1+1 = Trey (3)

Negative Space

Tue, 7 Aug 2007 23:17:47 -0600

Trey's Face When Daddy Came Home

Mon, 6 Aug 2007 22:18:42 -0600

Where are my parents?

Mon, 6 Aug 2007 00:00:14 -0600

Over the past 6 days Trey has been spending a lot of time a his grandparent's house. Where are his parents? Heidi was wrapping up her surgery rotation which demanded some serious work hours. William has been in the Smokies with "Uncle sKenny" and some other friends doing some crazy photo and video stuff in the wild.

Posing with Uncle sKenny

Jumping into Fontana Lake

Switching to Cloth Diapers

Tue, 31 Jul 2007 11:53:52 -0600

With our upcoming move to West Africa (more on that later) we are trying to get ahead of the game and get used to using cloth diapers (there won't be a disposable diaper within 200 miles of our village). Our good friends Rob & Christine were very generous in letting us use their son Hutch's old cloth diapers.

This being the 21st century, these aren't the cloth diapers your parents used. No pins involved, the diapers have plastic snap buttons across the front so that you can keep using the diaper as your baby grows. Also handy are the hemp pad inserts that help soak up the "wetness" and that you can double up at night. Finally, the diapers come in snazzy colors ensure they Trey looks his best while strutting around in them.

More about the pros and cons below:I could go into the environmental advantages to cloth diapers but that is actually a hotly debated topic. I'm of the camp that the cloth ones still win out when you consider that that roughly 5 million tons of untreated waste and a total of 2 billion tons of urine, feces, plastic and paper are added to landfills annually due to disposable diapers. *stop for a minute and ponder how much 2 billion tons of urine and feces is*

Despite the snazzy modern cloth diaper features and fact that we're making Al Gore proud I desperately miss the disposables. Disposables are SO much easier. Let me walk through the steps I go through.

remove dirty disposable diaper
wipe Trey's butt
throw diaper and wipes in diaper pail
put new disposable on
every couple days, empty diaper pail into trash

Now let's go over the cloth diaper steps:

remove dirty cloth diaper
wipe Trey's butt and his legs if the stuff leaked out (the cloth diapers aren't quite as snug and often poop leaks out if I don't notice he's gone right away)
put the new cloth diaper on
take the dirty diaper to the bathroom and remove the insert pads
rinse the pads out in the sink (to avoid that terrible ammonia smell)
dunk the diaper in the toilet and use a spatula to scrape out the solids
rinse the diaper out in the sink
put the diaper & pads in the diaper pail
every day and a half I have to wash the diapers here's what that involves
- put diapers in wash and run a rinse cycle
- add detergent and wash
- since the diapers absorb water so well, I have to run another rinse cycle to get all the soapy water out (this may be overkill on my part)
- dry the diapers in the dryer
- hang the insert pads up since they are too absorbent to dry in the dryer
finally, once they are dry, put the pads back in the diapers and we're ready for him to poop again!

Whew! I'm spent! Time for a nap.

I Love Popsicles (and Phoenix does too!)

Sat, 28 Jul 2007 01:30:41 -0600

The Perrys dropped by today and Trey and Phoenix discovered their shared love for popsicles. Phoenix really enjoyed his and almost devoured the whole thing!

VBS 2007 Slideshow

Fri, 27 Jul 2007 01:53:49 -0600

Last month I posted a promotional video I made for our church to encourage members to volunteer to help with Vacation Bible School. This past week was our VBS and I served as "photographer" (best job ever!). Trey stayed with his grandmother Jensen most of the week but did attend VBS one day.

This is a video slideshow I made for our service this past Sunday to give folks an overview of what went on during the week.

Music by Sufjan Stevens from the 2006 album tribute to John Fahey entitled "I Am the Resurrection"

Payton Jr. Jr. Drops By Again

Wed, 25 Jul 2007 15:30:12 -0600

It has been several months since Trey and Payton last hung out. Now they are both walking and Payton even has a small repertoire of words he tosses around.

Amy brought Payton over today for a "play date" and they seemed to have a pretty good time. Payton liked all the new toys he could play with and Trey seemed to enjoy showing off (and defending) his turf.

Trey Loves Bath Time

Mon, 23 Jul 2007 22:21:00 -0600

It seems like it happened overnight. Trey never was too fond of bath time. Now he loves it and bursts into tears as soon as we turn the water off. He likes to sit right in front of the faucet and fill up his bucket over and over, dumping the water on his head.

Following is a sequence of images I snapped of Trey's fun getting a bit out of control.

Trey Goes to the VBS Tailgate Party

Fri, 20 Jul 2007 13:15:00 -0600

I've been photographing children all week at our church's VBS. Last night, with Heidi out of town, Trey came along with me. He had a blast playing with his friends Max and Lauren. He also got to stay up until 9:30pm. Something that doesn't happen when mommy is in town! Click "Read More" for more photos.

Trey Visits Another Aquarium

Fri, 20 Jul 2007 00:42:09 -0600

Trey and I had to drop Heidi off at the airport in Tampa early this morning so we decided to go on an adventure afterwards. Our good friend James Thomas works at Tampa's Florida Aquarium and invited us over for a tour. Trey was pretty tired (due for his morning nap) but he still enjoyed the glowing tanks full of fishies. Here are some of our photos from the excursion.