New Kitchen

Our kitchen remodel started on Monday! After some work by Randy and I to get everything out of the kitchen and boxed up. We also set-up a temporary kitchen in the living room. Hopefully the new kitchen will be completed in just two weeks, with us gone for one of the weeks.

Packing up the kitchen:

Temporary kitchen during remodel:

Kitchen after Day 1:

Kitchen after Day 2:

too tired to add any pictures of day 2. Only thing to change is the dry wall is up! Looking good so far. Escaped with the girls to the Children's Museum up in Indy for the day with some friends. Randy had a late day of working, so I had a very long day with the girls and am glad they are all asleep now. Ready for some ice cream!

Cloth Diapers

Randy's crazy idea a few months ago was to cloth diaper baby Joseph (yes, that is his name! Weird to type it out!). I thought after going through three girls all in disposable diapers, that it would be difficult to switch and even a little pointless since we aren't planning on more kids after 4. Since it was something Randy brought up, I thought I would at least look into it and I found that from the websites and from friends that have used cloth, that they are much better and user friendly than my initial opinion.

Why we decided to go for it?

1. It is much better for the environment. I can't even count how many diapers we have already disposed of from the girls, but at least we can start now, right?

2. Cost savings. It did cost us around $400 dollars start-up to purchase the diapers. 8 Grovia and 12 grovia inserts, 12 Rumparooz, shower sprayer to connect at the toilet, diaper bag, and some extra liners. This should be all we need for the next few years in terms of diapers! No more late night trips to Target when we run out! The estimate for a year of disposables is $1000, so overall we should cover the initial cost. In addition the resale value on the cloth diapers is pretty good, I expect to get at least 30-50% of our $400 back!

3. This one may sound counter-intuitive, but we also think cloth diapers may cut down on the smell! Our disposable system is to put the dirty diapers in the garage, which is fine in the winter, but boy is it smelly during the summer. With the cloth diapers, we will keep them in a tight fitting container in the laundry room and plan on doing laundry every other day.

Here is a picture of our diaper stash:

Now that we have the cloth diapers and the baby isn't coming until June, we thought we might as well try out cloth on Eve and Lydia. Perhaps it will even get them to be potty trained quicker! Aren't they cute in the diapers! So it has been a little over a week since they have been in cloth diapers. No more diaper buying for us. To be honest, it really isn't that hard or time consuming. Rinsing the poop is a little gross, but not more than what a mom and dad already have to deal with in handling toddlers. I can see a babysitter not wanting to rinse out a diaper, but the actual taking on and off of the cloth is easily mastered.

When the new baby comes in June, we will probably still keep all three in cloth. I don't think we will even need to buy any more diapers since Eve and Lydia are only going through 5-6 diapers each per day, but I will keep you posted.

I did not think I would turn into a cloth diaper advocate, but I would recommend at least looking into it...it is not has hard or gross as it seems!

Coffee, carrot cake, and a blog post (long overdue)

Sometimes when you don't post something for a long, long time...you even forget how to do it! It has been awhile since filling in the details of the Arnold household. In some miraculous way, I have 3 sleeping girls. I am enjoying my morning coffee at 2:30 pm (dentist appointment this morning and didn't want coffee breath for the hygienist...and then the morning got away from me), and I also have left over carrot cake. I could make a list of things I should be doing right now instead of blogging (finishing lecture for tomorrow, writing last quiz, emailing students back, writing final exam), but instead I will take a break from work and fill you all in on our life these past days, I mean weeks, I mean...months!

Family news:

• We left our sweet little blue house on S. Dunn St and moved into a house with more bedrooms and a much bigger back yard. The move happened over Thanksgiving weekend. Thanks to my parents for their help with the move and all our friends who pitched in as well! We all adjusted to the new house, and feel pretty settled. Already had to replace the windows, showers and tubs, paint every wall, Randy has started a fence (with some rain delays), Randy is also in the process of changing out some doors and hardware. There are many, many more projects to be done, but they will just take time.
• Guess what, we are having a baby! And it is a BOY! And he is coming in a few weeks, due date is June 13. I hope to do the vbac and I hope he comes early. If not, I will be very tempted to schedule me up a c-section. The pregnancy has gone very well so far. I am pretty blessed to have easy pregnancies and often forget that I am even pregnant at all, except for the extra ice cream that I treat myself too.
• Starting next week, we will be out of a kitchen for two weeks...hopefully only two weeks! Kitchen remodel is beginning and I am so looking forward to seeing the end product! New cabinets, countertop, and flooring! As long as the kitchen is finished before the baby comes, we should be all good.
• I will finish up teaching next week with the final exam being on Wednesday. It has been a good semester, but I am ready for a break. Not looking forward to all of the end-of-the-semester emails from students wanting to bump up their grade...don't know why they all wait until the end of the semester to get help!
• Rebekah: Our little girl is now 3 1/2 years old. She is starting to ask a lot of "what does that mean" questions, mostly about vocabulary. Just soaking everything in. She still LOVES babies and is looking forward to hugging her new brother. She can be so sweet with her sisters too. It is fun to see her talk and interact with them (when they are getting along). Our precious time is at bedtime when she wants me to sing "Amazing Grace" and rub her arm. She just closes her eyes and enjoys it. She can sing the whole sing on her own as well and often does as she "plays" the piano. Currently when Rebekah colors a picture, it will be a rainbow, with people underneath, a sun above and grass down below. Very predictable, but she is good at it. It can be hard to get her to try at something that she isn't good at. She doesn't like it when it isn't exactly how she wants it to be....a little bit on the perfectionist side. As we transition between needing a nap and not needing a nap, we have been experiencing lots of meltdowns. I just pray they ease up when she turns 4!
• Lydia, 2 1/2: Our sweet little princess is a little honey. Usually the first to share with her sisters, or help me with a chore. Get her really mad, however and she will bite you (mostly Rebekah...we are working on this) or she will turn into a wet noodle that you can't pick up. She will say the sweetest things and has a large imagination. Her new thing is to pretend that Rebekah's room is her room. She also cares for a large assortment of dolls and animals and takes really good care of them when they are sick. She also has somewhat mastered the potty. She wants to go once in a while, but will go right away. She will even do it by herself! Rewards are helpful and I think if I had time to really focus on just her and the potty, she could have it down in a few days. She had a few weeks in big girls pants, but then too many accidents have put her back into diapers. She will use the potty at least 1-2 times per day. Candy is a big motivation for her...somehow all the girls have their mom's sweet-tooth!
• Eve, 2 1/2: Little peanut... I mean princess! This girl is a silly little thing. She just figured out how to climb down from the bar stools. Seriously, this is a wonderful thing. Her sisters have been doing it forever and it is always a pain when she climbs up all the time and we need to help her down. Little things, I know, but a big step for her! She also has been wanting to go to the potty like her sisters. She sits and sits and sits....almost as bad as that potty book about Prudence...and sits and sits and seriously, the girl has no idea what she is doing on the potty! Today I can announce that before nap, after sitting for 30+ minutes, she made some tinkles! We all celebrated with the potty dance and chocolate! Not sure if it will become easier for her, but I sure hope so. Eve is always carrying around something, be it her kitty, or her spoon, or a medicine dropper, or a bracelet, or some little trinket. She is so funny about always having her "thing". Eve and Lydia have moved into big girl toddler beds. They are doing really well, except naps can be rough. The have a lot of fun together and really just love to laugh. Sometimes it is hard for me to be stern and separate them for naps when they can be so funny.

This is probably way to long...I promise....to any of you still readying at this point, to be better at blogging so the posts are not this long! I will try to post later this week about our adventures in cloth diapers...just on day 3 with Eve and Lydia! Also, check out the Picasa pictures. Just click on the girl's picture to go to the album.

Christmas card 2010

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Firefighter Eve

I just love Bloomington and all the great opportunities and activities for families. Already this week we enjoyed Strawberry Shortcake Festival on the Square, had playtime at the Banneker Center and then tonight went to family night at the SRSC (IU student sports center). They host a family night once a month and this month had a safety theme. The kids got to see a fire truck and police car up close.

Firefighter Holly showed us all about fire safety. It was pretty basic, but good for the kids to see up-close a dressed fire fighter. At the end of the talk, they had the kids crawl out the back of the "house" and out the window to the firefighter. Deacon was adorable during the talk, he was able to answer all the questions about what to do if there was a fire. He even knew to "stop, drop, and roll"! Rebekah told the firefighter that she looked like a pig when she put on the gas mask :)

I just thought these were adorable pictures of Eve! She loved the hat!

basement is ready for guests! come and visit!

Alright all you family and friends out there: if you don't already live in Bloomington, we want to have you come and visit us! We miss you all and would love to have you over. Bloomington is a beautiful place and right now we have our lovely tulips in full bloom.

If these blooming flowers have got you excited about visiting, then you will be very impressed with the new bathroom/sleeping area for our guests. Randy has worked hard the last 3+ years (with a little help from me and lots of help from some great friends and family) at finishing the basement. It now has a full bathroom.

A barn (with some butterflies and flowers coming soon to the walls)

Lots of room for toys!

Comfy area for watching TV and a bed in the Cardinal's corner!

And we can't forget about the great IU corner. (yes, there are multiple themes in the one large room)

I do have to say that Randy is pretty amazing! And we really would like to have some more guests over to see us!

bye-bye tv

Last Saturday our neighborhood had a porch sale and we decided to put out our tv and tv stand up for sale. For some time we have been thinking and talking about becoming a one tv family with the tv in the basement and getting rid of the one in the main floor living room. And we did it! A nice older man purchased the tv for $20 and a young lady took the stand for a big $6! In all, we made $165 at the sale, not too bad! The next question then is how do we rearrange the furniture in the living room? I actually had no idea what to do, but felt it was just very messy looking. This really is not my area of expertise, so I am really impressed with how it turned out.
Up top is a picture of the room looking towards the front door. The tv was in the left side corner and the benches are in the room because I had used them to display stuff at the garage sale.

Here is the other side of the room. The first thing that you usually notice about the room is the large bin of toys and stacks of books.

Here are some after pictures! I originally thought that I would need to go out and buy some more furniture. Randy then reminded me (nicely of course) that we are trying to save money to some day add on to the back of the house. So, I am happy to say, all I spent was $35 on the 4 ottomans. The two larger ottomans also serve as shoe hiders for the girls!

The room looks so much bigger and welcoming. I love the fact that there is a place for books instead of the floor and that the toys have there own corner on the other side of the couch. Also notice my great location for hiding the diapers and wipes! The only thing I think we could still use is a chair next to the bookshelf. I am going to keep my eyes open for any deals or garage sales.

Maggie seems to like the new room layout too!