Jeb Mortier, Laurie Mortier, Jordan Mortier, Aubrey Mortier & Amberly Mortier's personal website

My favorite diaper brand is BumGenius (I also have a few other brands that I really like too).  When I first started cloth diapering more than a year ago, I really liked the velcro/aplix closure on diapers.  I still do, until after a while of use and washings, the velcro starts to wear off.  They are very convenient with diaper changes on newborns since it is much like a disposable diaper.  However, as my baby grew, so was her mobile abilities and among those is her ability to undo the velcro on her diaper thus taking her diaper off (especially in the summer where I mostly let her crawl around in just a diaper).  I can always teach her "no" and not take her diaper off, which is fine and for the most part she has learned not to, but at the same time, I just want to make sure that her diaper stays on and save us unnecessary embarrassment if we had company over.  So, I decided to add a few more diapers and switch to snap diaper closure.  Unfortunately I do not have many of them.

 

Most of my diaper stash is comprised of BumGenius with the velcro closure, although, I have a few BumGenius Organic One-Size (AIO) with snap closure.  And just very recently, my beloved favorite diaper came out with a new product called BumGenius OS 4.0 which is basically the same trusted diaper with new features implemented, and one of them is your choice of closure.  You can either choose velcro or snaps!  I love this new feature and was so excited to hear about it.  Anyway, I currently do have enough diapers in my stash, so I decided to convert some of my older BG velcro diaper in to snaps.  I ordered my KAM snap pliers with some snaps set kit and waited for a time that I can set to work on my diapers.

I am amazed at how easy and quick it was to convert my diapers!

I even have 2 Large Size BumGenius All-in-One's that I got for free from KellysCloset.com, that I decided to convert into a One-Size diaper.  Meaning, instead of just being an individual sized diaper for when a baby gets to be a certain weight, the diaper can "grow" with my baby, just like the BumGenius OS 3.0/4.0.

Another feature I added with my converted BumGenius snap diaper is an extra snap in the tab so you can roll up the diaper for storing in a wet bag / diaper pail (just like one of the features you can do with a velcro closure).

I am pleased. :)

We had a fun 4th of July weekend this year.  It was a very hot and humid day so we decided to hit our local waterpark to cool off, with a friend of ours.  The kids and Hubby had a great time.  I think they went down the slides about half a dozen times.  It rained for a lil bit but hey, we are at the waterpark... so we just kept on playing in the water.

Later that night, we watched the fireworks display at our city.  This is the first time for both Jeb and I to watch our local fireworks display.  Each year, we tried doing it, something comes up, we are out of town or we get there too early (thinking it was done and then head home).  Also, normally we would head out to Jeb's grandma's place to see their own fireworks display, which is pretty neat as well.  We were quite impressed with the display of Fond du Lac's fireworks... it looked awesome!  We had a pretty good set-up as well to view the fireworks.  We sat by the lighthouse (by the rocks and the lake) at the Lakeside Park, and we can even see all the other fireworks going off in the distance by the lake shore.  It was pretty cool.   I took some videos and pictures of it.  The kids did well too, didn't get scared or cried.  We were glad for the breeze that night as well which made the warm weather bearable and kept the mosquitoes away!

This year has been very bad with regards to mosquitoes.  Living out here in the woods is not making it any easier, either.  The kids are just speckled with tons of mosquito and/or other insect bites (as you can see from the picture of Amberly).  Every night before I go to sleep... I would go back and forth between rooms (ours and the kids) and hunt down mosquitoes and bugs.  It is a mosquito vs me-with-the-flyswatter war every night!  We even went out to purchase an insect trap (called DynaTrap) device that will help get rid of some of the bugs and insects in the house.  Anyway, that is beside the point.  But we did have a very enjoyable weekend.

Before the week is over, I'd like to let you know about another fun weekend that we had last Sunday (6/27).   One of our Fil-Am friends invited us to a beach party in celebration of her coming birthday.  I have had been looking forward to this event since she sent out the invitations.  I missed it last year because something came up at the very last minute.  This year, we were able to make it and how glad we were able to go.  We had so much fun!  Even though it wasn't a real beach that most of us, Asian / Pacific Islanders are used to, I was quite impressed about the beach.  We went to Sheboygan Beach which is part of the Michigan Lake.  We had perfect, beautiful weather that day... sunny warm with a nice breeze.  But hey, was the water ever so COLD!  After a few minutes being in the water, your legs get numb from the cold.  It was that cold.  I was just able to dip my feet / ankles in the water since I have to watch Amberly that time.  I am more than content to just watch the kids and my hubby have fun in the water, building sand castles from afar while I sit down and relax in a beach chair holding my Peaches, enjoying the warmth, breeze and fine sand under my toes... and of course, taking pictures of everyone.  I truly miss the beaches, even if I don't have to swim in it.  It is just so relaxing!  I miss the Philippines beaches, but this is definitely sufficient enough for me, for my beach cravings. :)

Have you ever have one those moments where you will be going some place or would be taking the kids somewhere, and your kids consistently ask you about a gazillion times if it is "time" to go yet.  Well, I have 2 of those (my youngest can't really express her enthusiasm yet -- she's just 13 mos. old).  They are too young yet to really tell or read time (although I'm starting to work on that with them), and their perception of a minute that pass is forever.

Well, here is something that I came up with to help them identify time and also give them a sense of "schedule" in a what to do in a chronological list form.  I created and printed them a schedule with a clock face that you draw the hands for the clock later on, depending on the time you want it to be.  I tell them, if you see the clock looking like this, then it is time to do whatever is on the chart (i.e., Wake Up, Make Beds, Breakfast, School Time, Play, Clean Up toys, etc...).  I also used images to portray their schedule as my kids don't know how to read yet.  But by looking at the clock and the picture beside it that represents what that time is scheduled for, they know and can have a perception of "time."  I would also tell them, if we are going some place or do something, that if the clock looks like this (I would show or draw a picture of a clock with the time, and also tell that what that time is), then they can go by me, ask or tell me if it is time to go, or do something, whatever it was that was planned for that day.

Here is an example of what I made up for my kids.  Please note that none of the images is my original art work, I googled for clipart images, and use it for personal use only.

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Morning Schedule | Afternoon / Night Schedule | and Clocks template. Click each picture to see a larger view.

You can also download a .pdf version here.