To Church we go!

This picture is a couple of weeks old, but I just wanted to share it because I love his cute little smirk. This was taken right before we left for church for the first time as a family.

Family Fun!

We went to Benjamin's parents house to cheer on the tigers as they played NC State. We also had a birthday celebration for Benjamin and his daddy (both born on September 22) and an early birthday for Jonathan (September 25). We had a lot of fun with the babies and enjoyed getting to spend the day with family. Plus it helped that the tigers won! :)

See pictures here

Protesting going "night-night"

It was time for a nap and Benson was protesting ... he makes a good case... see his argument here:

Benson at bedtime

Benson's First Act of Disobedience

The Bible is clear that babies are sinful from birth, but it has been really hard to believe that my sweet little baby boy could possibly be a sinner, but for the first time... he has blatantly disobeyed me.

I am not a fan of thumb sucking. It is a yucky habit that if the parents allow it when they are young, can stick with a child all the way into grade school and beyond. In my classroom, I saw children come in from recess with filthy dirty hands all except that squeaky clean thumb. Hmmm... Wonder were the dirt went? Ew!

You can take away a pacifier, but you CAN'T cut off their thumb! So I have tried my hardest to get Benson to take a passy. He went with it for a while, but he would lay down and fall asleep and it would fall out of his mouth, so he would wake up and start crying. About a week ago, Benson slept all the way through the night! I was so excited! I peeked over into his bassinet and what do you know... he had found his thumb. In the middle of the night, when he woke up and couldn't find his passy, his stuck his thumb in and it worked like a charm... he drifted off to sleep til morning.

So I guess it isn't all bad. Although, now he has started sucking it during the day too! I have tried to pull it out of his mouth and pop the passy in... but he just spits it out and sticks his thumb in again. Blatant disrespect. I guess he's already got a mind of his own... stinker.

Playtime!

I put Benson in his exersaucer today to see how he'd like it. I had to prop him up with pillows and blankets so he could sit up in it, but he did great holding his head up! He wasn't too impressed yet--- his favorite thing in the world right now is a ceiling fan, go figure. He looks up at them and just smiles from ear to ear! I think he thinks they are a giant mobiles put there to entertain him! Silly boy! Even though he couldn't quite figure out the toys in his first "playtime",I did manage to catch a little smile on video. You can see it here:

Cloth Diapers- Are you kidding me?!

I have made reference to it at times, but I haven't ever really explained our decision to use cloth diapers with Benson. When people find out that we are cloth diapering, they usually start out saying, "Are you crazy?" Or, "What do you do with the doo doo?" Seriously.. this is what people say! You probably thought it! :)

I babysat for a couple in college that used cloth diapers. They always had the babies in disposables when I came to babysit, but the mom stayed at home with the babies and used cloth during the day. I thought it was pretty neat then,and looked into it when I became pregnant with Benson.

I tend to be pretty environmentally conscious. I'm aware of the fact that the world is only so big and should we continue to fill it up with junk, we are going to be living in that junk! However, this was not enough motivation for Benjamin.. .when I suggested we use cloth diapers to help save the landfills from the 9,000 diapers (literally) that it would take to cover Benson's bottom from the time he was born until the time he is potty trained, Benjamin's reply was... "Babe, I'm pretty sure Jesus is going to come back before diapers take over the world."
Ok. Maybe so, but I do think we have a responsibility to do what we can to help out the environment and in my opinion, cloth diapering is an easy way to do it.

What really hooked Benjamin in on the idea of cloth diapering was the monetary savings you can have by using cloth.

Here's a break down of the savings from one my favorite sites www.babycottonbottoms.com

Your baby will go through about 8 -12 diapers a day ~ or about 9000 diaper changes by the time he/she is potty trained. At $0.24 a diaper, that adds up to about $2,160! Disposable wipes will cost at least another $600-800. In contrast, purchasing your own cloth diapers and cloth wipes to wash them at home will cost somewhere between $250 and $750. Considering your laundering costs (about $.50 a load or $120 over the course of 30 months) you will still save about $2,000 - $2,500 over an average 2.5 year period! And if you reuse your diapers over multiple babies, you can multiply this savings! Take the kids to Disneyland (or yourself to Bali!) on the savings! Translated into an hourly wage, you will earn over $20 an hour with the additional time cloth diaper laundering will take.

As I started looking at it (and reading about every article there was online!) it just seemed like it wouldn't be that hard to do. Benson is three months old and has been in cloth diapers since he was two weeks old and as weird as it may sound, I LOVE cloth diapering! It is so easy. We save so much money. We'll be able to use them again with the next baby. They are softer on his heiny and they NEVER leak! (Unlike the blowouts he has had on the rare occasion he has had to wear a disposable)

We use chinese prefolds with Thirsties brand diaper covers. (We started out with Thirsties brand prefolds, but they have been discontinued :( so now I buy Tiny Tush Prefolds and they work just as well!) This is were I really save money because I can buy a whole lot of these without spending much money and with the invention of the Snappi... they are so easy!!! No more diaper pins and that kind of thing. Just Easy Peasy Snappies! But I also have ordered some more "daddy friendly" diapers that are called "Thirsties fab fitted." These just velcro on and you put a Thirsties diaper cover over them. Even Easier! (I bought everything I have a www.dapperdiaperstore.com. It is based out of Irmo, SC and the owner, Marilyn is a stay at home mom who is a wonderful help in explaining things about Cloth Diapering!)

Most people have a hangup about the washing of the dipes and I must say, I thought it would be a pain, but it has proven to be no trouble at all. In fact, it so great to, when we run out of diapers, be able to wash a load of clothes and voila! More Dipes! No late night runs to the store to buy dipes or wipes and no accidental use of clorox clean-up wipes on the babies heiny (which really did happen to one of the newest Ryan grandbabies :) haha )

I make my own wipes solution using 2 T of baby wash and 2 T of baby oil with one cup of water. I put it in a foaming hand wash pump and pump it onto a baby washcloths to use as wipes. It works great!

I throw the dirty dipes and wipes into an old pillow case in a small trashcan and about every other day, throw the whole thing, pilliow case and all into the wash. I do a cold rinse and then a hot wash using the Arm and Hammer Essentials Detergent and a small scoop of OxyClean Free. It works great!

Since Benson is breastfed, his poop is just liquid and it doesn't smell. It just comes out in the cold rinse cycle- once he starts eating baby food and his poops get to be a little poopier, I will use 1/2 of a Viva paper towel to line the dipe and just flush it down the toilet when it is soiled. No biggie! Did you know you're supposed to shake off any poop off of disposable diapers anyway? Who does that? Not many people I know! So there is a whole lot of poop sitting in bags of diapers in landfills all over the world. Ew. At least I am dealing with my poop now instead of leaving it for my children to deal with later!

So that's the story behind cloth diapering! If you would like to find out more about it or have any questions, you can email me at jessryan828@gmail.com. I LOVE to talk about cloth diapering. It makes me feel like I am super mom... saving the world one diaper at a time! :)

Sweet baby in the day gown Kelli made for him

When I found out I was pregnant, Kelli signed up for a sewing class to learn how to sew and smock. She spent about a million hours making one of the hardest baby outfits there is to make-- a day gown. We are going to have Benson baptized in it, but I just couldn't resist doing a little photoshoot with him in it.

Click here to see the pictures

1,2,3,4- 1,2,3,4- C-L-E-M-S-O-N T-I-G-E-R----S FIGHT TIGERS, FIGHT TIGERS, FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!

We went to the mountains with all the babies for Labor Day. We had a ball! The weather was beautiful and the anticipation on Monday's game made it a great time! Benson and I ended up staying home, but Benjamin promised to cheer loud enough for the three of us! Judging from his sore throat today, I'm thinking he came through on that deal! We are so proud of our tigers and just really glad that game didn't last a minute longer!

Benson is doing well with the dairy free diet. He is back to his old self again and has started giving us some smiles that just melt us! We are so thankful to be able to continue with the breastfeeding! The doctor told us there was about a 10% chance we would be able to keep breastfeeding-- and so far so good-- 10 percent is 10 percent and it looks like we're in it! Praise the Lord!

I am enjoying being at home with him so much. We have such a great time together during the day and I am so thankful that I am not missing one second of his adorableness! I sometimes feel like the Lord, when doling out blessings, gives us an extra helping! Thank you, Father!

As seen above, the boy is obviously not having any trouble eating :)
He was 11 lbs 10 oz. one week before his three month birthday!

Silly boy wearing daddy's hat!

Benson and Peaches "James Davis" Ryan watching the tigers stomp FSU!