Moving Onward

We've had a bit of a whirlwind the past few weeks. I had my last day of work a couple weeks ago, and then we immediately left the following day for a much needed family vacation to California. During my last week of work, I also had to get the house ready to be put on the market. Stressful, to say the least. We've been diligent about getting rid of things to Goodwill and taking things to my parents for them to store for us, but it's still a big process to get the house clean and clutter free and keep it that way with a dog and a baby underfoot.

Anyway, our house was posted online on a Friday afternoon, and our realtor already had several showings and an open house scheduled for the weekend we were leaving. We got a call Monday morning that there were four offers on the house - three above our asking price! We knew the inventory of houses in our neighborhood was small, and our house shows well, but… really?! It was a lot to process in such a small amount of time, especially since I was in vacation mode in sunny southern California. Of course we were excited and happy, but it's also a bittersweet feeling too. We got married and had our first baby while living in this house.

When we got home we had to deal with an inspection, and we're still waiting for the appraisal, but at this point, everything looks good to go. We are selling to a young couple getting married soon, and they don't need to be in the house until we're ready to get out, which is wonderful for us. I feel good about leaving the house in the hands of nice people (they even wrote us a letter!), and hope my neighbors won't have to deal with any future trouble. The hardest part about moving is leaving our family and friends (including some awesome neighbors) behind. I have really loved living in Alger Heights and will miss the sense of community it has.

Our house never looked better than when pictures were taken for the listing, so I asked to keep a copy of them to remember the house by. Our Realtor, Mike Karel with Remax is so great to work with. We highly recommend him to everyone. Please, please let me know if you need his contact info. We can't say enough good things about him. Here are some shots (photos by Jacob Harr of Harr Creative) of the house before we sold and started getting rid of and packing everything. We had to take down personal photos from the walls, etc., so it looks a little more bare to me than it usually does. But it's so clean!

We will miss you little house. Lots of good things have happened here. I hope the new owners make lots of memories here too.

Wedding Plans

No, not my wedding. My sister in law, Tricia is getting married this coming June and I've volunteered to help with some of the decorations. I absolutely loved this part of planning my own wedding, but I understand how it can be overwhelming. Especially now that pinterest exists! You can get lost there looking at flowers and cakes and stuff for days. I did make a board with some ideas, but I wanted to share what I've been thinking here.

 We really like the look of the rustic wood for signs. I don't have a readily available source for old wood, so I found a tutorial online for how to age new wood to a gray color that I'm planning to try soon.

 I love the idea of doing some sort of photo backdrop like this, but on a smaller scale. Next step is to look at my local fabric stores to see if they have some sort of gauzy or chiffon type fabric I can cut in strips and hang from a dowel.

 This is an inspiration photo for the flower color scheme. Lots of white and some blush pink, with maybe a few green leaves mixed in.

 Tricia's fiance Dane is from Lexington, MI and apparently there is a birch forest somewhere around there that they have access to. I've already told them they must take me there some day. It sounds beautiful! Anyway, we have tossed around the idea of doing some candle holders or maybe some coasters made from birch to give as favors.

 I've always loved Rifle Paper Co. and these number cards fit our theme perfectly. These will be inspiration for the idea I have up my sleeve.

                                               All pics sourced on my Pinterest board
Last, but not least, this is the color of our bridesmaid dresses. It's a celadon green that will look great with the pink and white color scheme.

I have been in research mode for a while now, so I'm really looking forward to pulling everything together to start crafting. I can see why people want to be wedding planners for a living. It's so much fun!

Weekday Wanderings

It's hard to imagine not working. Not that staying home with my baby isn't work, but I mean getting in the car and driving to an office where I have a desk and I get to not be covered in spit up for at least 9 hours a day. I love my job. It's going to be very strange to leave this world I'm so comfortable in.

On the other hand, I'm super excited to be able to spend more time with my little Ellie-phant. She is at a fun age where she's learning a new dog trick practically every week (sit, roll over, speak, haha). I'm looking forward to being able to take her to a playground during the day, or splashing in a baby pool with her. I'm hoping she will continue to ride well in the car so we can go on little adventures together. That brings me to my main point. I don't want to be a stay at home mom in the sense that I'm constantly at home. I want to take advantage of our time in a new city and new state. I want to learn and see new places, and I want Ellie to experience all of that with me.

Weekday wanderings is something I thought up when I realized I get bored and feel spastic when I'm trapped at home too long (like this past ridiculously terrible winter). I'm planning to try to go somewhere new at least once a week while we're in PA so I don't lose all of my adult communication skills after being by myself with a baby all day every day. Like that commercial where the wife asks her husband if he had a good day at "worky jerky." Yeah, I don't want to be that mom.

So here's a list of some places I want to check out. Either on my own, or with any friends/family that should happen to be visiting.

Hershey Park
Hershey Zoo
Gettysburg
Valley Forge
King of Prussia Mall - HUGE seriously have you heard of it?!
Lancaster (Amish country)
York - lots of factory tours
Harrisburg
Every park in walking/practical driving distance
Bike trails
Allegheny Mountains
Ohiopyle State Park
Fallingwater
Brandywine Valley
The Poconos
Philadelphia

I'm sure there's a lot more to see and do, but this should be a good starting point. We are looking forward to our trip to Hershey next week to scout out possible places to rent, so fingers crossed we can put down a deposit while we're there.

We're also planning to check out Philadelphia and Fallingwater on our drive back home, so that should make it a fun little vacation.

Big News

I've been bursting to tell someone the biggest news! Now that I've finally told my boss (and my family knows), the rest of the world can know. We're moving to Pennsylvania! Ted will be done with residency in June, and has been accepted into an Allergy/Immunology program at Hershey Medical Center in Hershey, PA. For Ted, this means a drastic reduction in the number of hours he will be required to work in a week, and he will have fewer research projects, etc. to do on his own time at home.The program is 2 years long and by the end, he will be a board certified Allergist and FINALLY be able to join a practice, or whatever he ends up deciding to do for a "real job." 

 Images courtesy of google

For me, this move means quitting a job that I love, selling our house, leaving my friends and family behind, and becoming a stay at home mom to Eleanor for 2 years. These will be drastic changes for me, considering I've been working full time for the past 7 years, and I'm used to being able to support myself. Having never lived anywhere other than Michigan for my entire life, it will also be a bit of culture shock. There are plenty of days that it's really hard for me to leave Ellie at daycare and I feel like I'm missing a lot of her life, so part of me is excited to be able to spend more time with her. But part of me is worried about getting bored and feeling trapped. Mom problems...

For our family, it will mean more time together (Weekends! Holidays! Evenings!). It will mean new adventures in a new city in a new state. And hopefully lots of other states. The beauty of Hershey is the close proximity to many other cities I've been wanting to explore like New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Washington DC, etc. We should hopefully be able to take several road trips and long weekends in different places while we're living there.

The biggest change for us will be the huge cut to our income, due to me quitting my job. We've talked about the possibility of me finding something part time, but I haven't decided anything yet. Since we're planners, we have been setting aside money for quite a while now to supplement our income for the time we're away. We should also hopefully have a decent cushion from selling our house, which I hope not to touch until we're ready to buy another (after we move back to MI). But - it'll be there if we need it for something important. 

So, we're in for some adventures coming soon!

A Room for Ellie

I had a Pinterest board started for girl room ideas (and a boy one too before we found out we were having a girl) long before Ellie was born. I knew I didn't want to take the traditional route when it came to decor and didn't really want a specific theme. We don't plan to stay in our current house much longer, so I also knew I didn't want to do anything too special to the walls or things that we can't take with us to a future home.

It all started with a rug. I found this one on Land of Nod's website and fell in love with the color scheme.

This image isn't a great representation of the actual colors - it's much more vibrant in real life. I also found some curtains at Target that worked well with the red in the rug.

They are linen with red stripes stitched vertically. I found a dresser on craigslist that we had painted white. The red flower knobs cost me a total of $12.00 at Hobby Lobby. The rocking chair is another craigslist find. It sits a little lower than we'd like, but it works fine for now. Nice upholstered gliders cost upwards of $500-$600 and this one was $90.00, not counting an extra patio seat cushion I purchased for $10.00 to make it a little softer. 

The round basket is from Target's Threshold collection (and coordinate great with the curtains). The bookcase is from Home Decorators. 

I made (or photographed) all of the art in the room. The Eleanor art is made with some alphabet stamps I own with paper flowers glued on. The wooden E is from Michael's, decorated with scrapbook paper and paint. The heart is made up of many different flower and leaf stamps I own. I would like to add a couple more things to this to make it look more collage-y in the future.

The crib is from Amazon. It's a Babyletto Modo crib. I really like that it's a little lower to the ground, so it's very easy to get Ellie in and out of. Someday when she's big enough to attempt climbing out of it, there won't be a very big drop to the ground. It also converts to a toddler bed when she's ready. Eleanor just started sleeping in her crib in the last couple weeks. She was outgrowing the bassinet we kept in our room, and I think we've all been getting better sleep with her in her crib. 

The art above the dresser was inspired by something I saw on Pinterest. It's basically just a bunch of acrylic paint and some tissue paper blobbed around. I'm not too much of a painter, but it was a fun project. The changing pad cover is a giraffe print from aden+anais that I love. We have two that we can swap out if one gets dirty. The top dresser drawer is where we keep her cloth diapers. The other drawers are for clothes. Her closet is mainly stuff that's too big for her yet. Girl has looootttts of clothes!

Ellie's room is super tiny. It used to be our office, which got moved down to the basement when we found out we were expecting. The stairs cut into the room (the wall behind the dresser) and there is a small half height closet there, so the room is an L shape. At most there would only be room for a twin size bed. But it works perfectly for a nursery and I love the cozy feeling of the space, especially at night when I rock her to sleep.

Right now all of her toys fit in one basket. I'm sure that will change soon 

I have been a huge reader my whole life - or as long as I've known how to read anyway. A love of books is really important for me to pass on to Ellie. It will be so fun to keep adding to her collection.

The art on this wall is made from embroidery hoops with pieces of fabric stretched inside. The flower pattern is a scrap from the crib sheet my aunts helped me make. We also made two other yellow polka dot patterned ones that I can switch out when one is in the wash. The dog art is a black and white photo of our dog Murray. I blew up the image and printed it on regular paper. It's just cut out and decoupaged onto a painted canvas.

The lamp was $15.00 at a thrift store. The original finish was kind of a mess, so I spray painted it a sunny yellow. My mom got us the frame with an opening for a picture of each month. I haven't printed any for it yet, but I'm excited to fill it up.

The walls were already a sort of neutral butter cream color, so I just left them alone, knowing they would work for either a boy or girl. Pretty simple, but I love her room :)

What a Wonderful World

The moment your baby gets placed on your chest seconds after being born is absolutely surreal. I can cry just thinking about it. All those months of praying, waiting, trying to eat the right things and reading everything about babies I could get my hands on could never prepare me for the feelings of this moment. Ellie was a big baby and I had a really long labor. I was exhausted and emotionally drained after the experience, but all I could think about was how much I loved this little human and how excited I was that she was here.

Welcome to the world Eleanor Lou!

As painful as labor and her birth were, I wasn't really prepared for the soreness and things I would have to deal with for the next few weeks. I felt like I got hit by a truck. I could hardly move for the first few days. Going to the bathroom by myself was a major achievement. 

A few tips I have for dealing with the first couple weeks:

1. Take all the supplies the hospital offers for yourself and the baby. ALL of the things.

2. The squirt bottle and stool softeners are a huge must. Cannot stress that enough

3. Get a doughnut pillow for the car ride home and for use at home too. I couldn't stand to sit on my bottom for over a week and it took over a full month to feel totally better

4. If you're bottle feeding, make sure you have everything pre sterilized and washed

5. Take a million pictures. You can't get those moments back

6. Have a changing station set up on each level of your house. I was not about to go upstairs more than I absolutely had to each day

7. Limit visitors for the first day home. I felt horrible physically that first night and you and your husband will be sort of shell shocked for a while. You mean we get to keep her?

8. Don't be afraid to be a crappy host when you have people over. Ignore the mess and go take a time out if you need to. 

9. You will cry at anything, everything and nothing. Seriously it's sort of annoying how easily you get emotional at the smallest things

10. Wear yoga or pajama pants everyday for the first week if you want to, but after that try really hard to wear real clothes and take at least a quick 5 minute shower. It won't always feel possible, but trust me you will feel so much better if you do. It's really amazing how much better the world feels when you have clean hair

11. Join a pregnancy/baby message board. It's comforting to read about other people who are going through the same thing as you are. I mostly read the bump.com and followed my baby's birth month board (both September when she was due, and August because I had a feeling she would be early, which she was).

12. Have someone stay home with you for the first week. Ted was able to be home with me for that time, but if your spouse doesn't have that much time off, you will need someone around to help you. I was still in a lot of pain during that time and felt really weak and helpless when it came to doing anything the least bit physical. Laundry was out of the question for a while. I hobbled like an old lady

Hopefully these tips will help. I know there are lots more out there, but these were things that stood out the most to me.

Cloth Diapering

We (meaning I) decided to cloth diaper Ellie about 6 months before she was born. I read up on the options and brands for weeks before making the decision. Ted was…skeptical. He didn't understand how it could be sanitary or practical to wash them ourselves, and I was a little nervous about it too. 

Ellie at 1 month

Here are a few resources that helped me make the decision.
bumGenius
Young House Love 1, 2, 3
Pinterest

The YHL posts were the main thing that turned me on to bumGenius. They use the Elementals, which are the all in one style. That was really important to me because I didn't want to be dealing with separate covers and inserts in the middle of the night. I also wanted to make sure they were as easy as possible to use in order to persuade Ted and my family that they were a good idea.

Besides the environmentally friendly factor, they are also wallet friendly. In the long term that is. They are definitely an investment initially, but after that, you never have to buy another disposable again if you don't want to. Different sources give a different opinion on how many cloth diapers you should purchase. Some say 18 is enough. Some suggest 24. We currently own 24 and I wouldn't mind owning another 6 or so. I wash them every other day right now and as long as I remember to throw them in by the afternoon, we are fine with what we have. If I have a busier day and don't remember until the evening, sometimes we cut it a little closer.

So just how much does it save you? Here is a good article that explains the cost savings in detail. For us here is the breakdown of what we spent.

Diapers: 24 bumGenius Elementals $525.71 (there are price breaks if you purchase in multiples of 6 and get better the more you buy at a time)
Wipes: BumGenius Flannel $30.50 (3 packs purchased at BuyBuyBaby with 20% off coupons - I know you can make your own too, but I was lazy)
Diaper Sprayer: We bought the bumGenius one, but there are others out there too $50.84
Detergent: bumGenius brand, but again there are others that work fine 14.95 for 70 loads (probably about 15 loads per month, so each bag lasts a really long time - maybe would need 5-6 bags for 2 years time)

Grand total: approx $682.00 (not counting utilities for washing). This number includes my local MI sales tax at 6%.

These diapers should save us about $2,000-$2,500 for this child and we can save them and use them on a future child(ren). The best part? I can sell them used when we're done with diapers! So it's definitely an investment up front, as I said, but HELLO? The alternative is spending a lot on stuff that gets pooped on and thrown in the trash. I'd rather take a couple vacations as a family with the savings.

That's what we have right now. I think I might buy a few of these extra inserts to use with Ellie's night time diaper, because as she's sleeping longer periods at night, she wakes up with a really wet one sometimes. She hasn't had any leaks yet, but she's only getting bigger and drinking more.

So how does our process work? Right now it's super easy. Ellie is exclusively formula fed (breastfed babies are cool too), so that means we don't have to do any sort of pre-spraying into the toilet yet. Once she starts solid foods at 6 months, we will need to spray the poopy ones into the toilet and then toss them into her trash/hamper as usual. Pee only diapers don't need any sort of special treatment.

We use these cloth trash can liners from Amazon and they work great. I bought two, so we would have one in the wash, and another clean one to put back on the can. When I'm ready to wash a load, I just pull the whole thing out of the can, carry it to our laundry room, dump out the contents into the washer, and then toss the bag in there with it. We have these smaller wet bags that zip that we keep in our diaper bag too for when we're out and about. They work the same way.

As far as washing goes, with our diapers, I first run the wash on a normal cycle with cold water, no soap. When that load is done, I open the lid, dump in one scoop of soap powder, and run another cycle on hot and press the extra rinse button. I have never had a load come out still dirty after this process. Sometimes there is a faint stain on a few, but leaving them to dry in the sun for a few hours bleaches them back to normal (really - it's magic!). For drying, the all in one style has a tendency to take a little longer to dry. My dryer has an extra dry setting that I use and it seems to work perfectly, but you can also let them air dry in the sun if you want. Sometimes that's not convenient for me because I live in Michigan where it's often humid, or too cold, so we just throw them in the dryer.

Ellie at 2 months

That's basically it. I will update again in the future once Ellie is on solid foods to see how that affects my process. But really, right now everyone who sees her in her cute cloth diaper butt is impressed with just how easy it really is. It doesn't have to be intimidating at all and most larger cities have a store that sells cloth diapers. Often you can go there for support if you have any questions. My local store, Hopscotch is where I actually bought all of our diapers. Their prices are the same as anywhere I found online, and they offer a punch card too, so I will earn free money once I use it up. Everyone knows a Dutch girl loves a good bargain :) And it's also great to support a local business!