Diapering the Baby's Bum

Can you imagine what the world will be like in 2500?  That's 490 years from now.  Well, if the disposable diapers we throw in the trash every day could talk, they will be able to tell us.  That's right, in 500 years the diapers we are wrapping around our babies' butts will still be around.  Gross!

The whole idea of throwing stuff "away" really gets to me.  What the heck does "away" mean?  It means out of sight: out of mind.  It means, it's wrapped tightly in a sealed plastic bag and carted away in a big stinky truck, and therefore I no longer have to think about it.  It certainly doesn't mean away, because it's still there.  And in Calgary, it's actually pretty close to home: Spyhill Landfill is just up the road from me.  And in the landfill approximately 2.1% of the piles are made up of peed and pooed in disposable diapers.

Now, I'm a realist. I understand that in today's day and age there are times when I need to use those handy little disposable diapers.  I've run out of diapers in the mall and needed to beg other mothers for diapers from their strollers.  I've been on holidays where finding a place to do laundry is impossible, and carting around 24 dirty diapers is a little more than inconvenient.  Still, I try not to just do what little I can, but everything I can, and so, for a multitude of reasons, I choose to cloth diaper my babies bums.  And, I love it!

If you haven't had the pleasure of seeing today's cloth diapers, let me assure you, they are not what they used to be.  While the old prefolds with pins and covers are still available, there are so many other wonderful options that cloth diapers are really every bit as convenient as disposables these days (minus the whole washing them part - but it's not that bad, I promise).   The cloth diapering world is really very vibrant right now.  I'm not sure if the recession has made more people explore cloth because it can be so much cheaper than disposables, or if people are becoming more environmentally friendly, but there is certainly a big industry in cloth diapers right now.

That being said, it didn't surprise me one bit when I saw this this week (not my picture, I got it off the webernets):

Those pampers are awfully cute.   Kind of like all the ridiculously cute cloth diapers out there.  I'm not sure, but I think that after 20 years of Elmo diapers Pampers may actually feel threatened.  Awesome. 

Despite their cuteness, I still maintain that there is nothing cuter than a fat little cloth diapered butt!  Seriously.  Who can resist this:

Or how about these ones:

If that cute bum doesn't convince you, here's an article with even more reasons to go cloth!

The Pressure's On

Many months ago I happened upon  Hideous! Dreadful! Stinky!, and pretty much fell in love.  I love her projects - especially this one.  Her name is Marigold, and how cool is that?!  I'm sure that my little niece, Marigold, will not meet very many people with her name in her life, and being a "Jenny," I really appreciate that!  She makes me happy.

Anyway, I have signed up to do a craft exchange with her, and I have just a little over a month to come up with something darling, clever and wonderful, and mail it off.  No pressure, really... just a blogger with over 200 followers who is going to post about my gift, and little old me!  Scary.

Here are her rules:

The projects should:
be small enough to fit into a 6"x9" bubble mailer envelope
take less than 3 hours to complete
cost less than $15 to make
be in the mail and postmarked by October 8, 2010




Hmmmm.... what will it be, the hook, the needles, the machine or something else entirely...  It's a good thing I've got until October 8th.

I've Got a Quilting Problem

I love to piece quilts.  Love it.  I love gazing at fabric, putting together the perfect combination.  I love perusing through patterns, picking the best ones to suit my fabric choices.  I love measuring and cutting, rolling my rotary cutter along the fabric in perfect lines (I've only once needed stitches because of this). I love sewing the straight lines, putting all those little pieces together to make a beautiful quilt.  Oddly, one of my favourite parts of quilting is laying out all the squares and staring at them until my eyes hurt trying to figure out the best layout where no two pieces of the same fabric touch or are even close.

And that's really where my love affair with quilting ends.  The whole 'quilting' part: not so much my favourite.  So, amongst my boxes of storage I've got a plethora of pinatas... I mean quilt tops... waiting to be quilted, with absolutely no motivation to do so. Seriously, I probably have ten tops finished. 

I come by it honestly, though.  My mom has over 20 in the same state as mine.  My problem is, I want to hand stitch some, but that's a big undertaking, and I want to machine quilt the rest, but not just stitch-in-the-ditch, but the really fancy swirly, loopy kind of machine quilting.  My old Brother sewing machine is really just not up to the task.  I NEED this:

I could hire myself out at $150 a quilt for, oh, 20 or so quilts, to make it worth it.  I also will need to buy a new house to fit the thing in, and commit to doing nothing but quilting the rest of my life... but I'm okay with that.  With something this incredible to work with, why would I want to do anything but?

But, until then, I guess I need to get motivated and get working.  These are the quilts I want to finish before I start any more.

My picnic quilt, which at the rate autumn is approaching here in Calgary, will probably not be used until next season.

The sweetest baby quilt, which is offered as a prize to the sister who has the next girl (unless I have a girl first, and then they get nothing because all my creative juices will be put to creating things for my own darling.)

The third of these rag quilts I've made, for the next boy that is born that I love enough to give a quilt to.

A car mat for my boys, probably for Christmas, by the look of my to-do list here.

I'm heading to Shuswap today, and I plan on getting at least a few of these done while I'm there.  I'm hoping my mother-in-law will help me with the hand sewing of the girl baby quilt and the car mat. The picnic quilt I am sticking to the ditch, and the rag quilt I don't have to quilt at all: yeah!

Felt Crowns

I finally finished adding the elastic to these crowns that I started in the Spring.  My favourite is the tree, but Eli likes his "Super Eli" crown.  There was one more that I forgot today when we went to play with the Russells, so Mari didn't get to wear the pink one. Too bad for her. As I left with these three Andy suggested that I just make a whole bunch for them so that we didn't need to bring them when we came to visit.  I'm glad he's watching out for me! 
PS Get a load of Charlie's shirt.  It's rad!

But don’t they know that I am free, Every time I climb a tree?

Eli came running in today and excitedly declared, "Mommy, there's a tree out there that is for boys to climb in!"

"That awesome! Why don't you go climb in it then?"

"Well, because it is a tree that mommies need to help the boys get into."

So, the vacuum got put down for a very important apple tree climbing operation.  And, boy oh boy, did he love it!  And do I ever love my boy!

His baby brother watched from the grass.

The Caverns Lewis and Clark NEVER visited

So, if you are ever driving through Montana, just east of Butte, you really should stop at a place called the Lewis and Clark Caverns.  You might think that it is named such because the famous Lewis and Clark found the caverns, perhaps with Sacajawea herself.  You'd be wrong.  They never even knew the caverns existed.  Instead, many years after Lewis, Clark and Sacajawea had passed through the area two cowboys were hunting a deer and found an opening into a mountain, and in that mountain they found a cavern, and in that cavern they found... some pretty cool limestone, which, 118 years later we found too. Too bad the park wasn't named after those guys, or I might know their names.  I don't.  But, I like them all the same.

The last leg of our Paxton-Wiebe adventure took us to the Lewis and Clark Caverns State Park.  It was really cool.  We went on a 2 hour guided tour through the limestone caverns. We hiked up the mountain to the opening of the caves, and then descended down 600+ stairs inside the mountain to come out level to where we started.  It was truly awe inspiring.  Here's some shots.


Outside the mouth of the caverns:

Down, down, down:

 Check out the couple behind us.  I think they are making out.

Nursed Silas half the time:

Amazing what millions of years can create:

This tunnel took no time at all. Only 18 months in the 1930s and a bunch of guys with sledge hammers, so we were told.  I like those guys too, seeing as how it meant we didn't need to hike back up those 600 stairs. 

And, from their we said goodbye. Boy oh boy are we going to miss those girls (not to mention their parents, and Baby North).

Hole-in-the-Wall Gang

There they are, folks, the only known picture of The Violet Storm, Eli "Rustler" Wiebe and Ava the Scalper, Butch Cassidy's toughest gang members. You can tell by their hardened looks, their haggard appearance and the blood stains on their hands just how tough they were.  These three, in their time, were not to be messed with by the toughest of lawmen!

While traveling Wyoming we spent a day exploring the town of Cody, Wyoming.  It was a blast!

We visited the most run down, thrown together museum I've ever seen, Old Trail Town, where they had the actual cabin that Butch Cassidy and his Hole-in-the-Wall gang actually stayed. It was there, as I was signing the guest book, that I realized that Jared and I were celebrating our sixth anniversary. That's right, six years!  Should I be embarrassed that it took seeing the date at the top of a dusty guest book that made me remember?  No, I think I'm okay with it. Happy six years to us!

We saw the worst gunfight ever, but entertaining nonetheless.

We found an obscure LDS visitors center, The Cody Mural, (obscure because I've never heard of it before and the website has no reference to the church, and the missionaries didn't even bare their testimonies, but cool regardless.)

The best part of all, we went to the Cody Nite Rodeo, a full rodeo that began at 8 pm.  I LOVED it!  I was pretty much the expert on all things western, as Sarah had never seen a rodeo before, and Tyler only when he was a boy. The competitors left a little to be desired (very few actually got qualifying times/scores in their events) but they had five year olds competing in steer riding and barrel racing, so I wasn't complaining! The best part of it all was when they called all the children under the age of 12 to go down into the arena to pull bandannas off calves tails, who were running wild.  Eli and Ava went down.  Ava ran straight in and lined up with the other 100 or so children.  When Jared let go of Eli's hand at the gate, he went running toward the throng of children, but when he realized that he was the last child there, so all eyes were on him, even the rodeo clowns, he got a little scared and stopped dead on his run.  The clown, over the microphone, told him to come along, that it would be okay.  He was so scared!  Jared ended up having to walk him over to the other kids.  As soon as he found Ava's hand he was happy, but I was sure he would burst into tears up until that point. The two of them were the youngest for sure, and they just kind of followed blindly behind the older kids, chasing after the calves.  It was the cutest thing in the world!

Next time I happen through Cody, Wyoming, I am definitely going to go to the the Buffalo Bill Historical Center.  Like the Calgary Stampede, Cody has a rich history that media images of Buffalo Bill just don't do justice to. Next time I'm going to ride in the rodeo, too.