I think I'm getting soft

Let's do a crunchy inventory real quick, shall we?

1. Cloth diapers. Well, one out of two in cloth diapers. And not while we're moving. And mostly depending on what the washer/dryer situation in Korea is like. So maybe this is more stale than full-on crunchy since there's the chance of abandoning cloth altogether in the very near future.

2. Buying organic when possible. The commissary here has an okay-meh-sometimes-raunchy selection of organic produce. So I buy organic when it makes sense and try not to sweat it when we don't. If I had just Steve and myself that I to feed, I probably wouldn't even venture over to the organic section, but since I'm feeding tiny bodies fruits and veggies (well, attempting, at least), I don't want them to sprout an eleventh finger (just another nail to cut) or a second head (that equals a second mouth which equals more whining which means I need to start drinking NOW) by way of weird pesticides and chemicals.

3. Natural cleaning products. I steam mop my floors, use vinegar in my bathrooms (except for the black mold in my shower- that requires a full-on bottle of Scrubbing Bubbles- fight scary with scary), and don't use air fresheners. People who visit our house probably wish we would just suck up the side effects of the air fresheners already, but sorry. That smell (cloth dipes!) keeps folks from lingering for too long.

4. Recycle. I can't think of an easier way to be green than that.

Annnnnnnnd that's a wrap. Turns out that we're not so crunchy. At least not break-your-front-tooth-crunchy like a Nature Valley granola bar. We're more like an expired Quaker chewy bar, I guess. But those are good too in their own special way. Especially the chocolate-covered ones. ANYWAYS. I digress.

I was recently contacted by Happy Family to review some of their products. And yes, my first thought was that I was giving out my address to a serial killer. But then coupons and squeezies came in the mail and lo! THIS IS FOR REAL. We buy Happy Baby and Happy Tot squeezy packs daily weekly at the commissary. Mostly because they are the cheapest. But also because they are organic (re: my chewy-crunchy stance on that) and offer the biggest variety of veggie squeezies. I know they offer fruit squeezies as well, but my kids have no problems eating fruit. Therefore, no money shall be spent on mushed fruit in a pouch amen. And if it is, we call that a **Special Occasion**.  (And yogurt is still ice cream, I will cut the person who tells my children otherwise.)

Sam prefers the crinkle-and-squeeze method for getting every last drop.

Molly doesn't waste time with all that nonsense.

Anywho, I've never actually tried any of the squeezies before. Mostly because I buy broccoli, pea, and pear squeezies so no thanks. But I tried a taste of each of the squeezies sent to me/the kids and was surprised at how fruity they tasted! No wonder they suck these things down with such wild abandon. (Molly doesn't even take a breath until the whole pouch is completely deflated.) We also tried out the yogurt bites, and those were obviously a hit. They are a Special Treat as well. Mostly because they are very limited (aka the bags are tiny) and are easily smashed into oblivion inside the tiny crevices of any carpet within a 12-ft radius of the child consuming them. (No lie.) In Happy Family's defense, it is nice to have a desirable kid snack that isn't made of total crap. It is just a snack we will save for desperate situations like airplane flights and lunches out (aka places where I am not responsible for the end state of the floors).

Since I went out to dinner with Sarah the other night for dinner, I left Steve to make the Happy Tot meal bowl for Sam. It did not go well. He is our resident Picky Eater. And since I had eaten a small ocean's worth of sushi for dinner that night, I didn't try it myself. Maybe if you don't have a picky eater, that might be a winner for you. Sam mostly prefers turkey dogs to appear out of our microwave, not a meal of quinoa and vegetables.

And now, to get to the point of this post, I have a giveaway. Because I know my kids are not the only ones addicted to squeezies like mini crackheads.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

**I was given the items mentioned above to review, but as you can tell (I hope), the opinions written here are all my own.**

Random stuff because there's never time anymore to write a fully cohesive post

Not that that's an excuse, because my posts have never been all that cohesive anyway. We'll go at this bullet-style so if my brain farts or a child wakes up and interrupts me, at least it won't be in the middle of a paragraph.

• I just sat on the couch for quite a while feeding Molly and thought that I smelled urine and feces. Surely it's only a figment of my imagination though because there are newly-stuffed, clean diapers folded next to me. Until I notice the two diapers I changed right after lunch. Fully loaded.
• I thought I was doing great, making a solo commissary run with the two kids today before the lunch rush hit. That is, until I got home and noticed that I had soaked through my shirt due to Molly's crying. (FAIL)
• I finally bought the fabric and cut out all of my squares (rectangles, octagons, whatever- it got crazy there at the end and I just wanted to be done) for my cloth wipes. Now I must sew around the edges so it doesn't fray into oblivion (warns the fabric lady). For someone who knows NOTHING about sewing, I am a little petrified at how much of my "free time" (AHAHAHAHA) that this will take up.

• The fabric lady also insinuated that I was pregnant with my first child. (Why else would I be looney enough to do cloth wipes?) She *almost* got punched in the face. But she was holding scissors, so I thought it safer to just smile, CORRECT HER, and walk away.
• I always feel like I'm drowning. Whether it's in dishes, laundry, diapers, or dump trucks. I swear, the amount of dump trucks we've accumulated around here could staff a highway crew repaving I-95.

• Molly woke up at 6am today. Since Steve wouldn't be home to help with the morning routine, I thought it best to get her downstairs and settled before Sam woke up. Normally I would attempt to go back to sleep with her in hopes that Sam would sleep til 8 or 830. (He never does.) But I was proactive today! And Sam slept til 9. Obviously.
• I went to the post-wide yard sale on Saturday morning. Alone. It was heavenly, despite the initial downpour. I found some books for Sam, dump trucks (of course) for outside, and some Christmas decorations. Because like I said before, I am proactive. I also spent $3 on this magic. Look who's gonna be doing chores for me as soon as he can plug in the real vacuum himself?

• I finally got Molly's birth announcements addressed and mailed. This took forty-six times longer than it usually does and it really stressed me out.
• Also, the only postcard stamps the post office sells are these ugly Hawaiian Tshirt stamps that say "Aloha." As the post office employee was selling them to me, he said, "Wow these sure are ugly." I KNOW. And I have to put them on my daughter's adorable BIRTH ANNOUNCEMENTS. Can I get a discount based on how unattractive they are?
• Miss Chumba Wumba is almost out of size 3mo clothes!?! And I'm fairly certain that I'm serving up the same milkshakes to her that I did to Sam, yet, he never had a roll to speak of (and not just because of the gluten content). She must have inherited her "Hang Onto All The Fat" gene from me.

• While sitting in the car the other day waiting for Steve to come retrieve his lunch, I checked email on my phone. While I normally just delete the emails from Babycenter about toddler milestones (they really just piss me off since my 19mo is "supposed" to be tying his shoes and speaking French by now), I opened it up and read it. "Dangerous Foods for Toddlers." Interesting. I'll read it. "Do not give toddlers pretzels as they are a choking hazard. Do not give toddlers raisins as they are small enough to get lodged in their throats and create a choking hazard. Do not give toddlers snacks while in the car, because if they start choking, you will not be able to assist your child since you're driving." Well crap. My kid's sitting pretty back there with his super-spillproof cup, munching on raisins and pretzels. Quick. Someone call CPS.
• We got a deep freezer. I'd open-mouth kiss it if that sort of thing (you know, making out with appliances) wasn't frowned upon.
• Why is it physically impossible for two children to nap at the same time? And on a related note, when do they begin to understand the phrase "Just wait ONE MORE MINUTE"??

Alas, Molly has pooped up her back (again) and Sam is up from his nap, beckoning me upstairs to retrieve his (most likely) stinky butt from the crib, so I guess that's my cue to skedaddle.

An Earth Day post- and it's only two weeks late! I'm winning!!!!

Let's talk about how my whole family will soon be wearing socks under their Birkenstocks and rooting through public dumpsters to save endangered orcas from plastic bottles.

Ok, so it isn't quite that bad, but we have been pretty green lately. I realized last week that we are quite the little overachievers when it comes to recycling, as our recycling can (yes, an entire garbage can) was filled to capacity last trash day (with leftovers in our inside recycle bin), while our actual garbage can had two whole trashbags in it. And they weren't even that full.
Once a month or so, I take all of the glass I've collected down to the recycle center on post (since they won't pick it up curbside). Since living off-post originally and having no one to pick up my recycling for me, I would keep it all separated in containers and take it to the on-post recycle center once a week or so. Due to my frequent trips to the recycling dump, I became friendly with the manager of the joint, and I later realized that he attended our church too. Imagine the SHAME when I had to finally take my glass down to the recycling dump (accumulated since Molly's birth) and have Bernie see what we've been consuming around here. A bunch of booze hounds that live off of spaghetti sauce, jelly, and Snapple, tsk, tsk. Luckily, Bernie had the day off so some other guy that I don't know passed judgement on me. <whew!>

Speaking of rotting poo diapers, we have given the boot to the disposables and switched Molly over to cloth! I just love them on her. The cutesy colors, the way her outfits' diaper covers aren't saggy anymore, the overall absence of poopy blowouts. I'm sold. Cloth is the way to go. And because we are turning into full-on hippies, I am well on my way to making some cloth wipes this weekend. Yes. I am certifiably insane. But we stopped using disposables on Sam because of the chemicals that were coming into contact with his precious hiney and the rashes that were resulting from that. Yet we still wipe his bottom multiple times a day with wipes that contain just as many (if not more) chemicals?? Doesn't make much sense. Also, it's not like it will add to my laundry. I will just toss them in with a diaper load and call it a day.

So now that you all think I am a total nut-case, I will take this time to mark off # 71. While I had been using my reusable grocery bags off and on for some time, I was never truly diligent in using them ALL the time. I have tried very hard to remember them every single time I went out to purchase something. But a few days ago, when emptying trash cans in the bathrooms, I realized that we were completely OUT of grocery bags (which double as my trash bags). You can imagine the look of confusion I got from the Target cashier when I pulled my items out of a reusable bag and then asked him to put my things in a Target bag. (Because we shop like this now.) (Also, I love those polka-dotted Target bags.)

While I have not gone whole-hog-hippie and started making my own soap or quit shaving my legs (that just happens inadvertently sometimes), I feel like we are making plenty of "green" strides over here. Unfortunately, I am going to undo all of my eco-conscious efforts this summer by running the a/c nonstop and filling up the kiddie pool repeatedly so we all don't melt straight into the ground.

Cloth diapering update

So I "officially" started cloth diapering Sammy on January 16. That means that we've been going at this for almost a month now. Wow! If I hadn't looked at the calendar to figure that out (because we all know I have no concept of what number day it is around here), I would have guessed that I'd been cloth diapering for MONTHS now! Possibly even a year!

I don't mean that in a bad way (well, not entirely, at least). I just feel like we're running through them quickly and then hey! It's time to do diaper laundry again! This has been a good thing though because laundry is one of my areas of weakness. (Don't look so shocked.) And you would think that this would be such an easy task since a MACHINE does all of the work for me. But that machine is so efficient! It dings and then I forget about it and a few days later when I go to do another load of laundry, I find that I never quite got around to emptying those towels out of the washer.... ew. So at least with the (near constant) washing of diapers, it has kept me more on my toes about cycling the wash around. It tends to get washed, dried, folded, and put away faster than before.

I have not come up with some stellar alternate plan of air-drying the diapers since the last time we talked about this. That little rack is so perfectly sized for the amount of diapers and inserts that I wash that I can't bring my (lazy) self to do anything else. So the dogs have to be surrounded by clean laundry while they sleep! Tough life! I'm sure they will learn to deal.

We solved the nighttime leaking issues by putting one of his disposable pee pads in his diaper at night, just like we used to with his disposable diapers, and we haven't had a leaking issue since.

Sam used to have a lot of irritation and rashes down in his nether regions (sorry future Sammy, or are we calling you Samuel now?) when wearing disposables, and while we made sure to keep dry diapers on him and apply ointments and creams, it never cleared up. Finally, FINALLY, we have some relief. He has made a 100% improvement in that department and I truly believe it was the chemicals in the disposable diapers that were causing his skin irritations.

I don't know if it's Sam's stage in life or what, but I am not finding a diaper sprayer to be necessary. Forgive the graphic nature of this sentence, but I find his poops so well-formed that they literally just fall right off the diaper and into the toilet. Of course, you must have some cat-like reflexes to avoid being hit by the splash of the turdlets (sadly, big pregnant ladies are not known for their quick reflexes). I have only had to employ the spatula two or three times, and those have all been since he started on his antibiotic this past week, so I'm obviously blaming the medicine for those particular BM's.

So this cloth diapering thing has been no big deal so far. I highly recommend it! And Cotton Babies is still running the sale where I initially stocked up on Sam's diapers, making each diaper approximately $11.96. Quite the steal when you see that they are usually selling for about $20 a pop. I noticed that they only have hook and loop diapers left on sale, and I can't speak for those since I purchased all snap diapers. So proceed with caution! Do a little research! Leave a comment or email me if you've got any questions about our cloth diapering experience so far!

**Unfortunately, no one compensated me to write this post or gave me free diapers, or even discounted diapers, and Cotton Babies has no clue who I am. I'm just hoping that if you're interested in cloth diapering that you might check them out and see what they've got, and maybe the stuff on clearance will work for you. I'm all about clearance, baby.**

Cloth diapering Day One? Success. Overwhelming success. Day Two? Let's do some laundry!

Sammy's cloth diapers arrived this past Thursday evening, the night before we headed out of town to Chicago. And since I was not going to take my first stab at cloth diapering during a VACATION, I opted to deal with it once we got back home. (Am not as dumb as I look.)

So the other night, I opened up all of the diapers, googled the best way to wash said diapers, and set about trying to wash them. Not wanting to do anything wrong, I googled extra hard and realized that I am the only person on the planet who is cloth diapering with a top-loading HE washing machine (and using powder detergent). Everyone has the fancy front-loaders these days, and while they're nice, it's not what we have. (I really REALLY like the top-loading style.) So I did the unthinkable. I had to bust out the manuals to the washer and dryer and READ about things like temperature settings and rinse cycles and blahbadeeblahblahblah. It was boring, not gonna lie. But seeing as we got this washer-dryer duo a full six months ago and I'm just now reading about how to use them? Kind of overdue.

I am now schooled up on how to properly operate these machines. (For the record, I was already using them correctly about 98% of the time...) So with that knowledge under my belt, I washed those diapers. First with a cold wash, then a hot wash, followed by an extra rinse. (I'm using Charlie's Soap.) I tossed the inserts into the dryer on medium heat and hung the diapers on our smallest rack in the laundry room. Since the dogs were still at their "hotel" last night, this was no big deal, but I will be figuring out a new drying solution soon. When I woke up yesterday morning, I got the inserts out of the dryer, pulled the diapers off the rack, and stuffed the diapers. This took no time at all. Maybe ten minutes. And then we changed Sam's diaper and stuck him in his first! cloth! diaper!

He is super cute in cloth.

The first diaper change of the day did have a number two involved. But those little turdlets just fell right off into the toilet and were flushed away. Easy peasy. Speaking of peas, we need to lay off of those for a while.

The next couple of diaper changes were just number ones, and those consisted of tossing the diapers into the wet bag to await their date with the washing machine. Another diaper change later had a number two in it, but I was not aware of its creation. Usually I am privy to this information since it is preceded by grunts and lack of breathing and a red face. So that one was a surprise. Meaning: it was a little smashed up. We haven't purchased a diaper sprayer yet because I don't know if we can attach it to our wonky upstairs toilet in this military housing, and I'm not sure if it would be worth it anyway. I guess time will tell on this one. I am currently using a Dollar Tree spatula to separate the stubborn poos from the diaper insides. This is not only effective, but super cheap and ultra-gross for you to visualize. (Fear NOT, I sanitize the spatula after each use with a Clorox wipe and place it far from the small person's reach.)

After Steve handed me the first poopy diaper of the day, he said, "Wow! Cloth diapering is so easy!" HAHAHAHAHA MEN. Handing the poopy diaper off to someone else is prettttty much the equivalent of tossing a disposable diaper in the trash. But I will continue to let him think this way so that he will keep on changing diapers.

After a few flushes of the toilet in the bathroom that we don't normally use, we all came downstairs and found our giant fluorescent light in the kitchen gushing water. Hmm. Looks like a call to maintenance is in my future.

So Day One of cloth diapering was a great success (minus the leaky electrical fixtures). The diapers are so soft and look so cute and it feels SO GOOD knowing that chemicals are not coming into contact with my little one's ultra-delicate skin. Sammy is well-known for super-soaking diapers at night, so I'm anxious to see how our first night with cloth diapers goes. Obviously you will be updated accordingly.

*******

Day Two Update:
I came into Sammy's room this morning to find him quite soaked. So. We've got to figure out what to do to keep him dry throughout the night. We were using these inserts called diaper boosters in his regular disposables at night, so I'm thinking about stuffing one into his cloth diaper tonight to see if that doesn't help with the absorption problem. We also went too long this morning without a change (I just can't smell the pee, y'all) and he leaked onto his pants. And after opening that wet bag one too many times today, I am definitely doing a diaper load as soon as the little man wakes up from his nap. STINKY. Not stinky at all if it's not open, but once it's open, BACK UP.
So other than a few minor hiccups (we all knew this wasn't going off without a hitch), cloth diapering is going fairly smoothly.

In other news updates, my phone alerted me that I am a little over 30 weeks into this gestational-baking-a-baby period, so that is cause for a giant freak-out, is it not? It got me on the ball (somewhat) to order Sam's new crib and it should be here in about two-ish weeks. I am obviously still lacking a lot of things that I really want to pick out myself (aka: Steve cannot help): a dresser, changing pad, mattress, sheets, things to put on his wall, a carseat for Second Baby, and I also still need to re-wash all of Sam's newborn clothes, weed out the clothes he's outgrown since the last time I weeded out his closet (probably around 9 months of age...yikes), organize all of the clothes Sam has outgrown (scary scary task- will have to make a Target run for bins), dig the trusty ol' pump out of the garage, locate all available bottles and nipples, sterilize and have on stand-by, stock up on breast pads and "those gigantic maxi-pads" (says Steve), and start back up with Hypnobabies. Nothing like a little to-do list and some procrastination to light a fire under me.

Holy Huggies.

My little stats info page recently told me that someone found my blog because they searched the key words "corn poop diet." Now, I'm not sure what this corn poop diet entails (or why I am a search result candidate for this topic since, uh, I don't do diets), but a corn poop diet sounds like no fun to me. (But now that I've mentioned "corn poop diet" approximately four times in the opening paragraph, I'm sure this blog will get the most hits for people interested in this diet. I'M SORRY YOU CORN POOP DIET LOVERS, I KNOW NOTHING.)

But that lovely visual does provide me with a nice segue into a Very Big Important Green Healthy Decision made around here today! Which is...... *drumroll* ..... we are going to begin cloth diapering Sam (and Second Baby) very soon.

Please erase all images of those white pieces of cloth and safety pins from your minds. That is from the dark ages. Also, how would I even BEGIN to try to erase corn poop out of a WHITE cloth diaper??? The skid marks in that thing would be horrendous to say the least.

We came to this decision in a roundabout sort of way. I think we all know by now that Sam is allergic to something if it even looks at him the wrong way. So the chemicals in disposable diapers have really been taking a toll on his sweet little hiney. At first I chalked it up to his eczema or a diaper rash, but nothing is clearing up and we had to make a decision.

I've been researching cloth diapers for a while now (WOW there is a ton of information out there in internetland) and have a close friend who cloth diapers. While I am no crunchy granola hippie, we do strive to be as "green" as possible. We recycle (literally everything), I try to reuse things whenever I can, we buy lots of things secondhand, and we make a very real effort not to waste. But when it came to diapers, I just felt like going the cloth diapering route was too overwhelming. And to be honest, if I had considered it when Sam was first born, my brain probably would have exploded from the thought. It would have been WAY. TOO. MUCH. But we've had our heads above water now for quite a while. Long enough to remember how to work a calculator and holy huggies there is a lot of money being thrown in the trash. Literally. Which is totally separate from the recycling bin, no matter how similar they might look.

Lemme break it down for ya. (All of my estimates are VERY conservative, so that the savings we see will be on the lower end.)

We currently buy Target brand disposable diapers. Sam is in size 3's, which retail at $13 for 96 diapers. That is (approximately) $0.14 per diaper.
We guesstimate that we change him AT LEAST six times per day, but usually more. So that is $0.84 per day.
Each month, we spend $25(+) in diapers.
Every year, we shell out well over $300 in disposable diapers.
Note that the average little boy doesn't potty train til he's around three years old? (And Sam will probably wait a little longer just to push the envelope.) We're talking well over a grand in the trash.

That's a lot of money. Not to mention that we are responsible for sending AT LEAST 2,100 corn-poop filled diapers to a landfill somewhere every year (and if that corn isn't breaking down in your digestive tract, imagine how long it takes to melt through a diaper and plant itself in the earth again).

We know that this will not be as easy as tossing a stinky diaper in a pail and never thinking about it again. But we also know that with the developments in cloth diapering, we will not be reduced to swirling poopy cloth diapers in a toilet trying to get that last corn kernel out. (Too graphic? Ok I think I've hit my corn poop talk quota anyway.)

When I first looked up the cloth diapers I had read the best reviews about (the bumGenius 4.0), I had to pick my jaw up off the floor because ONE of these little cloth confections was selling for $20. (breathe, breathe, breathe, they're reusable, this will eventually SAVE you money, breathe, breathe, breathe) My cloth diapering friend referred me to the website where she purchased her bumGeniuses and luckily, THEY WERE ON SALE. And then? I FOUND A COUPON CODE. So I got those little suckers for $11.36 each. Still pricey, but after purchasing eighteen (seemed to be the golden number to get you through), it was still under what we would pay for disposable diapers in just one year. So actually... we're saving on Sam's second year of diapering by at least $100, the third year of diapering (if there is one- positive thoughts!) will be free, and all subsequent children will be "free" and have no corn-induced impact on landfills worldwide! Score one for the parents, who only took fifteen months to figure this one out!

I considered not writing about this until after we got the diapers in the mail and had used them successfully, but after seeing the corn poop stats thing and knowing that this will most likely NOT go off without a hitch, I figured I'd get it out now. There will likely be a lot of hiccups on this new, green road we're on, and the least I could do is share it with YOU.

I need advice from someone who either took Home Ec and passed or has made something from scratch (successfully)

This morning we went to a strawberry farm and picked two gallons of strawberries!

Proof that we did the dirty work! Sammy was such a slacker. He was all, "Wah, wah, waaaah, it's getting less and less humorous every time you refer to Dad and me as your strawberries, can we GO yet? Waah."
And I was all, "Hush your mouth child, Mama clearly needs a tan so I need to bake out here for at LEAST 15 more minutes."

Not only were we working on our tans, but taking pictures of strawberries just didn't seem to get old. They're so stinkin' pretty!

My strawberry men smelled of SPF 100 and gave me the wild and crazy urge to skip the strawberry farm and drive straight to the beach. Why oh WHY is Ft Campbell located in the middle of NOWHERE?

 

And now for my real question... What on earth should I DO with two gallons of gorgeous strawberries??? 

I made this pie already...

But that still leaves me with approximately two gallons of strawberries, maybe even three. They are rapidly reproducing in my fridge. If you feel so inclined to suggest a strawberry recipe, please keep in mind that I am not good at dessert-making, so something that involves dough rising is most likely WAY OUTSIDE of my cooking comfort zone. I already ruled out jelly/jam/preserves because it takes us months to go through our tiny jar of jelly already (I don't have room to store 15 more jars of the stuff) and strawberry shortcake is going to send me straight back to my maternity shorts (LET'S NOT REVISIT THAT). Help? Should I just cut and freeze them all? Steve suggested dipping them all in chocolate and eating them because how many calories are in dipping chocolate? Only a thousand? So what? Let's eat them all! Along with the chocolate! So you can see why I need some serious help.

Thanks in advance.

PICTURE OVERLOAD

Ok so this past weekend, one of my little brothers got married. It. was. beautiful. And almost as cool as that? I was the unofficial photographer. Yup. Me. The lady who runs the chapel where they got married was Official Photographer, but can I just say that her picture poses were LAME, she didn't take any candid shots, and had we been inside, I'm sure she would have used the FLASH (EEEEEEEK), so I was very excited to be allowed to help take pictures. Granted, I am not even considered a Photographer and I don't think I spend enough time on taking pictures to even call it a hobby. I do enjoy it though. And the amount of pictures I took this weekend bordered on Hobbyist (is that a word?). There were 335 photos total, but thanks to my lack of photo editing knowledge, only 118 of them turned out. I have tried very very hard to slim down my favorites to a few to include here. Enjoy!

My gorgeous siblings

The blushing bride-- beautiful!

The big smooch

The newlyweds

OMG, can I just take FULL CREDIT for this picture??? The Official Photographer said, "Oh that's a good idea!" (Unofficial Photographer: 1 point, Official Photographer: 0) Yes, I'm keeping score; I love this picture.

Flowers and cake

Sweet

Wedding gift

Leaving for the honeymoon!

Cutest wedding favors! This is actually how Matt proposed to Celia. Nice to munch on in a traffic jam as well.

All in all, we had a great weekend visiting with family and passing off our kid to them as often as they would take him.

In other news, I am TWO POUNDS away from pre-Sammy weight (You: Wow, that took a long time.). And despite that weight becoming a reality soon (Me: The end of this week!!), I do not see much physical difference. Apparently having a baby makes your weight shift to other parts of your body... ick. So it looks like the new goal is.... LOSE SOME MORE.

Oh, and after "Recycle Clarksville" REFUSED to call me back and take my money and my clean, neatly sorted recyclables despite four weeks of my begging, pleading, and threatening ("I will throw these recyclables into the trash in a hot minute if you do not call me back!"), I took matters into my own hands and lugged them all down to Ft Campbell. Luckily, they allow soldiers living off-post to recycle there (FOR FREE! Take that Recycle Clarksville!), so I'm going back to dropping off my recycling. One day I'm going to live somewhere with curbside recycling, gosh darnit. I guess Kermit the Frog is right; "It's not easy being green."