Saturdays With Alden

High Five For Friday: Joy Edition

Thanks to Lauren for inspiring me to do a High Five for Friday. This week, my high five is focusing on JOY!
1. This week my book came in for our Mom's group study on JOY!

I just completed chapter one for next Wednesday and I'm already pretty excited.

2. Our church finished the third part of our JOY series. I had a friend come with me and she is not only coming back, but she's bringing a friend. There are no words for the amount of joy I have getting to live life with someone who is experiencing Christ in a new way.

3. I was able to give my husband JOY by getting all of the dishes caught up. Now I am trying to catch up on laundry and get out of my funk that's been weighing me down.

4. My daughter has started babbling. When I picked her up from the baby sitter on Wednesday at church I could hear her all the way down the hall saying, "Blah blah blah blah!" She has also somewhat learned what a kiss is and will smile when I give her one. She is now ticklish and will let out the most JOYFUL squeal when you toss her on the couch and tickle her.

5. God has placed in my heart a desire to grow closer to him and not let other affect my JOY. I am feeling alive and I want others to feel God's love through me!

High five, everyone!

A Good Wife: Part 3

She's up before dawn, preparing breakfast for her family and organizing her day.

Proverbs 31:15

First of all, I apologize that it has been so long since I've posted. A lot has happened, I suppose. My husband finally was offered a full-time job (albeit temporary). I've also been somewhat depressed and so I haven't felt much like posting, but I have to remember that it is when I neglect God and neglect reading His word that I become depressed because I step outside His circle of blessing. 

So today I wanted to discuss one aspect of being a good wife that some times I do really well with and many times I still struggle. A good wife wakes up early and organizes her household. It's particularly coincidental that today I woke up around 7:30am and could not go back to sleep. I thought to myself, "Surely this is God telling me to get up and get going." And so I did.

I woke up, showered, got dressed, and started catching up on all the chores I've been neglecting since I've been an emotional roller coaster. 

I have been using FlyLady for several years, but only recently have I been taking full advantage of Cozi, an online family organizer. I kept telling myself, "No, I've got Google, why would I need anything else." And then I tried it. To-Do lists, calendars, shopping lists, meal planning, synchronization from the FlyLady  routines. It's truly amazing. 

I suppose since this post is about organizing your family, I'll let you in on one of my routines. Keep in mind that every routine relies on the other. I won't list my whole day's worth of routines, but I might in another post if you want it. I'll just use my morning routine since I'm talking about waking up early and organizing the day.

Morning

• Spin Class/Workout
• Shower/fix hair/make-up&moisturize
• Brush my teeth
• Get completely dressed (including shoes!)
• Empty the dishwasher
• Drink a glass of water
• Make formula & prep bottles
• Swish toilets and wipe counters
• Put regular laundry in washer and stuff and put away clean diapers
• Check the calendar and read my Bible verse cards

The combination of FlyLady and Cozi is truly amazing. FlyLady breaks your homes up into zones, focusing on a different zone weekly and having daily zone missions, all of which are sync'd to your Cozi family calendar. 

Usually, I like to sleep in and wake up with Alden, but this morning was nice. I was able to get her bath ready and prepare all of her bottles and food for the day without the urgent need once she woke up and was screaming at me. Now that Rial has a job, I think it will be much easier for me to stay on a consistent schedule. Before, he was coming and going and getting in my way, throwing me off schedule. I also never knew when he would be home and which meals he would want. Now I can start dinner at 5pm, and it should be ready before he gets home. He's gone in the mornings, so that helps me not get distracted. Don't let that sound like I don't love having him here, but if your husband showed up at your job, you'd get distracted, too. 

So, anyway, this post has been a little less Biblical and a little more practical. And I love that. I love that being organized IS Biblical.

Saturdays With Alden

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I just uploaded my weekly "Saturdays With Alden" video. Check it out!

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Congratulations, Toni!

Congratulations to my friend Toni over at Carrigan's Joy! She delivered her son, Jacob, yesterday evening! Everyone go show her some love!

Review: gDiaper Cloth Diapering System

Overview

According to their website, gDiapers are “adorable diaper covers with environmentally-friendly inserts.” GDiapers come in four sizes (five if you include newborn). The size ranges are as follows: Newborn, 6-10lbs, Small, 8-14lbs, Medium, 13-28lbs, Large, 26-36lbs, and the newest size, X-Large, which fits babies 34lbs and up.
GDiapers are comprised of 3 parts: the Little gPant (the colorful diaper cover), the Waterproof liner,or "pouch," and the insert. You can use either the biodegradable insert or the gCloth, which is made of a layer of microfleece with a cotton/hemp inside. 

PricingOne diaper (gPants, liner, and cloth) will cost $17.99. You can buy 6 cloth inserts for $29.99. Additionally, you can purchase extra pouches (snap-in liners) for $19.99.

I recommend buying about 6-8 gPants, 6 extra snap-in liners, and a minimum of 18 gCloths if this is your only diapering system and you want to do laundry every other day. Remember, because these diapers are sized, and not one-size-fits-all, you will need to stock up in every size.
Per size, the total cost of using gdiapers is about $217 for the MINIMUM to diaper. This seems kind of expensive for a basic cloth diapering system, and when you factor in that you have to buy this multiple times, it could get pricey.
The nice part is the snap-in-liners and gCloths are the same size between mediums and large, but you still have to buy new gPants. If you’re diapering longer it’s even more expensive, and if you’re diapering multiples you’ll need even more.
I don’t use them, but for your information, the biodegradable inserts are $14.99 for 32, or you can buy a case of 4 packs of 32 for $52. Initially, I purchased a pack of inserts for overnight use.

Pros

• Cute, stylish, can be customized by embroidering, adding patches, or other accents
• Don’t really need pants in the summer time
• No need for a diaper cover
• Velcro on the back is useful for little hands
• Velcro is easy to use, especially with a squirming baby
• When wet you can just change the cloth; when dirty just the liner

Cons

• Lot involved with washing: you have to separate the liner from the gPant, wash, and then separate for drying (more to come on washing in a future post)
• Come in 3 sizes- you’d think its a good thing until you’ve tried a one-size-fits-all
• Doesn’t come in white, so you either have to match or have to cover it.
• You have to use different cloths, or at least I did, to prevent leaking
• The microfiber gCloth gets clogged easily and actualy becomes repellent when you have to use a diaper cream or if you ever use dryer sheets or detergent. This even caused me to stop using the gDiapers for a while
• I've noticed slight fading of the gPant and curling of the velcro, even with line-drying

Overall
This was my first cloth diapering system. We had a full stock of smalls, but experienced frequent leaking. Once we moved to medium, the leaking was fixed for a couple of weeks, but the leaking started again, we tried all sorts of things, like stripping the diapers, but the cloths weren’t even absorbing anything, they had started to repel even water.

I still love the bold, bright colors, but I wish it came in white. There’s a new taupe option, but my husband and I just like the simplicity of white.

Because they are sized and not a one-size adjustable diaper, you have to basically stock three sets of diapers, even more if you have a large baby and a late potty-trainer. In addition, you only use the smalls for a couple months, if that, because they grow out of them so quickly.

I’m really happy I tried some other diapers, because I started using the bumgenius natural cotton pre-fold in the gDiapers and I haven’t had any leaks since. I’m attributing that to the repellant nature of the synthetic gCloth material. It's definitely allowed me to start using my g's again. I just don't use the gCloths.

Now, I really like that gDiaper offers the option to use biedegradable inserts. It’s good for the planet, but not so good for your wallet. It’s $14.99 for 32 inserts and you could just as easily get disposable for half the price. So, if you’re using gDiapers to save the planet that’s one thing, but we were doing it to save money.

Just a final note, diapering aside, I love the gDiaper company. Customer service is fantastic, they really value their customers and let you post photos of your “gBaby” to their facebook wall. They also show pictures of having their kids at headquarters and really seem to value family. You can even be a part of the gMum/gDad program and receive promotional material and coupons to pass out to other moms.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my review of gDiapers, make sure you watch my video on how to use and wash your g’s!

Happy Monday...er...Tuesday!

It feels like it's Monday! Mainly because Rial didn't work yesterday and we had a grown up day. My mom kept Alden and Rial and I went on an adventure. Well, sort of. We spent about three hours in McKays book store and used about $80 of our $144 store credit we'd accumulated. We spent all of it on books for Alden, and we got some great deals.
After we checked out the bookstore we wanted to find the Habitat for Humanity ReHome store. Fortunately we found it. Unfortunately, they are closed on Mondays. I also discovered there's one here in town so we don't have to drive to Chattanooga to shop. Then we came home and we took a nap! It was wonderful!
We woke up, retrieved our child, and came home for some family time.
We had bath time, play time, and finally bed time. Rial and I spent some time playing video games and then we went to bed.
I was supposed to wake up and go to spin class. Luckily, today is Tuesday so there's a night class I can go to.
Tonight I think I'm going to make some nachos for dinner using the corn tortillas I've had for a little while. I'm sure I'll post about it.
Later!