A Farewell to our Sheeba

 

Sheeba

December 2004 - January 2015

I'll be honest, this post has gone through my head so many times, but never about you Sheeba. You were the last one I expected to go, and so soon. I remember my first time walking into FMAR to volunteer and you and Spunky totally ruled that roost. You had been adopted out as a ppy and returned when you were around 2 for fence jumping and growling at a toddler. Those are two fairly large strikes against you and it didn't help that you were a black lab, pit border, collie mutt. Those black dogs, they never photograph so well do they? Well don't worry, it's those black mutts that we love so much here at the Pitt.  You were the best dog at the shelter and it quickly became apparent that a volunteer would take you home because you were just so special that we always wanted to know what was going on with you. Fast forward 4 years. Pepper was getting so old, and Scamp was still such a scamp. I had my eye on you for so long and the time had come for us to try it out. And it was perfect. My only regret? I didn't take you home the day I walked into the shelter. That you had to wait so long for a home to call your own, your own people, your own space.  

We love you so much. We'll miss your late night bed cuddles, the romps through the yard with Scamp chasing squirrels, leaves and really anything else that moved. The way you picked out one of Ani's toys every couple of months and just decided to eat it. You were the most vocal of the dogs and always made sure your house and your people would be protected. Always a great walker and even a better running companion. You loved having a toddler around and let her love on you without any restrictions. 

You were the dog that was rock solid, could eat anything go anywhere, not have medical problems. When you got sick in early December, I was surprised, surprised that your liver looked so bad on the ultrasound and you've never shown any pain before. Surprised that it was you, but was certain we could make it through. You hung on for another 4 weeks and even decided to eat again and run again and act like your old self. 

I knew there was something really wrong in the morning. It came on so fast and you didn't want to move, I knew even before I called the vet that this was it. Your breathing was so labored, your eyes so sad, and when the Dr. Hui poked your belly and I saw blood fill the syringe, I knew you had given us all that you can and you made the decision as easy as possible. 

Three and a half years just wasn't enough with you. You were one of our kids right away, Scamps trouble making companion, Pepper's competition, Ani's big sister. We love you, and we'll miss you everyday.

Lots of love,

All of us at the Pitt

 

Panoramic View

We're almost in the home stretch of the kitchen. We just have to put in the recessed lights, touch up the ceiling, another coat on the base boards and doors. So you know we'll have it done by next year.

For now here's a panorama of what we've got done.

A Litte Bit of Crunch - Cloth Diapering Continued...

Around that 5 month mark, when the prefolds stopped fitting around Ani's waist, I started looking for a couple of additions to my stash. I picked up some second hand Fuzzibunz, and ordered a couple of medium sized Green Mountain workhorse diapers. The Fuzzibunz I sold almost instantly, the were the one size and already too small for my girl. The workhorse diapers worked great, however the rise just wasn't long enough. Regardless buying these two really started my slight obsession.

 

 

 

 

After a bit more digging right around 7 months, I had my eye on Grovia diapers, and I decided to buy a couple of covers from their hybrid system and the organic cotton soakers. These really worked great for a couple of months. The diaper is super duper trim, the prints are ADORABLE, but alas, they just don't handle a lot of liquid. I even got the additional soakers, but I had to change diapers almost every hour or we'd get a leak. By the time I stuffed them with everything to combat the leaking, the diaper became the size of a helmet on her butt. Now I know a cloth butt means a bigger butt, but it was a bit much.

 Finally, in the past year I've settled on bumGenius Diapers, Blueberry Simplex & Basix and a couple of Kawaii's. She will still intermittently leak out each of them, but overall, it's been really good.

• bumGenius diapers are the kings (maybe queens?) of the cloth diapering world. I didn't buy all the hype at first, early on they fit Ani kind of weird, but at about a year, she really grew into them. I have the 4.0 (micrfiber!) and the new Elementals (cotton). I really like both. Does the microfiber stink? It only started to after the first year and I followed the bleaching directions and it worked perfectly.  I've had more luck with the Elementals not leaking and they are super trim so it's easy to stuff them. But I love how quickly the microfiber dries.
• The sized simplex and basix diapers are a side snapping diaper. The simplex has stretchy tabs and is birds eye cotton, the basix are microfiber.  These diapers are super trim and the insert is sewn in and they come out in the wash by themselves! I find myself reaching for the basix more than the simplex just because of the way the cotton is sewn into the legs, you have to remember to roll it in or they'll leak
• The Kawaii's a very similar in design to the bumGenius, but I find that they don't fit quite as well. The big difference here is cost, they are about $7/diaper. Big difference.

Overall in the last 2 years I've probably bought about $900 of diapers and sold $350 of diapers. 

Some final thoughts:

• Poop happens. Diaper liners and a diaper sprayer had been a big help.
• I still use a disposable at night. I've mentioned it a couple of times but my girl is a heavy wetter, and sleeping through the night trumps cloth any day for me.
• When traveling, I will also use disposables, and I have leaking issues with those as well. It's not for everyone, but it's certainly been for me.

A little Bit of Crunchy - Our Cloth Diapering Experiance/Tips & Recommendations

I was pretty much in denial about my whole pregnancy, but the one thing I knew is that I wanted to cloth diaper. Why? They're cute, economical, cheaper, and did I mention cute? The beast is almost 2 and we've learned a couple of things. So here's my guide to cloth diapering.
 
The first thing to know, is you've got options. And I mean lots and lots of options.

• Prefolds; Covers w/ snappies or bongo's
• Old school birds eye cotton
• Fitteds with Covers
• Pockets (one sided pockets, 2 sided open pockets, pockets in the front, pockets in the back)
• Single gusset, double gusset
• All in Ones (AIO's)
• Hybrids
• Snaps, Hook & Loop
• Liners
• Soakers
• New born
• Sized
• One size

And in addition to all the different styles of diapers, there are a variety of materials you can choose from natural fibers (organic or not?) and man made fibers.

• Cotton
• Bamboo
• Hemp
• Velour (it's cotton folks)
• Microfiber
• Micro suede
• Minky
• Wool                     

When asked by a mom to be or a new mom about my cloth diapering advice, I always give the following. Don't commit to one type/one material early on. Things that work for some mom's may not work for you. All babies are a bit different, take the time to figure out what will work best for your babe. It's advice I wish I would have gotten. The good news is, if you've got diapers that you don't like, you can sell them and make some of the money back and buy more of the kind that you do. If you live in the Ann Arbor area, I strongly suggest you take a field trip over the The Little Seedling. The have a free cloth diaper workshop the first Saturday of every month where they'll talk you and show you through the options. You can touch, see and feel the different diapers. 


So what did I decide on on for Ani? We'll I've got a huge collection. And in the next couple of posts I'll go through the pros and cons of what I've used on her.

Here's some stats on my kid. She is a big baby. She was born three weeks early at almost 7 lbs, and just became huge in the subsequent months always at the top of her height for her age and about 80% for weight. She's got a big pot belly, chunky thighs and an average little booty. 

The brands I've tried and I'll comment on as I go through:

• Osocozy Prefolds Size 2
• Green Mountain Workhorse fitted diapers in organic cotton
• Thirsties Covers
• Thristies All in One
• Bumkin's Covers
• Bumkin's Pockets
• Blueberry Covers
• Grovia Kiwii Pie Fitteds
• Grovia Hybrid Diapers w/ cotton soakers and disposables
• Grovia All In One Diapers 
• Swaddlebee Simplex Sized Microfiber & Cotton
• Kawaii pockets w/ microfiber
• Charlie Banana's pocket
• Fuzzibuns
• BumGenius Elemental and 4.0j
• Joey's Hemp Soakers

Newborn:
Full disclosure, until we were through the meconium, our little girl was in disposables. 

My newborn stash consisted of prefolds (Osocosy) and covers (Thirsties & Bumkins). When I did my initial research on cloth diapering, I was terrified of the stink that everybody talked about in regards to microfiber. Terrified. I vowed that I would never have man made fibers, but I do now. Remember, don't commit until you've had your own experience.  With that said. I LOVED my prefolds. I did the jelly roll fold with a snappi and it worked. Really worked, no leaks, no blow outs, no stink. It was great. They were a bit bulky, but it was no big deal, she wasn't really going anywhere. Prefolds were also the cheapest newborn option. I loved both of the covers. The Bumkins seemed a bit softer, but it was also a one size option that Ani outgrew quickly. The Thirsties were sized and we just had a better fit down the line.

Ani in a prefold and Thirsties cover.

I spent about $150, got 28 prefolds and 5 covers. The covers were reusable between changes, and kept everything in. A new baby goes through about a diaper every two hours, so having the 28 was definitely worth it and I never ran out. If I loved the prefolds so much, why did I move on? Well, I was cloth curious, but even more importantly, she was outgrowing the jelly roll fold. Her belly and thighs were getting too big for it by the end of month 4, and she was not yet ready for the simple tri-fold (too much baby poop). So it was around the 4 month mark that I started looking for other cloth options.

What I wish I had: As I said above, I was really happy with our newborn prefold diapers. If we have a second, what I will purchase is probably a couple of the Green Mountain Workhorse sized fitted diapers.  I'll talk more about these in in the next segment.

The Appliances

 

The one room I had a clear vision of what I wanted in was the kitchen. Specifically, I knew I wanted the Viking suite of appliances, more specifically the 60" range with the full size double ovens underneath. Year ago when I was still dreaming of the kitchen, the stove was going to be this awesome pumpkin color (yes a beautiful orange). However, once we were actually ready to pull the trigger on the actual stove, they only had a more muted orange, cinnamon, available, so we went for stainless. (Some are probably breathing a sigh of relief). It took 4 people to move this sucker into the house, and once in place, I posted a gazillion pictures of her on Facebook. Here's the stock photo:

 

And she's just as gorgeous in person. We also got a Viking fridge. Well, it's branded Viking, but actually Whirlpool. Viking had a bunch of built in models, but we really didn't have the wall space for it, and this seemed to do the job just fine. There's a water dispenser on the inside, and way more space than our old side by side. Again just a plain stock photo below.

And because we lacked the wall space, we decided to get a drawer microwave for the island. Again this is branded Viking, but actually a Sharp. The sales guy really tried to convince us to get the steam oven microwave combo. He wasn't sure that this would be enough for us.  Finally, I looked at him and said, "I just ordered a 60" range to cook on, what do you think I'd actually use the microwave for outside of heating up food?"  There are a lot of so so reviews on drawer microwaves, and we haven't used it enough to give our full review. So once again, the stock photo.

 

 And finally, the dishwasher. Certified by the company I work for, I knew exactly which one I wanted. It took us a while to figure out the rinse aid ratio, but now it works like a dream.

So there it is, the basis of our kitchen. I think outside the range, we're within a normal amount of ridiculousness, right?

Year in Review

It's January so I think that a looking back post is still totally OK. But when I think of all things in 2013, all I can think of is "we made it." Whenever someone asks me, "how's Anika doing?" my response, without delay is, "she's alive and well." Because seriously folks that in itself is a huge accomplishment. Ladies and gentleman, our baby made it to her first birthday, our three dogs are still in one piece, and Bob and I are still very much in love. What more could we we ask for?

2013 is a big blur with kitchen remodeling (still on-going), many, many sleepless nights (occasionally still happening), crazy work projects and schedules (still on-going), all dogs having some sort of medical woes (carrying over into 2014). We've had lots of people at the Pitt vising, and we've visited a lot of places, but somehow, I feel like we really didn't get to spend as much time as we wanted to with everybody. And I feel like that will be a theme in this coming year(s) as well so note to self, really make the most out of the moments you spend with friends and treasure the moments with your tiny little families.

To  a little less crazy 2014, a finished kitchen and a resolution I feel very confident in, "Keeping my spleen in 2014."

The Tile

We spent the majority of the summer looking for tile. We went to the Tile Shop, Home Depot, Lowes, Builders Carpet (they sell tile), Tile Express, the entire tile compound out in Farmington. It took FOREVER, but we were tiling 600 sq. ft. so we may as well make it worth our while.


I wanted a large (12 x 24) tile laid in a brick pattern. I thought I would go with a neutral, but the more tans and browns we brought in to the house the more I hated it. So we went with a slate look in ceramic and I think it's pretty beautiful...now to find a paint color.


Ignore the mess, bask in the beauty of the tile!

Kitchen Remodel

So we've decided to dive into the kitchen project head first. It was time for us to finish the last big project in the house. The first step was finishing the ceiling/walls and fixing all of the water damage. You may remember from an earlier post that we moved the stairs a couple of years back, so we have a pretty big space to work with. In my mind I knew exactly what I wanted to do in this room, but when it came time to select things, I had a really hard time.

Step 1: . Fixing the fireplace. Our old fireplace was surprisingly installed incorrectly. All the vent holes were tiled over, and it was a gas fireplace that they used to burn wood. We never actually used it, the whole thing looked really scary, so we decided to just replace the thing in it's entirety.

This was totally a Bob project. He called the fireplace people, picked out the type we were getting and I basically rubber stamped the whole thing. We've got a gas burning fireplace, with radiant heater. Even though we won't use the heating function very much, it's gas heat with a battery starter and if our power goes out, it'll give us an alternate source.

So we did this back in early June and felt like we had made a huge step towards the kitchen. And not surprisingly, the fireplace has just been sitting there, unused. And for a while, a long while, our kitchen project went on hold.

Step 2: Coming up with an actual design so we could start filling in the pieces.  So we headed over to Fingerle Lumber and worked with Tom Lane to come up with a design. Below is the top down view of our space. Starting from the top of the picture:

• Door on far left is the pantry, 
• Next door is for the mud room
• Next door is for the basement
• And the french doors are for the study

You can't see the fire place in this picture. But on the bottom right, where there are the built in china cabinets, in the middle, that's where the fireplace is. So we plan on a seating area in front of the fireplace... but that's super far away.

Step 3: The kitchen tile. Oh how I hate picking out tile.

Walking!

The Baby Grand Piano Room

We got this really great piano for Ani from a co-worker. It's made out of wood a little out of tune, just like a real piano. Bob says it's as close as we're going to get to the baby grand....I say it's a small step.

It's baby alright!

Finished! 2012 Photobook.

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A Weekend in Canada

It feels like we haven't sat still for the past couple of weeks, we were in Chicago, then Toronto. I took this video of Anika while I was trying to rally the troops for a bath, this one, didn't want to go to the bathroom! She's crawling all over the place and hates to be immobile. Sigh. I wonder what walking will be like.

A Little Bit of Spring

One of my favorite things about the Pitt is the number of flowering trees we have this time of year. We've got over 12 and they are just exploding right now. The apple trees are beautiful, and I try not to think of the fact that they'll start shedding their apples come fall and I'll spend most of my days trying to get the dogs to stop eating them!

The red buds are probably my favorite and I love that we have one right off of the master deck:

And I couldn't resist getting Ani outside to pick at the grass!

Grown Up furniture

The last post showed how the built in bookshelves were finished, and I neglected to show a finished picture of this room with our, GASP, grown up furniture.I've been pretty lazy about hanging up our pictures. There are a couple I would like to re-frame, and honestly with the kitchen remodel, the dust in inevitable in this room as well. So the decorations are a bit scarce, but overall I love the minimalist clean look of these pieces.

Because the next step is the kitchen, we've emptied most of the things from the kitchen into our bookshelves, which now are officially full. In our unpacking we found Bob's childhood pewter collection (oh joy!) that is now on full display. The bottom two shelves are for kid toys and books and not pictured here, I've finally found a use for the yoga mat, it makes for a very inexpensive play mat for Ani.

What's so great is that the new floors, the built in bookshelves and those couple new pieces of furniture really make our old couch look completely fresh and new. When I was uploading the photo's the one below looked like it would show the couch, but I was wrong. You do however get to see the cool rug that we purchased at Target. As a random side note, does anybody out there exist that can go into Target and not come out spending a minimum of $100?

The other awesome thing in this front walkway is we installed slate tiles. This was incredibly painful for us because we spent over 10 hours washing grout. Bob swears that it still doesn't look as clean as he wants it to, I think it's gorgeous!

 

One of our fun activities at the Pitt is for Bob to pick up a dog, or now baby and hold them with their heads peaking around the corner. Usually this activity is done to scare, I mean surprise, me.  This photo also gives a great view of the flooring.

Bookshelf Complete

I had my doubts, but I should learn by now that I don't need to question my father. The bookshelves are finished and beautiful! Now to find things to fill them...

2012 Wrap Up

This 2012 wrap up is a bit late, but honestly, that's how all of 2012 has felt, a little bit late. But what a year it's been for us. The beginning of the year started out with Bob saying, "You're almost 20 weeks pregnant, you have to tell people." and me responding by, "I've got plenty of time."  Plenty of time to continue to be in denial.  Although 2012 sped by, here's some of our highlights:

Fun at the botanical Garden

• I almost finished the Star Trek Quiet Book. I've yet to bind it, but it'll happen I swear.
• We traded in Rosie the Cavalac for a Prius V 5
• With the unseasonably warm winter, I had the opportunity to spend a lot of time to spend with my camera and branching out of aperture priority into manual mode.
• We finished the study, bathroom off of the study and completed the laundry

Calm before the storm.

  

• It basically rained babies this year



Baby D

• Added a new niece to the family from my brothers side
• Added a new nephew to the family from Bob's side
• Announcement of a new niece from Bob's side
• Added a new 'nephew' from the Spisich side, whose first birthday we had the pleasure of hosting
• Chicago gang all having babies
• Oh yeah, we had a baby

•    We installed an electric fence. You're thinking, did you just put in a physical fence a couple of years ago? Well yes, except our circus dog, Sheeba, can clear a 5 foot fence as if it was an inch tall. The last straw came when Ani was 7 days old, Sheeba jumped the fence, and I had to chase her down with the new baby. Sheeba was 3 houses down barking at our neighbor on her back porch. 4 days later, the fence went up.

 

•  The Color Run - happiest 5K on the planet 
• Lots of visitors at the Pitt, some have compared us to a bed and breakfast
• Another year of good friends getting married

So yeah, the year has been a blur. So much has happened, and we've had so little sleep, that I don't think it's all sunk in yet. So here's some of our
goals for 2013:

• We're starting the kitchen!!
• The master bathroom?? (Slipper tub!)
• Landscaping?
• Tri Goddess Tri
• Sleep, sleep and more sleep. If that means I'm going to have to start giving Ani whiskey before bed, so be it :-)

Baby Brigade

•  A finished living room with possible new furniture additions

• Going back to healthy choices - this one's for me, I mean Bob still has 0% body fat, and I feel like I'm 95% body fat. It's not babies that make you make unhealthy decisions, it's the lack of sleep. "Getting More Lean in 2013"
• Yoga for me. I hate to even type it because I hate yoga so much, but it's so bloody good for my back. So there, now I've typed it so it must be so.

So here's to another year of renovations at the Pitt, but more importantly a year of family and love.