Hello, sunshine

"You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy when sky's are gray.  You'll never know dear, how much I love you.  Please don't take my sunshine away."

This is, and always has been, my favorite of all the children's songs there are. Growing up my mom used to sing this to me daily. Usually first thing in the morning, she would come in and start singing to me until I woke up for the day. Now that I am a mom I make a point every morning when my son wakes up, no matter how tired I am or how badly I just want to get back in bed, when I first look at him and pick him up I say to him, "Good morning sunshine!" And I give him the best smile I can muster. When Eli is older I want him to always remember how happy I am that he is in my life. And that starts now (actually it already started, really before he was even born).

So in just a matter hours, when he is waking me up and my mind is begging for just a little more sleep, instead I will get up and say, "Good morning, sunshine."

Going green to save some green; Step two

Lately I have been searching for any means possible to save some money around the house. My first step was switching the baby to cloth diapers. After a month of using cloth, I am so happy we did it! The money savings on diapers is insane, but that's for another post :)

So the latest installment in my going green to save some green adventure is my soaps and cleaning products. We use them daily; we clean our clothes, bodies, counters, dishes, and more with them. In the short run, all these costs separately can be small potatoes, but over the course of a year that can add up to an huge amount of money! So, for now, I am starting small. The first thing I am replacing is our laundry detergent. Now for any loyal readers of Megan's blog, this will look familiar, but for me it's the logical place to start.

So, the initial plan is when our giant jug of Costco Ecos detergent runs out I will be switching to soap nuts. That's right, nuts. They are actually more of a dehydrated berry, but I digress. They are mother nature's cleaner. Throw a few in the wash in lieu of detergent, a few drops of essential oil for scent, and boom, all natural detergent. Now, there are a bunch of ways to make your own detergent that I found while doing my research that are cheap and easy and save you loads of money (click here to see some). I ultimately I settled on soap nuts BECAUSE they are natural, and therefore, cloth diaper safe. All the other detergents I was finding recipes for we're not CD safe because the ingredients would build up in the diapers and then we would have a very leaky problem.

It wasn't until I started looking for the best ways to store my soap nuts that I found recipes for making all kinds of home cleaners out of, you guessed it, the very same soap nuts I was already planning on buying. I can make kitchen cleaner, dish washer detergent, BATHROOM cleaner! All I have to do is buy a bulk bag of these babies off amazon (look at that price tag) (that's 720 loads of laundry at about 4.5 cents a load) and keep them around my house.

So after I make switch in the laundry I plan to go big (because I am already at home ;)). I will be switching our dish washing detergent, hand soap, and multi surface cleaner for the kitchen and bathroom counters. Stay turned for updates and photos!

Want to learn more about soap nuts? Here you go!

Baby Wearing

So without even realizing it, I grew up in a pro (in both senses of the word) Attachment Parenting household.  My mom was the queen of extended breast feeding, baby wearing, and co-sleeping.  When I got married I swore up and down my child would not sleep in my bed and I thought I would be dying to be done breast feeding by sixth months.  And thank God I was so wrong!  I am perfectly happy with my son sleeping in his bed next to mine so I can bring him in for snuggles whenever he (I) need(s) them.  And breast feeding is probably the coolest thing EVER! You can bet I will be one of those moms that breastfeeds past year ;)

The one area of AP which I was totally for was Babywearing.  In fact, I was damn excited to be able to pick out my carriers and always have my baby close.  And people LOVE babywearing moms.  Every time I go out with Eli in the carrier everyone stops and smiles and look and at him him like he is the bees knees (which lets be real, he is ;D).  In the beginning we used the Moby wrap which we borrowed from Miss Megan and is was perfect for the tiny little peanut.

My all time favorite carrier is the Ergo.  It is the most comfortable contraption ever, and even better, it works from older kids as well as small babies.  

 

But do you know what people love more than babywearing moms?  That's right, babywearing dads.

That's our Sprout Pouch, it's Eli's current fav because he can face forward and look around, the others just put him to sleep ;-) 

Make Over.

As you can see, my blog is getting a face lift.  Originally, I first thought about starting a blog right after Kyle and I got married and I set everything up.  Blog title, background, colors, all of it, the only thing that was originally different was the tagline.

So I sat down to right my first blog post and realized that I had nothing of substance to say that wasn't already covered in other blogs so I took down the post and forgot about it.  A year later, I now have something to write about and the blog to do it in.  However,  after talking to my girlfriend and blogspiration, Megan, I decided I needed to make some changes in my blogosphere, which has in turn got me pretty excited about making said changes.  I also have something big in the works that I will make another post about later when everything is complete.

So now I have a new look and a new name. Bare with me for now though, because I am not 100% satisfied with my new look, things will probably keep changing :)