I'm voting for...

Tomorrow is Election Day (in case you haven't been counting down the days you would have to hear all the annoying ads, like I have).  It's a big day and only the second Presidential election I have ever voted in.  I've thought long and hard about my decision and I have decided that I will be casting my vote for...

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Packard Kids for President...REAL change for America!

I'm only halfway kidding.

I'm NOT voting for or against a political party, a healthcare plan, the coolest or most down-to-earth candidate, the unemployment rate, gay marriage, the national debt, inequality, abortion, the environment, Middle East peace, nuclear arms, education, a do-nothing Congress, war, the death penalty, taxes, military, or our international reputation.

I'm voting for the future of those three sweet faces in the photo above.

Let's face it, the job of President is probably the absolute worst job in America and I'm actually surprised that they can even find two people who actually want the title.  Maybe there was a time when a lot of honor and glory went to the President, but those times are gone.  Now, whoever gets the job (or who has ever HAD the job) gets the blame for everything that's wrong with America and has to fear for their lives on a daily basis.  Not a job I would apply for and spend a year or more trying to get (especially as a parent of young children, which is a whole other blog post).

But regardless of what I think about the job of President, the fact is, we need one.  A good one.  One that will be the Commander in Chief make it a priority to STOP trying to divide the American people on issues that don't even affect the majority of us.  And preferably one that will admit a fault when it occurs (wouldn't that be a first???).

So, tomorrow, I'll be up early, in the cold, possibly with three small children (hopefully not), but confident that the candidates I select will be the best investment in America's future.  And while I won't be literally voting for one of my children, I'll definitely have their best interests at heart.

"Vote for the people who will require something OF you rather than promising something TO you."

-Andy Stanley

Making a List...OR NOT!

This year, Pack and I have decided to shift our focus from "shopping for Christmas" to "celebrating CHRISTmas."  This is why we have decided to limit our Christmas shopping this year to just our children and our siblings' children.  As much as we enjoy giving gifts to others (especially our awesome family), we end up spending quite a bit of time, stress, and money looking for the perfect gift for them that is within our budget, or making something, which is also time-consuming.  We want to spend more time thinking about the MOST perfect gift, which is Jesus. 

In honor of our amazing family and friends, our family is going to start a new tradition of blessing another family with a monetary gift...one for each person in our home.  We were blessed by another family last year at Christmas and the monetary value of the gift paled in comparison to the heart behind their generosity.  We are sure that our family would much rather have our money go to someone who really needs it than to buy them something else to put in their homes.  Our families are pretty amazing:)
   
I don't know about you, but I would much rather spend the holidays spending time with my family and enjoying this sweet season of life with them instead of with strangers at the mall.  So when you are doing your shopping this year, please think of my family, but cross us off your list.  Instead, try donating what you would normally spend on unnecessary gifts to a person or family who needs a bit of Christmas cheer.  Let Jesus give you a heart like His--a much better gift than I could buy you;)

2 Corinthians 9:7

 Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

MY "Facts" about Cloth Diapers

I'm not a cloth diaper expert by any means, but after reading a thread about cloth diapers today on one of the local news channels on Facebook, I realized that most people are misinformed about cloth diapers.  I wanted to share the information that I know to be true about them from my (little) experience using them.

1.  Cloth diapers are expensive when you buy them new.  If you don't care about having "new" cloth diapers, they can be super-cheap.  I actually prefer to buy used because it saves a little work from having to break-in new diapers.  Every cloth diaper I have bought has been purchased used for less than $5 per diaper.

Can you tell this is a used diaper?  Bought for $2, sold for $5!

2.  You don't have to be anti-disposable to use cloth diapers.  We do use disposable on occasion.  They are expensive (even if you use off brand) and inconvenient when you run out, but sometimes we throw a disposable in the diaper bag because it takes up less space or for other reasons and I don't feel guilty about it.  We've used about one or two bags of disposables for Anna over the course of her life so far and that's okay too.  We consider ourselves to be very flexible.

3.  You don't have to use "special" detergents or bleach with cloth diapers.  As a matter of fact, you SHOULDN'T use bleach on cloth diapers because it will make them not last as long.  Diapers can get clean with a small amount of detergent and warm-hot water.  The detergent I use to clean my diapers can be used on any of our clothes and it's safe for the environment.  You do need to be careful about the detergent you use, but doing a little research will tell you that there are lots of available detergents you could use.

Clean and White!

4.  Washing cloth diapers is the easiest laundry you will do.  Diaper day is not a chore.  I empty my bag of diapers in the washing machine and let the machine do the work.  If there are any stains, I let them sit in the sun with a bit of lemon juice to clear it right up (although if stains don't bother you, you can skip that step).  Sometimes I throw my diapers in the dryer and sometimes I hang them outside to dry.  Depends on the weather.  When they are dry, I throw them back in the drawer.  No folding required=Awesome!

5.  Poop is disgusting in cloth OR in disposables.  People think that you never have to handle poop if you don't use cloth diapers, but if you've ever had a baby, you know that explosive poops happen with disposables and at some point (or several), you are going to have to touch poop...and it's probably going to be on you and you won't even know it.  In the eight months I have cloth diapered Anna, she has only had one "explosive" poop in cloth that has come out of her diaper.  That is unheard-of with disposables.

Cloth diapers have saved her cute outfits (and mine!)

6.  You don't have to put your hand in the toilet to clean diapers (although I've done it before and it's not that horrifying).  I have a diaper sprayer now (a modified sink sprayer, basically) and it rinses the poop off the diaper so I can flush it down where it is supposed to go (FYI--you are supposed to dump poop out of disposables too and flush it, but no one does it).  Not to mention, if you are exclusively breastfeeding for the first 6 months (or just for however long you are breastfeeding), you don't even have to rinse poop out of diapers before washing them! Once you start solids, most poops fall into the toilet without much help.

7.  When you no longer need your cloth diapers (or don't like them anymore), you can always sell them (if you buy them used to begin with, you might can even get all your initial investment back!).  At some point they will reach the end of their life and you can trash them, but if you buy cotton, hemp, bamboo, or other natural fiber diapers, they will biodegrade and become a part of the earth again.  They won't take up space in the landfills for our children and grandchildren to have to deal with.  The extra water and detergents you use are no match for the environmental cost of plastic coated diapers sitting around for ages leaching chemicals into the land of our descendants.

Go green!

8.  You can't beat the cute factor in cloth diapers.  There's not a denim-look disposable diaper that can even compare to a sweet cloth diapered bottom (see photos above).  But be prepared...you'll have to go up at least a size in your baby's clothes because of a fluffy tushy:)

Girl's got curves:)

9. It's never too late to try it out (unless your kid is already potty trained of course!)! I started cloth diapering Jude when he was 19 months old and he was potty trained within two or three months! An initial $50 investment saved us hundreds in diapers and pull-ups we didn't have to buy for the next year or so AND they are as good as new for Anna to use when she gets a little bigger!

Overall, I understand people not cloth diapering full time and I know that it's hard to cloth diaper economically in some areas (hello, Florence), but I think it's always worth a try, even if you only use one or two cloth diapers a day or week.  Oh well, I guess that's all I have in my arsenal, but I hope it helps someone make the decision to at least give it a shot:)

In a Kindergarten funk...the flip side.

Call me George Washington, but I cannot tell a lie.  This Kindergarten adjustment has been pretty hard core.  I knew it was going to be tough but I thought it would be because Jude would be going crazy without Penn around all the time and I would be worrying about him all day.  That has not proven to be the case.  The really difficult part has been when Penn comes home.  Exhausted.  Cranky.  Mouthy.  Yeah...it's been fun (not really).  I can't really blame him.  When I was teaching, my students and I all left school at the end of the day feeling the exact same way.  School is work.  But as a mama, I expected that my baby would come home at the end of the day, run into my arms and just want to sit and hug on his brother and sister, read books, and tell me every detail of his day.  Once again...wrong.

So we're really having to look at our afternoon and evening time with a fine-tooth comb and figure out what is working for us and what isn't.  Here are a few of the changes we've made to help make life a little easier for now.

1.  When Penn gets home from school, we stay outside as long as possible.  The wonderful swing in the front yard has a magical affect on our boys and they seem to be satisfied swinging on it for hours on end.

2.  We are buying LOTS more fruit.  Penn is starving when he gets home...STARVING!  Even after eating a PB&J, apple, banana, raisins, celery and ranch, yogurt and anything else I throw in his lunchbox, it comes home empty every day and he eats and eats until it's supper time (at which time, he won't eat anything, of course).  I'm thinking of getting a part-time job just to support our fruit-junky.

3.  When he gets home from work, Pack watches all three kids for me for at least 30 minutes of uninterrupted kitchen time.  The meals we make can't always be prepared ahead of time, so this gives me the time to get it all ready and in the oven and sometimes even do some light clean-up and table setting.

4.  Everyone has a laundry day now and I only wash diapers twice a week (and I look forward to diaper days since they are so low-stress.  Somehow, I'm still ending up washing two loads a day most days, but having specific laundry days for each person helps me find a reasonable stopping point without feeling like I have to keep all the hampers empty.

5.  We stopped doing anything "scheduled" in the evenings.  We aren't meeting with a couple's small group right now (Pack is doing a men's early morning small group once a week, and I am starting a SAHM's small group that will meet one morning a week also).  I also had to stop kickboxing (hopefully temporarily) and I replaced that with a walk/run around the block most mornings after walking Penn to the bus stop (while pushing two kids in an umbrella stroller...WHEW!)

6.  We (I) try to go to bed as early as possible.  For most nights, kids are in bed by 8 and I'm trying to be in bed no later than 10.  I'm still exhausted in the morning and I could probably go to sleep at 8:30, but hey...the kitchen doesn't clean itself;)

7.  I'm finding myself getting super-stressed and upset really easily lately so I'm going to try to start focusing on what IS working instead of what isn't working.  Hopefully, it will all work itself out in another month or so and I'll be able to feel a little less tired and a little more in control.  It's hard give up a routine that worked so well for us for so long, but seasons change and kids grow up:-(  On that note, I'll leave you with a few pics of my little weeds...

Teething face:-)

Walking to the bus stop!

My little helper!

This swing only cost $1, but it's worth my sanity (which isn't much right now)...

Bath buddies!

Sprinkles, Sales, a Swing, and a Stitch Fix

Today was a pretty good day for Mama Packard.  The TV stayed off most of the day and that's always a good sign.  We woke up with a hankering for pancakes, and I actually had the energy (and arms, Thank you, Anna) to be able to whip some up this morning.  Of course, Penn and Jude insisted on sprinkles in the batter, but if I'm being honest, they are totally better with sprinkles.  We made a pretty good dent on a double batch of 10 grain Bob's Red Mill Pancake Mix, and then we were off to see what treasures our neighbors were parting with today...

Anna got a few pairs of PJ's in the next size up, Penn and Jude got a cup of lemonade for a quarter each, and Pack made out with an old bench for weightlifting and about 100 feet of thick rope for two dollars.  He was stoked.  I thought we were basically paying for their junk.  Little did I know what Pack Daddy had in store.

After about an hour of unsuccessfully trying to sling a string with six or seven washers attached over a very specific spot in the limb of a tree in our yard, he finally headed to Walmart and came back with a sling shot named "The Black Widow."  The sling shot got the washers over the limb in just a couple of tries and then, up went the rope.  I headed inside to make lunch and Pack eventually came in to get me to try out his creation.

Of course I had to try it out...

And spin!

Three's not a crowd on this giant swing!

I know...my husband is super-fun.  He's also super-smart and very conscious of safety issues so I'm really thankful he was able to rig this up for us.  I would have loved this as a kid and truly...I really love it as an adult.  And everything about this swing remind me of why I love my sweet Pack.  He's my most prized possession on this planet!

And as if that wasn't good enough, I had a box waiting on me from Stitch Fix (finally)!  I heard about Stitch Fix through a high school friend (i.e. current awesome mommy blogger/seamstress/teacher/etc) named Jessica who blogged about SF right here.  To summarize what it is, you basically have a personal shopper who sends you five articles of clothing (or accessories) based on your style, size, preferences, and budget (which if you are like me, you don't know, and you figure out by taking their style survey) and you get to try them on, keep what you like, and send back what you don't.  Their fee is $20 (which is well worth it for me to avoid shopping with my three "I-freak-at-the-sight-of-fluorescent-lights" kiddos), but this gets deducted from whatever you decide to keep.  I got some cool stuff, but only decided to keep one thing (or two...no, one...I haven't decided yet).  Anyway, here was what was in my little box:

I loved this shirt, but the asymmetrical hemline made my short torso look shorter.

This black shirt had sheer cutouts in weird places...it wasn't exactly my style.

I loved this oversized sweater, but it was a little TOO oversized for me.

I REALLY REALLY wanted to keep these bangles, but decided to hold out for something more interesting.

I loved everything about this tunic dress and paired with a sweater and leggings, I think it could take me from summer to winter!

Overall, I thought this was a great and unique shopping experience.  Actually picking interesting pieces out is the hardest part of shopping for me and this forced me to try on some styles that I might not normally try.  I definitely plan on getting a second (or third) stitch fix and I think you should too.  It's a win-win for both of us...you get cute clothes and I'll get a $25 credit if you sign up using this link (shameless, I know...):


Oh, and if you do sign up, let me know what you get:)

A memory

Channeling my inner Donna Reed.

After making a peach cobbler and prepping for Eggplant Parmesan for supper today, I was feeling all homemaker-y, so I had the boys (and Anna) dress "neat," as Penn likes to call it, to greet Pack when he got home.  It was pretty fun to play 50's for awhile with the boys and I almost melted when Jude said, "Hello, Fahhder," while using his "neatest manners," but it was still exhausting to do anything in heels and a dress (it's been awhile for me...).  How did Donna Reed do this every day???  Oh yeah...she was FICTIONAL.  Well, I gave it my best shot and we tried to stay in character as long as possible.  Thank goodness Pack took a picture of me with my cuties all dressed up in the heart of our home.  I only wish he had managed to get in this shot too.  I guess we'll have to wait until next time (but I promise that next time, I won't be in heels.

He's almost gone!

I'm having a seriously hard time coming to terms with the fact that Penn is going to start Kindergarten in a month.  Part of me really wants to home-school like I had originally planned, but part of me is also considering finding childcare of Jude and Anna for one or two days each week so I can have some time to myself ("ME time," you know, like time for uninterrupted cleaning, laundry, working out...selfish things like that--haha).  Mostly, I've just been trying not to think about it much, but when I finally flipped the calendar over yesterday, THIS little beauty was staring me in the face:

Kindergarten Supply List

Back in June when I registered Penn for Kindergarten, I taped his supply list to the calendar on August so I wouldn't lose it before tax-free weekend.  I kind of wish I had.

As a mom of school-aged kid, I figure I'm going to be pretty awesome or pretty annoying.  Penn, on the other hand...he's just going to be awesome...I know it.  See for yourself:)