What we are doing this summer.. Cloth Diapers, Real Food & Vacations

Cloth Diapers
So.. with 2.5 kids in diapers (Joel only counts as ½) I decided it was time to get into cloth.  We have had such a great experience with Joel’s cloth training pants the past 6 months so we went all out with Judah and Luther.  All in all I’m pretty pleased.  

 
Here are 3 of my pleasant surprises:
 
1. You don’t have to change more often.  I thought with cloth you have to change their diaper pretty frequently. Not so.  Once you get a feel for how much your child pees and when, things aren’t much different than disposables.
2. No rashes. I thought with cloth they get rashes from leaving them in the diapers too long.  Are we noticing a theme here? (apparently I am lazy with my diaper changing frequency) Again, not so. I have left them both in their cloth diaper way too long a few times and no rash appeared..just maybe a leak.
3. Great poop containment. Now this might be TMI for non-parents.  Judah’s poop is disgusting.  For such a small kid he really puts out a huge amount of poop.  Because of this he needed to be in disposable diapers that were way bigger than his size just to contain things.  I’m talking like a size 5 or 6 diaper for a 26 lb kid.  And most of the time.. like 80% of the time, his poop wasn’t contained!  Perhaps it is how much he moves around, who knows. Either way, it isn’t an issue with cloth.  Thank goodness!

Here’s a video on the types of cloth diapers we are using currently - 




Real Food

I have wanted to take the pludge into Real Food for a while now as well.  However, we decided a 10 day trial of going as strict as possible with Real Food would allow us to evaluate the pros and cons as well as the sustainability of this diet.  When I say Real Food I mean 6 ingredients or less and nothing processed.  We both feel it wasn’t enough time to give us a true perspective on the health benefits as we did not notice a difference.  But on the plus side, the total preparations weren’t as time consuming as I thought they would be.  Here’s a sample of some of the foods we were eating to give you an idea.


Breakfast
eggs
bacon
butter
toast (4 ingredient bread made by Stan Evans)
skippy natural peanut butter (a slight compromise as it does contain sugar)
honey


Lunch
whatever we had for dinner the previous night
grilled cheese
ham and cheese sandwiches
4 ingredient chips with guacamole 


Dinner
shepherd's pie
grilled stuffed burritos
cobb salad
mexican salad
grilled chicken with lemon butter sauce
walking taco
whole chicken rotisserie
spaghetti pie
loaded nachos
soft tacos with homemade ranch
cavatini


Snacks
larabars
apple with peanut butter
powerballs
cocoa powerballs
greek yogurt parfait with fruit and honey and granola
granola
pb banana smoothie
almonds
toast with nutella
baked oatmeal
popcorn w butter
triscuits with cheese


Of course I didn’t include all fruits and veggies which we could eat to our hearts’ content:)  This is definitely something we will revisit with more dedication.  However, right now, we are enjoying just a gradual slide into Real Food.

Vacations

The Groskopf family went to Kalahari in Sandusky, OH.  It was a blast.  We were unsure how it would turn out with all 5 of us in the same room for 3 nights.  Fortunately, it was Luther’s first time sleeping through the night :) However, we discovered that Joel has nightmares and moves 2-3 feet forward each time he cries out in his sleep.  He did this for a good 3 hours and then finally fell out of his bed.  The next night we decided to create a ‘special bed’ in the closet for Joel with lots of blankets and pillows.  He slept much better that night and so did we :)  We also learned that swimming wears the boys out really nicely so they sleep hard.  


Here’s a video of our accommodations at Kalahari - 



Here’s a video of Judah getting his hand bitten by a giraffe - 



Here’s a video of all of us playing at the kiddie play area - 



We also enjoyed a ‘Staycation’ in Van Wert near the beginning of July.  It was an awesome time to catch up with everyone and for the cousins to play together.  Joel and Judah both made HUGE strides in the pool and were able to finally ‘swim’ with floaties.  This is huge progress as both of them just a few weeks ago at the YMCA refused to let go of mommy and daddy when their feet weren’t able to touch.  At Van Wert they would both get tired after a little while and want to hold on to something, but still.. great progress.  

Lizzie Spath holding giant cousin Frank

The 90+ degree heat was pretty rough, but we still had a nice relaxing time.

Joel, Noah Spath and Ethan Crummey

 

Noah Spath, Joel, Ethan Crummey, Kate Crummey and Lizzie Spath 

 

A Rare quiet moment during the Staycation -