Pampers Pure Diaper Review

Hello KVC blog fans. I am sorry I haven’t been updating the blog much in the last year and a half. Life has been crazy including a new baby in the house.

Thomas arrived on July 29th, 2019 at dawn weighing a whopping 9 lbs 6 oz. He bypassed the newborn diaper size and went straight into size 1’s. At 2 weeks old he is just about out of size 1 diapers already, we grow our babies large in the KVC household.

Speaking of diapers I received complementary package of Papers Pure Protection diapers from Influenster to try on my newborn, which was super awesome because if you have ever bought diapers you know that cost adds up quickly.

I did compare the Pampers Pure to the Pamper Swaddler diapers. The Pure have a softer lining and are about 1/2 an inch larger all around compared to the Swaddler.
The Pure was also very absorbent which is important for a baby who is a pee pot like Thomas is. The designs on the outside of the diaper were adorable as well.
All in all the Pamper Pure diapers were gently on my newborns tush and did not cause a rash unlike other brands that have the same features.

Thank you Influenster for these free diapers and allowing me to review them for you.

~Kristen

It’s Been A While

I know it has been quite sometime since I last wrote a blog post, not that I didn’t try it was my internet not allowing me on to WordPress. Stinks I know.

The last half of  2017 brought many changes to my household to include sending all of my school age children to public school, the have previously attended a private preschool and were homeschooled. So that was one heck of an adjustment for my oldest daughter and myself. While they are at school I was lost on what to do with myself other than go back to bed for a few more hours with my toddler. I started volunteering at our local food pantry, help has been desperately needed there as most of the volunteers are at least 65 years old or older. One of our volunteers just turned 94 years old, I can only hope I can look as good and be as active as she is at 94.
Volunteering takes up two mornings a week and the occasional extra day when we have our food deliveries, I have enjoyed volunteering and giving back to my community. I even bring my toddler with me while I volunteer, she keeps the ladies entertained on those morning.

Another change is buying a farm, my husband and I are in the process of buying our own farm, while we haven’t closed yet we have taken over the care of the farm and animals that live there. We won’t be moving for a while as the house will need a large amount of renovation to it, so look for those renovation blog posts hopefully starting sometime in April or May.

That is all I have time for, I hope each and everyone of you have a blessed day,

~Kristen

A Sewing Wish

Sometimes I wish I could sew as well as my Mom and Nana Janet, especially when I am listing vintage sewing patterns and I find one that I really would love to be made into something for me instead of listing it in my Etsy shop.
Today was one of those days as I listed several new vintage patterns, as I looked at the pattern imaging how the dress would look on myself I realized I need to learn to sew well. I can do basic stitches, patches and buttons but my skills of sewing from a pattern is sorely lacking.

Perhaps I should start attending the sewing lessons my daughter takes in the winter time as she will be starting on patterns soon from what I have been told by her sewing instructor.  I remember my Mom driving to Steubenville Ohio to learn to sew when I was a small child and with that knowledge she would sew my siblings and I new clothes. My favorite thing she ever made me was a pair on white and yellow striped pants. However the second time I wore them my brother punched me in the nose and I bled all over them before I could get a paper towel. Sadly the blood stain never came out, but I remember those pants fondly.

~Kris

The Family Farm of Don and Ellen

Twice in one year we have had to clean out a grandparents place, first it was my Maternal Grandparents, then my Paternal Grandparents Farm was in dire need of cleaning due to a new owner and almost 5 decades worth of collections. Side Note: I only had time to help clean 1 day, while my Dad and 3 of his siblings did the rest of the work.
My Grandparents Don and Ellen were married on May 28th, 1949 after a whirlwind courtship. Together they raised 6 children (4 boys 2 girls) the eldest son being my Dad and were married for 44 years.
Grandpa passed away in 1993 at the ripe young age of 64 after battling congestive heart failure. He was the type of grandpa that every child dreams of, he would take us fishing on their little pond and just stop by to say hi when he would drive past our house on his way to the camping grounds where my parents now live and farm.

Grandma lived on to be 83 and passed away back in 2014 from many health problems. Grandma was a twin who lived life to the fullest even though she didn’t drive.

It wasn’t until recently that the my Dad and his siblings decided to sell the family farm to another farmer who will turn the family farm back into a working farm so the legacy of my Grandparents live on.

The House that Jim and Janet Built

Occasionally I get very real with my blog posts and today is one of those days.

Over the last couple of weeks I along with my sisters and sister in law have been helping my Mom clean out my Grandmothers house that was recently sold since my Grandma can no longer live alone due to dementia. She currently resides in a memory care nursing home. The house was built by my Grandparents in the late 1970’s after my Mom went to college and only her two younger siblings lived at home still.

While we were cleaning we found oodles of old family pictures that I can not wait to get scanned and blown up for my studio. There were so many stories behind each picture that my Mom and her siblings know very little if anything about.

My grandparents were fastidious with their record keeping, we have small seemingly bland notebooks filled with different kinds of accounting information. Each Aunt and Uncle had a whole notebook devoted to their wedding costs, receipts were included and sometimes wedding pictures as well.

Tucked away in a upstairs closet were presents bought several years ago and long forgotten. In another closet were a pair of those white sweatshirts with grandchildren hand prints in paint all over them that were made for my grandparents so long ago. My Grandma had kept both of them, the paint faded and almost gone on hers while my Grandpa’s was a little brighter. My Grandfather has been gone for 20 years and she has kept both of these sweatshirts made my heart sad. When I found them I just hugged them both, missing my Grandpa more than words can say. His sweatshirt still smelled like him.

Yesterday we finished cleaning out the house and my Mom will turn over the keys to the new owners today, so new memories can be made.

 

Until Next Time,

~Kristen

Product Review: Amorini Nipple Protection Cups

I was gifted a pair of Amorini nipple protection cups to use and review. I was very excited to try them as I had read fantastic reviews on a few Breastfeeding pages/groups on Facebook as well as Amazon in the past.

I am a new breastfeeding Mom again for the 4^th time, I know what you are thinking, shouldn’t my nipples be used to breastfeeding by now? My answer is No. For the simple fact that it had been 1 ½ years since I last nursed and each baby has their own learning curve and nursing style. The mechanics may be the same however each baby is vastly different.

“Amorini harness the antibacterial properties of silver by offering nipple protection and a safe and natural way” is what the pamphlet says and I have to agree.

The protection it is talking about is that your nipples while wearing the Amorini nipple cups keeps your clothing from rubbing against them causing more pain. Before I starting using my Amorini nipple cups I had cracked and blistered nipples from breastfeeding, within a day and a half my blistered were gone and the cracks were healing. By day 3 they were completely healed up and felt significantly better.

Within a week I only needed to wear them when my nipples were sore instead of around the clock.

I do have to say that my favorite part of using the Amorini nipple cups was that I looked a bit like a Femmebot from Austin Powers, I thought it was funny and it made me feel attractive during those first few weeks of motherhood where you generally feel like you’ve been run over by a truck.

The only 2 things I didn’t like about the Amorini nipple cups is that I had to wash them after every breastfeeding session and that they sealed moisture in so when I leaked they filled with milk, while breastmilk is great for your skin and for healing it was having a wet lap from not paying attention on my part that I wasn’t a fan of. This can be avoided by wearing a breastpads and being ready for them to be full of milk.

My overall experience with using the Amorini nipple cups was very positive and I do believe this is a revolutionary product for all nursing Mom’s out there.

For more information on the Amorini nipple cups you can find it here or on their Facebook Page.

Interested in purchasing? You can find them on Amazon here

Until next time,

~Kristen

Introducing Abigail Elizabeth

Abigail Elizabeth Willis was born June 25th at 3am in the front seat of my SUV after very short 2 hour labor (we were enroute to the hospital when she decided that she was ready to be earth-side). My husband caught her in the parking lot of a Dollar General Market/Tractor Supply, all I can say is I’m glad they have large bright lights in their parking lot. She is perfect in every way.

She weighed 8 lbs 15.5 oz and was 21 1/4 inches long at birth but has since added almost a pound more to her weight.

I have her wearing vintage already.

Until next time,

~Kristen

Spring Cleaning Part 2

Since I wrote Spring Cleaning Part 1, I have completed a bunch of tasks on my list such as washing walls and the interior side of the windows as well as giving the living room carpet a good shampooing even cleaning the stove out. I am hoping to be done with my list before March at least that is my goal.

Today I have been working on deep cleaning my bedroom Mr. KVC said no pictures as that is one room that is off limits to the public. I will honor his request and I hope my words will give you a idea of what I am dealing with. Right before Christmas I went through all of the clothing in our bedroom which includes both of my  sons dresser, and the dresser my husband and I share well he gets 2 drawers and I get 4 but he likes all of his shirts including t-shirts hung up.

Our 2 and 3 year old boys wear the same size clothing so they have always shared a dresser, I know that will soon change but for now it works for us. I try to go through their clothing a couple times a year as they get bigger and remove clothing that is to small and replace it with appropriate sizes usually the size they are currently wearing and a size or two bigger as all clothing is not created equal in sizing depending on the brand and style.

At that time I also went through my clothing and my husbands jeans, good heavens that man has more jeans than the rest of us combined in this house. They actually sit in folded piles on top of the boys dresser because they won’t fit into our shared dresser. Why don’t I hang them up? I can’t but for good reason, we only have 1 closet in this whole house and it is located in the bathroom, it is a decent size closet however between all of Mr. KVC shirts and my dress clothes and our daughters dresses there isn’t much room left for anything else.

Since our clothing has been taken care of, the rest of the  room just needs a good vacuuming and the walls washed. Thankfully those are fairly easy things to do with the exception of cleaning under the bed and behind the dressers, the bed and dressers are to heavy for me to move on my own in my current state i.e. 23 weeks pregnant. So that will have to wait until Mr. KVC can help me move them, hopefully this afternoon when he gets back from plowing snow from many of our neighbors driveways.

After a short break….

Well Mr. KVC is back and we tried moving the bed, instead moving it like I had planned we ended up breaking the bed. The foot-board came clean off, Mr. KVC says he can fix it and I really hope he can because I like our bed. So after that fiasco I will finish our room tomorrow.

Until next time,

~Kristen

Fun in the Snow

Yesterday it started snowing and it has continued to snow throughout today. Is there an end in sight? I don’t know nor do I care. I am of the persuasion that if it is going to be cold out I want snow on the ground to make everything pretty.

Today the kids and I ventured out in the snow to take a walk, not the easiest of tasks with a 3 and 2 year old and almost 20 weeks pregnant. We had planned on walking on the path through the woods but the boys decided just a trip around the yard and play for a little bit was good enough for them before we came back in the house for hot chocolate.

  My 3 year old insisted that he needed to wear his sisters scarf to keep his neck warm.

 I’ll even throw in a snowy selfie.

Until next time,

~Kristen

Spring Cleaning Part 1

Today I am attempting to battle that even mounding pile of stuff called the toy box. I usually go through the toy box twice a year to purge and get rid of broken toys and things that they have outgrown this happens in June and December before Christmas. However my kids have been playing with the same 4 types of toys since Christmas leaving the mounding pile of other toys alone, so I decided that less really is more and I leaving those 4 types of toys out while I put the rest away in storage for now.

“But Mom how can you do such a thing to these poor kids?” Easy to many toys or things can be over stimulating and cause some children anxiety. I am choosing to keep toys that spark creativity and imagination play rather than stimulating play, I already ask family and friends not to give toys that make noise or it stays at their house. So that is one less thing I have to worry about, not to mention the fact that kind of noise makes my head hurt just thinking about it.

So what am I keeping? Wooden blocks, Lego Dulplos, Wooden train set, a few puzzles, and the retro Fisher Price Toys. Of course books are always readily available to my children as is their play kitchen which resides in my daughters bedroom.

I actually took a few before and after shots, I should have gotten a good floor picture on the one side of the room because that floor was littered with books that didn’t have room on my bookcases. I need more bookcases that is for certain but until then I packed 3 boxes of books away in our attic.

 As you can see I didn’t get a floor shot in front of this bookcase.

Oh the toys, so many friggin toys that do not get played with and I’m constantly having the kids pick up them up and put out of the way.

 This is actually fairly clean as I had picked up all the kids books and put them away on Thursday. It is the mounding pile of toys and stuff that I am totally over.

As you can see I cleaned up and straightened the shelves, I put books away and I moved a small filing container on top of the small safe that are my husbands important paperwork. We are always on the lookout for a antique filing cabinet to use as our filing cabinet instead on mounds of paper work laying around in piles and creating unorganized chaos.

                 

The kids and I are happy with the results of cleaning out the toy box and putting them away in the attic until they are ready to trade them out some time down the road. EDIT: It has been 4 days since I purges the toys and my children are happier with the results still, I have yet to be asked for a toy that has been put away.

Spring cleaning project #1 complete.

On the upside of this project, I actually had to clean the stairs to our attic up as well and since that is another Spring Cleaning project I can say I have 2 of them completed in just a few short hours.

Until next time.

~Kristen