Waking Up

One of my favorite simple things in life is a sleeping baby. There's nothing sweeter. I love the peacefulness of the room, the slow breathing, the hands and legs sprawled out or tucked tight. It's angelic. I *might* even risk waking that sleeping baby just to take a peak. Unless that baby is our light sleeping Bubby. In that case I'll come in right as he's waking up to catch those sweet moments.

{Family Session}

This sweet family invited me out to their ranch for this session. When I pulled in the gate my little photography heart went pitter-patter. It was a dream. It had everything you could want and more. Their daughter was on a mission the whole time, but could you really blame her? I absolutely love capturing children in their natural state. At two years old she wants to explore, see the horses, run over the bridge, see her grandparents, swing and drive the tractor. Heck, at almost 30 years old I wanted to do those things too.

As always, I'm honored to capture these moments.

Teddy Bear

I love that she always has one of her animals with her. This particular ones name is Cubby. He was her first. He's the bear that always gets selected to go outside and on adventures. I adore a child holding a bear, especially when that child is mine.

Hair Day

 If your reading this at www.familyoffarmers.blogspot.com you will soon need to update the web address to http://www.thefarmersnest.com/

We had a great weekend. It was a typical January weekend in Texas. Heater in the morning and A/C by lunch time. Saturday we stayed in our pj's a good portion of the day. I love that. That means we didn't have anywhere important to be. On Saturdays from August-December Matt is either breaking down football film or at a Basketball tournament so when we get to January a full weekend together makes this family happy.

Bubby and Little Miss are really enjoying playing with one another these days. Poor Bubby doesn't totally "get" what shes doing to him. He just loves the individual attention shes giving him.

I think she needs a sister............ and he needs a brother ;)

{We Moved}

We moved over to http://www.thefarmersnest.com/

You might need to update the new web address to continue receiving updates.

I look froward to seeing you over there!

-Robyn

Insta-Friday

Our week captured through my camera phone.

It was one of those weeks. A week full of challenges that brought out laughter. Matt left for work one morning and didn't make it far from home. Everything that could go wrong did. Tire goes flat, jack breaks, wife brings another jack, thing to crank the jack breaks, put donut on the car, donut goes flat, fill donut and front right tire up with air, get to tire shop, need four new tires, $-.oo in the bank account, thread for lug-nut breaks at tire shop. You know the typical stuff.

I had plans for our family to eat leftovers. That is until I held the leftovers above my head to check the bottom of the container to see if it was microwave safe and I got butter fingers and dropped it. It hit the top of my head and crashed onto the floor. Rice got everywhere, it's like the glitter of food. I just stood looking and laughing at the wreck that just went down in my kitchen.

It was in that moment that I made the choice. You know the "Laugh or Cry" choice. I laughed so hard that Little Miss thought something was terribly wrong with me. I explained to her that I had an accident and we would now be eating breakfast for dinner. Because that's what you do in a pinch.

This little guy decided that crawling isn't enough for him and he needs to keep growing.

 Big trip to town to eat at Daddy's favorite place. We decided to use our gift card for the occasion.After we ate our meal and gave the card to pay, the server told us the card would not work at that particular location. Nice. Again we just laughed while Matt regretted the splurge on his Dr.Pepper.

First time in the basket. Sissy stayed home with Daddy to make this possible.

Little Miss got her fingernails painted for the first time. She sat patiently as I painted away and then she chipped it off as soon as she could.

It's been a beautiful week with lots of time outside.

One way to keep her busy.

In other news....Little Miss is near potty trained. Thank yall so much for all the advice and encouragement. We are one week into this and have only had one accident. We even got out of the house a few times this week without any problems. I'm so very proud of my big girl.

Motherhood

The Lord's tugging on my heart in many area lately.
Motherhood
Priorities
and Servanthood to name a few.

I don't have my own words yet. Just thoughts scrambled and messed up in my head.

I'm in the process of reading The Mission of Motherhood by Sally Clarkson. I highly recommend this book. I want to share a few excerpts from the book that describe my thoughts and feelings much better than I can articulate. 

"This is one of the best ways I can be a servant leader to my children. When I model patience in the midst of difficulty, joy in the midst of messes, contentment in the midst of lack, then provide them with a pattern for their own lives. They will learn that my joy is not circumstantial but real because I have an endless source of strength through the power of the Holy Spirit in my life."

"Often I served my children joyfully and enjoyed the memorable moments of their growing-up years. But sometimes I struggles irrationally with their demands and then felt guilty for struggling. Instead of understanding that this was normal and that how I handled it would make all the difference in their lives, I often fought against it. In doing so, I'm afraid I lost many beautiful opportunities to be a servant leader in our home."  

"I have realized that one of God's purposes for my children is to be his tool for disciplining me to make me more holy! I do not have to be a perfect mom--just an authentic believer. From interacting with my children, I have seen my own selfishness and my lack of patience more clearly than ever before! I have blown it many times with my children, but even these mistakes have helped me to mature and depend on God more than I would have without my parenting responsibilities."

I can feel God move in my heart with every page I turn.

Sally Clarkson holds a Mom Heart Conference every year in Dallas and I'm desperately trying to make it this year. Has anybody ever been or wanting to go? I would love to hear all about it.

On a lighter note. I read this article yesterday and it is spot on. If your a parent please go read it. I promise you will relate.
Don't Carpe Diem

Because sometimes this is what it's like around here.

Cloth Diapers

Well folks, I've been cloth diapering for going on 2 weeks now and the verdict is........I love it! I'm kicking myself for not trying it sooner. It's easier than I ever imagined. The hard part for me was doing the research and making the decision on what brand and style I would first purchase. Because it's an investment I chose to approach it by spending the same amount on cloth as we do on disposables each month. For instance, this month I spent $100 on cloth and that bought 9 diapers. I have to wash every night so as soon as we get our February paycheck I will invest in another $100 worth of cloth and that will allow me to wash every other day. When it comes to washing them, that's another easy and strangely fun part of my nighttime routine. I enjoy watching the diapers go from dirty to clean; and there's something therapeutic about hanging them up to dry.

Here are the details for those of you that are curious.
I went with bumGenius 4.0 one-size stay dry. I bought some with snaps and some with velcro (hook and loop) and I think I'm leaning more towards the velcro. The only argument against the velcro was that it might wear out over time. I have a friend that has been using hers for over 3 years and there's no sign of them giving out any time soon. Next time I order I'm going to buy a few Freetime all-in-one to see if I like them as well.
I chose bumGenius for two reasons, the first being that they got all over great reviews. The other reason I chose BG is their return/warranty policy. They offer a 30 day money back guarantee on all of their diapers. To me this was huge! One of the biggest reasons people don't want to try cloth is because of the investment. With this kind of deal there's really nothing to lose. You can try cloth diapers for a month and in that time you will know if it's for you or not. Either you love it or hate it and if you don't dig it then you send them in and get your money back. Sealed.The.Deal!

 Leaks
When I first got them I did have a few leaks due to not having them on correctly and not changing them often enough. You do need to change them about every 2 hours and just like with anything there was a learning curve to putting them on correctly.Now I have them snug on each kiddo with no leaks.

 Detergent
After reading forums and cloth diaper blogs I found that the most affordable and cloth diaper friendly detergent is ALL free and clear. There are other detergents specifically for diapers but they are a little pricey.


 Poo
I bought flushable poo liners to place in the diapers and these have been a life saver. It looks like a dryer sheet that you lay in the diaper when your putting it on the baby. When they poo you just fling it into the toilet and flush. No scrubbing or dealing with a yucky mess. I guess for some reason when I thought of cloth diapers I thought of washing poo in a machine and that just grossed me out. Just so you know there's no poo in the wash. If I do encounter a poo overflow that the liner doesn't catch I will either take it outside to spray it off or use our shower head nozzle over the toilet. I have a picture of this process but my husband sweetly encouraged me to save it only for those who want to see. If you want me to send you a pic just text and I will gladly share ;)

Dirty Diapers
 I haven't yet purchased a diaper pail  so right now after I dispose of the poo in the diapers I am storing them folded up on my washing machine. Because I wash every night it's not out of hand and there is no smell. I do however look forward to finding a better system for this.

Wash
First, I set my machine to do a cold rinse and I put some detergent in this wash and then for the actual wash I use hot water to wash and cold to rinse.

Drying
I got an old crib rail for a couple of bucks from the mission and store it in-between the washer and dryer when not in use. When the load is done I hang the diapers and inserts on the rails and move them to the room with the most airflow. If it's a sunny day I can just carry the rail outside and place it in the sun. When I get more diapers I will attach another rail so that it can stand up on it's own when opened at an angle.If the diapers aren't dry by morning time I throw the inserts in the dryer on medium for about 10-15 minutes. The outside covers usually dry within an hour so I've never had to put them in the dryer. I know of others that throw both the cover and the insert in the dryer. I hang dry because that seems to be the cloth diaper "norm."

Storing
When the inserts and liners are dry I stuff the inserts into the diapers and place them in a basket next to the wipes, just like I did disposables.

On the go
When we go to church or Austin for the day I put the kids in disposables so I don't have to mess with keeping up with the diapers while I'm out and about.

Another thing I love about cloth diapers now that I've started potty training Little Miss is that I don't have to keep up with two different types or sizes of diapers. Because you adjust the diapers to fit your child perfectly you end up with a better fit than a disposable.

I'm sure there will be days that I might consider the cost of throwing one away versus cleaning up the blowout that occurred. I'm also certain there will be phases in life where the extra load of laundry might be a breaking point for me. When this happens I have no problem taking a break and using disposables until life settles down. Either way, once I'm no longer buying my stock of cloth diapers our family will be free of the diaper budget and that's huge for us.

I hope I helped anybody who might be on the fence or curious about the cloth diaper system. It really is easier than what it's been made out to be. Back in the day when it was the only option and it involved safety pins and scrubbing with a washboard I understand the joy those women must have felt when disposables came along. However, I throw away over $100 a month in diaper and this new system is a blessing to our family.Please let me know if I can help answer any more questions. I'm new to this and not very knowledgeable but I will try to help. I'm still texting my cloth diapering friends with questions all of the time. There are blogs and websites devoted to this subject that you can find a ton of information on.

And if any veterans out there have anything to add or further advice to share please leave it in the comments section. I would love to hear ways to make things easier.