I'm a mother of twins, RDA accredited Cloth Diaper Circle Leader, and an RN discussing parenting tips, green living, and products I love!
This year’s Ventura County Great Cloth Diaper Change was great! I am very grateful to the many volunteers that helped set up, sew the upcycled t-shirt bags and help me run this year’s event! There were many giveaway prizes (more than half the participants got a prize as well as their goodie bag)! Families from all across our county (and a few from outside of our county) got to meet up, talk about cloth diapers and discover some wonderful community resources! Thank you to Horizon Hills Preschool for opening up your arms to Ventura County’s Real Diaper Circle and The Great Cloth Diaper Change! For the most updated information about this year’s world record attempt please see the official Great Cloth Diaper Change site HERE. Our location had 66 babies participate!
The Horizon Hills playgrounds were open for children to play on and vendors were open for business at GCDC this year. You could learn about cloth diapering at the Real Diaper Circle of Ventura County’s table grab a snack, or purchase a wide variety of products including cloth diapers, eco-friendly toys, baby carriers, and hand crafted clothing and toys. Later in the afternoon, we had a free Kindermusik class with Miss Mary which kids and babies of all ages enjoyed!
If you missed out on this year’s Great Cloth Diaper Change you might be interested in participating in the 3rd annual Flats Challenge, hosted by Kim at Dirty Diaper Laundry! I participated last year and was thrilled about what I learned from the experience! Also, knowing how to wash diapers by hand would come in very handy in case of a zombie apocalypse. I’m just sayin…..
I hope you had as much fun at GCDC as I did! Our photos were limited due to not having a professional photographer (accepting volunteers for next year now) so if you have photos from this event please email them to me and I will add them!
Click on photo twice to see details
Please see our local Great Cloth Diaper Change site for a full list of sponsors and give them some love!
Do you want to change your diet for the better but feel intimidated by all the work it is to eat healthy? I’d like to introduce you to Naturally Savvy and Unjunk Your Junk Food. Naturally Savvy is a blog written by Registered Holistic Nutritionists. This blog is a great resource for natural living, including holistic care, environment, nutrition and recipes. I highly recommend you check it out. These ladies have put together a great handbook to get you started on your journey to healthier eating and it’s called Unjunk Your Junk Food.
Unjunk Your Junk Food is a small CD sized book which gives you a basic nutrition 101. This book goes over food labels, basic nutrition, fats, grains, fiber, vitamins, minerals, natural vs. organic, GMOs, and the worst ingredients. One of my favorite parts of this book is the double sided “cheat sheet” of worst ingredients that you can cut/tear out of the book and keep in your purse or wallet to bring with you to the grocery store.
The bulk of Unjunk Your Junk Food compares common junk foods and drinks to a healthier alternatives with Naturally Savvy alerts and explanations about why you should choose the healthier option. If you find yourself undone by soda, candy, chips and cookies, check out Unjunk Your Junk Food for a way to curb your cravings while making progress toward a healthier diet!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
I received a free copy of Unjunk Your Junk Food for review.
Do you give your child pureed foods? Do you give baby a pouch of fruit and or veggie mixes? I have been buying pouches for a long time. We didn’t puree foods for our twins much because we used the Baby Led Weaning method to teach our kiddos to eat. Even without full time use of pureed foods, we still bought plenty of pouches. Our pouches were full of prunes. When a kiddo is chronically constipated prunes are a mommas best friend.
How much money did I spend on these pouches? Too much. How much waste did I generate from these pouches? Ouch. I don’t want to think about it. It hurts.
And then there was Squooshi. Some fellow green bloggers introduced me to these pouches and I jumped on the opportunity to make my own prune puree. These pouches can be frozen to keep food at its best (and this can even turn your puree into a icepack for a preschooler’s lunch)! I’m loving our new Squooshi reusable pouches. They are easy to clean (even my hubs has washed them with a baby bottle brush without leaving bits and pieces behind) and don’t take too much effort to fill. Squooshi pouches have a no choke cap, and a zip-lock style closure at the bottom of the pouch.
The smaller pouches take a very small spoon or a pastry bag to fill, but the larger pouches are easy to fill with a teaspoon sized spoon. See my pictures below for comparisons. The pouch dimensions are small – 3-1/2″ x 7″, and large – 4″ x 7-1/2″. You can buy a set of two large and two small for $18.49. There are lots of purchasing combinations, check them out!
Although these pouches are BPA, Phthalate, and PVC Free, they are still a plastic. I am not as concerned with the fact that these are plastic because I’m not putting warm foods in them, they aren’t being heated and I’m washing them by hand (although they are stated to be dishwasher safe). Am I buying another plastic product? Yes. Am I reducing my waste by using these Squooshi pouches? YES. I’m saving money AND decreasing my waste. WINNING! 
Being completely realistic, these pouches don’t stay perfectly new looking for very long but that is totally ok with me. They have a few creases. These creases are from my kiddos squeezing the life out of them to get every last drop of homemade goodness out of them and I love them for it! The kids and I both have tested the strength of the closure at the bottom of these pouches. They haven’t burst open on us once, and I really squeezed that Squooshi. (Don’t go there dirty birdies.)
So you wanna win some Squooshies?!
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I’m very happy to review the Pooters Hybrid AI2 diaper for you all! When Maj, owner and one woman business operator, contacted me to review her new diaper I was very excited! Maj has offered to give two lucky random readers one of these wonderful Hybrid diapers, so make sure to enter the giveaway at the bottom of the post!
Maj started Pooters out of the frustration she faced when trying to find a nighttime diapering solution that would work for her heavywetting son. She designed a diaper that worked for her family and launched Pooters in 2009. Maj is a stay at home mom to 2 boys and also manages to package and mail each and every Pooters order.
Pooters diapers are an excellent value:
AI2 Hybrid cover $11
Bamboo reversible insert with fleece top layer, 6 layers when folded in half $5
Organic knit hemp terry 6 layer insert $4
Newborn fitted $11.50
One sized fitted in hemp or bamboo $14
Maj has a one year warranty on her covers for defects as well as a 30 day leak free guarente on her fitted diaper!
My son wore the Hybrid diaper for nap in several different ways. I first folded on insert in half, then folded the bottom of one side up so that there were 3 layers up in front where he needs it. He had no leaks for his 3 hour quiet time / nap time. I also used this diaper on my son and daughter for overnight. I used two inserts (which fit well with no gapping at the legs) fleece side up and the other insert fleece side facing the cover. The twins woke up soaked with no leaks. I also tried one insert with the hemp doubler as the second layer and that held up for her night time (12 hours) with no leaks as well. This cover has great coverage so that it can be used with any of the fitteds, flats, prefolds or inserts we have. There are flaps in the back and front to hold your inserts in place and it is sewn so that even a contoured diaper can fit up into the flaps of the cover.
I’m highly impressed with the versatility of this diaper cover. It can be used with most any style diaper, can be extremely trim, yet can expand to hold enough absorption to last a 12 hour night. The versatility of the 28 in. long and 5.5 in. wide bamboo insert is nice as well. It allows you to customize absorption in the area your child needs it most. Having a top fleece layer to this reversible insert gives parents the choice to have a stay dry insert or one that will allow baby to feel wet when soiled for quicker potty training.
Please stop by Pooters Diapers Facebook page and tell Maj MommaWords sent you!
As I sit to write this post I myself am struggling due to chronic health issues. It’s unacceptable that we are exposed to so many toxic chemicals on a daily basis. We know many of these chemicals are causing illness – imagine what we don’t know! I’m writing this post in hopes that you will support the movie Unacceptable Levels. With your support this completed movie will soon be in theaters educating the public!
Bonus: Every supporter that contributes is entered in a raffle to win over $2,800 dollars in safe healthy products!
http://www.indiegogo.com/unacceptablelevels
Read more about the founders of this film and why they are working so hard to get it to the public!
“Ed Brown was born with a cataract in his right eye, which made him legally blind. His wife, Lauren, developed Crohn’s disease in her teens, then after Lauren suffered two miscarriages, they were thrown for a loop and had no idea what was going on. What if we Americans asked ourselves the same question Ed and Lauren did: “What if the health problems I’ve encountered in my life were due to the environmental toxins and other chemicals that my body couldn’t handle? Could that be why this illness happened to me, or perhaps a loved one in my family?” They started to look at everything around them – what they were eating and drinking, cleaning, painting, and washing their bodies with… And what they discovered was disturbing and compelling enough to share with the world. Ed and Lauren believe that we all deserve to know what is going into our bodies, and into the bodies of our children, so they’ve devoted themselves to working on UNACCEPTABLE LEVELS for the last three years.
