"Hey Stripes..."

"... Dad's not watching. Let's go change out of our Black and Yellow and go put on some ..... oh I don't know... Blue and Gold."

;)

Rockin' Green give away!

Rockin' Green laundry detergent that is! When I started this whole cloth diaper journey I realized I couldn't use just regular detergent, you can't use anything with fabric softeners that cause repelling of the diaper along with other things. So I found a homemade version of the brand name stuff so I didn't have to order online. Well I've come to notice that there are a lot of contests out there in cyber land and the one I want to tell you about is a Rockin' green cloth diaper detergent give away from The Cloth Diaper Report blog. It's for their new detergent which is specially made for Hard Water which is what we deal with here, and can be the cause of nasty stink in the diapers not rinsing out completely. I thought it can't hurt to enter and now I'm really hoping to win. The scents they have sound absolutely delicious! Check out these, they are my favourite:

Brown Sugar- sweet brown sugar scent. It’s like fresh baked cookies without that pesky oven

Monkey Snacks- A tropical blend of Banana, Coconut, Lime, Orange, Grapefruit, Bergamot, and Clove. Smells like Banana Laffy Taffy!

Berries & Cream- Strawberries, Raspberries and Cream. Think red and pink starbursts

5th B-day party

I just realized I didn't post pictures from D's birthday party. It was back in February but I guess I took a break from it then forgot. After finding a really cool place to order supplies from (Celebrate Express)she decided she wanted to do The Dog theme. Seems quite appropriate actually, if you know her. ;) This was her first friend party as well, might I add. So after a quick trip across the border, (free shipping within the States is awesome) we picked up our supplies and her and I ohhhed and ahhhhed over them. (Dad didn't find them as cute unfortunately) Anyway, after the painstaking process of deciding the guest list (I don't have room in my house for all her friends so had to be the meany and limit it to just 6 lovely 5, or near 5, year olds) she wrote out all her invitations herself, with only a little help from mommy with some of the numbers.

The day or two before we made dog bone cookies that they would decorate during the party, I attempted to make a cake in the shape of a bone, and that morning got all the balloons up and the house decorated. The girls started arriving at 2pm and played for a bit in the basement. Yaaaa for playrooms in basements!!!! So after a play, some cookie decorating, gifts, games, cake, and more play it was 4pm and time for everyone to head home.

I should add that Daelyn likes to dress up these days...

I also got some super cute take away's for the girls, all following the dog theme of course! Dog bone crayons, The Dog note books, bone shaped cookie cutter which can be great for PlayDoh as well, all in closed in their dog house take away box. As well they got to take home their The Dog place mats with activities on the reverse.

She already has a theme picked out for next year, The Cat, so we'll see if she stays with that. LOL

Water bill mishap

Don't let them estimate. I don't know what it's like everywhere, but if you live in my town you must remember to phone or mail in your water meter reading. (Take this as a warning) After Mack was born I missed doing that, but knew they would just estimate it and we'd get back on track next time. Not really thinking about it, we got a bill that was a lot lower than usual. Now they had been billing us every three months so you can see why things get forgotten. So anyway I thought that was strange but something in my memory suggested that maybe they had switched to billing monthly, so I paid it and made a mental note. Apparently my memory these days is rather poor because time went by and it's time for another bill. Pay it (at the new lower amount) and put it aside. Add in here also Christmas, New Years, and a sleep deprived Momma/bill payer. Fast forward a couple more month to this week. I'm flipping through the channels and come across the local channel with the notices on it and there is one from the town, reminding people to call/mail in the meter readings and letting us know the no longer do the door to door readings. Hmmm.... okay I better do that and see what's up. Well I read the meter and compare it to the last bill. After some head scratching and figuring I find that we have been really under estimated the last two billings. I don't know what the units are but we usually average about 20,000 a billing period which is indeed three months. (no monthly billing after all) Okay so that happened the last two times totalling a usage of 40,000. We were estimated and billed for only 3000 each totalling 6000. That means we're owing for ... well a lot! I call the town office to give them my new reading and ask them why the estimate is so low, when it's obvious our average is much higher, and she basically said the system sets it at the minimum so they don't over bill. How many people really only use 3000 a month. A single person that works all day maybe? Seriously! So let this be your warning....

READ YOUR WATER METER REGULARLY!