Happy Birthday My Wonderful Man!

Twenty nine years ago a person of incredible awesomeness entered the world with a tenacious vigor for life, and the desire to do great things with his life. Clint Fiore, you are so crazy awesome!

There aren't words to fully describe the honor I have in being the wife of such an awesome man. He is a loving husband and father. He makes me laugh every day, and knows the wisdom in never taking yourself to seriously. His heart for others, and his true desire to help slingshot others into their destiny is humbling. I love watching him play with our three beautiful daughters, and listening to him give a good sales pitch. His passion for doing life right and to always be growing and learning has stretched me so much and allowed me to see the potential I hold within myself.

He believes in me completely, and has helped me heal from a ferocious level of insecurity. I am so thankful for his discernment and how much he desires to protect his family. I am thankful for all the hard work he puts in so that we as a family can think big and dream big and know that greatness is within reach if you want it and will work for it.

This world would be lacking tremendously without him. I just got lucky enough to land him! Happy Birthday babe. I love you!

Hold our first baby girl Amelia.

Holding our second little girl Sophia.

Holding our third little girl Cecilia.

Golfing on our Honey Moon in Bermuda.

Cloth diaper insert tutorial

I have been using these for a few weeks now and love them. One cool thing about them is that they will move up a size when my little one grows into a larger cover. I have been using gdiapers with this one, and I really love them. I just hate how expensive the cloth inserts are. Between $25 and $30 for six. I am a frugal nut so I had to come up with a way to make this a little more cost effective. So I splurged on the covers and made the inserts.

You will need...
1 yard of Organic Bamboo Fleece or something similar.
Micro fiber terry cloth wash cloths. I found mine for cheap at wal-mart in the automotive department. Or and organic absorbent material for the inside of the insert.
Thread
Scissors
A sewing machine or serger

The bamboo fleece will go against the skin and the micro fiber towel is the internal part that is super absorbent.

I basically made and outer shell from the fleece and used the wash cloth folded into thirds as a stuffer. This way I can separate the two pieces so they wash up better and if I want to use the wash cloth as a wash cloth that option is still available. I also will be able to stuff it even more for a night soaker etc. for more absorbency.

outer shell

Inner absorbent material

Both together

I made them about the size of a gdiaper small insert and it fits perfectly in the small cover. 

Ok, these are fast and easy. I made nine of them in like twenty minutes with a two week old, two year old and four year old all bidding for my attention.

1. I took one of my gdiaper inserts out to use as a template. I folded one of my micro fleece wash cloths into thirds and then folded up the end to make it the same size as my gdiaper insert.

gdiaper insert above 

I know they don't look the same size but it because they are two different pics. Sorry about that.

2. I got out my yard of bamboo fleece which I ordered off of Amazon for like $12 a yard. I cut out nine squares that would tri-fold into the size that would cover the wash cloth with a one inch overlap and a little extra on the short ends for sewing (about half an inch).

3. I took the wash cloth out and set it aside and kept the fleece folded into a pocket as above.

4. Time to sew! I set my machine to a good zig-zag stitch. You can use a serger if you have one. I sewed up the short ends of the inserts with the zig-zag and trimmed off the excess fabric. Done sewing!...Yes, that is it! SO easy.

5. I grabbed my wash cloth that was folded up already and stuffed it into the fleece insert. Perfect!

6. I repeated this process to my delight. 

They seem to be working great with the gdiaper covers, and clean and wash up very good. I may try a different fabric for the inside. (something organic) but this works great for me right now. 

COST: $12 for fleece (I olnly used about half for the nine I made)

             $5 for wash cloths (15)

I made nine. It comes out to just under a dollar for each insert. A much better deal than the store bought ones which are around $4 each.

Christmas Cabin Woodland Park Colorado 2011

So, I know it is totally not Christmas, but I really need to post this now as to give whoever sees this ample time to make plans early if the idea sparks your interests.
Christmas is absolutely my favorite holiday of the year. I love the family gatherings, decorating, church, cool weather, and hot cocoa. Everything about Christmas is awesome...except that I have divorced parents and I married a man with divorced parents. I hold nothing against them for being divorced, and looking back on it know that it was probably the best thing for both couples. It just makes Christmas stressful. Having to choose one or two sets of parents to be with each year is always hard. We also live far from all of them so  figuring out travel and all that goes along with that makes me want to pull my hair out. "We will stay with my mom till Christmas eve, then go to my dads till new years eve, then drive to another state to be with your mom for new years, and then go to your dads for a belated Christmas at the end of January." Can anyone sympathize?
Then two years ago Mr. Hubbs and I had a grand epiphany in the midst of our Christmas chaos. Why not rent a big friggin amazing house in the mountains somewhere between everyone and invite them to join US for the Holidays!? Now that was a great idea! All we would have to do is save up some dough to rent the house, send out fun invites to everyone, and BAM! Done! We could make a tradition of it, and choose a new awesome location every or every other year. If you can come, great! If you can't, oh well.
So last year we tried it out for a spin. Let me tell you, it was the best time ever! (Sorry for the excessive use of the exclamation mark. But this is exciting stuff.)
I searched a couple sites on the internet for homes for rent for vacations and settled on this one in woodland park.
http://www.homeaway.com/vacation-rental/p153678#calendar
 It was a beautiful two story home, with lots of beds, a big wood burning stove, big kitchen, lots of stuff to do near by, but still secluded amongst pine trees, and very kid safe and friendly. Hey it even had a pool table and indoor hot tub! Bonus! There was a fire pit outside too! OK OK sorry. The price was awesome for a ten day get away in the beautiful mountains of Colorado.
My mom and dad still get along ok so they were welcome to come for all or part of the trip. My hubbs' folks are a little different so we invited one set to come the first four days, and the other set to come the last four. It worked out great. All of our siblings came from every corner of the universe. My brother in-law from Peru, my bro and his wife and son from North Dakota, and my step sis from Nebraska! It was crazy how much fun we had and how rested we felt. The great thing was that the only travel we had was getting there and back home. Then we could just be in one place all together for the rest of the time. We did venture out to local fun attractions like The North Pole http://santas-colo.com/ and went to a Christmas Eve service at New Life Church in Colorado Springs. Renting the house was essentially our gift to everyone. This year a lot our family has offered to help pay for the house so we may be able to go somewhere even cooler. 
I just wanted to throw out the idea to anyone who has had enough with intercontinental Christmas travel to ten different places over five days and losing your mind and health because of all the stress involved. I recommend this alternative. Even if you can't do it over Christmas, maybe try it for summer vacation or another obscure holiday.  If you need some good sites to look for rental I would check out the sites bellow.
Homeaway.com
http://www.homeaway.com/
vrbo.com
http://www.vrbo.com/
Good luck with your holiday adventure!