Cloth Diapering Diaries

The adoption has been a little intense the last couple of days so I thought I would write about something fun.  Since we are going to be getting a two month old and one year old baby, I had to figure out how to not spend a fortune on diapers.  I buy organic diapers for Irelyn so they are very expensive.  With two or three kids in diapers, I decided to start cloth diapering!  So here is how its going.

Day 1:  EW!  This is yuckier than I thought.  I have a neat toilet sprayer that my hubby installed for me which makes the poopy diapers easier to handle.  I also have an awesome stain and odor fighting spray called bac-out.  We had to make a trip down to Phoenix where I discovered that it is not more difficult to take clothe diapers on the go than disposable.  I did,  however discover that using cloth diapers and disposable wipes is a pain.  I am going to use cloth wipes as well.  That way, everything just goes into my diaper pail.  I chose to use Oeko Popo diapers.  This is not one of the huge names but I researched like crazy trying to find the diapers I wanted to use and these are them.  They are working out well. They seem to fit a little funny but I think it is just because my little angel is so tiny.  They absorb very well and are so cute!

Day 2:  I am figuring things out....like how the diaper pail needs to be in the bathroom so that I can throw poopy diapers that I spray off directly in the pail and how cloth wipes are much easier to use.  I got a cloth wipe solution that I love and cut up some receiving blankets to use as wipes.  They smell amazing!  I put it all in my wipe warmer and it is easy as can be!  I did laundry for the first time today and to my surprise, everything came out clean and smelling fresh!

I am contemplating whether I should use disposable diapers when I drop Irelyn off at the church nursery.  I will just have to see what the nursery helpers have to say about it.

The diapers and inserts drying on the fence.

Its Starting to get messy....

No one said this process would be easy.  This statement is becoming more and more true everyday.  Things are beginning to get very complicated and very difficult.  Our placing agency had some issues with our home study. These issues are slowing down the process of our home study going to court and becoming official.  We finished our home study about three weeks ago and it is still not an official legal document.  Here are the issues we are facing.

Our placing agency does not agree with spanking children.  We plan to biblically spank our children as a form of discipline when necessary.  We put this on our home study which everyone assumed would not be a problem.  Our home study agency is a christian agency so they have no problem with spanking.  We are going to need to read articles and take anti-spanking parenting classes to make our placing agency more comfortable with us.

The placing agency will not place children out of birth order.  This means that we are going to have to adopt two children who are younger than Irelyn.  So basically two children under 1 year of age.  This is not what we imagined but we have prayed that God would give the placing agency wisdom so we are just going with it.

We are still waiting to talk to our placing agency.  Until we talk to them, we will not be able to officially complete our home study.  I think the most difficult part of the whole situation is just a lack of communication with our placing agency.  We are having a hard time getting a hold of them.  I am sure they are very busy but its just so hard for a mom to wait to bring her children home.

Chicken Fundraiser

So Gavin took the yard sale money to the bank today.  They were counting it and told us that we only have $1600. Apparently Gavin miscounted by almost $600!  I was sad for a minute but then got over it.  It is all God's money anyways. I just wanted to let you guys know that we are a little bit more behind than we thought we would be.

My dad has a bunch of chickens.  He loves raising them but he has so many, he has no idea what to do with all of the eggs.  He has decided to sell them and give all of the procedes to our adoption fund.  The eggs are organic and all-natural.  The price is whatever you want to donate.  Just let me know if you want some eggs and I will get them to you!

All about the yard sale.

We are exhausted after a full weekend of yard selling.  The yard sale lasted from Friday through Sunday and it was a lot of work!  We had so many friends and family who came and helped us throughout the whole process.  It is truly a blessing to see everyone work together to glorify the Lord.

This yard sale was a lot slower than the first on we had.  Friday was our most busy day.  Saturday was just as slow as Sunday.  We ended up packing up early on Sunday because the weather man said it would rain and there was hardly anyone coming by.  I was a little disappointed about how slow the traffic was.  This yard sale had even more stuff than the last one and it was A LOT of work to get it all set up.  We thought this yard sale would bring in a TON of money.  We find peace in the fact that it brought in just as much money as God wanted it to.  We made about $2,150.  Praise God!  This means that we are only $8,300 away from reaching our current goal of submitting our dossier.

This is a pretty big yard sale!

Marie and Hailey organizing heart for adoption t-shirts.

My brothers and I...they helped with the heavy lifting.

The Pehls

Mommy and Irelyn

Irelyn just passing the time

My two favorite people

Micah 7:7

But as for me, I watch in hope for the Lord

I wait for my savior;

My God will hear me

Yard Sale Day #1

The first day of our yard sale went wonderful.  I want to say a big thanks to all of the wonderful people who helped out today.  To my dad who thought I said be there as 5am(I said six)  and showed up on time, thanks for the support!  To abby and Valerie, you guys were a huge help!  To all of the Pehl's, we could not do this without you guys.  To both of my grandmas, you guys are so much fun to be around and I love how you both help and support us.  To my sister, it would not be nearly as fun without you and baby Jack!

It was a long day, starting around five thirty.  We have so much stuff that it took us about four hours to set up.  I should have taken pictures right away but my camera died and so I have no pictures from the first day.  I will make up for it tomorrow.  We sold a lot of stuff although Friday's are slower than Saturdays.  We are really looking forward to the sale tomorrow.  We raised $820  today.  Praise God!