{A tale of three wee bums}

I never imagined that we would have 3 in diapers.

Three little booties needing coverage.

But, here we are.

The past 5 months we have changed many a diaper,

25-30 a day to be exact.

That's about 900 diapers a month, yo.

But, thank the heavens, magical things have been happening around here:

Judah has been going sans diaper (other than nap & nighttime) for one week!

and...

I have unburied my stash of cloth diapers for the doubles.

We have gone from 900 disposable diapers to none.

Sweet relief!

I hate disposables.

To me, they are inconvenient, gross, harmful to babies & the environment 

and so dang expensive.

I don't want to debate the pros and cons, but simply share why I love them

and encourage anyone who might be interested in the switch.

I know it is not possible for some people to do cloth & I have

gone through periods of not being able to because of having shared laundry and a landlord 

who would not allow us to wash them...so lame. One of many examples of

peoples misunderstanding of cloth diapers.

But, we have our own washer & dryer now and we are back in business :)

With Judah I was a devoted user of Best Bottoms Diapers--a locally made

brand designed by a Madison mom!

I still love them, but had to increase my "diaper stash" now that 

we have two baby booties to cover.

The stash now includes:

12 Best Bottom Covers

24  BB Hemp inserts

8 Bum Genius AIO (all-in-one)

3 Thirsties AIO

1 Bumpkins AIO

4 GroVia AIO

1 Imagine AIO

24 Organic Indian Prefolds

2 Bumkins Covers

4 Kawaii Covers

2 Imagine Covers

3 Flip Covers

2 Imagine Fitted Bamboo Diapers

We are awaiting most of our stash to still arrive, but are full fledged cloth diapering for one week now.

I will blog later about the different kinds and how they are working for us.

Best Bottoms are GREAT. The only issue I have had is some leaking overnight. So, I have done lots of research and I am going to experiment with some different options.

I made sure to stock up on plenty of All-In-One diapers to make it easier for grandparents or anyone watching the babies to change them. AIO's are just as quick as a disposable. The only disadvantage is that they are a little more expensive and take longer to dry after washing.

I estimated that using cloth for the next 2 years will save us (diapering twins) close to $2000!

Besides the money $aving some other things I love about cloth diapers are:

They are stinking CUTE--they come in

so many colors and patterns!

(photos some day)

It is EASY--these are not your grandma's

cloth diapers! it is just as easy as

slapping on a disposable.

It makes the earth HAPPY :)

(yes, you use water & electricity to wash them,

but I wash COLD and line dry so it is

very minimal. Much gentler on the planet than

a disposable that takes 500 years to decompose).

They are NON-TOXIC--disposables

contain 60+ toxins, including some

known human carcinogens. 

I PROMISE...it is not gross! Not any worse than changing a disposable

and having to smell the stench in the diaper genie for days...and

with either option your going to end up with a little

poo on your hands every know and then :/ yuck.

It is relaxing...maybe it is just me (most likely) but

there is just something about a clean mound

of cloth diapers that need to be folded,

stuffed and put away...

I have more cloth thoughts, but I'll save them for another day :)

{Change}

We are making changes for our family. Some big & some small.

For our health. For our environment. For our future.

After becoming parents we really started to look at the every day things we do, wanting to do the best thing for our child in every way, big & small.

When we had Judah one of the biggest leaps we took in how we would care for him in a simple way was in choosing to use cloth diapers. From there we started to evaluate all the "details" of raising a child...

What would we use for body care for our baby?

What would we feed him?

What would we clothe him in?

What will he play with?

How will we take him places?

It is not always easy to switch from the "conventional" way of doing things. A lot of times it can be cheaper and more convenient to do them the main stream way. And we have not been perfect, even knowing what choices are healthier, but this year we are going to dive in head first and slowly make the changes we have been wanting to implement over the past few years.

I hope to share many of the changes we are making on here as a way to inspire or guide others who might be interested.

Here are some of the areas we will be making changes in:

1. What we eat. We already try to eat locally as much as possible and cook homemade meals. But, as Andrew starts his venture into farming & his first CSA, we are really focusing on what we feed our family even more. I will be learning how to can and preserve all kinds of things this summer :) We are committing to not eating any prepared frozen meals (don't do this often, but if we do it has been from Trader Joe's--no preservatives, ect...but a heck of a lot of salt!) We will eat organic fruits and veggies as much as possible/available and a lot less meat (and when we do, it must be local.) We will not eat out often, but will choose instead to cook from scratch, at home & make it a fun, family activity...we really want Judah to have a love for cooking.

2. What we put on our bodies--shampoos, body washes, toothpastes, deodorants, ect. Our skin is the largest organ in our body and absorbs everything we put on it! I will be trying the "no-poo" regime (more on that later) and researching everything we use & sharing here. It is so scary to think about all the things in body care products and what the possible affects could be on our bodies years down the road...many chemicals in them have been linked to cancers, birth defects, ect.

3. What we buy. We want our kids to not only understand how to wisely spend money, but also to have a respect for the environment & what affects buying new has on it. We are committing to buying used as much as possible, reduce, reuse & recycle! Clothes, furniture, cookware, toys. When we do buy new, we want to buy from environmentally conscious companies, preferably made in the USA. I also want to learn more about sewing and creating things for our family with my own hands.

4. Driving less. It will be tricky now that we have 3 kiddos, but we have never shyed away from a challenge :) Two parents plus two Burleys= transportation for the whole fam!

A lot of times when I talk about this people say their number one reason to not make changes like these is cost. Let me tell you, Andrew and I are some of the most frugal/cheap people you will meet. It PAINS us to spend money, we hate it. I will be sharing about how you can really make it LESS expensive to make a lot of these changes!!

There is SO much more running through my head in ways that we can/need/will make changes...I am so excited to share this journey here!

{Some hopes & dreams}

This is something I have been wanting to blog about for awhile now, but have been afraid to put it out there for fear that it might somehow make it not less of a possibility somehow. My brain works in funny ways sometimes :)

But, I want to record this journey our family is on, so that ten years from now I can look back and see how everything unfolded...how God's hand has been on our lives in every aspect.

Andrew and I got married young, we were 21 and still in college, still trying to figure out who we were. We have never been ones to do things the "usual" way (if there is one). We knew that it would be much more difficult to get married so young, but we just wanted to grow and figure life out together. It HAS been hard, but I wouldn't change a thing. Over the past 4.5 years our hopes and dreams for the future have morphed and grown and now we finally feel like we have a complete picture of where we are headed.

We have never wanted certain milestones in our life to be defined by the "standards" of how things "should" be. For me, that has been something I truly want, but also something that is extremely difficult for me to put into motion. For Andrew, it is effortless. He knows what he wants and stands firm in what he believes, moving forward without fear. I admire him so much for that. He is the one who keeps me focused on the goal, what we really want out of life.

I like stability, predictability. I want to KNOW what is going to happen, I want a plan, I want answers. Andrew is a dreamer. A BIG dreamer, full of passion and determination to see those dreams come true. He has so much faith and confidence in me, something I lack greatly in for myself. It scares the crap out of me to take a leap and not know where we will land or how things will end up...but, I know that I would look back on our life and regret not taking these leaps and just letting life pull me down the river.

We want BIG things for our family. We want to truly LIVE life and live it to the fullest. Andrew and I have had so many conversations about our future. There have been many late nights of talking and dreaming, but in the back of my mind is always that fear...that "what if."

SO, you ask, what ARE we planning?

Well, that's a long answer :) But, in short these are some of our hopes and dreams for the future that I hope to share more about on here later:

-We want to have our kids grow up in the country, to be close to nature, to be free and barefoot like kids should be :)

-We want to be together...to find a way to work from home, to be with our kids, to be with eachother and at the same time provide for our family with the talents we have.

-We want to impact our community and teach people about healthy living

-We want to get back to the "basics"--as we like to say, "we want to get old fashioned."

So, in short that is a glimpse of what our future holds. Keep up with where we are headed by joining my blog and following along in the exciting months and years ahead :)

To close, are the lyrics to what we call "our song"--- a song by Jeffery Foucault that really captures the heart of what we dream of for our life...

ONE FOR SORROW

We'll start out with fancy sheets
And wear them down so thin
I'll get myself a coal black suit
I'll never wear again
Your Mama will give us china
And your Daddy give us hell
And when we make our getaway
They're gonna ring those wedding bells

"One for sorrow, two for joy" they say
I've had my fill of sorrow anyway

I was driving out on County N
With my high-beam headlights on
In the late night FM no man's land
Looking for a Tom Petty song
The Perseids were falling
In that hothouse August night
I saw two come down together
And I thought it looked about right

"One for sorrow, two for joy" they say
I've had my fill of sorrow anyway

And we'll have a hundred babies
And a little house outside of town
With a wood-stove and a claw-foot tub
When we're all done traveling around

"One for sorrow, two for joy" they say
And I've had my fill of sorrow anyway
And it's "one for sorrow, two for joy" I know
And I've been one for sorrow far too long
Far too long

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