Wow, I'm a terrible blogger! But I have PIE!

Has it really been since June since I've posted?? Where does the time go? Halloween is already past (thank goodness the candy is almost gone!) and now we're looking forward to Thanksgiving - which means it's time to make pie!

(By way of background, in my earlier years, I attended culinary school to be a Pastry Chef, but you all know about having to pay the bills and such. A little Coffee Shop/Patisserie is on my list for after we've got the girls through college!)

My loving family and co-workers have been my guinea pigs and over the years I've perfected my Dutch Apple Pie, which is now mandatory (or so I'm told) for Thanksgiving. This year I'm branching out - time to start work on a Pumpkin Pie, from scratch - yes, I'm serious, real pumpkin, from an actual pumpkin - no more of that canned stuff!

Back soon with pics and progress - and I promise it won't be 5 months this time!

Review: FLIP Disposable Inserts

Nearly my entire Cloth Diaper stash at this point is made up of the Flip System by Cotton Babies. We've had such great success using the Flips, so easy to use and so versatile!

After my good luck winning a pack of Flip Disposable Inserts from Julie at ...And Baby Makes Three! I'm keeping tradition and posting a little review/comparison of my own!

Here's a lineup of all three types of Flip Inserts: Disposable, Stay Dry and Organic.

We're using the Flips on the Medium Rise Snaps right now, so the Disposable and Stay Dry have to be folded down and the Organic is short-folded.

Here's a look at each of the Flip Inserts actually in a cover:

And compared for bulk: Disposable in Pink; Stay Dry in Green; Organic in Blue

Closeup of the Disposable Insert:

The Disposable Inserts are really soft! I was surprised the first time I felt one. Plus they are SUPER trim!They are dye and fragrance free and certified Oeko-Tex. I love that they are compost-able (someday I'll have enough space for that composter!) I'm finding the insert to be a little narrow for the cover, too much PUL exposed. If I'm going to use the disposable only, I overlap two of them side by side to cover the PUL. I've found myself using the Disposable Inserts more as a doubler/liner with both my Flips and bumGenius 3.0's. They fit nicely over a Stay Dry Insert and are really about the same bulk-wise as using an Organic Insert alone. Plus I can use diaper cream if needed, and not worry about compromising the absorption of the cloth!

Stay Dry + Disposable layered:

Even though I'm not really using the Disposable Inserts as they were intended, they are a great addition to my cloth diaper arsenal (yes, I'm using the word arsenal, since baby is eating table food now, this is war!) Plus the added bonus of keeping my cloth clean - no stains, since I toss the mess!

Happy Cloth Diapering!

Mmmm...Chili!

Just had to put up a quick picture of dinner last night. Homemade Chili, in a sourdough breadbowl. It was so good! And I used a little of the parsley I've been growing for garnish.

Adventure: Re-Useable Grocery Bags

I'm trying to do little things to 'green' our household...I know it's tough to go all organic, shop for only local food, but one thing I can do is stop adding to the waste of plastic grocery bags. Fortunately, our grocery store has a recycling bin for the bags, but they seem to multiply under the kitchen sink to overflowing, before they can be re-used as bathroom trash can liners.

I've been collecting re-useable bags for awhile now, finding them here or there and now finally, my kitchen drawer where I keep them is FULL! So my adventure for today is to see if I can do a full grocery shopping trip and not bring any plastic bags home!

Here's my stash!


Did you know Target gives a 5 cent credit per re-useable bag that you bring in? Not much, but a nice little thing for them to do.

If you collect the Disney Movie Reward points, those green bags came as a reward! It was a pack of two, for only around 400 points (that's 4 movies worth) plus Disney makes a donation on your behalf to their Worldwide Conservation Fund.

So I packed up the girls and headed off to the store, armed with my big bunch of re-useable bags. Once we got to the checkout, I put my bags on the conveyer, and it felt good. I think the bagger might have been a little annoyed with me, because not all of my bags are shaped like the store brand's re-useable bags that they sell, but oh well!

So did I make it? Did I have enough bags for everything? Yes I did! I actually had 2 bags leftover!


This is an adventure I'm going to continue, it doesn't take much effort, but over time, it'll make a big difference.

Adventure: Work - yuk!

Unfortunately, it's been ADVENTURE: Work for the last couple of weeks, which is taking up too much of my attention!

I have a few fun adventures in the works and will be back up and posting soon!

In the meantime, wanted to share a couple of Cloth Diaper Giveaways, as I was lucky enough to win one from Julie at ...And Baby Makes Three! I won a pack of Flip Disposable Inserts, which I'm much looking forward to receiving - I'll post pics when they arrive!

Cloth Diaper Giveaways:

Planetwise Swim/Wet/Dry Bag at Fitteds, Pockets and Snappis, oh my! ends June 28

Flip Cover and Organic Insert at Wishing Penny ends June 22

Sprout Change Organic Cloth Diaper at The Eco-Cheap Mom ends June 18 (hurry on this one!)

Good Luck!!!

Adventure: Container Gardening Part 1

So, after a miserable, failed attempt at Container Gardening outdoors (a combination of hot weather and forgetting to go outside to water) it occured to me that my little ledge by the kitchen window might be a good spot to get some plants started.

We picked up a few little starter kits at Target, with the teeny tiny pots and soil "pellets". My 5 year old daughter had a great time stirring up the soil after we re-hydrated it and distributing to the pots. We planted parsley, red bell peppers and strawberries.

The picture above is our progress after about 5 weeks. The parsley has gone gangbusters and is ready to be re-potted. The red bell peppers are doing well, but need more time - they are destined for one of the upside-down planters (even though we will look like dorks with that thing hanging off our patio). The strawberries are pretty fickle - they did great at first, had about 8 sprouts, but forgot to water one day and they all died off except one!

I did have a little redemption from my outdoor plants - my green onions came back this year on their own! Maybe another few weeks and I'll have green onions to cook with!

Stay tuned for our progress!

Adventure: Cloth Diapering

Hello out there in the Blog-osphere!

I'm about a month into my Cloth Diaper Experiment - my darling baby is almost 11 months old and I'm sure you're thinking "why start now, she's halfway through to potty training??" Well, there are a few reasons, but the most important to me was her poor, ouchie bum was getting too many rashes!

So after some major research (and some encouragement from my cloth-diapering cyber friends) I took the plunge and got a starter pack of Flip Diapers. I am thoroughly impressed! They are hugely versatile, and a more of a hybrid - they are a waterproof cover and have interchangeable inserts (both cloth and biodegradable disposable). But the feature that sold me is they are One Size, which allows them to fit from newborn to toddler (about 8-35 pounds). So not only will they fit my little one now, but will get her through potty training - and then can be saved and used for the next baby, or traded/sold second hand on one of the cloth diaper sites like DiaperSwappers!




We're having so much fun with this adventure! I have to say, if you're on the fence about trying cloth, give Flip a try, it's a great way to transition and you're doing something good for your baby and reducing the waste of disposables. We've cut our disposable consumption by 70% and I've spent less than $150 on cloth.

Happy Cloth Diapering!