Babies spit up. This is a fact of life as inevitable as death and taxes. Obviously, most of us would prefer that the freshly regurgitated stomach contents of our precious little ones to NOT go directly onto our clothing, hence the creation of the burp cloth.

While you can of course use a tee shirt, towel, or receiving blanket for the job, it's always nice to have a tool specifically designed for a given task, and burp cloths are no exception to that rule. Naturally, there are many places that you can purchase attractive burp cloths, but you can make them yourself for less than two dollars apiece with even the most novice level sewing skills. Since baby number nine will be here in less than a month, I have started making some of these to prepare for her; read on to see how it works.

The needed supplies are very simple.

All you need, supply wise, is a plain white cloth diaper and some scrap fabric. Cloth diapers come in packs of ten for just over a dollar each. I used fat quarters of cotton fabric for my burp cloths; these cost a dollar or less, and can be found at any craft or fabric store; these came from the fabric department of my local Wal Mart. With that said, feel free to raid your scrap bag or scrap drawer, as any piece that is large enough will do.

Before you start, go ahead and iron your cloth diaper and your burp cloth.

Fabric, ready to cut.

You're going to want to cut a strip that is roughly six inches wide by at least the length of the diaper. I personally leave mine the full length of the fat quarter; I find it far easier to just wrap the ends...

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Tags for this post: Sewing

This past Christmas, Wynter (my four year old) had several board games on her Christmas list. All told, I think that she made some good choices; I'll eventually get to all of them.

Today, however, we are going to focus on Cat-tastrophe!, a game by Imagination Generation.

As for the basics - this is a game for two to four players; the recommended ages on the box are five and up. With that said, my girls (ages three and four) had zero problems understanding or playing the game, and they both enjoyed it a lot - as did my seven year old and eleven year old sons.

Elowyn (age three) plays for keeps.

The concept is very simple. A kitty cat is stuck at the top of a tree, and it's your job to get her down. The "tree" consists of a stack of little colored wooden dowels painted to resemble tree branches and leaves. Each player takes turns using a thinner dowel to push their chosen piece out of the pile. If the pile crashes and the kitty falls to the ground, you lose.

You can do a more advanced version of the game, as well, that tallies points as you go... but the base game is a simple variation on Jenga, and it works.

The craftsmanship for the game is excellent. All of the pieces are solid wood,... Read More
Tags for this post: Product Reviews

I wear a beard. For most of the year, I keep it very short, but a couple of years ago, Donna made the mistake of showing me some online photos of guys decorating their beards with ornaments for Christmas. Now, I absolutely love the Christmas season; I love decorating, I love getting into the holiday spirit... and truth be told, I am certainly the biggest kid in our house. Much to my wife's surprise (and truth be told, dismay), I grew my beard out, bought some tiny ornaments, and hung them in and off of my glasses. It was a hit - I had people telling me how much they loved it, even stopping to take selfies with me at the mall on Black Friday. I even took them with us on our trip to Disney World, and when we attended the Christmas Party there, I wore them. That night, I had three different cast members in the parade stop and point me out, and got a ton positive feedback from people there. On our way back to the hotel, Donna looked at me and observed that it was over, that I was going to do this every year, wasn't I?

The answer was a resounding "of course!".

Who wouldn't want to look this festively awesome?

 

The thing is, Donna hates it when my beard is long, so I get up on December 26th and trim it back down...

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Tags for this post: Family Life

The record is very clear - we are all about big events in our house. As has been documented here before, we believe in big birthdays, in big Christmases, in big Disney World trips, and so on and so forth. However, life can't just be floating along until the next big event. You have to build those connections every day, you have to find the small pieces of magic to sprinkle into everyday life.

Last week, Donna got the idea of doing s'mores inside over our fireplace. The weather has cooled off quite a bit; a fire is now an attractive thing, and she thought that it would be fun to take a traditional summertime activity and put a little spin on it for the kids. So last week's grocery trip included me picking up graham crackers, Hershey bars, marshmallows, and metal skewers (so as to not have to scavenge sticks from the yard).

As an aside... I'm a fan of new and improved products, of products designed to fit little niches... but the fact that they now sell square-shaped marshmallows - which cost twice as much as normal ones - and market them as "s'more marshmallows" is just absurd. A well toasted marshmallow with a near liquid center spreads out perfectly fine on a graham cracker. Come on, marshmallow magnates!

At any rate, I wordlessly placed these ingredients on the dining room table, but refused to answer any questions about them aside... Read More
Tags for this post: Parenting, Family Life

My middle son, Jonah, is an inquisitive guy with quite a few interests; one of these interests happens to be the space program.  Since he turned nine this year, I felt like he would be very interested in model rockets, and after being chilly to the idea to start with, he asked for one for his birthday.

The past Saturday, I helped him put it together.  Now, Estes model rockets have been around for some time; I built several as a child, and I helped my oldest son, Caleb, build one some years ago.  I will say that these have improved over the years, at least when it comes to the ease of construction.  He and I put together this Taser rocket kit (which comes with the reusable launch pad and controller) in less than an hour. 

The box claimed that the rocket could fly to a thousand feet up, but the fine print indicated that this depended on the model of engine that you chose; this time around, Donna and I went with the B6-4 engines, which were the mid range selection (and still supposedly yielded around 550 feet of altitude).  The kit did also require some recovery wadding - aka fire retardant tissue designed to protect the parachute from being burned up. 

The concept is pretty simple.  You build this cardboard and plastic rocket, which includes a parachute.  The solid fuel engine goes in the bottom, which you ignite electronically.  It flies...

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Tags for this post: Family Life

Olan's spicy spaghetti, served with a slice of garlic bread.

I have mentioned before that my wife, Donna, does almost all of the cooking in our house. And with good reason, mind you; the woman is a genius. She regularly tries new recipes (and often adapts or creates her own), and it's extremely rare for the result to not be something we want to repeat - typically, the reactions range from "that's really good" to "that's better than the majority of restaurants I have ever eaten at".

However, a few dishes fall under my domain; chief among them is spaghetti. This is one of the very few meals that every single person in my family (including picky Silas) enjoys in some form. While it does require both some prep work and a not insignificant amount of cooking time, it's not what I would consider to be a "difficult" meal, per se... and the results are perfect for anything from a romantic candlelit dinner to a full "feed the entire family" spread.

When I was a child, my mother stressed the importance of everyone being able to cook to some degree, as you can't always count on your mother (or wife) to do it for you, there are situations where you want to be the one providing the meal, etc. My spaghetti recipe is based on hers; indeed, for some time, I basically cooked it exactly like she did.

Over...

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Tags for this post: Recipes

Slightly controlled birthday chaos.

Real talk time: our family is quite large. While we don't yet command our own TLC reality series, my wife and I do instigate double takes almost any time we mention how many kids we have (eight total, six aged ten down to infant).

Now, it may come as a complete shock to you, but for whatever reason, a fair number of people seem to feel obligated to comment as to why they personally disapprove of large families. Don't get me wrong - I personally think that these people can take their opinions on a long walk off of a short pier - but one that sticks out is a take we hear with surprising frequency where the windbag in question shares how they "could never have that many kids, as it isn't fair to them, that you just can't make things special for so many children."

Go ahead, imagine the expression of "I'm not going to bother hiding my contempt" on my face. I'm sure that you can picture it.

Now, I'm not going to pretend that we can dote on each and every one of the six younger kids like some single kid parents do with their one child. But to suggest that it isn't fair to them, that we can't make things special? This sentiment is not only deeply insulting, but is patently false.
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Tags for this post: Parenting

A week ago, my wife went out for a girls' day with her mother and sister. That left dad in charge of all six of the kids aged ten and under - including Gideon, our five month old baby. Believe it or not, mom made it home some seven hours later to discover a clean house, the children unharmed (as well as dressed and fed), and the baby in a good mood after his nap.

So I must be looking for a pat on the back, if not an actual medal for my efforts... right?

Give me a break. I'm a father, not some bumbling sitcom caricature of a dad that does well to figure out which end of the baby that the diaper goes on. I'm a full partner in raising these kids - not some every now and then babysitter.

While I will absolutely bow to my wife's superior organizational skills - seriously, kudos to that woman for managing to not only cook, clean the house, do laundry, and raise these kids... but to also homeschool them and to set aside "us time" every day - and will freely admit that she is superior to me in a lot of the little touches, the fact remains that I am also a qualified parent. I know all of the kids' favorite foods. I am capable of dressing them in more or less matching clothing. I am qualified to organize trips to the store, or to...

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Tags for this post: Parenting

When you own a house, you can pretty much guarantee that there will always be projects that need your attention. Our home is no different; for some time now, I've really needed to rebuild our front stairs due to age and some rotting issues thanks to water from the roof. The task had been put off more than it should have, due to various reasons; financial concerns, Gideon's birth and NICU stay, baseball season, my character flaw of procrastination. But with my income tax refund in hand and a break in the baseball season, it was time to get this project done.

To be fair, I've always enjoyed rough carpentry. Lumber is fairly forgiving to work on; if you're off by a fraction of an inch, it's seldom the end of the world, and the end result of your labor tends to be quite satisfying. Building porch stairs is a DIY home improvement project that should be well within the ability of most able bodied adults; with a weekend and a helper, you can probably wrap things completely. I did drag things out a little longer than that, but it still was a relatively simple project with a big payoff.

Materials List

All lumber was pressure treated pine

• 3 - 2x12x12 (stringers)
• 4 - 2x12x12 (stair treads)
• 1 - 2x6x8 (toe board)
• 2 - 80 lb sack concrete mix
• 2 - 4x4x8 (posts)
• 4 - 2x4x8 (handrails)
• 4 - 5/4x6x8 (handrails)
• 26 - decorative spindles
• 2 1/2 inch...

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Tags for this post: DIY, Home Improvement

If you've ever been to Walt Disney World and eaten breakfast at any of their on-site restaurants, odds are that you have eaten - or at least seen - one of their famous waffles in the shape of Mickey Mouse's head. If you haven't enjoyed this treat... well, I'm sorry. Now, I am certain that the environment adds a little magic to the enjoyment of these, but the objective fact is that Mickey waffles are simply quite tasty.

To my knowledge, there is no mix available for sale to recreate this breakfast magic at home; fortunately, Disney is not at all secretive about their recipe. Odds are, you have all of the ingredients in your pantry right now... you just need to put a little effort in, and you'll be able to recreate a slice of that Disney magic in your own kitchen!

Mickey Mouse Waffles Recipe

Ingredients

• 4 eggs, separated
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 cup milk
• 1/4 cup of butter, melted, then cooled to room temperature
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 2 cups flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

If you compare the above recipe to other sources for the "official" Disney World recipe, you'll notice that I'm a tad heavy on both sugar and vanilla. The reason for this is simple - Magic Kingdom is known to prepare their waffles just a bit stronger on these two ingredients, resulting in a slightly sweeter waffle. I prefer this, and so, my recipe reflects that. If...

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Tags for this post: Cooking, Recipes