EcoBloomers- A review

Good morning! 

A few weeks ago, I was contacted by Ecobloomers to post a review on one of their cloth diapers. Having made a cloth diaper before for my baby, I can tell you that it is no joke! Sewing those things are tough and it takes a LONG time. So when I was inspecting the diaper that they made I was seriously so impressed by the quality. They obviously have a great knowledge of the sewing machine because this diaper was beautifully made. 

Visit their website at www.ecobloomers.com to place an order!

I ordered the ACU one with velcro because I thought it was cute and I could put my husbands name tape on the butt. Adorable. It came with an insert as well and I can tell you I have not had a single problem with leaks. She even slept in it one night for 12+ hours. The only thing I wasn't used to was the envelope opening for the insert because I'm used to the pocket in the back but that was not a big deal once the insert was in.

Ecobloomers on the left, Bum Genius 4.0 on the right

The snaps Ecobloomers uses are great quality, not like the ones you can buy at JoAnns.

A place on the back for a name tape! So cute!

E-mailing with Hayley who is the owner of Ecobloomers, I can tell you that she is so sweet and recently put together an event on Fort Lewis called the Great Cloth Diaper Change that actually broke the Guiness World Record! You can find more information on that here. I went to the event this year and it was tons of fun and met some great people. So if you haven't, I highly recommend attending one in your area next year.

The other thing I love about Ecobloomers is that they are a WAHM company. With prices comparable to major brands and for what I think is better quality, you really can't beat it! Diapers from their website will run you about $24-$27 and she even has little cloth diaper keychains which I am currently rocking on my keys right now. I just checked the website and she has some new chevron patterns coming out that are so cute and are going to make perfect baby shower presents.

My adorable Cloth Diaper Key Chain from Ecobloomers

As many of you know, I am a huge fan of cloth diapering over disposables for many reasons, if you haven't checked it out, this is my experience so far with cloth diapering and my tips and tricks.

These ACU prints would be PERFECT for homecomings and photoshoots. Overall, I am delighted by this local business that creates awesome cloth diapers and I can't wait to get more and use them on my sweet little baby. 

Car Diaper Bag Essentials

     I think it's human nature to be a little forgetful every once in a while but when you are running on no sleep and have an entire new person to take care of, you are bound to accidentally leave something at home when you are out and about. That's why I think it is such a good idea to have a small "emergency" kit of essentials stashed in your car! I had a few things laying around in there but this weekend I decided to really get my act together. I also made this super cute little drawstring bag that carries it all perfectly! Awesome. 

Emergency Car Diaper Bag Essentials:
-Empty Bottle

-Formula

-Diapers

-Wipes

-Toy

-Pacifier

-Outfit

     

     Put it all together and throw it in the car. Now you won't be kicking yourself or your spouse wishing you had an extra diaper or bottle so you didn't have to rush home!

 

Isn't this drawstring bag adorable! It's super easy to make and here is the tutorial. What other essentials do you keep in your car for your little one?

Furniture Revival Inspiration

     I keep seeing all these AWESOME furniture revivals on Pinterest and I am just in love with them. Taking something that is no longer being used and turning into a cute accent in your home or an item that can be utilized again! Love it. Now I just need to find someones piece of junk, see the potential, convince my husband that I'm not just bringing someones trash into the house and go for it! I'm pretty excited  but nervous that it's going to be a major fail lol. Here's some Pinspiration!

http://southernrevivals.blogspot.com/ (my favorite!)

http://icreatewithlove.blogspot.com/2012/01/my-new-green-storage-solution.html

     When my husband leaves for a week, I think this would be the perfect project! Yes! :)

Zoey's Birth Story

     We moved to Washington in October, found out I was pregnant in November and then in December we got the news that my husband was deploying in February, so it all happened really fast. My plan was to stay in Washington for the pregnancy but once he left, I knew I had to move home to be with my friends and family so I packed up and left 3 days later. I came back to Washington in the middle of June to get things ready for Zoey. The entire pregnancy, we were unsure if the hubs was going to be able to come back for the birth. It went back and forth the entire time! 

     Finally, 2 weeks before my due date he got the OK to head back to the states. I was beyond excited. Although I had to relax and not get too excited because being this close to my due date, I didn't want to do anything that would cause this little nugget to come early. That meant watching T.V. ALL DAY with my feet up and relaxing in the bathtub. Those were the days.... Anyways, he flew into Kuwait where he got stuck. Crap. He had to wait an entire week in Kuwait because he missed a flight by 3 hours!!! Ugh. He finally caught a flight out of there and made it home Sunday afternoon. That night, I felt my first contraction.

I can't believe he made it. Oh wow! I was huge!

     I knew I had to wait for my labor to progress so we timed the contractions and waited until they were about 4 minutes apart. The next morning my husband packed my hospital bag. Like I said, I didn't want to do a single thing that would put me into labor early so really nothing was done. We then went into the hospital and they ended up sending us home. I went back in that night at 3am and I was 4cm dilated and 75% effaced but they sent me home again! At this point, I was ready to give myself a c-section to get the baby out. I called my doctor and asked if he could help. He called me back after reviewing my L&D charts and said to go back to the hospital because I was for sure in labor. 

The view from the hospital room

     They finally admitted me! I was 6cm and the doctor on duty asked if I even wanted an epidural because I had been doing a good job. I wanted to be like, are you serious?! Do the epidural right this second! After the epidural, the pain stopped instantly and it was so nice to not be able to relax. Although, I was shaking uncontrollably but I heard that happens usually. The doctor came in to break my water and then my husband decided to go grab something to eat because it had been a day since we had eaten. While he was gone they said the baby wasn't getting enough fluid so they had to put a tube inside the womb, or around the womb? I don't remember but it was to give her some fluid. Then they had to put an oxygen mask on me. I was a little freaked out so I called my husband and I told him to get his butt back up here. He did. I knew it was time to push and after 3 contractions of pushing, so about 15 minutes, on Tuesday night, after 36 hours of contractions, she was here! She did have her umbilical cord wrapped around her neck so that was scary but she was fine. 

I loved these first quiet moments as a family of 3

*This may be TMI* 

     ****After the baby is out, they pull on the umbilical cord slowly and carefully to get the placenta out. It was crazy gross and I thought it just plopped out but apparently they take it out. Then they push down on your stomach and like massage it to get all the blood out. It doesn't hurt one bit but blood and juice and gunk gets EVERYWHERE.****

     My stay at Madigan Army Hospital was so nice. I had a shared room but I didn't have a roommate so that was great. They bring you food for every meal that you get to chose and I know most people don't like hospital food but it was my first time having it and I really didn't mind it. In fact, I LOVED their mac 'n cheese! Yum! I stayed there for 2 days, had to watch a movie about not shaking your baby and then they let us all go home! Like all first time moms I'm sure, I was like ummm.... I just take her? What happens now? It all worked out though :) AFTER they admitted me, I had such an amazing experience and it was more than worth it. I love this little dumpling so much and we couldn't be happier. 

Thank you for waiting for your daddy sweet girl.

     

5 Wall Stripes in 5 Steps

    
     I have always been in love with striped walls. Whether it be horizontally or vertically, I think it makes any room look amazing! I didn't really know where to begin though and I was a little intimidated by the idea. It could not have been easier and I LOVE the way it turned out. The hubs and I knocked this project out in an afternoon from start to finish. The idea of choosing a paint color always gives me major anxiety. I have no clue why but there are seriously just so many options  and variations of colors and color matching with other colors and then with the rest of the house. Oh man. Anyways, I really love pink. This is a new thing, I was always a blue girl growing up but these past few years I have really shifted toward pinks for whatever reason. When I found out I was pregnant, I knew I didn't want to do just like solid hot pink on the nursery walls because that would be a little much but I definitely wanted to paint them. When I saw a friend do stripes, I knew instantly that was it! 

     These steps only work if you don't mind having the current wall color as one of the stripes. If you want to change it, you just have to paint all the walls that color first. 

Step 1: Choose and buy a paint color. I know, its hard to decide. You can do it! Depending on the size of your room, a pint should do!

We chose Very Berry from Valspar at Lowe's.

Step 2: Measure your wall, not including the trim. You want to make your stripes pretty equal if at all possible. So take that measurement and divide it by 5. 

     Our paintable wall space, not including trim was about 92 inches. So 92/5=18.4 Nobody has time for the .4 though so we dropped that and did the top 4 stripes 18 inches and the bottom stripe 20 inches. 

     I actually learned in a high school that when you center a picture, you actually want to leave more space on the bottom than on top because to our eyes, that looks more centered than when it is truly centered.

     Don't mind the white, we painted over that. We were going to do pink and white stripes but decided to go with the brown that was already on the wall to save time. The stripes will not look even right now because you are only painting the pink stripes.

Step 3: Tape the walls. This is probably the hardest step and is easier with 2 people. Measure from the bottom your wall and mark the height with a pencil. Then do a few more marks along the wall. I recommend getting a laser level and then using that to make sure it is straight. Then you want to tape it. We found it easiest when one person was pulling the tape and one person was pressing down on the tape and guiding it onto the wall. Make sure to do one continuous piece of tape so you don't have any unnecessary gaps in the tape.

Step 4: Paint. 

Step 5: Pull off tape and marvel at the beauty :)

Now I just need to make some curtains!

Zoey's Newborn Pictures

     Zoey's sitting (7 month) pictures were taken yesterday. These are pics from her newborn session 7 months ago. We can't wait to see how the new ones turned out! I feel like they always are much better than I expect. We worked hard for those guys too. I literally woke up this morning and my knees felt bruised and my butt was really sore and I was like umm... what happened last night? It took me a couple minutes before I was like ohhhh yea, I was crawling around a cement floor for 3 hours like a crazy person trying to make my baby laugh and try to catch her before she toppled over. 

     By the way, my sweet sweet little girl thought it would be fun to be stoned face the entire time. When she didn't have a complete blank stare on her face, she looked at us with confusion. Oh man, these are going to be so hilarious adorable. All the usual things we do to get her to giggle or smile had no affect on her whatsoever. The only time she would smile is when we took breaks or changed her diaper. The second the camera was gone she was a happy little baby. There goes my dreams of being a momager!

     Looking back at her newborn pics to see how far she has come, all I could think was, where are her eyebrows? I love this little bundle so much! Eyebrowless and all!

   

Cloth Diapering

     

     I have been asked by a few of my pregnant friends about this topic and I thought doing a little blog about my experience with it would be a good way to not leave anything or anyone out. Our decision to Cloth Diaper was not an easy one. I literally thought about it throughout my entire pregnancy and then once she was about 10 weeks old, I decided to do it and I'm so glad we did.

Why Cloth Diapering?

     The main reason we did it was to help the environment save $$$! I mean really, when it comes down to it I am always trying to find ways to help our household save money! Especially because I was not going to be working and I would be spending a lot of time at home, I knew it was something that I could do everyday to help. 

     Zoey HATES being dirty, she would pee the smallest amount and would FREAK out. I estimate that every disposable diaper was about 25 cents so I was like holy cow, this is going to add up! For the first couple of months, we were changing about 12 diapers a day. That was just one of many things I really didn't know I was getting myself into before she was here. I mean people always say babies just sleep, eat, and go to the bathroom but I don't think you really understand how true that is until you have one and are with him/her 24 hours a day 7 days a week! 

Which Brands?

     Doing research for cloth diapers, I soon discovered there are hundreds of brands and designs available out there. Just another decision to make when it comes to choosing baby stuff! So which diapers did we chose? We decided to go with Bum Genius 4.0, Fuzzibunz elite, and GroVia. I just so happened to be buying the bulk of my cloth diapers around Thanksgiving so I got them at an awesome Black Friday Price. I have a total of 21. I compared the prices from pretty much everywhere and actually found them to be the cheapest at a local boutique called Sugar Babies in Sumner, WA when I went into the store and got the military discount.

      

Isn't it gross?

     No! If I was cloth diapering someone else's baby and had to put their pee diapers in my washing machine, I don't think I would be comfortable with that but when it comes to my own precious bundle there's nothing that grosses me out. Except she did throw up on my face yesterday and it got in my nose. Ew. Anyways, its kind of a weird concept but it works. Yes, you are putting pee and poop into your washing machine but it cleans them very well and it's not like it transfers to your clothes. Plus, having a baby you will be getting pee, poo, slober, throw up, boogers and all the other gunk they make on your clothes, and on their clothes, and on your furniture, and on the floor and pretty much everywhere else no matter how hard you try not to. Trust me. 

How does it work?

     I have no clue how the old school cloth diapers with the pins and the huge piece of material work so I can't help you there if you decide to go that route. Some people still love to do it that way but it just wasn't for us. Yes, other people in my family have changed her cloth diapers but if I ever decide to put her in daycare I will be using disposable. I'm pretty sure that's a rule at most centers and I wouldn't expect another person to cloth diaper her. Each of the diapers I got work a little differently but are still the same concept. After she goes to the bathroom, I put the dirty diaper into one of two designated cloth diaper trash cans that have lids. If there is poop, I spray it off into the toilet using a diaper sprayer first. If you decide to breastfeed, you don't even need to spray the poop first. You can just throw it right into the washer, poop and all but if you have a sprayer, you might as well spray it off first. Then about every three days when I have about 3 clean diapers left, I take the inserts out of the diapers and throw the insert and shell right into the washer and do:

one cycle on regular cold no detergent 

then I run another cycle on hot with detergent extra rinse

then I dry them in the dryer. A lot of people hang dry. I don't do that and have not had any problems with the material breaking down. 

The detergent I use is Charlie's Soap but I think here in the Pacific NW, I would recommend Country Save. I heard Rockin Green is great too!

Bum Genius 4.0 (One Size Pocket Diaper)

Basically, there are snaps on the hips that go horizontally and snaps that go vertically. The ones that are vertical stay the same until your baby gets bigger and you do not unsnap them when you wash them. Then there is an insert that you put in the pocket that also has a snap. You can use this diaper until your baby is potty trained which is great!

Pros: Can handle a big load! (pun intended)

Cons: A little bulky and the snap button for the insert kind of protrudes out, so I think Zoey can feel the bump on her lower back but I don't think it bothers her.

Fuzzibunz(One Size Pocket Diaper)

This one works exactly like the Bum Genius but it does not have the vertical snaps, it has adjustable elastic in the diaper that is really easy to adjust. The insert doesn't have snaps so it is one size. 

Pros: Smaller size so it has less bulk and fits more like a disposable diaper.

Cons: The pocket is really small. I have small hands and it's a struggle to get my hands in there to put the insert in. 

Gro Via (Hybrid Cloth)

This one is completely different than the other two. I have 3 shells and then 6 inserts that snap onto the inside of the shell. So when she goes to the bathroom, I unsnap the insert and put a new clean insert into the same shell (as long as it's not dirty) so it's less things you need to purchase. I would say you could easily have 3 inserts for each shell but I only have 2.

Pros: Has the best absorption. Great now that she is sleeping through the night and wakes up with a Niagra Falls pee.

Cons: Takes forever to dry! Right now because it is winter, I will dry the diaper in the dryer and then put them in front of the fireplace to finish drying. During the summer I think I'm going to have to dry them in the dryer twice. 

Financial Breakdown: 

On average for size 1 and 2 diapers Huggies and Pampers, I found it was about 25 cents per diaper on the low end. Eventually she would use less diapers but they would get more expensive so I did all my math at about $3.00 a day for diapers. 

Disposable Diapers

.25 x 12 diapers a day= $3.00

$3.00 x 2 years =$2,190

Cloth Diapers

On average $22.00 per diaper x 20 = $480 plus the cost of water and electricity

Disposable $2,190 vs Cloth $480

Even adding the cost of washing and drying diapers 2-3 times a week. The math was a no brainer for us.

I actually made a cloth diaper. It took FOREVER so I don't recommend it. I started on a second army camo cloth diaper with cute pink snaps but it hated me and we aren't on speaking terms. I think I ended up actually throwing it away. We still use the first one I made but I won't be making anymore. 

You can even sell your diapers once you are done for about $15.00 each depending on the condition or save them for the next baby which will save you EVEN MORE money! Oh man, love it. 

Would I do it again?

     Yes I would. Unless I'm working, then I probably wouldn't want to. I plan on saving mine for the next baby in about 4 years :) 

     I know that is tons of information and it may seem a little overwhelming but I promise it is really easy to get the hang of and they are so cute! 

                                           xoxo,

                                                  Jolie