Classical Conversations Cycle 3 Geography Cards

Now you can find the Cycle 3 Geography Cards all in one place! Since I created these MANY years ago, I wasn't able to combine them as I would have liked, but now you won't have to jump to multiple blog posts. 

My children are no longer in CC, but it's come to my attention that these cards are still a blessing to some of you who are still in Classical Conversations. To that end, I have created a 5th Edition update file so you can print that off and just toss the incorrect cards and use the new ones. I also thought it might help to have all of the cards in one place! 

The cards from the original files that can be throw away are:

Mt. McKinley, week 14
Niagara Falls, week 14
Title Card for week 21 (Changed from Territories and Terrains to Native American Regions)
California and Great Basin, week 21
Mississippi Delta, week 24

The 5th Edition Update file will have the replacements for these cards. 

Enjoy!

Cycle 3 Geography Cards, Weeks 1-6

Cycle 3 Geography Cards, Weeks 7-12

Cycle 3 Geography Cards, Weeks 13-18

Cycle 3 Geography Cards, Weeks 19-24

Cycle 3 5th Edition Updates

Cycle 1 Geography Cards, Weeks 19-24

Well, I'm spending our break week between weeks 18-19 sick. If I had to be sick, I'm glad it happened when I didn't have my regular director duties to attend to, but I can definitely think of things I'd rather be doing than laying in bed barely able to breathe! Such is life, I suppose. Since I was stuck in bed most of the day, I was able to work on the last installment of Cycle 1 Geo cards! Enjoy! ;)

Cycle 1 Geography Cards, Weeks 19-24

Cycle 1 Geography Cards Weeks 13-18

Whew, the Christmas break flew by! We start school tomorrow whether we're ready or not. The therapies and lessons start back up and it's back to life as usual.

As promised, I worked on the Geography Cards over the break so here are Weeks 13-18. Enjoy!

Greetings from Arendelle

I don't know too many little girls who didn't fall in love with Anna and Elsa last year. My twins were no exception. My boys were just as enamored with the movie Frozen, and they ALL agreed that they needed costumes! Well, of course I couldn't argue! I really wanted to push myself and see what I could come up with.

It was easy to find a pattern for the Anna and Elsa dresses. I used this pattern from McCalls with some modifications.

I found this website that helped me make those modifications on the Anna dress. I made the changes to the Elsa dress on my own. The biggest modification was a detachable cape (since the movie version is SO much longer than in this pattern, I wanted something my daughter could take off when she's playing). I used jeweled buttons to cover the snaps. We bought the Anna boots from JCPenny. I bought old tap shoes at Goodwill for the Elsa shoes, pained them with acrylic paint, then covered with Mod Podge and glitter.  

The Kristoff costume took more thought and trial and error. I searched for patterns that would work as well as online tutorials. I couldn't find anything helpful at all so I eventually just buckled down and figured it out on my own. I knitted the sleeves and collar out of blue yarn and made every stitch of the outfit, even the boots. It was a labor of love, for sure!

Olaf was the easiest and most fun of the 4 costumes to make. I bought an XXL-sized white sweatshirt instead of fabric. The pants were made by cutting off the sleeves and sewing them into pants. I added elastic to the neck and the middle of the sweatshirt to make the snowman sections. The coal "buttons" are removable and made of black felt. I made the hat from white and orange fleece and the eyes are made of felt. I knitted "hair" for Olaf out of brown yarn. This hat took some trial and error too, but I'm pleased with how it turned out. I use a length of tulle stuffed inside the costume to make the sections rounded. My son wore a long-sleeved brown shirt underneath for Olaf's wooden arms. 

We visited Downtown Disney Marketplace in costume at Christmas time to visit Santa. The kids were instant celebrities! We were stopped for photographs and people ooohed and aaahed everywhere we went. Then while visiting Santa, the kids were given a special gift -- the last snowflake from Arendelle's Christmas Tree! 

I've never taken on a project this extensive before, and it was a LOT of work. But I believe it was worth it. What do you think? 

Something New

I've been making the geography cards for a while now and I plan to continue until I have a set of cards for all 3 cycles of Classical Conversations. The response has been incredible and I'm so grateful to be able to share the fruit of my labors with others.

I love learning about other countries and cultures. I think I fell in love when I was around 8 or 9 years old. My paternal grandparents took me to a series of travelogues at their church. I remember learning about Norway, Greece and China and realizing that the world was much bigger than what I'd experienced in my short life living in a small town.

I was very blessed growing up. My mom taught me a little Spanish and when I was 16, I was invited to go along with family friends to Spain for 6 weeks. I was to help out with their daughters, who were younger than I, and to assist with translation when I could. At 18, my own family traveled to Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, France and Italy. We lived in Austria for about a month and visited the other countries on weekend excursions. I've never been to any place where the air smelled sweeter than in Innsbruck, Austria. I wish there was a way to bottle it up. After learning about classical music through my piano and violin lessons over the years, I was able to visit Vienna and Salzburg and walk along the banks of the famous Blue Danube river.

Parc Guell, Barcelona, Spain

El Alcazar, Segovia, Spain

Castle Tasso/Raiffenstein Castle, Vipiteno/Sterzing, Italy

A little over a year later, I was off to Mexico for a semester abroad. This was the longest I'd ever spent away from my family and I really grew up while I was away. I fell in love with the people and the culture. I had culture shock coming home -- my eyes were opened to how materialistic and shallow we are as a culture. I realized how much we rush around and how stressful our lives are because of it. I absolutely loved Mexico and think of it even now as my second home.

Hacienda Yaxcopoil, Yucatan, Mexico

House of the Magician, Uxmal, Mexico

Mercado Hidalgo, Guanajuato, Mexico

Just a few months after returning home from Mexico, I left for a short-term medical missions trip to Belize. We stayed in a village where people had huts with palm frond roofs and no running water. The generosity of these people who had so little was humbling. I laughed when the native people asked me if I was from Guanajuato, Mexico, because I had picked up so specific an accent. With my light skin, green eyes and light brown hair, I certainly didn't look Mexican, but I guess I must have sounded like it!

Patchakan, Belize

After Belize, I stayed home for a few years and finished up my degree. I graduated with a B.S. in Biology and a minor in Spanish. I took a year of Russian language and met my husband in our tiny little Russian class. I found that learning Russian as a third language was easy after learning Spanish. I had hopes to visit Russia as well, but after graduation, I started working and was married 2 years later.

My husband and I both have Irish and Scottish ancestry, so we decided to visit Ireland, Scotland, and Wales for our honeymoon. It was quite a change to visit a foreign country where they DID speak English!

Ballinatona Farm, Millstreet, Ireland

Muckross Friary, Killarney, Ireland

Edinburgh, Scotland

Since having children, we haven't left the country. I miss seeing new places and experiencing other cultures first hand, but I'm so grateful to have had the opportunities in my younger days to do so.

This brings me to the reason for this post. My degree is in Biology. So, as much as I love geography, I get super excited about science! When my children and I were going over the classification of living things during week 1, I had the idea to make Classification Cards featuring the Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus & Species of different plants and animals that my children know and a few they don't yet. Once the cards were finished (at least for now -- making them is kind of addictive!) I thought I'd share them with you. I used Wikipedia and other online sources for the classification and I certainly can't guarantee that I didn't misspell anything. These are certainly not perfect, but I thought they were fun.

You're welcome to use them however you like. I am using them simply to help my children understand how classification works and as a fun visual. If you find a great way to use these cards, leave a comment and let me know! Enjoy!

*Edited 6/23/2018 to add plan picture cards for Classical Conversations tutors to use in class for the Science portion of Cycle 1, Week 12.

Picture Only Classification Cards

Classification Cards

Confusion, confusion

Well, it seems like there is some confusion over the Geography Cards on CC Connected. I post my Geo cards here because not everyone pays for a subscription to CC Connected. And that's fine. Geographical locations aren't copyrighted, so since CC doesn't own the information on the cards, I feel like they should be available to everyone.

Last time we went through Cycle 1, I wasn't even a part of Classical Conversations yet. My son and I started 2 years ago, for Cycle 2. There were some awesome mamas who made Geography cards and posted them on CC Connected back then. I know there have been some users who have downloaded my cards for weeks 1-12 and then downloaded the cards from 2012 thinking they were mine. I don't mind this of course, but I'm concerned because I didn't make them and I don't know if they reflect the current information in the 4th edition of the Foundations Guide. Of course, you're certainly welcome to download whatever you like! ;) Just be aware that they are older and please do double check to make sure the information is correct.

I will be working on a set for weeks 13-24 over the winter break and I'll make sure they're current. :) Thanks so much for the awesome response from everyone and I hope this clears things up.

Cycle 1 Geography Cards

**EDITED for new 5th Edition**

The school year is drawing to a close. I've already purchased books for next year and I'm excited about starting school again in the fall. This happens every year about this time. I'm way more excited about starting next school year than I am about finishing this one! The kids are ready to be done, too. Their activity level has been especially high the last few days. It's already VERY hot outside in the Florida sun, so our outdoor time typically involves water or it's just too hot.

With my excitement about next year and starting Cycle 1, I've been working on Geography Cards for next year. I've completed weeks 1-12 so far. I hope these bless you and your family.

5th Edition Cycle 1 Geography Cards, Weeks 1-12

And now -- weeks 13-24! Enjoy!

5th Edition Cycle 1 Geography Cards, Weeks 13-24

Peppermint Swirl Dress

Almost everyone who knows me personally knows that I love to sew. My mom used to make beautiful dresses for me when I was little and she started teaching me to sew when I was about 7 or 8 years old. Now that I have two little girls of my own to make dresses for, I put my sewing skills to good use quite often.

I saw the pattern for this dress online and just fell in love. It's so deliciously twirly! You can buy the PDF and see several beautiful versions of this dress here.

One of my daughters is always coming downstairs dressed in a pink shirt and red pants, or a pink skirt and a red shirt. She loves pairing pink and red. While I don't mind what she wears around the house, if we're going somewhere with the expectation that we look halfway put-together, I try to help her find something that matches a bit better than pink and red. So when I was at the fabric store choosing fabrics for this dress, I decided that I'd find a way to make it pink and red for my little miss.

This pattern comes as a PDF download including sizes 6 months - 10 years. Cutting out all the pieces (the skirt itself has 28 pieces and I had two dresses!) took awhile, but I was able to stack the fabric and cut through 4 layers at a time, so that helped. I did most of the sewing on my serger, and it honestly went pretty quickly. I absolutely adore the end result and I can't wait to use this pattern again.

Little Miss approves.

Geography Cards for Weeks 23-24

We're nearing the end of CC for the year, and I finally finished the last 2 weeks of the Geography Cards for Cycle 3. I'm already thinking ahead to Cycle 1, so stayed tuned! ;)

Geography Cards for Weeks 19-24

Geography Cards Weeks 19-22

I've been working on these over the weekend and was able to finish weeks 19-22. I'll get 23 & 24 done ASAP. It's hard to believe we're in the home stretch! These were a little more difficult to find good pictures for so I hope I did a decent job. Thanks for looking!

 Geography Cards Weeks 19-22

Geography Cards Weeks 13-18

Christmas vacation is over and it's time to get back to school! We're all finished with states and capitals so on to geographical features we go. Here are the Geography Cards for weeks 13-18. Enjoy!

Geography Cards Weeks 13-18

Geography Cards Weeks 7-12

Ok, so I sat down tonight and finished weeks 11 and 12, finally! This file has weeks 7-12, but just the last 2 weeks are new since the last post. Hope you enjoy!

Geography Cards Weeks 7-12

Whew! I have been so busy. I'm sorry it took me so long to get these up for you all! I just did weeks 7-10 for now because I figured it was better to get them up sooner rather than later and I just haven't had a chance to work on weeks 11-12. Enjoy!

**** 2023 Edit -- I have included 7-12****


Cycle 3 Geography Cards Weeks 7-10

Cycle 3 Geography Cards -- States and Capitals

In a few short days, we will be starting our second year of Classical Conversations.  Last year, I was a substitute tutor and my son was the only one of my children in Foundations, as the girls were in preschool. This year, all 3 of the older kids will be in Foundations and I will be the girls' tutor.

The talented Melody Stroud made some beautiful Geography cards for Cycle 2 that I just loved.  I was hoping she'd make some this year for Cycle 3, but that wasn't her plan so she graciously passed the torch to me. Melody had been passed the torch from Crecia at Taking It One Day at a Time who was the creator of these Cycle 1 cards.

I debated for a while about how exactly to choose the photos for the cards. I thought it might get boring to use only pictures of the state capitals. So while some of the cards show a photo of a landmark in the state capital, or the capital's skyline, many of the cards show God's creation, rather than Man's. I have also used well-known landmarks from other cities for particular states, such as NY. My goal was not to be perfectly "correct" but instead to create visually pleasing cards. I'm a visual learner so I used the pictures that I liked the best. If you choose to use these cards, it would be wise to explain to your children that not all of the pictures will be of the state capital to avoid confusion.

Whew! With that out of the way, here are the cards for weeks 1-6. I hope you enjoy them! I'll post weeks 7-12 soon.

Planets Necklace

One of my son's favorite things about science is the fun projects we do together. I got the idea to make a "planet necklace" from Pinterest and began searching for beads that looked like planets. I found this gorgeous necklace on etsy, but wasn't willing to pay $32 when I was certain we could make our own for a lot less money.  

My first stop was a local "beads and baubles" shop about 10 minutes from my house. I was hoping to avoid having to drive farther but we struck out. The store had some beautiful beads, but at ~$5 each, this was out of my price range.  

We also tried making our own salt dough beads. The kids enjoyed rolling the dough around, but the beads cracked during the drying process and were unusable. I wasn't too disappointed -- I had wanted beads that wouldn't require painting.

So I went back to the idea of buying beads that already looked like planets. I searched and searched online, but didn't come up with anything that fit what I was looking for.  

My next move was to make the drive to the bigger chain craft stores. I tried Hobby Lobby first. Their beads were 50% off and I found beads suitable for every planet except Jupiter! I agonized over every planet but by the time I was done, I was very pleased with my finds.  

I was not able to find a good Jupiter at Hobby Lobby, so I trekked over to JoAnn. Their beads were 50% off as well! I found a perfect set of beads to use as Jupiter and went home happy.  

The Materials and Cost

The Mercury beads came in a set of 46 beads for $2.99, or $0.03 per bead after 50% discount.

The Venus beads came in a set of 14 beads for $2.99, for a price of $0.11 per bead after discount.

I loved these Earth beads. They came in a set of 13 for $4.99, or $0.19 per bead after discount.

The Mars beads came in a set of 9 beads for $2.99, or $0.17 each after discount.

The Jupiter beads were a bit different.  The strand had different kinds of beads and only 3 that I could use for Jupiter.  The strand was $7.99 at full price.  After 50% discount, each usable bead ended up costing $1.33.  By far the most expensive beads, but still reasonable.

The Saturn beads came 8 to a set at $6.99, or $0.44 apiece after discount.

The Uranus beads were $3.99 for a set of 15 beads.  After 50% discount, this came to $0.13 per bead.

Lastly, the Neptune beads came in a set of 15 beads for $2.99, or $0.10 per bead after discount.

I also bought some jewelry wire for $1.99 to make Saturn and Uranus' rings.  It was not on sale. 

I later bought some clear glass seed beads and some clasps at Wal-Mart to complete the necklace. The clasps were $2.00 and the beads were $1.50. I used fishing line that I already had on hand to string the beads.

So all told, the necklace cost a grand total of $7.99. That includes the cost of each individual planet bead, plus the cost of the clasps, seed beads and wire. Of course I used a fraction of the wire, seed beads and clasps, but since it would be almost impossible to determine the exact amount used, I just added the complete cost.  

So if I haven't completely bored and lost you yet, I'll move on to the actual process!

Assembling the Necklace

I started by making the rings for Saturn and Uranus. My Saturn beads were about the size of marbles, so I wrapped the wire around a dry erase marker a few times and then twisted the ends around each other. This made the rings.  

Here is what the rings looked like next to the Saturn bead.

I did the same for the Uranus rings, but made them smaller since my bead was smaller. I wrapped the wire around a regular Crayola marker to get the right size. 

Getting the rings attached to their planet was a little bit tricky. I tried several methods before stumbling upon one that worked. Since Uranus' rings are tipped sideways, this planet ended up being the most challenging. I tied a small length of fishing line to each side of the rings like this:

That way, I had two ends of line coming off of each side of the rings. Then I looped them through the holes of the bead like this:

Those ends later went through the other beads of the necklace for added stability.

For Saturn, I added some filler beads in between the rings and the Saturn bead and just wrapped the fishing line I was using to string the beads around each side of the rings before putting the line through the bead.

I used the filler beads to simulate the distance between the planets.  

I used one of the small black beads that came with the Mars beads to give Earth a Moon. I wrapped the fishing line up around Earth, threaded it through the Moon bead, then threaded it back through Earth a second time. I added an equal number of seed beads to either side of the necklace, added the clasp and that was it! It was a super fun project and my son loves his necklace. I have plenty of leftover beads to make necklaces for my daughters as well.  

The Last Day

Today is the last day of the Flats and Handwashing Challenge!  This week went by really fast.  As I was handwashing a bunch of flats this morning in the bathroom sink, it hit me that today was the last day!  I feel fortunate -- other than my under-preparedness the day of the aquarium and a few leaks yesterday, the week was very uneventful.  

So what did I learn?  Firstly, to be prepared.  If I had been more prepared, I wouldn't have been scrambling to dry diapers with the iron on Friday night.  

Secondly, make sure to have enough diapers to get through 2 days.  I don't, so that means that I HAD to wash every day.  So what if the water is shut off (happened to us once -- hubby paid the electric twice and didn't pay the water by mistake) or you have some emergency that keeps you from washing?  Just makes sense to have enough diapers and covers to last 2 days.  

I think finding a routine that works for you is helpful, too.  Washing after every diaper change was too often for me.  Washing once a day wasn't enough.  The last 2 days I washed first thing in the morning and at lunch. That seemed to work well.  I had enough diapers to get me through the day and the early part of the next morning that way.  I washed at a time when the kids were busy eating so I wasn't being interrupted every few seconds while washing.  So it worked.

I also learned that the little guy doesn't need as much absorbency as I thought he did.  We got along fine with just 2 flats.  I used to put him to bed at night with 2 prefolds and a hemp doubler.  The poor kid had a huge bubble butt!  While he did wake up soaked with the flats, we both survived.  He did fine with a lot less diaper in there. 

It was a little strange to put him to bed tonight in a hybrid fitted (homemade) instead of flats, but I am looking forward to using my washer and dryer again.  I also need to find or make a new wetbag.  The zipper on mine jammed on Friday.  Does anyone have a favorite brand I should look into?


I don't know if I'll take this challenge again next year or not.  He will be over 2 so we may be in undies by then.  My twins potty learned on their own at 23 and 25 months.  If he is still in diapers then I probably will do the challenge again but who knows?  A year is a long time.  So we'll see!  

Hello washer, did you miss the diapers?

Clear Blue Skies

I didn't get a chance yesterday to write a post.  My husband and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary by going out to dinner and leaving the kids home with a babysitter.  So I spent the entire day cleaning the house.  

So it was Day 6 of the challenge.  Yesterday's handwashing went fairly easily.  I did a large bunch of diapers first thing in the morning while the little guy was eating his breakfast and put them out on the line.  They were dry by lunch time.  I washed his morning diapers at lunch and hung them out.  It was a gorgeous day -- clear blue skies, low humidity and plenty of warm sunshine.  Perfect weather for line drying diapers. 

I put him in his g-Pants when the babysitter arrived.  She fed the kids supper and then gave the little guy his bath.  I laid out a pocket stuffed with flats for her to put on him and then I changed him into his night time flats and wool longies when I got home.  

So flats can even work for a babysitter.  If I were going to have a babysitter often and I was using only flats, I would teach her how to use them.  For last night, the pocket worked just fine.

I did notice yesterday that he leaked through a few times.  I don't think I was changing the diapers any less often than the earlier part of the week so I'm not really sure why.  Maybe he just nursed more.  It wasn't a big deal and not something that couldn't be fixed by adding another flat, but just an observation.

We have decided that we are going to go on vacation this summer to the mountains of North Carolina.  We probably won't be camping, but we will be away from home and without a washer and dryer.  So I will most likely be using flats and handwashing again.  I plan to get another dozen flats before then, as well as knit him at least one more pair of longies and probably 1 or 2 shorties.  I'm not sure yet about the 8 hour drive to our first stop, but I have plenty of time to figure that out.  

Now if only we had skies like this every day!

I love days like this.  Line drying is a breeze!

Always be prepared

I made it to Day 5 of the Flats and Handwashing Challenge without anything very interesting happening.  Today was a little different.  I was rushing around last night getting everything ready for our trip to the aquarium and I didn't wash all of yesterday's diapers.  This morning I had the realization that I probably didn't have enough to last all day and since I'd be gone and couldn't wash during the day, we might have a bit of a problem.  Ooops.

So when I packed the diaper bag this morning, I threw in a dish towel, just in case.  That's right.  A striped dish towel.  For the 2 hour trip in the car on the way there, he just wore 2 flats.  When we got there, I wasn't sure about how often I'd be changing him so I put him in a pocket stuffed with a doubler and 2 flats.  This lasted just fine while we were there.  

I put another 2 flats on him for the ride home (which ended up being almost 3 hours because we hit horrible rush hour traffic) which left me with ONE clean flat.  We had to head straight to my older son's soccer game so my poor little guy had to get through an hour of soccer and then supper in that one flat.  

After we finished eating, I quickly washed his nighttime flats and was ironing them to get them dry when the little guy pointed to his diaper and said, "Eee-yew."  Sure enough, he had pooped.  So he got to run around naked while I finished my ironing.  He promptly peed on the floor twice.  Silly kid.  Thank goodness for tile floor!

So today's question from Dirty Diaper Laundry is: What is working?  For me, the flats and handwashing are working just fine.  Flats are absorbant enough even for overnight, something I was not expecting.  Handwashing does take more time, but it's doable.  I like how trim the flats are.  I love my soft, cushy prefolds, but they are so bulky!  I'm not loving the air drying.  I do dry my prefolds on the line when the weather is nice, but I have enough prefolds to get me through a few days and I can always throw them in the dryer if they're not dry when I need them.  I think the real problem is just that I don't have enough flats to really make it work well.  If I had another 5-10, I'd be fine and I wouldn't be ironing diapers because I don't have any dry ones.  So if we do go camping I'll probably get another dozen.  

Flats take longer to change than pockets.  I've used prefolds with him since he was a newborn, but once he hit the stage where he fights diaper changes, I started using pockets stuffed with prefolds.  They're so much faster to get on.  Especially when he's doing his alligator death roll, I need a diaper that can be put on in seconds!  That's one of the things I like about the g-Pants.  Since they velcro, they're faster than snaps and I can still get them on mid-roll because they velcro in the back instead of the front. 

I have to admit, I was really temped to cheat today.  I mean, who would have known if I had thrown the diapers in the dryer tonight before I gave him his bath?  Who would have known if I had just put a prefold on him for bed?  I would have, and that's what really matters.  So while I was tempted, I didn't cheat.  His flats may not have been 100% dry tonight when he went to bed, but he was wearing flats.  

The aquarium was great.  The kids loved it and the hubby and I are exhausted.  Before I head to bed, I'm going to make sure I have clean diapers to change him into when he wakes up.  

The kiddos looking at the fish.

You touched what?!?!

If you've ever had to change a baby's diaper, you know it can get messy regardless of the type of diaper.  So I find it funny that some people think that cloth diapers are yucky.  In my opinion, they're not any more gross than disposables and they don't sit in a land fill.

Today is Day 4 of the Flats and Handwashing Challenge and everyone is talking about the handwashing.  I mentioned earlier that I always wash out the little guy's diapers by hand so this isn't a huge stretch for me.  I've been lucky this week -- I've only had to wash one poopy diaper so far.  It wasn't bad either -- just dumped the solids into the toilet and rinsed the diaper really well before adding it to the others to be washed.

Yesterday I did a larger bunch at once and I did find that easier than washing after every change.  It took a little longer but I got them done at once.  Today I washed 5 first thing this morning and hung them out on the line.  I also washed his longies and lanolized them.  It was sunny today so the diapers I hung out at 8:40 this morning were dry by 2 PM.  I washed another bunch then and hung them out.  Unfortunately, while I was fixing supper this evening it started to rain and the second group got a little damp.  So they're hanging up inside now, but will be perfectly dry by morning.

So back to handwashing.  My process is pretty simple.  I rinse under running water very thoroughly.  I feel like this rinsing is the most important part.  The diapers smell clean after rinsing, before using any detergent at all.  Then I fill the sink with hot water, add detergent or soap nuts (I've been using soap nuts upstairs and detergent downstairs) and then dump in the rinsed diapers.  I knead and swish for a few minutes before draining the sink.  Then I rinse each diaper individually under running water.  I wring them out really well and then they're ready to be hung up.

I've been using such hot water and wringing out so many diapers that I have a spot on my right thumb where I rubbed the skin clean off!  Poor me, right?  :)  No big deal, I just had to adjust how I hold the diapers when I wring them out.

So that's my washing routine.  Not much to it.  I might adjust if I was doing more at a time.  Today I washed twice and even with the rain, didn't run out of diapers.  Tomorrow is our aquarium trip so it should be interesting!

Day 3: Finally some sunshine!

Today I was able to dry the flats outdoors.  Hooray for sunshine!  It's been really rainy the last few days so I've been doing all the drying indoors.  

The diapers dry a lot faster in the sun.  Today I even have extra clean ones left over and the little guy's in bed already.  I'll have a total of 5 flats to wash in the morning -- the 2 he was wearing before bathtime and the 3 he's wearing to bed.

I'm curious to see how the weekend goes.  Friday we will be visiting the aquarium 2 hours away.  So 4 hours in the car and at least 3-4 hours at the aquarium.  Saturday my husband and I celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary so we're going out to dinner and leaving the kids with a babysitter.  I'm thinking I might be kind to her and put him in a pocket stuffed with flats.  

I think tomorrow I'm going to strip my other diapers.  Since it's an all-day rinsing affair, I think it's perfect for a day when I'm handwashing the diapers he's wearing.  I may just use flats and handwash in the future whenever I strip my stash.  

It was so hot this morning, there was steam rising off the wooden fence in our backyard.