Back on home turf!

I simply cannot BELEIVE how well that move went! Okay, yes I can. It was obvious that the hand of God was just all over it this time around--no doubt about it! The housing inspection was a breeze, the two days in the hotel went well, and the flight was so flawless that it was just eerie at times! We took off a half hour behind schedule but had such a strong tailwind (at one point, over 140mph!!) that we arrived in Atlanta when we were expected! One further surprise (okay, it was a surprise to me, and one more example of a lack of communication between us since it was NOT a surprise to Pete) was having his dad make a drive from Johnson City, TN to meet us at the airport and drive Pete over to the vehicle processing center to pick up our van! Yes, within an hour of arrival in Atlanta, we had our OWN wheels!

We just had a blast in Atlanta for the short little stay we had; Jamie just MADE the weekend taking to her "Uncle" Chuck and having him wrapped around just about every little finger on her hand within....oh, half an hour! I had one teeny (probably not so teeny to the three bewildered folks trying to figure out what to do with me) glitch in the Mall of Georgia as a rather sudden blackout overtook me, but thankfully I was able to catch on and sit down before I went flat on my face right there outside Build-A-Bear! The trip from Atlanta to Florida went well, but the drive from Quincy to Huntsville was SOOOOOO long that we were just completely wiped out by the time we arrived last Wednesday afternoon. However, we had a house on base waiting on us when we arrived--and when we finally got to look at it, we realized that at that point, God was just showing off! It's PERFECT--couldn't have fit our family better if it had been engineered just for us, and the base is every bit as gorgeous as we remembered. Sunday was the first time in three years that we've had the opportunity to go to more than one church service, and it was a bit of an adjustment for us, but one that is long overdue, and we are SO thankful to be able to have a church family to fall right in with--you don't realize how much you miss it until you finally get it back!

Yesterday, I made the long drive back down to Quincy with Jamie and Dani to spend a few more days with my family and pick up Kelsey, Morgan, our ginormous "puppy" Jake, and the new little stray kitten that Kelsey has taken in and given an unfortunate name....Booger. I'm exhausted, but feeling incredibly blessed and more than ready to get going on this new phase of our lives. Next week, I'll have new OB appointments, WIC appointments, and even the arrival of our unaccompanied baggage (almost two weeks early!!) to occupy my time, but for now I'm still reeling at how wonderfully orchestrated this move was...and not on OUR part, that's for sure! God showed us at every turn that He was truly in this transition, and I'm sure the next few years hold something wonderful for us!

Last few days

Our time here in Germany is swiftly drawing to a close, and the days seem to be coming in rapid-fire succession lately! Pete shipped his "toy" Porsche last Friday, so we're down to just the one borrowed vehicle (thank goodness everyone seems to have two cars!) and that means there's just no more getting out as a family. Sunday was, um, interesting, to say the least. Jon and Kelsey had to spend the night with friends in Frankfurt so they'd have a ride to church, then they had to ride the train home!

Jon is doing his "official" (read: final) swearing-in today, meaning he is now official property of the US Army. He only has one more day left at home. I *should* be falling apart, but I'm still in one piece. For now. I got a small taste of what "good-bye" feels like on Sunday when we said our farewells to three of the families that are leaving to go back to the States....and Jon. As we sang "Blest Be the Tie", Pete had the most pronounced vibrato in his voice that I've ever heard coming from him, and that started a domino effect of tears, then giggling as we all (as in the WHOLE congregation) tried to stop sniveling. It was pretty pitiful.

Our final pack-up and shipment of the rest of our "stuff" is Friday. Then we have the weekend to prepare for our final housing inspection. There are moments when it still doesn't feel real, but I'm sure it WILL--like next Tuesday morning when we lug all of our baggage up to the hotel!

Hmm, I wonder if we'll have wireless internet access??

Icky, sticky, summer day

That pretty much sums it up for the day.

Yeah, RIGHT.

Seriously, though, it's 87 degrees in the shade, the breeze has totally died, the humidity is up to 73%, and there is NO AIR CONDITIONING in this country!!! I actually took the girls to the commissary today to hang out for a few minutes in what used to be our ice cream freezer. It's empty now, because the commissary is downsizing along with the rest of the base. But hey, it's still cold, which is more than I can say for the rest of Germany today!

On the upside, today I have a very shiny dining room floor! Go figure, pregnant bodies seem to be made to be on the floor scrubbing! Not so much the bending and mopping, but the being ON the floor. And it's interesting how well Mop & Glo mixes with sweat to make a really pretty finish on the floor!

Ah, yes, and Jon made a big step forward in his budding military career today; he passed a number of common task tests that his recruiter was to assess him on, and he will enter the Army next week (WOAH NELLY!!!) with real rank on his shoulder--a PV2 instead of a plain old Private! How quickly (or not) one forgets just how valuable those early promotions are!

The graduate

It's taken me a while to edit pics and make sure Grandmas saw these first, but if I wait too much longer to post about this, I'll have another graduate to blog about! A week and a half ago at church, we had a luncheon to honor the two seniors in the congregation who were graduating and moving on to adult life. Jon was one of the two very embarrassed honorees. The other was a very sweet girl who will be attending Abilene Christian University this fall, and completely throwing her poor mother's life into upheaval by putting ALL THAT SPACE between them!



Jon is not one to relish the spotlight (unless it's self-imposed), so this little luncheon was not something he was looking forward to, but he managed to at least survive...and as with any other teenage (ahem...young adult) male, as long as there was food to be had, he was just fine. Besides, there were dorky hats to try on and have pictures taken with, and Jon is all about dorky fashion!

We had a slide show presentation for each of the grads, which turned out to be the most embarrassing part of the day for both Jon and Leeanna, but again, they survived. I may eventually figure out how to add Power Point presentations to my blog, but for now, Pete is just not available enough to be my hired geek and get it uploaded. The other embarrassing part for Jon and Lee were the picture boards that still sit in the foyer of the church building for all to ooh, ahh, and giggle over. I did my level best to keep Jon's as simple as possible, considering that when we take it down next week to do our final packing, it's all going to have to fit well into a suitcase and then transition to a scrapbook when I have all my tools and gadgets and materials (not to mention all those glorious craft stores!!) available to me once again on the other side of the Atlantic. This was by far my most difficult scrapbooking project to date, because I had to blend both the boy Jon was and the man he's become--that's not as easy as it sounds--and it all had to fit on a science-fair presentation board! Here's what the finished product looks like:


The far left side up close:




The middle up close:


The far right side up close:




And last but not least, the whole family--this is the last family picture we'll have taken before we have both a new member in the picture and another one wearing a uniform! I realized after having to resist the temptation to edit myself right out of this picture that I am truly "showing", and that this pregnancy is much like my pregnancy with Kelsey--I am spreading in all directions!!! Lovely...thank goodness the focus that day was on Jon and not his hot-air-blimp-looking mom!


Overall, it was a nice, fitting end to Jon's home school journey. Quiet, simple, to-the-point, and much like we tried to envision our "statement of purpose" for educating our children at home--keeping it all in perspective. Looking toward the future with a clear remembrance of all God has blessed us with in the past. Trying to see the future through His eyes. And no, those eyes were not full of tears--just dreams and hopes and prayers for a blessing on the new life of a new adult.

"Lovey" blanket overload

What does a nineteen-month-old do when all of the "things" she's been surrounded with all of her life suddenly disappear onto a big, loud truck? Well, this particular nineteen-month-old clings to the few things she holds dear in this world--her loveys. Danica would not, under any circumstances, allow these three blankets to be packed up with everything else. She made SURE they weren't packed, because the above picture shows how she walked around the entire time the movers were here. NO WAY was she gonna let those loveys get away! You'll notice that one of the loveys is so "well loved" that it's literally falling apart at the seams. Mom has some work to do when a sewing machine becomes available at Grandma's house!

Talk about simplification!

It's been two weeks since the movers took our household goods, and I can honestly say that the only thing I **REALLY** miss is my bed. Okay, maybe two things--my bed and my desk; leaning down to type on a coffee table is NOT comfy! I was loading a bunch of pics from Jon's grad luncheon the other day and found some of the mid-chaos pictures I took while the movers were doing their thing. This was the last we saw of our living room furniture:

Here's what it looks like now:

Looks like a decent amount of stuff, right? Well, sort of. We do have a room full of government loaner furniture, plus a Pete-made cardboard box maze for the girls to play in, a big bucket of Little People toys, and a play tent, but other than that, the "stuff" is gone! And you know what? I kind of like it this way! Look around....see anything missing that you'd usually find in a living room? That's right, NO TV!!!!! We've gone almost two full weeks with NO TV, and our kids are still alive!

We did shock the furniture delivery guys a bit by asking for a bed per person. The girls' bedroom is a TAD cramped, see?

Really makes it obvious how absolutely tiny just over 900 square feet truly is!

Full Circle

I began my married life as an Army wife. It's the only life I've known since I left the home I was raised in. Ten years ago, Pete and I withdrew our children from public school and began our homeschool journey. Today, that journey came to an end, and another circle has begun.

I am now not only an Army wife, but also an Army mom. As of about the 9th of June, our family will include a Retired Chief Warrant Officer, an active duty Staff Sergeant, and a Private.

One MAJOR hurdle passed

Woah. I feel like I've been run over by the moving truck that left yesterday with eleven crates full of our "stuff". Somehow, even though it wasn't us doing the packing and lifting and taping and boxing and stuffing, I'm worn out! But you know what? Even with next to nothing in our house, there is a huge sense of peace knowing that we're one GIGANTIC step closer to moving. Our next big hurdle is less than a week away--our preliminary housing inspection (always a source of stress because it seems that housing inspectors are trained by the same PR reps that train US Customs agents in the Dulles Airport--rude, impatient, condescending, and just plain not fun to deal with)--and although it's a huge pain in the neck, it's nothing compared to having your entire house ripped apart, stuffed into boxes, and loaded on a truck. It's nothing compared to trying to weed through everything you own and picking out what you think will be adequate clothing for seven people in two climates for two months. Yep, that housing inspection looks like a teeny little speedbump compared to the mountain that is now in our rearview mirror!

There were, of course, the inevitable miscommunication problems that led to several of the things we'd intended on keeping here getting packed and shipped, but nothing major. Jon is just going to have to make due without the ten dollar bill, the Zune charger, cell phone charger, and Chevy Nova books that he neglected to put in his "do not pack" closet. Pete may be getting a slight bum-chewing for having his dog tags unaccounted for today (OOPS!!!), and I may have to drink my coffee from a plastic cup for a few weeks, but otherwise there were no big problems.

Jon's ASVAB testing went well. He took the test alongside three other high school seniors, and out of the four of them, his score was the highest. His recruiter told him he still could have done better, had he done just a tad more studying, but overall he did wonderfully. He should be able to get whichever job in the Army he wants--hopefully the draw of Explosive Ordnance Disposal wears off in the next few days! It looks as if our new graduate (Pete and I signed his transcript and his diploma last week!) will be taking the oath of enlistment next Monday! He's not going to actually go to basic training till August, however, so he's got a little time left with us once we get back on US soil to finally take his driver's exam and spend some time working on that Nova that will be his once he is able to pay for the insurance! We're actually hoping he goes through with his plan of going into an MOS that will train at Redstone Arsenal after basic training so we're at least on the same base for a little while, even if he's living in the barracks. It will also mean that his basic training will be closer to us, and his granparents will be close enough to be there for his graduation from both basic and his Advanced Individual Training. That's IF he trains at Redstone. Another plus to that option (which, of course, we are NOT mentioning this to him) is that we will be available during his training to drive the boy to church! The Army frowns upon soldiers having a car while they're in training, and knowing how shy Jon is.....he would not likely be calling anyone to give him a ride to church if Mom and Dad weren't available!

Wow, life really is moving right along! Hmm....I suppose now that I have a few extra minutes, it's time to start working on Jon's picture board for the graduate luncheon at church in two weeks, and getting his graduation announcements addressed!

Found the glitch!

Overseas travel is never simple, but our airline just made it more than just a tad more difficult. Taken from Delta Airlines' site, here's the challenge du jour:

"Checked Baggage
Currently, you can check two bags per passenger free of charge. Starting May 5, 2008 this will be reduced to one free bag per passenger traveling in the U. S., the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico."

Nice. So those of us who have lived overseas for three years and are traveling to a new home with only the things they can carry out of their household goods for two solid months....can only fill ONE bag. I'm glad I found this out today instead of Tuesday, AFTER the packers come. I guess I'm borrowing someone's car to go buy bigger suitcases for the girls!

Reality hits

Woah. It's real. It's really, really real. The recruiter stopped by today while bringing Jon back home to ask if I could send his diploma and high school transcript with him next week when Jon takes his ASVAB. The physical was a breeze--the boy is healthy--can't even be unhealthy when he tries! But WOAH. I wasn't quite prepared to hear "He'll need to inform whichever officer will do his enlistment that we'll need him probably either Wednesday or Thursday of next week".

Even Pete is in a bit of shock.

The folks at the troop medical clinic even started calling him "Private" today, just to get him used to it. Jon is all grins, ear to ear. His parents......are just in shock.

More reality hit half an hour after Jon came home. The movers came by to do a run-through of the house and take measurements of all the furniture so they'll be prepared when they get here next Monday. It wasn't until they got here that I realized exactly what a disaster area this house has turned into, trying to get ready for this. I'm sure the two overhwelmed guys who did the run-through are VERY afraid of what they're going to see next week!

I thought I was on top of all of this, but I'm INCREDIBLY behind. Another rather MAJOR to-do to add to my list occurred to me this afternoon, and I have to get it DONE this weekend--the scrapbook/picture board for the grad luncheon at church has to be done before our stuff ships, or I at least have to have all the pictures, embellishments, papers, and a seriously well-planned-out layout set aside so I can do it after everything's gone.

Eek. Suddenly I have heartburn.

Rollin, rollin, rollin.....

Today is the first day of the madness. Just five weeks from this Friday, the last of our stuff will be picked up and shipped, and we will move our elated little (or not so little, as the case may be) hineys into the Patriot Inn so we can ready our house for the housing inspection! In SIX weeks, Pete's unit will deactivate. He's stressed, trying to get things in order for that and to ensure that everyone's paperwork is moving along in short order, but things here at home are pretty nuts too! My to-do list includes (among just the normal day-to-day stuff) a WIC appointment to get transfer paperwork, making lists, and cleaning out closets to make room for the stuff we're going to duct tape IN them next Monday when the packers arrive so they don't get packed. Then I've got to make sure all of the excess "stuff" is out of corners, pulled out from behind bookshelves and dressers and from under beds, so we don't have a box of homeless junk for each room that I will have to weed through on the other end of the Atlantic in July. All of the curtains have to come down, all the linens we're shipping have to be cleaned and stored and I've got to separate out all of the kitchen items, toys, and other sundry items that we're not shipping so they don't inadvertedly get packed! Oh, and of course, the recruiter called to tell us that he can't pick Jon up from the train station tomorrow for his pre-enlistment physical, so he picked him up TODAY and is getting Jon a room at the American hotel in Wiesbaden so he'll be right there to pick up for the physical tomorrow. So...one of my hard laborers is away for two days of the heavy work, but that's life, right?

Wednesday, we have a customs agent coming to look over the things we'll ship back to the States to be sure there is nothing harboring the gypsy moth or any other harmful critters. So far, I think we're good. We shook the spiders out of the strollers and bikes a couple of weeks ago, so the worst we'll have to do as far as critters go is to brush off anything new. The big work is going to be cleaning the outside toys of any dirt. US Customs really doesn't like imported dirt!

Thankfully, I've already done a lot. I knew what needed to be done this time around, so I knew to start WAY early. It doesn't eliminate the last-minute (or, rather, last-week) stuff, but that's unavoidable. As far as our big stuff goes, we have PLANE RESERVATIONS!!!!! Pete has to get just one stamp from the Trasnportation office and he'll be able to pick up the tickets as early as this afternoon!!!! Hey, Jill and Chuck, we're landing in Atlanta!!!! Our van arrives for pickup in Atlanta the day before we fly, and thankfully we had an understanding travel agent who booked us a flight TO Atlanta instead of the other option, which was through our least favorite airport in the whole world--Dulles in D.C.--and we'll pick up our van the day we arrive!!! We'll get to hang out in Atlanta for a day or two before heading to Huntsville! Just one wonderful little perk in all of this has all of us on cloud 9!

Now I've got to find some time in the next day and a half to sit down and make up some sort of meal plan that I can live with for the next week that won't require too much of me, because Lord knows I need all the simplicity I can get! Eek!!! One more thing to add to the list--clean the fridge out and make sure all my Tupperware is stored for shipping by Sunday! Ack! Thank goodness for those semi-disposable Ziplock storage containers!

Doing things backward to end Earth Week

Well THAT was an odd experience! For the last six or so months, as gas prices have creeped slowly higher toward the $3.50 mark (for the record, it's now $3.67 on base here in Germany, with the horrid dollar-Euro rate, it's over $7 a gallon off base!), we've been very careful about conserving fuel. It seemed almost ironic that Thursday night, Pete and I had to spend almost two hours driving around to purposely WASTE fuel. It felt very odd....and not in a good way! As the gas gauge dropped, we could practically feel the money we were wasting, and how just plain ridiculous it was in this economic and environmental crunch to be doing what we were doing.

So why'd we do it, you ask? Well, Friday morning we had an appointment to ship the van. Regulations require that a vehicle's gas tank be holding less than 1/4 of a tank of fuel when it's shipped...and of course, like a doof, I'd spent most of my week at home. Thursday morning, I realized it was time to make those "last minute" trips to the bases 45 minutes away, because I wasn't going to get the opportunity to do it again, plus I had just over half a tank of gas! Wouldn't you know it, the van picked that day to get the best mileage it's ever gotten??? Driving for nearly an hour and a half, the needle barely moved. And yes, that was at Autobahn speeds, folks. OVER 100mph. We won't say just how much over, but it was over. Hey, I quote Raymond from Rain Man often--"I'm an excellent driver".

Oh well. Pete was able to get the gas gauge to drop. The van doesn't like him as much, I guess. We shipped it with EXACTLY 1/4 of a tank. Good thing, too, because it'll probably take us a while to find a gas station when we pick it up in Atlanta!

Glitches in the system

With any endeavor, there are bound to be glitches. With BIG endeavors, though....look out! We've been sort of holding our breath these last few weeks to see what big glitches were going to pop up and surprise us with this big move--hopefully our LAST!!! So far, so good. There aren't any really big issues this time around, but just a bunch of little ones.

Pete's leave form still hasn't come back from Battalion, meaning we still don't have a flight reservation. At this point, with seven people and a cat needing space on a plane destined for a relatively small airport, well, it's pushing it! It may mean our travel gets backed up one, two, or even three days, and that kind of, well, STINKS. The last thing we are going to want to be doing after Pete signs out of this place is sit in a hotel room for three days. Ack!

Jon's casual graduation photos....well, they aren't happening. Kelsey did an amazing job of actually getting GOOD shots of Jon, but when Grandma picked up the sample printed pics from CVS, the one he wanted wasn't good enough to put in with graduation announcements. The resolution wasn't adequate. Bummer. Oh well, it looks good on a computer screen...see?


I guess we'll have to go with the black & white one we have as a backup. It's not as good, but hey, it matches his black and silver announcements! Besides, he's agreed to actually sit in front of a real camera in a portrait studio when we get back to the US, so I guess I'll just have to choke back my perfectionism for a few minutes and use the "backup" pics.

By the way, yes, I realize I am *supposed to be* grieving my oldest child's graduation from high school, but I'm not. This is what we have invested all these years into, and he's certainly not upset about starting his own life, why should I be? It's almost funny to be co-planning the graduation luncheon at church with the other "graduating" mom (yes, the church is so small we only have two graduating seniors), our temperaments and the ways we are approaching this new phase of life are so different! I don't see this as the end of something, I see it as a beginning. Jon is starting his own life, beginning his own career, and for the first time in......well......ever (!!), he's finally looking at things as an adult. He may not be choosing the career I'd choose for him (Lord knows I don't really enjoy the months of endless fear that go along with deployments, I'm sure it will only get worse when it's my SON instead of my husband), but it's what he's choosing. It's an honorable career, and I know it's well thought-out. What else could I do but approach this new beginning with the same enthusiasm Jon has? It's funny--the "other" mom is clinging to the last few months before her daughter leaves for college with everything she can. She cries at the drop of a hat, and is putting together the picture board we're doing together for the grads like she is assembling the momentos to be displayed at a memorial service! I guess this is one "glitch" I'd like to minimize. Graduation isn't a glitch, it's a natural process of life!

Our van....still hasn't shipped. They told us at the last minute that we needed an appointment! It leaves Friday. That really cuts the in-transit time close to when we'll arrive in country, but we'll just have to hope and pray it all works out well.

All in all, not that bad. Sure, there are others, but they're REALLY minor. Live-with-able. They all are, I suppose. Some just stick in our craw a bit more. The only really big glitch is that none of the realtors in Huntsville want to do any business with someone outside of the country, meaning ALL of our house-hunting will have to wait till our feet are firmly planted in Alabama. For those of us (me, me, ME!!!) who don't handle uncertainty well, this is a source of sleep loss! However, since nothing can be done about it......I'll still lose sleep, just needlessly. OH well.

A rare moment

This doesn't happen often. The living room is clean and all three girls are eagerly (and QUIETLY) watching a movie. Which movie, you ask? Why it's only The Little Mermaid....for the 6,000th time! But this was just too cute to pass up with the camera.

Quote of the day

Amid all of my decluttering in an effort to streamline things and make this move just a smidgen smoother on the un-packing side, I'm getting rid of a TON of stuff. Seriously, if we had a dumpster all to ourselves, I'd probably have filled it four times over with stuff that's been cluttering closets, storage rooms, and every other nook and cranny of this house. Just ONE of those little decluttering projects included doing some rotation in my cloth diaper 'stash'; getting rid of the ones we don't use or CAN'T use (Dani staged a one-baby coup against all things velcro, so any diapers with velcro closures have been nixed) and making way for a new itty bitty stash for what now looks like yet another bundle of pink.

Oh yeah....teeny little announcement that got lost in the chaos of the week--the new little one is yet another GIRL! God indeed knows what He is doing here...we have very little to buy, that's for sure! Ah yes, and a name has been settled on--Stefani Kathleen. MUCH better than Quinn Marie, which is what Daddy, Jon, and Kelsey wanted to name the poor child. I just couldn't get past the mental reference to the Queen Mary.....we're not bringing an oceanliner into the family here, ya know!

Back to the day's story--I've been listing a bunch (like a whole 48-gallon Rubbermaid "tub" full) of cloth diapers on the internet's biggest cloth diapering marketplace, Diaper Swappers, and I've already made enough on the resale of diapers I used gently with Dani and Jamie to buy everything I need for Stefani! No, used cloth diapers aren't "gross", not anymore so than clothes you get at a thrift store, because in a lot of cases, the diapers have actually been cared for really well and come to you stain and smell-free! Anyway, though, I had to make a trip to the Army Post Office on base today (which, by the way, is now open only three hours a day, five days a week, thanks to this "transition" thing we're going through as the base closes), to ship off two of the packages of diapers I'd sold.

The clerk took one look at the customs forms and shrieked, "CLOTH DIAPERS???? Who uses those anymore, seriously???"

He then proceeded to tell me (without letting me get a single word in edgewise) that when his wife brought up the topic of cloth diapers with their daughter nine years ago and that she'd wanted to cut costs, he said no way and told her to "invest in the disposables" because with cloth you have stink and grossness, with disposables, you just wrap the thing up and toss it in the trash.

Yeah, ok. RIGHT.

Over the last two months, as we've traveled and fought illness, crazy schedules, and the lack of available washing machines, we've resorted to the cheapo disposables. We've got two in diapers right now. In fact, we've had no less than two in diapers for the last 38 months. In the time our girls have worn paper diapers these last few weeks, they've had more rashes, more "blowouts", and more leaks than we have in the last year with cloth. And oddly enough, even though no one actually does it, there is a note on the side of the disposable diaper package that states each soiled diaper should be emptied of all waste BEFORE disposing of it. Meaning you still *SHOULD* be scraping poo off of Junior's Pampers before you roll and toss them in the trash anyway. NO thank you. Oh, and the smell? Shoot, I have been able to smell our trash can from halfway across the HOUSE since we've been using disposables; I usually can't smell anything coming from our diaper pail until I open it to take the diapers to the wash!

I'm not a big environmentalist. Sure, we do our part as concerned citizens, but I'm not into earth-worship. But the more I've thought about it since my postal clerk's rude and uninformed little comment today, I'm seriously thinking about why on earth cloth diapering hasn't had a bigger "push" from environmental folks? I have seen TWO Earth Day-type specials on TV lately that detailed what Americans can do to reduce their impact on the earth, and no mention was made whatsoever about cloth diapering. Why not? Of course, putting cloth on a baby's bum is a bit more time-consuming than disposable diapering, but it's so CUTE nowadays, with so many more convenient options than the pins and plastic pants of my babyhood. You'd think the word would be getting out a bit quicker! Just LOOKie how cute these things are!

Dani at about five months in my favorite diaper (that I'm trying to find someone to replace elastic on....it's breaking my heart to see it sitting lame in the drawer!), a blue Hawaiian print Mudpie Babies diaper:


At about three months in the most "pettable" diaper we've ever owned, a Fuzzi Fanny furry fleece diaper:

This is how the old-school prefold diapers (fastened with a gizmo called a Snappi instead of pins) are covered nowadays--in cuteness like this Wiggle Worm Bottoms cover:


And for all-time favorite prettiness, this is it. Another Mudpie Babies creation:


I'll have to snap a few pictures of what this "obsession" has done to us...but right now I'm just barely managing to keep track of all visible floor space while stuff gets cleared out! You know what's really odd? By the end of next week, I'll have received all the diapers I need to keep Stefani's bum covered (in cuteness, I might add) until she's six months old! And all for less than $50, total. This is one "obsession" that is definitely paying off!