easter morning.

The weekend before Levi got baptized! We had a lot of family in town. It was so great to see everyone. He did great during the service. He seemed to love having all of the different people around. It was neat to see how everyone interacted with Levi. John and I feel like Levi's baptism was long overdue. Levi has been through so much already, and through a lot of it, the only explanation is that God healed his body. So now, Levi has been publicly declared God's. We are also very lucky that we have the support from our friends and family to raise Levi to become a man of God. His Godparents are Jess and Brandon and Adam and Kelsey. I know that they will do a great job helping us teach Levi to become that man. I am very thankful for them.

A three in one post...

So today I'm blogging about 3 different events at once, please bear with me. I'll try to make this short and sweet.

1) Happy Anniversary!
We've been married 2 years today! We share this date with John's brother and sister-in-law who are celebrating 13 years! Congrats all around!

2) 4 Months!
I cannot believe that Little Levi is 4 months old already! The time has flown by! He is a ham and lovin' it! He's started to eat foods, doctor permitting, and weighs in at just over 10 lbs.

3) Kidney Update
Not as good as we had hoped. Sounds like dialysis is coming sooner than we'd thought. Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers, if he can just manage to get a little bit bigger, that would help a ton!

I'll try to get a more detailed update in here soon, when I have some time.

Mr. Flirty Pants...

Levi has been such a flirt lately! I can't believe it! Today I took him to my Girl Scout meeting. I have Daisy and Brownie Girl Scouts. They are Kindergarten - third graders. Levi woke up with about 15 minutes left of our meeting. I got him changed and then had the girls wash their hands so they could touch him. They started to hold his hand, and he was laughing and smiling and curling up his toes when they touched his feet. He was THRILLED with them! It was a neat experience to see him interact with other kids. Anyhow, here's a picture that Aunt Mary took, of him being a flirty pants...

3 Months

I know that I say this every month, but I cannot believe our little man is 3 months old! I feel like he has changed so much in the last 2 weeks. He has started teething, which has caused some fussy moments for everybody involved. He's "talking" and smiling all the time now, which we love! Levi's also eating like a champ, and has the weight to show it! His appointment on Thursday put him at 8lbs 11oz! At this rate, we'll have a 9 pound baby next week (which will, of course, require another blog).

On Friday we had our first meeting with the urologist. He travels from KC to Wichita every other month, so it makes a shorter drive for us. Dr. Murphy was amazing! He has a lot of experience, and a great team. We didn't really learn much of anything new, which is always good news. He wants to see Levi every other month just to keep an eye on him. He's also working closely with our nephrologist. They have been trading information for the past two months! I was very glad to hear that!

Grandma (John's mom) is here this weekend. She's come up to go to the nephrologist with us on Monday. It is a nice change of pace to have some company!

Also, in less than a month, Levi and I will be home in Houston for a week! I cannot wait to show him everything there. We are so blessed to have such amazing friends and family.

God is teaching us a lot. I used to think that my quiet time each day had to be spent in solitude. Now I'm learning to spend it with Levi. If he's awake, I read the devotion for the day to him, and then I explain everything that God is talking about. It has been enlightening for me to hear how I explain things to him. I think sometimes, I end up learning more that way!

And, here are the pictures!

3 months

John and Levi

New Title...

I am now the Membership Secretary at the Y! I am very excited. This means that I'm in the office mostly. I check daily work and figure financial aid. A lot of phone calls and a lot of computer time. I think that I'm really going to like it up there!

2 Months

Levi has passed the two month mark! He looks great! Here are his two month stats.

Birth:
Height: 18 inches
Weight: 4lbs 15oz

2 Months
Height: 20 inches
Weight: 7lbs 6oz

As you can imagine, he is a completely different baby now! Every day he continues to grow and amaze us. Bee has become more comfortable with him, as has Persistence. This week has been a good week when it comes to sleep. A few nights he has gone 3-4 hours at one stretch! He's usually ready to face the day around 5:30am. It seems a little early for me, still. We'll get up, get John off to work, eat, watch TV, talk to each other, make funny faces. Around 7 or so, he's usually ready for his first nap. That lasts until about 8:30. I try to catch a nap myself during that time.

Levi's smiles are bigger and more frequent than ever! I think he knows when I've had a long night or I'm tired during the day. Every time I start to think that I can't do this, he flashes me a big, toothless grin, and I'm sold again.

In other news, we're hoping to get carpet in the hallway and maybe Levi's room in the next couple of months. It's going to be wonderful when it's done! I hope that time, money, tools, and manpower all work out so that we can do that.

Well, Levi's up from his noon nap, that one only lasted about 15 minutes... I'll leave you with a picture from when he was 3 days old, and one from 2 months old!

We are blessed to call him our son!