I’ve spent the weekend trying to get a few projects finished. First off, I wanted to have the invitations for Analise’s birthday party printed at one of the photo kiosks around at any number of places. Attempt #1: At Walgreen’s, I realized that I’d created the invitation as 4.5″x6″ (instead of 4″x6″ for a normal photo size), thus the writing was being cut off. Attempt #2: Brian couldn’t find the image on the smartmedia card when using the kiosk at Sam’s Club. Attempt #3: After Brian places the order on the machine, the clerk tells him that the printer isn’t working, and MAYBE it’ll be fixed tomorrow. GRR. We had hoped to have these done to put in the mail early this wee. We’ll see if we can get them done tomorrow. *SIGH* Here’s a peek for y’all… not sure if you’re close enough to come, but you’re definitely invited!

I’ve also been working on a handmade dress for Analise’s 1st birthday. Down here in the South, smocked dresses are quite a fashion statement. They’re very beautiful and very expensive. A friend of mine taught a few of us how to make a smocked dress, so now that all the hand embroidery is done, I’m in the process of sewing mine together. (Let me just say: I don’t mind hand sewing at all. In fact, I enjoy cross-stitch, embroidery, crocheting, etc. But using a sewing machine stresses me out.) Anyway, I sewed one seam (2x to reinforce it), found the tension on my silly machine was off, and spent an hour ripping it out (without a seam ripper). I’m going to be so glad to finish this dress. It is a labor of love, and you’d better believe you’re going to see a picture of it on my beautiful girl when it’s done!

Hope your weekend was more productive than ours! By the way, Tropical Storm Arlene blew through last night with some rain and gusting. Check out the bit of damage it left in our neighborhood here at Weather Underground (picture by Brian).

Here’s a video Kristine took of Analise toddlin’ the other day. She’s seems to prefer walking to crawling now! I can’t believe how quickly she went from crawling to walking. She sure is growing up fast… Comment and tell me what you think of the little toddler!

Watch the Toddlin’ Analise video you may also download an mpg copy of the video (2 MB)

Now that Analise is walking, we figured it was time to find some good shoes for her (and she’s outgrown all the hand-me-downs I’d been given). Earlier this week we visited a kid’s shoe store found a cute pair of sandals we were debating about. But yesterday we thought we’d check out Stride Rite in the mall.

It all started when I got detoured by Bath & Body Works’ Clearance sale (going on through Sunday!). I sent Brian and Analise on to look at shoes briefly while I shopped a bit. When I joined them, Analise was toddling around the store in these shoes:

Cute… but not what I was imagining as the all-purpose shoe. I know it’s a woman thing, and men don’t quite understand it, but this hot pink shoe wasn’t going to match all her outfits. I had envisioned a nice, simple white sandal, maybe with a tiny bit of pink, like this:

Brian was pretty convinced that Analise was walking better in the pink shoes than she was in the sandals. After a lot of waffling, I gave in. I’ll just chalk it up to the first Daddy/Analise shopping trip. It is kind of sweet:) If anyone mentions her pink shoes when she’s wearing a red outfit, I’ll smile and tell them her daddy picked them out… I think they’ll understand!

The baby steps of the weekend are multiplying. Analise is taking tiny steps all over the den, on her own and when we’re encouraging her. Does this mean she’s a toddler? Is this the end of my baby girl? It’s kind of a sad feeling… it just hit me how fast she’s growing up into a sweet little girl. Just yesterday, she was a snuggly little baby, content to lay on her back under her gym, immobile. Today, she’s taking tiny steps all over the room, playing with everything she can find (though she’d most prefer to find the remote control, the cordless phone or the cell phone).

Funny conversation from this evening at our old church Lakeside, as I was attending a Women’s Missions meeting. One of the older ladies said, “I hear you’re expecting!” “Expecting? Expecting what? OH! EXPECTING! No, no, no… you must’ve heard wrong. Not expecting anything here.” *SIGH* My little leftover baby belly may lead one to believe that we’re expecting, but it didn’t do much for my self-esteem to hear that. And the only thing we’re expecting is a full night’s sleep one of these days…

So Analise has taken a few very tentative steps, with someone very near her encouraging and convincineg her she could do it. Just a minute ago, she was standing next to the laundry basket, and without any coaxing, took 3 tiny steps to her rocking chair. She’s mentally crossed over to believing that she can do it – and wants to do it! – and now I’m sure there’s going to be no stopping her!
Hehe… as Brian was looking over my shoulder and I was writing this, he gasped and looked over to her. She had walked along the edge of the laundry basket – holding on – and he thought she’d walked over to us.

Last night we watched the DVD documentary “Spellbound”, in honor of the National Spelling Bee completing this week. (Could you have spelled the winning word “appoggitura”?) Anyway, it was a fun movie, very suspenseful as it followed 8 contestants from their hometowns to Washington D.C. for the Bee. You wouldn’t think a spelling bee could be so captivating, but we had both picked our “favorite” to win. It was fun to root for them… and see if we could spell the words too:) Yes, we’re geeks.

Anyway, when it was down to the final two spellers, the announcer said, “And now it’s time to move onto the championship word subsection.” Brian very quickly says, “S-U-B-S-E-C-T-I-O-N… that was so easy!” Of course, the announcer had meant there would be subsection of championship words… not that that was the championship word. It was quite comical:) We give four thumbs up – two from each of us – to Spellbound!

Analise is right on the edge of being able to walk. One of things she loves to do right now is grab onto either her rocking chair or the laundry basket and push whatever she is holding onto around the house with her. This can sometimes look a lot like Analise is bulldozin’ a trail through the toys. Analise bulldozes the house with the laundry basket, while giving her friend the cow a lift in the cute video below:

Watch Analise bulldoze our living room and hallway in this cute video.
Watch Analise crawl over and say “HI” to mommy in this cute video.
Watch Analise bulldoze with her rocking chair in this cute video.

Steve says “Go Analise” in the comments of the last blog, and so she goes!! She took her first baby steps tonight, in front of Grandma and Grandpa Toone, Uncle Matthew and both Brian and I. Our little girl prefers to perform in front of a crowd:) It was exciting, and of course, we’re so proud. No camera or video on hand, but I’m sure it will happen again soon. We’re heading to Iowa and Wisconsin later this month, and I’m sure she’ll be toddling all over just in time to celebrate her birthday with her northern family. I can’t believe how big my little girl is getting!!

I’m sorry I’ve not been around much! No excuses… I’ve had a cold and I’ve just been too lazy to sit down and organize a blog.

Differences Between Men and Women – #1 (this could be a long, ongoing list!)
Last night as we were lying in bed, Brian and I had a discussion about neatness. As usual, I felt the need to pick things up to leaving the family room in order before we came to bed. So as Brian and I supposedly headed for bed at the same time, I was slowed by picking things up to return them to their respective rooms. I came to the bedroom with 5 things in my arms. I asked Brian if maybe he could help me by trying to take something back where it belongs when he leaves the room. He pointed out that he would try, but in doing so, he loses focus on what he was leaving the room to do. Prime example: As we were leaving for dinner with friends that evening, I had sent him back upstairs from the garage to get the booster chair and my waterbottle. We realized when we got to our friend’s house that the booster chair never made… but the waterbottle did! So in essence, in asking him to do more than one thing, I’m compromising both things, and I risk neither thing being done right.
Ah, the amazing multi-tasking brain of a woman. Got any examples to share?

Our new Home Church and Analise
Our new church, Clearwater Community, is well underway, and we’re really enjoying getting to know our new “family”. We’ve even begun to meet with our new home church group on Wednesday nights for a potluck dinner and fellowship. Analise is the youngest of the 5 kids in our group, and she has been working her charm on all the young married couples. Last night, as we were gathering to begin our discussion time, she was standing in the middle of the room trying to walk. The whole room was begging her to take a step, Brian was keeping his pinky in her hand, and people were trying to entice her to come to them. It was very fun – a real bonding experience. She is SO CLOSE! Any day now, though it would be fun if she walked next Wednesday at our next gathering…

Diaper Confessions

Alright, it’s time I confessed. You may think I’m terribly weird, and that’s fine. But believe it or not, we’ve been using cloth diapers with Analise since she was about a month old. I’m sure you’re thinking any or all of these: “Cloth Diapers? Gross laundry! What a hassle with pins! Ug – disposables are so easy, what are they thinking?!?” I do understand, as I thought it was a bit too “green”-minded at first. But let me tell you our experience…

At our childbirth class in California, we practiced diapering dolls. The teacher only had a couple disposables, but she also had a couple cloth diapers and covers. She told us a bit about them, and Brian thought they were super easy to use. The thought of using cloth diapers had NEVER occurred to us, and it seemed so old-fashioned. But these diapers were NOT what we had imagined, and there were no pins. She shared with us many of the advantage: cotton – not chemicals – next to baby’s skin, many cloth diapered babies potty-train earlier, and others. She also told us about a diaper service that would drop off clean diapers each week, and pick up and pick up the dirty diapers. So no laundry! The diaper service provided prefold diapers, that you simply fold in thirds, and lay into a velcro diaper cover – no pins! It’s honestly about as easy as a disposable to put on, and it looks nearly identical. Cost-wise, it would be about equivalent to using disposables and maybe even a bit cheaper. To us, the thought of not creating hundreds of pounds of diaper waste to add to landfills was very positive. And, I love the feel of a super cushy cloth diaper butt:)

We found the diaper service to be great, and we used it until December. When we were moving to Alabama and there wasn’t a service available, we decided we’d try laundering on our own and continuing with Cloth diapering. Could we do it???

I had heard of some great diapers on the internet called FuzziBunz – www.fuzzibunz.com… DEFINITELY not the cloth diapers you imagine. There is an outer waterproof layer (with great color choices!), and an inner fleece layer. There’s a pocket to stuff an insert in between the two layers. The liquid goes right through the fleece, keeping the baby soft and dry, and the insert absorbs the liquid. Honestly, if you’d feel one of these versus a disposable diaper, you’d choose to put fleece against your butt – or your baby’s – too!

Ok, so that sounds easy enough… but you’re asking, “what about laundry? And poop? And what do you do when you’re not at home?” Well, I’ll spare too many details, but here’s the basics:

• After you take off the dirty diaper, you shake out the insert into the diaper pail (a waterproof bag with a zipper keeps any smell inside) and toss the diaper into the pail as well. To wash, dump the diapers and toss in the bag. We wash diapers about every other night, with a simple cold-hot-cold cycle with a little detergent (too much causes buildup and smell) and tea trea oil for disinfecting, and line dry the diapers overnight. SUPER easy! If I’m short on time and out of diapers, I can toss them in the dryer on air dry.
• I’ll admit, dealing with poop isn’t fun, but it’s not much different than with a disposable. Simply shake it off into the toilet, and put the diaper in the pail.
• When we go out, I simply make sure there’s an extra diaper or two and a plastic bag in the diaper bag. If Analise needs a change, I put the wet/dirty diaper in a little plastic bag and toss it in the diaper pail when we get home.


I have to say, we’ve loved this. Brian will go to any length to avoid using a disposable diaper. Analise tends to start looking rashy after even a couple hours in one. They’re very cute, they have several snaps so they can fit from 15-25pounds, and we honestly save money doing this. Though Fuzzi Bunz are about $13-14 each, and it costs a bit to start using them, in the long run, we’re not buying a package of diapers every couple weeks (or every week? I’m not sure even how long one would last!), AND there’s no last minute-middle of the night mad dashes to get more diapers. If I get lazy and haven’t washed diapers soon enough so that we’re out, we have a stash of prefolds and covers like we used in California. These are an even cheaper option, but we prefer the fleece of Fuzzi Bunz. You’d be amazed at how dry the fleece keeps a baby’s bum… sometimes when I change her, I can’t even tell Analise is wet! Above- Analise likes to help me take care of the clean diaper laundry.

Here’s a few of my favorite cloth diaper info sites (each link opens in a new window and I’ll add more when I find my links!):
• No Pins 4 Baby – Why Cloth Diaper
• Fuzzi What? What are Fuzzi Bunz anyway?

Ok, I’m a little behind! Sorry about that. I just reveled in a leisurely weekend, and this week has started out busy! Today was our first visit to the zoo. Unfortunately, we forgot the battery to the camera. Analise enjoyed the kids more than the animals:) We’ll be back – we bought a year membership.

Brian’s wrapped up the semester at Samford, so I’ll have him around here more often. He’s got a few committments at Samford, but he can set his own schedule and take time off as needed, since his faculty appointment is technically only Aug-May. It’s nice to have him around and have our life settled down a bit!

A few other random things from the past week…

The FLU
We all managed to get over our flu bug. Brian was VERY dehydrated, and he felt the effects of it all weekend. Unfortunately, after our home church gathering on Wednesday night just before we got sick, 4 other people got sick on Thursday and Friday! Those little bugs sure can travel…

You look beautiful tonight
The little things make me love my husband so much. After a long day of feeling tired and trying to get the house in order after being sick, Analise and I picked Brian up from Samford and went out for dinner. Over dinner, he said, “You really look beautiful tonight”. Aw. My heart just melted. My hair’s frizzy, I’m wearing the same unexciting clothes because nothing fits my soft little post-baby belly, and I’ve just felt so NOT beautiful lately. I love him:)

Splashing!
Analise had her first dip in the backyard baby pool this weekend (above). There was only a tiny bit of water, but she loved splashing. I think she was impressed with taking a bath in the backyard! (Ok, a moment of truth about this picture: Analise has quite a gap between her front teeth. I looked it up online, and it’s very normal – and good – at this age, as it means there’s plenty of room for her other teeth to come in. But it’s so noticable, especially in this picture. I feel terribly to think this, but she looks a bit like a little country bumpkin! I could use some comforting comments that she’s still just as cute as ever!)

Signs
Since Analise was about 6 months old, we’ve been talking about using sign language. It’s been shown recently that children as young as 6 months can communicate with signs before they have the capacity for spoken language. Because she’s always interested in ceiling fans, we’ve only been diligent enough to use the sign for “fan” – which involves pointing upward, and moving your finger in a circle, like the ceiling fan. Sunday she put her hand up and moved it in a definite circle while looking at the fan! We were very impressed:) We’ve been motivated to use more signs in our communication with her. If you’re interested, here’s a great link to an online sign language dictionary that includes video clips of each sign: Born 2 Sign

Not Quite a Step…
She’s so close… She wants us to let her walk (while holding her hands) EVERYWHERE we go, and she’ll barely hold on at times. You can even see her thinking about taking a step as she stands. Any day now… I promise, you’ll hear about it!

I wish…
…my daughter knew how to put herself to sleep like she did in the early days before she learned how to roll over, sit up, stand up and wait for me at the side of the crib. She fights sleep so hard these days, and yet she’s so tired (which makes ME so tired!). *SIGH*

…my daughter knew how look at books one at a time, and put them back before getting out a new one:). She’s quite the little bookworm, but she likes to take all the books off the shelf and sit among them while picking them out from around her on the floor.