Today I’m joining Christian Mommy Blogger and The Purposed Heart in a mini cloth diaper series. I was asked to share my cloth diaper routine, and since we’ve already been talking about cloth diapering around here, I readily agreed!

I hope to give you an overview of what cloth diapering looks like for us day-to-day.

Although it looks mostly the same each day, there are days when diapers stack up on the changing table, poop never gets flushed, and diapers get forgotten in the washer.

However, below is what it’s “supposed” to look like each day.

What I am working with…

We have assortment of diapers – bumGenius, FuzziBunz, and Kawaii. They are all one-size pocket diapers, which I adore! We have 18 in rotation right now, which means I wash every other day. I can go every third day, but I don’t like letting them sit that long. Just a preference.

Where I keep my clean diapers …

I like to keep my diapers stuffed and stacked in the top drawer of our changing table.

Here, why don’t I just show you …

Where I keep my dirty diapers …

Once I have changed Samuel’s diaper, I sit him in the floor of his room while I take the dirty diaper across the hall into the bathroom. We keep our diaper pail in the bathroom beside the toilet.

If it’s poop, I dump the contents into the toilet and flush. Since I use cloth wipes, I will sometimes use the wipe to knock the poop off if it’s being particularly ornery. I do not dip or rinse in any way. Whatever doesn’t come off gets dropped in the pail and left for the washing machine to take care of. That’s what I pay her for.

Then, regardless of how it’s soiled, I remove the inserts, and put down my laundry tabs if it’s a hook and loop system. I toss everything into my pail including my cloth wipes.

Don’t forget to wash your hands.

Note:I found that keeping my pail in the bathroom is easiest for us. When I kept it in Samuel’s room, I had to walk the poop to the toilet, back to his room to put the diaper in the pail, then back to the bathroom to wash up. This seemed silly to me. So I just moved the pail to save a little time.

How I wash my diapers…

On wash day, I grab my pail and take it to the laundry room. I dump the contents into the washing machine. Easy-peasy!

I use Charlie’s Soap for detergent – about 1/8 a cup. I do my first wash on hot cycle with an extra rinse. If it’s a particularly dirty load, I will send them through another short cycle on cold without detergent. I do this most days anyways, but skip this last rinse if I’m in a hurry.

How I dry my diapers…

In the warmer months, we hang everything out to dry on the clothesline. I absolutely love line dried diapers! Plus, I’ve noticed that it keeps “the smell” at bay.

In the cooler months when we have less sunlight, I stick all my diapers in the dryer on low heat. It’s not my preferred method for drying, especially with finicking hook and loop diapers. I would rather hang them on a drying rack and let them air dry.

However, that takes much longer since my laundry room is out in the garage without heat. So, right now, I dry on the lowest setting for the shortest time possible.

How I stuff my diapers …

I usually bring my diapers in from the dryer after Samuel’s just woken up from a nap. We’ll sit and talk and giggle while I stuff the diapers in his bedroom floor.

Here’s how I stuff my diapers.

And I think that about covers it (no pun intended, get it?)!

Cloth Diaper Wipes Baby Wash Recipe

• 3 cups warm water
• 2 T olive oil
• 2 drops of lavender essential oil (or scent of your choice)
• 3 drops Melaleuca (Tea Tree) Oil
• 2 T castille soap

1. Combine all ingredients in a pint size mason jar. Give it a shake.

2. Pour into a small spray bottle and refill as needed.

Don’t forget to check out Christian Mommy Blogger’s Cloth Diapering the How Part and The Purposed Heart’s Different Types of Diapers (and she personally uses) for more information on cloth diapering routines!

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It’s that time of year isn’t it? Every year, I hear people, including myself, begin to complain about pesky little ants. They literally take over our homes, and all we can do is fight, fight, fight, and pray that we win, win, win!

Since we’ve lived in an apartment, I have relied on the bug man to take care of these things for me. However, now that we are a lot more natural in the way we do things, I wasn’t too keen on pulling out the heavy duty bug sprays. Last year, Mark went and bought some pretty potent stuff, and sprayed the mess out of the ants. We didn’t have anymore trouble.

However, this year, we wanted to do things a little different. Say no to chemicals! So here is what I did.

Just like in any fight, if you get behind, you have to first play defense.

Here is your defense against the invading ants!

First, I inspected the house to see where all the pesky rascals were. It seems that they were only in my kitchen and swarming our downstairs patio. Our pantry was a nightmare. So, I took everything out one at a time, and sprayed the mess out of them! But this time, I did it with part water and part vinegar.

In addition, I cleaned my countertops and then kitchen floor with this mix. Yes, friends, I got down on my hands and knees and sprayed each tile with water and vinegar and wiped it up. Why? Well, this is how you mess up the trail of the ants! And my floor needed a good cleaning anyways.

As maintenance, I cleaned my countertops with this same spray daily for about a week. I also wiped my floor down once or twice more during the course of the week. I have since learned (and implemented) that peppermint oil is repulsive to ants. So now, I have added some peppermint essential oil to my mix, and whenever I clean my kitchen I do a good wipe down with it.

Now that you’re starting to get a handle on your unwanted inhabitants, you’re ready to throw in a little offense.

Here is your offensive!

Get out the drill! You’re going to make yourself some ant traps. I made one for my front door and one for my back door. You can use whatever you have on hand. It just needs to be something you can drill holes and put a lid on. I used an old milk jug and coconut oil tub.

You’ll want to drill holes about 2 inches down from the lid of your contraption. The spacing is important. You want your holes far enough apart that it’s not easy for the ants to get back out once they are in, but you also want them easily accessible for climbing in. I did mine about 2 to 2.5 inches apart totaling about 5 holes. You want your holes to be about the size of a pencil.

Then, you want to mix up your goup.

What you need:

• Borax
• white sugar
• water
• peanut butter

What you’ll do:

You’ll mix 1 part Borax (1 cup) to 3 parts Sugar (3 cups). You’ll add just enough water to make the mixture soupy. Then, add a tablespoon of peanut butter. The sugar attracts the ants that are after the sweets, and the peanut butter attracts the ants that are after protein. Stir it up a little bit, and place your lid on your tub. Set those puppies outside and let them work!

The Results!

I did this about two weeks ago, and I do not see a single ant today.

Now, I must insert a note, unfortunately. I was home sick one day and the maintenance man came in along with some other strange guy. I was sleeping off a headache, and my dogs were going nuts. Two men in my house in the middle of the day is not ok with them. So while holding on to two beasts that weigh much more than me, and trying to make nice with the maintenance man I was a little bit…off to say the least. This other strange guy was asking me weird questions like have you seen anybugs? I answered only ants in our kitchen. He, then, points his gun and shoots … right at my floor with bug spray! I said, that’s all though no where else, please don’t shoot anywhere else! Ahhhh!!!! I came to my senses, but not before he had time to spray a little in my kitchen! I swear it was only a little.

I believe that what we did worked better. My proof? Well, last year no matter how many times they sprayed, we still had ants all season. So, the fact that we still do not have ants says to me that our natural fighting skills are working better. Much better! And much safer too!

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Have you had any experience fighting unwanted creatures in your house? Tell us about some of your die hard fighting skills!

Mark and I are both milk lovers. When we first got married, we would easily go through a gallon of Weigel’s milk a week. We even had the frequent shopper’s punch card. After you buy X gallons of milk, you get a gallon of milk free. There were many nights that we would share a glass of milk before bedtime. We were both elated that we had married someone with equal passion for consuming milk.

photo credit

Oh, and cheese? We devoured cheese. Like the typical American, we ate it on our hamburgers, we had it at every meal, and no snack was devoid of cheese. Think about it? How often is cheese a part of your diet?

To add to it, for dinner, we were eating a lot of hamburger helper, boxed macaroni and cheese, freezer dinners, and eating mostly Kraft products because I thought they had good recipes. Our breakfast, if we ate, consisted of boxed cereal – Lucky Charms for me and Raisin Bran for Mark – or Quaker oatmeal – the kind you add water and stick in the microwave. Our lunches were mostly deli meat – whatever was on sale – and a slice of cheese with some mayonnaise slathered on. Our side was usually potato chips. Our snacks were fruit roll ups, peanut butter crackers, cheeze-its, and candy cakes. To drink, we had gallons of sweet tea or endless amounts of sodas. We were most definitely consuming the SAD (Standard American Diet) diet with much fervor!

We ate (and drank) this way the entire first year of our marriage. During this year, we were befriended by a couple who told us that a lot of people had allergies to milk, and that when they came off dairy they stopped having sinus problems. Hmph! They’re crazy. At least we thought they were for a very long time. We heard them mention that we should ride out sicknesses and let our bodies do what they were created to do. If they said anything else, I didn’t hear them. I was too concerned that they might tell me I needed to give up dairy products like them. All I knew was they ate expensive food and there was no way we could ever afford it.

Then, one day I decided to do a little research, and what I discovered was that they weren’t the only ones who thought this. We were quickly approaching cold and flu season. The previous year Mark and I were so miserable, and we were both sick of sinus problems. We bagan to wonder if these friends might be on to something. Howevever, we continued to buy over the counter cold and flu medicine and drank our orange juice faithfully. Needless to say, we never truly got better.

Not too long after I began to question our dairy consumption, we started looking down the long hallway of medical bills. I began to pass blood in my stool. This went on for weeks before we decided that I might need to get checked out. After seeing a few doctors and getting scheduled for a colonoscopy, something happened that can only be explained by God’s grace. We had a complete paradigm shift. That and we were pretty broke at the time, and we had no clue how we were going to pay for this test that insurance just so happened to not cover.

In addition, I was suffering from migraines on an almost weekly basis. There were many nights that I would be up sitting between Mark’s legs crying as he massaged my head. I would take aleve, excedrin, and I even went to a doctor to see what they could do for me. The doctor told me that he would prescribe me medicine to take care of it. Then, as God would have it, we couldn’t afford the medicine. Nine pills was going to cost us almost $200!! We quickly calculated that to equal almost a thousand dollars a year that would be spent on migraine medicine alone.

In the end, we skipped the colonoscopy and did not fill the prescription for the migraines, and we began to listen to our “healthy friends.” I began to email my friend with great fervor, and I read every health food blogger out there. I finally settled on two of my favorites with whom I still refer to often, Passionate Homemaking and Keeper of the Home. Now, my friend has a blog too that I love reading – Stewardship Diaries.

This, dear readers, is why we started this path of healthy, natural living.

I was sick – very sick.

We were broke – very broke.

But above all, God changed our hearts. He used our friends to teach us the basics of how our bodies work and how it related to food. We decided to give this way of life a trial run. If it didn’t work, we’d pray for God to provide the finances for medical treatment. However, we had a feeling that a new lifestyle and way of eating might just be the change we needed.