Blueberry Diaper Review & Abby's Lane Giveaway

Maybe you already cloth diaper. Maybe you're interested in trying it. Or maybe you're not into it at all.

Any which way you lean, don't discard this post! There is something for everyone; I promise.

I jumped into cloth diapering not really knowing how it would work out. I hoped we could do it, I was determined to do it, but I just wasn't sure. When I started to do all of my research and was ready to buy, one of the online stores I chose to buy from was Abby's Lane. And for every cloth diaper purchase I've made since building our initial stash, I've gone back to Abby's Lane.

Things I love:
1. Abby's Lane offers free shipping on every order, every day. There is no minimum purchase requirement. Want to try out ONE cloth diaper? Go ahead and buy just one; you won't pay for shipping. I love that, because I absolutely loathe paying for shipping.

2. If you're a member of their e-mail list, there is always a 5% off coupon code to use on every order (except for Ergo Baby products). While 5% may not seem like a lot, it is more than most cloth diaper retailers offer, and of course, every little bit of savings adds up!

3. Fast order turnaround and shipping. Most of the time, I receive my orders within several days of placing them. Even with the holiday last week, and the fact that the people at Abby's Lane were bombarded with Black Friday orders come Friday--I placed an order late on Tuesday night, it shipped on Friday, and I received it today. I love that, because when I order something, I want it yesterday. :)

4. Great customer service. One time, I placed an order for a couple different kinds of pocket diapers in different colors. As it turned out, the inventory on their website was off a little bit, and one of the colors I had ordered was out of stock. Stephanie (the owner) e-mailed me right away to apologize and let me know that it was out of stock, requested that I pick a different color, and refunded me $2 just to make up for the fact that I didn't get my first choice color. Not only that, but it's easy to ask Abby's Lane questions--and they answer them, too. Contact them by e-mail, through Facebook, or through Twitter, and they'll get back to you quickly.

5. Inventory includes a wide variety of products--those involving cloth diapers, and plenty that don't. All of the cloth diaper brands that I wanted to try are offered by Abby's Lane. Not only that, but they offer many other fun products as well. BabyLegs, Pedipeds shoes, shopping cart covers, baby carriers, etc.

All in all, Abby's Lane has been great to me. They are now my go-to online store for all things cloth diapering, and I'm just waiting for Nora to get some fat on her legs so I can order her very first pair of BabyLegs, because oh.my.gosh, so cute.

Because I love Abby's Lane so much, they sent me a Blueberry One-Size Deluxe Cloth Diaper to review on my blog. I recently told you all how we've been using bumGenius and Fuzzibunz one-size diapers, but I was excited to have the opportunity to try out a third brand as well. I picked the "pink lemonade" pattern, and when it arrived, I immediately loved it just for the way it looks.

One thing I don't care for with bumGenius is the colors--with the exception of their Artist Series they just released, all of their diapers are solid pastel colors. Booooring. Not so with Blueberry--they have many fun colors and patterns. It was difficult to choose just one!

As is the case with most (all?) pocket diapers, the Blueberry came with two inserts--a "newborn" insert, and a standard insert that is longer and more absorbent.

One thing I noticed right away is that the outside of the diaper shell is "silkier" than that of bumGenius or Fuzzibunz. The snaps are a little bit different, but the sizing mechanism is essentially the same as bumGenius--three snaps in the front allow you to "snap down" the diaper to the smaller sizes.

The pocket of the diaper provides plenty of room for extra inserts. It's also easy to get your hand in there, making for easy stuffing (which is a complaint I have about Fuzzibunz--difficult to stuff!). The pocket simply has an opening at the back; nothing fancy.

Upon trying the diaper on Nora, I noticed that it seemed just a tad bulkier than bumGenius, but still seemed to offer a pretty good fit all around. After wearing it for a few hours, however, when I went to change her, it seemed like the diaper had ridden down a little bit on her waist--meaning it was very low on her hips. This may just be a result of Nora still being a bit too small for this diaper, and perhaps this is something that will stop happening when she grows a little bit bigger. Still, she's worn the Blueberry diaper a couple of times now and we haven't had any leaks.

Overall, the Blueberry makes a great addition to our stash. We're going to wait another several weeks before putting the finishing touches on our cloth diaper supply, and if it turns out we like the Blueberry as much as the bumGenius in the long run, we'll probably order a few more of them to give some more variety to Nora's diapers.

Now... Abby's Lane has offered a $10 gift certificate to one lucky Heather Drive reader! If you aren't into cloth diapering, don't worry--as I mentioned before, Abby's Lane offers other baby/children's products as well. And if you don't have children? Well, surely you must have someone on your Christmas list that does, right? :)

Giveaway Prize:
$10 Gift Certificate to Abby's Lane

Please make sure to follow the entry instructions carefully. They're not difficult, but you must follow the instructions in order to be eligible to win.

To Enter:
1. Visit the Abby's Lane website and pick out an item that you would use the gift certificate toward if you were to win. (Please note that if you do win, you don't HAVE to buy the item you choose.)

2. Come back here and leave a comment on this post, providing: your first name, your e-mail address, and a link to your chosen Abby's Lane product. (To be eligible to win, you must provide all three of these things.)

Limitations:
Only one comment/entry per person. Giveaway open only to residents of the United States and Canada.

Deadline:
This giveaway will end at 8 p.m. on Friday, December 10. Entries left after the deadline will be ineligible to win.

Winner:
One winner will be chosen using random.org. The winner will be announced on my blog and will be e-mailed notification of the win. Winner has 72 hours to respond to my initial contact, or a new winner will be chosen.

Good luck!

Disclaimer: Abby's Lane provided the Blueberry Diaper at no cost to me, in exchange for my review of the product. However, opinions expressed within the review are my own. Abby's Lane is also sponsoring the $10 gift certificate giveaway.

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In Nora's Shadow

You know how everyone always says that as much as you love your pup, he or she will take a backseat when you have a real baby?

Michael and I never really believed that while I was pregnant. We'd look at Tessa and we couldn't imagine that she would ever hold any smaller of a place in our hearts. We couldn't imagine there would be times when we would ignore her. We couldn't imagine treating her differently.

But I'm here to tell you that it's true. So very true. As much as it may seem impossible, it isn't.

It's sad, really.

Don't get me wrong; we still love Tess...a LOT. But she gets soooo much less attention these days. I'll be busy with Nora and suddenly I'll realize that it's 5:00 p.m. and I've not done much more than give Tessa a glance or two. Forget petting, snuggling, talking to, or kissing her.

After our first day/night home from the hospital (which was a nightmare), Tessa really did adjust quickly and has been pretty great ever since. She generally leaves Nora alone, and aside from sometimes barking during naptime--which sends me into a fit of rage--she's a good girl. And she takes her loving when she can get it. For instance, as I write this, Nora is napping in her crib, and Tessa is napping sprawled out in my lap.

She goes outside to potty a lot less often during the day.
She kinda stinks. She clearly needs a bath.
She needs a nail clipping like there's no tomorrow.
I'm pretty sure she has a raging ear infection that had gone unnoticed up until this past weekend. (And believe me, we feel horrible about that.)

But she's still our Tessa girl. And she's still a big part of our family.

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Thanksgiving 2010

We took something like 275 photos this holiday weekend. Holy crap.

Between Thanksgiving gatherings with both families plus a trip to Michael's sister's house for another gathering, it was a lot. We were busy. And to keep from boring you with a recap of it all... that's all I have to say about that.

But here is a sampling of the 275 photos. I actually have to give major credit to Michael for these, as he was the one who snapped most of them. Enjoy!

Thanksgiving morning with my girl. I love when she rests her hand on my shoulder like that.

Nora with her grandparents

With Aunt Cristina and "Aunt" Donna

At my mom's house, even the boys are put to work

In charge of the mashed potatoes (as always)

Opening the wine is a very important job, indeed.
Notice anything different about Kara?
(*hint hint* checkouttheleftringfinger *cough*)
Trevor proposed in front of all of us at his and Kara's housewarming party last weekend.
So awesome. :)

Great-Grandma reading to Hunter

At Michael's sister's house, the boys are getting big. And are so damn cute.

Getting a photo of the three cousins is not easy!

Nora with her Godmother/Aunt Melissa

Brendan with his favorite person, Uncle Michael

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Caramel Apple Pie

A few weeks back, we went to visit some of Michael's family that lives about an hour away from us. While there, we were served slices of apple pie--but not just any apple pie--caramel apple pie. After indulging in that slice of heaven, I decided that for Thanksgiving this year, I would put a twist on my traditional apple pie and find a recipe that included caramel. Once again, Google to the rescue.

I made and baked the pie the night before Thanksgiving, then warmed it up in the oven prior to serving on Turkey Day. And oh my... it was awesome. Loaded with apples and creamy caramel, this is exactly what every apple pie should be. As it turns out, the leftovers are really good cold as well (not that I would know anything about that).

Caramel Apple Pie
(Source: Adapted from Allrecipes.com)

Ingredients:

For taffy:
- 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
- 1/4 cup butter, melted
- 1/3 cup all-purpose flour

For pie filling:
- 5-6 cups thinly sliced apples
- 1/4 cup white sugar
- 6 tbsp. all-purpose flour
- 4 tsp. ground cinnamon
- 1 tsp. lemon juice
- approximately 1 cup caramel dip (We find this by the apples in our produce section. You can also use caramel ice cream topping)

For crust:
- 1 recipe your favorite recipe for a 9-inch double crust deep dish pie (ummm, I may or may not cheat and buy store-bought refrigerated crust. *wink*)
- 2 tbsp. milk

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

2. To Make Taffy: In a small bowl combine brown sugar, melted butter or margarine, and flour. Mix well and set aside.

3. To Make Apple Filling: Place apples in a large bowl. Add white sugar, flour, cinnamon, and lemon juice. Toss until all ingredients are mixed well and apples are thoroughly coated.

4. Spoon half of apple filling into pastry-lined deep-dish pan. Spread caramel on top of apple filling (I just did a generous coating--not too much), then top with half of taffy mixture. Repeat process with remaining apple filling, more caramel, and remaining taffy mixture.

5. Place top pastry over filling and seal well (this is very important--if edges are not sealed, caramel will leak out all over). Cut steam vents and brush top crust with milk or light cream.

6. Cover pie with foil and place on a baking sheet. Bake in preheated oven for 25 minutes. Remove foil from pie and bake for another 20 to 30 minutes, until crust is golden. Serve warm.

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Corn Casserole

I hope that you all enjoyed your Thanksgivings! The family time, the EATING... it is so great. I love Thanksgiving. Now, let the Christmas shopping begin!

I figured I'd post a few recipes that made appearances on our Thanksgiving table this year. They're a little bit different than your typical Turkey Day staples, so they're worth sharing.

First is this delicious corn casserole. I've also seen this called "corn pudding."

Michael and I first had this over a year ago, when we attended a birthday party at which I was hired as the photographer. Once my job was done, we were invited to eat with them--and part of the spread was this corn casserole. I wasn't sure about it upon first glance, but one forkful and I was sold. With sweet corn, creamed corn, and corn bread flavors, how can you go wrong? And with only a handful of ingredients to throw together, this is seriously easy as well.

The original recipe from Jiffy calls for the casserole to be baked in the oven. But a few weeks ago, as we were planning Nora's Baptism reception, I thought of this dish and wondered if it could be adapted to be cooked in a crockpot while we were all at church. A little Googling, and sure enough, I found a version for the crockpot. So now it's even easier.

Perfect as a side dish for a dinner at home, or to take to a potluck gathering, this corn casserole is sure to be a hit with almost any crowd. The recipe below serves about eight people (which was perfect for our Thanksgiving gathering), but when we had Nora's Baptism, we doubled it without any problems--we just made sure to cook in the crockpot for an extra hour or so.

Crockpot Corn Casserole
(Source: Cooks.com)

Ingredients:
- 1 can cream style corn
- 1 can whole kernel corn
- 8 oz. sour cream
- 1 stick butter or margarine, melted
- 2 eggs, beaten
- 1 box Jiffy corn muffin mix

Directions:
1. Spray pot with non-stick spray.

2. Combine all ingredients in a large bowl. Pour in crock pot.

3. Cook on low for 6-8 hours, or cook on high 3-4 hours (cooking on high gives you a crisp ring around the outside).

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Thankful.

We have so much to be thankful for this year. Even if I tried to express all of those things, I don't think I could. So I'll just list a bunch that come immediately to mind.

I am thankful for Michael and how he continues to love me, even on my grumpy days. I'm grateful for his support as a husband, his encouragement for me as a mother, and how proud he is of me for carrying, giving birth to, and exclusively breastfeeding our baby. I am thankful that he has welcomed fatherhood with open arms, and for how much he loves and adores our little girl.

I am thankful for my beautiful, healthy, happy daughter. I know I am wayyyy biased, but I think she is gorgeous and the cutest thing I have ever seen. I am so grateful for her daily smiles that make my heart do flips, and for the way she nuzzles into my neck when she is ready for sleep. I am thankful for the way she has grown and how she continues to thrive. And I am so excited to have a girl--I am eternally grateful for the opportunity to have a mother-daughter relationship with Nora.

I am thankful for a wonderful, healthy, full-term pregnancy that I was able to enjoy to the fullest. I will always remember the blessing that it was to carry a child inside of me.

I am thankful for a 5-hour, natural, pain-med free, uncomplicated birth experience. The pain was over in a flash, I had a beautiful baby girl placed in my arms, and it makes one hell of a story. :)

Although the pecking order has definitely changed and priorities have shifted, I am thankful for my Tessa girl. I am so glad that she has fully adjusted to having Nora in the house. She may not get as much attention as she used to, but she is still loved and is an important part of our family.

Lord knows I am not looking forward to leaving my baby and returning to work, but I am thankful to have a job to return to. In an economy when so many are still unemployed or underemployed, I am glad to have what I have. I am grateful to have a flexible, supportive employer who gave me the full 12 weeks off that I requested, with no questions asked. When Nora was born, I had only been with the company for six months, so they were not required to do me any favors. But they did, and I am thankful. The time I have had off with my new daughter has been invaluable and I will cherish it forever.

I am thankful for our home, even though it is small and we are quickly outgrowing it. It is warm, it is cozy, and it is ours.

I am thankful for our family and friends, and the continued health of all. Our parents, siblings, nephews, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins. Everyone.

There is so much more I could say. We are so totally blessed, and we recognize it. I hope all of you are able to count your blessings today, too.

Happy Thanksgiving.

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Mission Accomplished

Guess who has Christmas jammies?

And she's pretty darn happy about it, too!

After the Great Pajama Search of 2010, I put out an emergency call to Grandma and Great-Grandma to find Nora some Christmas pajamas! They readily accepted the challenge.

In the meantime, I let my fingers do the walking this morning. I started online, finding that both JCPenney and BonTon supposedly carried the very same Carter's pajamas (the butt! I can't handle the butt!) that I really wanted for Nora. I called the nearest JCPenney to see if they had them in stock in her size, and sure enough--success with my very first phone call! They held them for me and Nora and I took a ride over there this afternoon to pick them up. And not only were they in stock, they were on sale. Score!

As it turns out, both Grandma and Great-Grandma found some Christmas jammies, too, so there's a good chance Nora will end up with two, if not three pairs of Christmas pajamas.

Phew! Crisis averted. ;)

Thanks to all of you who weighed in with suggestions on where to go to find pajamas, though. It's good to know that they are still in stock so many places--it has restored my faith in the respect for the turkey!

Now back to your regularly scheduled Thanksgiving programming. We can all talk Christmas again come Friday. :)

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Rookie Mistake

Hey, I gotta give myself a break. I'm new at this mommy thing. I'm bound to make a few mistakes along the way. My current "whoops"?

Nora is without Christmas pajamas.

Today, I had something to return at Carter's, so I figured that while I was there, I would finally check out the Christmas racks and pick up Nora a pair of cute Christmas jammies. I made the return, got the store credit, and went to check out the racks... only to find one rack. One very small rack. There was only one pair of cute Christmas pajamas left, and well, they were size 9 months.

I couldn't believe that this was all that they had, so I wandered around the store for a few minutes, thinking I'd surely stumble upon the rest. After I had searched high and low for the red and green, I happened upon a store employee, so I asked, "Is that all of the Christmas stuff you have left? That little rack up front?" She said yes, that's it. I responded, "What the heck? It's not even Thanksgiving!" She told me that they usually sell most of their Christmas inventory in October. October.

I left Carter's, feeling kind of defeated, but determined to find my girl some Christmas jammies.

So I hit up Kohl's. Pathetic.
I hit up Walmart. Nothing. Not even anything that resembled Christmas pajamas in baby sizes.
I hit up Target. None of them were cute.
I checked Old Navy. They didn't have any in her size.

:::sigh:::

This is what I get for respecting the turkey.

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Cloth Diapering: Transition to Pockets

Our cloth diapering intention has always been to ultimately move to using one-size pocket diapers.

Pocket diapers are what convinced me that cloth diapering would be worth doing. After all, once they're put together, it's essentially like putting on a disposable. Very easy. Plus, the pockets give you the ability to add extra absorbency as needed. So they're also very flexible. And they're darn cute, too. Oh, and the one-size adjustability means that baby can wear the same diapers from when they are little all the way up until they're potty trained. So economical was also added into the "pros" column for pocket diapers.

But in my initial cloth diapering research, I discovered that the one-size pocket diaper doesn't usually fit babies from birth--babies generally have to be in the 10-12 lb. range before they fit properly. As a result, we built a starter stash and began our cloth diaper journey with newborn prefolds and covers during the day, and disposables for overnight.

A few weeks back, even though Nora wasn't yet 10 lbs. (she was about 8.5 lbs.), I decided to give the one-size pockets a try.

Now, let me back up for a minute and say that I wasn't sure which one-size pocket diapers we would be going with. Based on reviews and popularity, I narrowed it down to two brands--bumGenius and Fuzzibunz. I ordered three of each diaper and figured we'd do our own little trial using both of them, then order the rest of our stash in whichever diaper we liked better.

I started by putting Nora in each of the diapers during the day. When we went several diaper changes without any leaks, I decided to put them to the test overnight, too. And now Nora hasn't been in a single disposable diaper for weeks. Yayyy!

After testing out both the Fuzzibunz and bumGenius diapers, we ultimately decided to go with the bumGenius. The main reasons? I like the fit of the bumGenius better because they are slimmer. The Fuzzibunz are REALLY bulky, especially when they are double-stuffed for nighttime. They give Nora a ridiculous shelf butt, which is kind of hilarious. The other thing is that I like the snap closure better on the bumGenius; I find the snaps on the Fuzzibunz to be harder to fasten. Finally, I like the inner material of the bumGenius better; it seems to be softer and holds up better than the inner material on the Fuzzibunz. It's a bummer, actually, because I *LOVE* the Fuzzibunz colors--they are bright and fun, while the bumGenius colors are all kind of boring and pastel. Oh well--gotta choose function over color. Anyway, if any of you have specific questions about Fuzzibunz vs. bumGenius, feel free to ask in the comments.

Sooo... we went ahead and ordered another six bumGenius diapers, bringing our total number of pocket diapers to 12 at the moment. We're planning to ultimately have around 24, but right now, we're still able to use the newborn prefolds/covers, so we have more than enough diapers to get by for several days with no laundry. Since I'm going back to work in two weeks, we're getting ready to order another six bumGenius diapers to bring our total up to 18 before she goes to daycare.

Our daycare provider will be dealing exclusively with pocket diapers, so we'll send the bumGenius dipes with Nora every day. The Fuzzibunz diapers have become strictly overnight diapers, since they're bulkier and don't fit as well under her clothes. As for the prefolds/covers--we'll continue to use them at home as long as she fits into them, which I don't anticipate will be very much longer. The covers are fine to fit her up until 18 lbs. since they're adjustable, but the newborn prefolds typically only go to 10 lbs. and Nora is between 9.5-10 lbs. now.

For those of you who may not know much about pocket diapers or cloth diapers in general--I'm going to do a little photo demonstration of how they work. Up until now, we've been using "old-fashioned" cloth diapers with the prefold/cover system. It might be what you think of when you hear cloth diapers. Now, these are the modern versions!

This is a bumGenius 4.0 one-size pocket diaper with snap closures
(you can also get aplix closure if you prefer)
This diaper is single-stuffed with a newborn insert for daytime use

This is a Fuzzibunz one-size pocket diaper with snap closures
(again, you can get aplix if you prefer)
This diaper is double-stuffed for overnight absorbency

All brands of pocket diapers typically come with three pieces--the outer shell, a newborn (small) insert, and a standard (bigger) insert. I'll just show you the bumGenius version and how it works, since all pocket dipes are pretty similar.

Here is the empty outer shell of the diaper. You can see the pocket at the top. That is where you put the inserts.

Here is the newborn insert. It's thinner and shorter than the standard insert. Since Nora is still small and not a terribly heavy wetter, this is the insert we use for all daytime diapers (I typically change her every 2-3 hours).

This is the standard insert. It's a bit thicker and includes snaps to fold it down for when the diaper is snapped down to its smaller sizes. As baby grows and the outer shell is on its bigger settings, this insert can be unsnapped to be longer to fit the length of the diaper. Currently, we use these standard inserts as a "doubler" for overnight diapers. We use both the newborn insert AND the standard insert inside of Nora's overnight diapers, since Miss Thang is going 12-13 hours in her nighttime diapers these days.

In this pic, you can see the newborn insert inside of the diaper. So when everything is clean and dry, I sit down and stuff diapers to put in the diaper drawer. It doesn't take too long, and when it's all said and done, diaper changes are as easy as using disposables.

This is with the back flap folded over the insert. So this is what it looks like when I pull them out of the drawer to put them on Nora. Easy-peasy.

And now for a little bit on the one-size feature...

This is what it looks like when the snap closures are undone. See all those snaps? See how wide they go out? That's so this diaper can easily fit my little Nora around the waist until she's potty-trained.

And this is what it looks like when the "rise" part of the diaper is completely unsnapped as well. So this is the biggest the diaper can get, which is pretty big--bumGenius claims that this can fit a child up to 35 lbs.

Pretty cool, huh?

Hopefully this has given you a bit of an overview about pocket diapers, and I've shared our plan for moving forward with this system. As always, please let me know if you have any questions. And don't forget to check out my two previous posts (here and here) about cloth diapering if you haven't read them already.

Also, stay tuned, as I will actually be reviewing a Blueberry cloth diaper within the next few weeks, and that review comes with a giveaway! :) Very exciting stuff.

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Photo Dump

We make sure to take at least one photo of Nora every day, and as a result, well... we have a lot of photos of Nora. I feel like it's been a while since I've shared a bunch here, so I figured I'd do so tonight. All of these are from within the last two weeks. Without further ado...

As you can see, she's smiling a lot now! It is seriously the greatest thing in the world. It will never, ever get old!

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