Pepper Place, a box, a craft cupboard and a kangaroo

Tonight, I'm going to give a little plug to my friend Kelly. Kelly is clever. She sews (this automatically makes her clever in my books). She homeschools. She has 5 children - little children. She gardens. She lives on a big block of land, in a little house, and she has her own business. Pepper Place. If you have a child or children in nappies, you must visit her website!

This year I have started doing all sorts of things to try to 'green up' our lifestyle. This has always been my aim, but somewhere along the lines I had started to make lots of compromises and we're trying to get back on track as a family. One of the ways I am helping our environment and our finances is to go back to using cloth nappies. I still had lots of terry toweling squares left from Saraya's infancy, and pins etc. but no covers. I have always found the PVC covers annoying - they don't last long and they tend to leak. When Will was born we actually purchased some prefolds and covers but they were tiny, and he grew fast!!! So. I started looking around and remembered Kelly sewed nappies and covers. Long story short, I ordered two covers, and I LOVE them.

Will loves them too!!

They are soft and snuggly and fit perfectly. So many plastic studs means they really are 'one size fits all'. Which, for chubby 19 month old William is saying something. :) There are lots of different fabrics, colours and styles to choose from, for girls and boys.

I just ordered two more, and will basically operate with about 20 nappy squares and 4 covers. If I wash nappies every 3 days, this will work well. 1 cover seems to last well for a full day. So happy!

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This morning Stu went for a haircut, and took Elijah along for one as well. Saraya had lots of fun playing with William - she seemed to enjoy having him all to herself.

They played in a cardboard box.

Which Elijah decided to join in with when he got home.

And then decided to paint!

It later became a train for the two big kids but unfortunately that game ended in a squabble before I was able to take any photos. :(

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This corner used to have our Christmas tree in it, until a few days ago when I took it all down.

It looked bare. And I needed a place to store all our art and craft materials - it wasn't working housing them in the children's bedroom wardrobe! And we had an old white cupboard in the shed. So put those 3 facts together, and voila!

A Craft Cupboard.

Thank you Stu!! I know it was right at the back of the shed (of course) and a pain to get out.

It's sitting by our big timber table and will be so handy once school starts up again.

There was even a hook on the side which is perfect for all the children's smocks and aprons.

It's funny ......... this house is so new and kind-of pristine looking ..... which is nice .... but adding this cupboard today has suddenly made it look and feel like the home of a homeschooling family. :) We both commented on it, and it's made us happy!

We're settling in and making this place our own, and it's a great feeling.

Stuart went out and bought this dark timber filing cabinet last week too. It fits right next to our family filing cabinet, but will just be used for homeschooling storage/filing etc.

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William decided not to nap today, so he was tired and clingy right through the afternoon. Dinner was tricky as he was nodding off whilst eating! :( After I got some food into him the two of us went for a walk outside while Stu settled the other children to sleep. I love watching the sun set. It's nice going outside at that time of day with Will - it's becoming part of our routine actually. I like to stall his bedtime a little as he tends to sleep better and longer if her doesn't go to bed too early. 7:30-8pm seems to suit him at the moment. Tonight we put the chickens to bed, and walked up to the mailbox, and watched all the birds flying across the sky. He wanted to talk about everything.

We heard something in the bush across the road which got him really excited, and I told him it may have been a kangaroo. This produced very animated conversation from him, and he wanted to tell Stu all about it when we got back up to the house.

Here he has just finished saying "hop, hop, hop, rooooo"!

Stu has a few guys over tonight and they're playing a very blokey game of Risk. :) I've enjoyed some computer time, all to myself. :) I'm heading to bed now to read and sleep. So tired. I think my back has almost recovered from all the hoeing I did the other day - maybe I'll get the second half of the vegetable patch done tomorrow. I hope so.

Goodnight friends - oh, and go visit Kelly's site if you're interested in fabric nappies or covers!