In the mean time I have continued with my obsessions of cloth diapering and sewing. I just want to give a shout out to my husband :P cuz he supports me in the cloth diapering and compliments all my sewing projects. We don't have a washer and dryer in our apartment. There's one for the whole complex downstairs but we have to pay for that. I had been washing the diapers in the tub but I thought that was kind of wasteful with water. So I used what we had around the house and made this:
It's our diaper washing machine. It makes things a lot easier and a little less icky. I also got some awesome new gloves that go almost to my elbows. They are nice for when I'm cleaning Jack's messy diapers in the toilet (also, the toilet bowl has been super clean lately cuz I wipe down the toilet after washing out his dipes, it's fabulous). We don't have a diaper sprayer-they are a bit expensive and I can't justify it for some reason SO I just clean them the old fashioned way-with gloves on of course. Anyways, the bucket is nice because I can soak diapers and not have to worry about weather or not Kyle needs to take a shower cuz we can move it with the handle. It has a little agitator I made and really cleans the diapers. Of course the thing I love the most is the SUN. I have been amazed at how well sunning bleaches out diapers and gets rid of stains. It's free and it works. I really want a clothes wringer to help the diapers dry faster and hopefully my dad can make one (he's good with things like that). Then I will be set. It's a little bit more work doing it by hand but it gets the job done and we are saving money. Ahhhh.
Jack's laundry hamper was looking pretty sad. It was a pop up hamper I bought about five years ago and it took up room and looked horrible. I decided to make him a hamper he could hang on the door. This is the design
I did get some inspiration from the web. A girl had made one with the big wooden purse ring handles but I didn't have access to those. I went to DI to find one but then felt horrible about cutting up a nice purse to have the wood rings. While looking around I found some metal wrings used to hand curtains and they were about a dollar. They work perfect. I love the way the hamper turned out. I'm MOSTLY excited because I drew the design and then made it and looks like the design I drew. It's lined and can be washed with the clothes and it's cute and small (Jack's clothes don't take up much room) and it's out of the way. I might make two for our room to get our big laundry hamper out of the way when Claire comes.
I also decided to make a new baby carrier. I made myself two baby wraps. I plan on using the wraps a ton when Claire comes but Jack is getting kind of heavy in them. They work but like I said, he's kind of hefty. Also, I don't think I could get Kyle to wear a baby wrap (lol). I had seen a girl in our ward use a Boba Carrier and an Ergo Carrier. These are Soft Structured Carriers. I looked around on the web and found a tutorial and pattern so that was my latest project.
Joann's has an awesome selection of remnant fabrics. So I went there and spent about eight dollars total on the fabric. They had some duck canvas on sale and a pretty yellowy green canvas on sale. I had all the other supplies available except the webbing and the buckles. Webbing is really cheap at a store near my house but buckles are not cheap at any fabric/sewing/craft store. SOOOOOO I hopped on over to DI again and looked through the old backpacks, fanny packs and scripture totes. The old beaten up backpacks are the best because I don't want to take a nice backpack someone would use and cut it up just for the buckles. I got all the clips for three dollars. AWESOME! I also might take all the zippers and keep them for use cuz it's nice to have zippers when you need them. The pattern says you can use high density foam or a camping pad for the waist belt and DI came in handy with that as well. Anyways, the carrier took about a day to make and that includes me realizing I put the straps on wrong, unstitching the body and reattaching the straps correctly. The only problem I really had was that I broke every single needle for my sewing machine. Technically speaking the carrier is not done because I need to stitch the bottom opening closed but that's one strait stitch about 8 inches long. I have to wait for my needles to come cuz I found a good deal on Ebay for them. I can hardly wait-they are coming by snail mail and so I have to wait FOREVER it seems.
Now onto Jackson. He's adorable as usual. We started having him eat in his booster seat at the actual table. At first it was a little nerve wracking but he hasn't flung his plate or bowl across the room so that's good. Jack is trying to use his signs a lot more. Kyle is trying to teach him how to use the sign for "cracker." You basically bring your left arm up at a right angle and hit the left elbow with your right fist. Jack tries to hit his elbow with his mouth. It's pretty funny to watch. The signs that use both hands are a little difficult for him but he'll get it and I think it's mostly important that we understand what he's saying. We are also working on "Thank you" which we think might be a difficult concept for him to understand. Yesterday we introduced "banana" so we'll need to work on those.
Something awesome that has been happening lately is Jack's sleep patterns. Around Jack's nap time I'll ask if he wants to take a nap. If he does then he goes into his room and stands by his fan while we turn it on. Then he will walk over to his crib and put his arms up. It's fabulous!! At night, he does the same thing OR we'll turn on the fan and turn of the lights, then Jack will get me or Kyle so we can say prayers and then go to bed. I hope he keeps this up because it is so nice to have him compliant.
That's it-long and winded. We are waiting to find out about a new apartment which is driving me batty with stress. We hope and pray it all works out the way we want it to but I know that everything work out fine with or without the desired apartment. We're excited our family is going to be expanding soon-8 more weeks!








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