Grandpa && Nana come to visit!

Edward's Grandparents came down for Thanksgiving! It was such a treat to have them! They came down Monday night, && left Friday morning! We did crafts, hung out, cooked && of course, snuggled up with Paetin Leigh && Cameryn Raye!


They had to drive in through the snow from Washington, but even though it was almost a three day trip for them, Nana was no where near too tired for Cameryn! They snuggled && smiled away almost instantly! When Edward got home from work, tears of joy came for the reunion! Such a sweet thing! I wish that we were closer so it wasn't such a big things, we could see each other all of the time, instead of once a year.

Our Eleven [11] Month Project!

Just over eleven months ago, Edward and I moved our family down to Arizona. It was just a journey getting rid of the extra stuff, packing what we wanted, and trying to find furniture to fill a house! Edward's Nana && Gpa had an extra oak coffee table in the garage that they offered for us to take if we wanted it. Us being beyond poor jumped on the opportunity! We like darker woods so we figured we'd just get around to sanding && re-staining it when we got the chance. A small and easy enough project.. Or so I thought. I must've forgotten, for whatever reason, that I married a sleep-o-holic! LoL. 

** Cloth Diapering **

When we found out we were pregnant, we were nervous. So excited since we had wanted another baby, but caught off guard since we had just decided to wait since we had moved && were unemployed. Living off of our savings, yet needed to prepare for the little one on the way. So of course looking for a solution to the cost of a baby, I started looking into ways to cut corners on expenses. This led me to cloth diapers. I know what you're thinking, " Ew, gross! No way!" But I have to tell you, I am sooo thrilled that we decided to do it! I absolutely love them! There are all sorts of different types of cloth diapers these days; all in ones, pockets && inserts (they type I am using), pre-folds with covers, then of course the traditional with rubber pants. I will be honest, cloth diapering does cost money up front, but in the long run, you are saving hundreds! Not to mention, with the pocket diapers that we are using, we never have to buy again once we got a full set! Just a little more incentive to use cloth - an average baby puts on average ONE TON worth of diapers into the landfill in a year! That's just crazy if you ask me!


A full set of diapers is considered between twenty to twenty-four diapers. Right now we only have twenty. We wanted to make sure we had enough for a set, but wanted to be able to buy pink ones if we had a girl. (= We use Katy did Cloth Pocket Diapers. They are awesome! She runs a newer company so right now she only offers four colors. Sage, Melon, Twilight && Berry. We bought only three colors, leaving out the berry pink since we didn't know we were having a girl. Now of course, we plan to buy a few && if she chooses to come out with more colors or prints, I'm sure we'll buy more just for variety, or even just to have a few extra. These diapers fit babies from 8 to 35 lbs! They're wonderful! They come with newborn inserts as well as a full size that snaps to adjust with your growing baby! You can use both inserts at night time for extra absorbency (the one on Cameryn in photo is double stuffed for bedtime). So far we haven't had any leaks && honestly, it's no messier than disposables!

Now when you use cloth diapers there are a few rules. When you wash your diapers, you need to use a detergent that has NO additives in it. Also, you shouldn't use fabric softeners or dryer sheets since they make the material water resistant instead of absorbing && wicking away the moisture. So of course the companies that make detergents for diapers are crazy expensive. So since I'm being resourceful about using cloth diapers, I might as well work out a way to save money on my detergent to wash them right?? Well I did. I made my own!! Here are the recipe && directions to make it if you're interested:

Paetin's Newest Girly Streak!

So Paetin used to be as tom-boy as they come! It's true, she loves to play in the mud, get dirty, and rough house like most young boys.. but lately she has had quite the interest in nail polish, dolls, playing tea party, doing her hair && dressing up! Of course she still wants to get dirty and be her normal self, she just wants to look pretty while doing it!

Every day now she tells me how she wants to be a dream come true && wear a pretty dress, needs to fix her nails when the paint chips and how she needs to get a bath && wash her hair so I can put it up for her! && becuase she has a little sister to dress up, I simply do NOT have enough dresses for Cameryn! I run out after a few days && oh man does Paetin let me have it! (= I've decided to let her play with my make up brushes! She just has so much fun with it! We now do regular pedis && manis on each other! Like three a week! (= And she makes me tea every day! If I don't drink my tea I have to sit at the table with the dolls until I finish my cup! Yet I still have to drink it slow for it IS hot! (= We have so much fun together lately! I can't wait for Cameryn to be a bit older to join in with us!

 I absolutely love having my little girls! I have to say I am a bit nervous about our next pregnancy, I'm not sure I'll know what to do if I have a boy!! (=

Household Updates!!

Since the move we've been fidling around here and there in the house trying to get things set up the way we want them. Go figure it's taken about a year to get this place feeling like a home! Since we've never had our own place before, we really only had the basics. We've started a play area in the living room for the kids to play! It's far from done, but I'm loving it anyways! Just some things here && there that I need to add, but Paetin really enjoys having all of there things accessible in the living room where everyone else is. (=

Paetin's room was a hallway. Everytime I walked into that room it felt like an echo lodge! So we rearranged it so the shape wasn't as enhanced! With an expedit && a hanging net her room is very organized in such a simple way! We all love it! She can see everything she needs && we got rid of the boxes that were hanging around! Paetin picked out the colors for her bed "rag" quilt that I made her, as well as her curtains && wall shade! She absolutely loves butterflies so we put some decals on her wall and she has her wonderful hanging butterfly that Austin (her biological dad) sent her for her first birthday. She's turning into quite the little princess && we're loving every minute!!

Our Halloween 2010!

For Halloween Paetin insisted on being Cinderella! My mom helped make the skirt for her dress && my sister-in-law, Janel, found a top for .50 cents at a garage sale.. so what do we make Cameryn?? A mouse! We started searching for costumes and found an adorable idea online! I wasn't about to pay $45.oo for something that I could make, so of course I copied it!

The girls and I went to a Trunk or Treat Halloween party with my brother's family at his church on Friday October 29! Paetin was soo excited to dress up! They were absolutely darling! My nephews' costumes matched as well! Nathan was the mischevious Peter Pan && Tyler was Captain Hook! We were going to make Andrew a crocodile but we kinda dropped the ball and making that one work out..but he was cute none the less!
Part way through the party we saw Nathan and noticed that Paetin was no longer with him. We started searching for her not worried since there we TONS of kids running around..but then we can't see her anywhere.. so we start to ask people to keep their eyes open.. There was another ward having a Halloween Party at the building so we decided go to search their group.. well.. my little social butterfly was sitting with a group of hispanic children laughing it up with them all not understanding a word they were saying! I'm so glad she was having a great time, but even more relieved that she was okay!
On Halloween my brother's family came over to my neighborhood for trick or treating! Since the boys had completely covered their original costumes in chili, Janel improvised with some she had stashed in her closet! Tyler became the cutest dragon who's tail wagged as he walked, and Nathan was a very stubborn chicken! We didn't bother dressing up the babies since we were carrying them in our wraps. (=

The kids had so much fun going door to door && people were EXTREMELY considerate when the kids (mostly Paetin) got scared and would remove their masks or not jump out like usual. Part way through our trip around the loop we noticed a small black cat that the kids were petting.. then we noticed that it had been following us around from house to house.. after a while it would sneak up towards the doors while the kids walked up and would try to dart inside! Let's just say he got into one so we started to warn people a cat was trying to find a home.. one man did NOT believe us && was VERY surprised when a little cat darted into his house!! Man Danny and I were laughing so hard I thought I was going to pee my pants! We got waaay more candy than any 2-4 year old needs, but we all had a good time!! Happy Halloween!! (=

Pumpkins, Pumkins, Pumpkins!!

We headed off to the pumpkin patch the Monday before Halloween! We had never done it && had such a blast! The Tolmachoff Farms was great! They had petting zoos, corn tubs, corn mazes big && small, "train" rides, and more! It was such a fun family event! && of course they had PUMPKINS!!
Paetin had fun petting all the animals, especially the baby chicks! She wanted the piggies tails, && almost got her fingers eaten by and ostrich!  She chased a poor little chicken around with such laughter it was just too cute!

We did the family maze and got lost.. No matter who led we had no idea where we were! I actually think our three-year-old did the best job trying to get us through!! We ended up giving up && when we saw the outline we felt only a little bit better about not making it!! LOL! Then of course we bought our pumpkins!!

Now I have never carved a pumpkin so this was quite the treat for me! Eddy taught me how to cut the top, gut and start my pumpkin!! I was so nervous I was doing everything wrong I kept asking him if I was doing it right.. he kept saying, "Naomi, it's kinda hard to mess  up!"...
I decided to make Jack Skellington (due to my love of Tim Burton) && Eddy picked out a skeleton he found a photo of online. We hand drew cuz we're cool kids like that! (= I thought that Paetin would LOVE to help me prep my child, but I realized my little girl is getting girlier and girlier by the day!! She would NOT touch the inside of my pumpkin! LOL.. but we gave her the camera && let her have a go with it! She was awful cute!!
Eddy ended up cutting his pumpkin skeleton out of it's outline, got frustrated && threw his away.. at this point I was so scared of ruining mine that every cut I made had me in knots! Mine isn't great, but I had a blast doing it! My Jack Skellington has a special place in my heart!!

Grandma && Grandpa Visit!

Cameryn was born just eight [8] days after my nephew Andrew. This means five [5] grand-babies down in Arizona for my parents! So of course they came to visit for ten days! We went swimming a lot at the condo that they rented! It was so much fun for the kids to swim around with Grandma && Grandpa with their noodles! They sure loved to splash around!

For Nathan's fourth birthday we had gourmet waffles for breakfast then spent the rest of the day at a train park in Scottsdale. We rode around on the train, took a spin on the carousal && played in the abandoned "wild west" town with our ice cream cones. (=

Mom started on the makes of Paetin's Halloween costume && helped me get some house projects done! We had lots of fun with them && of course Paetin was a complete Grandma's girl as usual! Who doesn't love it when grandparents are around?? We're hoping to be able to see them sometime again this winter!

Cameryn Raye is born!

After nine [9] months of anticipation we welcomed our baby girl on September 16th, 2010! Cameryn Raye Polansky was born at 9:59 P.M. 6 lbs 4 ounces && 18 inches long! She is a mini replica of her daddy for sure! 

Eddy && I had agreed to have an all natural birth! Our sister-in-law, Janel, helped coach! It was such an amazing experience! We were only at the hospital a total of four hours before she came. When we walked in the nurses didn't believe I was in labor I was smiling and so composed! Once the hard labor started though I was a little bit less happy! I kept my head on and with great vocal && massage support from my team we welcomed her without any interventions! 
She is such a beautiful little girl && Paetin couldn't be happier to have her sister around! We now have a family of four && love our girls to death!