Little sapling - "legacy tree"

Remember my post about Demitri's first solid food? 

Well this is our little sprouted sapling from the avocado that he ate. We are going to transfer it to a pot soon and hopefully it will continue to grow! I am going to make it a little more special by taking some of my encapsulated placenta and adding it to the soil to "feed" it. So here it is, Demitri's little legacy tree! Maybe one day it will be really big and he will be able to play under it while enjoying some more avocados. 

A friend suggested we try grafting it, since avocados are really weird now and apparently will not produce fruit unless grafted. Not sure why that is... I may look into that since the tree it came from is an old rare one.

Elimination Communication

Elimination communication is form of "non potty training".
Basically from infancy you learn cues as to when your baby needs to go potty so you can set them on the toilet before they use their diaper. There by teaching them to just use the potty rather than having to un-teach using their diaper as the potty.
In our case it's not been so much learn, cues as he gives no sign as to when he needs to go pee only when he needs to poop, so each hour and right after waking up I go and set him on the potty.
So far in my experience this is not something to start if you cannot do it full time because like with regular potty training progress made will be lost if not worked on/with consistently. But over all it is easy to do and he has been loving going on the potty!

We bought him one of the Fisher Price training toilets that plays music each time he goes, and we clap and cheer for him each time as well. So he is always proud of himself and has big grins on his face. It would be great if we could get him out of diapers and fully potty dependent before he is two!

I thought the elimination communication would be really difficult but one day I just went for it, so if it is something you are interested in give it a try! If it doesn't work out then it doesn't work out. But the few people I have talked to about it and have then gotten to try it out have all found it to be easy and that their baby loves going on the potty!

7 months pictures

Over half a year old now! It's all going by just so incredibly fast, and while I'm enjoying every moment I wish it would slow down just a little because I know he wont stay 'this' baby forever. Between being 6 and turning 7 months he started crawling up the stairs all on his own, saying mama, pooping and peeing on the potty more, and starting to stand and balance himself on his own this past week.  My baby boy is growing so fast.

I wish I had more to write about but I really don't feel like I do. There is so much going on these days but I'm so busy that when I do finally have time to sit and write I just draw a blank as to what to say. Maybe I'll start getting better at blogging again soon...

D.I.Y Star Wars Halloween costume pt 1

Just a little over a moth before Halloween is here. I've been working on making Demitri's Halloween costume and so far it is coming along great! It has been easy to do, super cheap (we have spent NO money so far!), and I am having fun doing it!

Demitri and dada will be going as Yoda and Luke! I can tell you're not all that surprised. Which is ok, but Daniel has had baby's first halloween costume planned since we found out I was pregnant!

We're on a "lets not spend any money" budget right now so I had to find a way to make him a Yoda costume that....fit in that budget so here is what I did.

1) I found an OLD large white kitchen towel, and while looking at it thought "hmm this texture would be great for making his Jedi robes.

2) I took the towel and dyed it using tea. I tossed it into a large bowel, threw 4 or 5 regular tea bags in with it and poured boiling water over top allowing it to brew and absorb into the fibers for probably 15 minutes.

3) Once it looked close to the color I wanted I took the bowl and dumped the tea out then let the newly dyed towel dry out flat in the sun. If the color ended up being lighter than what I wanted once dried it would be easy enough to dye it again either with more tea (or coffee for a definite darker appearance).

4) That evening I took my dyed towel upstairs, folded it in half, and laid it flat so I could draw my pattern on it. I did three different drafts of lines before cutting, and to draw the lines I used sidewalk chalk. In this picture you can see the three different colors I used. First green, then purple, and finally red. Then I taped it down to keep both sides even and cut it out.

5) I don't have a functioning sewing machine right now so I hand sewed it together. And the side of the body that was cut off, I used the scraps to make a hood!

6) And here is part one of his completed Jedi robes. I'm so proud of it because I did it ALL from scratch with zero help from anybody or anything.

The Belt.

1) For the belt I took a pillow case that I do not need/use (due to the odd large square shape) and cut it up. 

2) I took just a long strip that was only dark brown and sewed it together inside out then flipped it to hide the stitching. I found some old watch links sitting in a jewelry box in the closet and added those to the center of the belt for some cool unique detailing.

I was going to add some velcro to the ends as a fastener but decided to just leave it as a tie belt so it can stay nice and snug on his skinny tush.

Next we will be working on his cane and hat (the Yoda ears). It's mazing what you can do with stuff you just have lying around the house!