I keep wanting to post an update of some sort, but I don't really have anything to update. And I don't really have any new pictures of Jade.

I wish I did. I should do an updated video of her. She talks so much now! It's so much fun having conversations with her.

She pretty much copies everything I do, has to brush her hair and do her makeup if I am, talks on her fake cell phone while I'm talking, constantly asks "What you doing mommy?". I love it! hee, hee

Today was a super low key day. This morning we just chilled while watching the little boy I nanny for. Around 10am we biked to the gym, it was still a bit crisp out, but warm enough we only needed a light sweater.

At home we ate lunch outside (peanut butter and jelly sandwiches sitting in the grass, it was awesome!) She napped, I emailed. When she got up we went outside and colored with chalk on the driveway

"what you drawing mommy? Fly fly? (firefly)"

She knows six colors now: Orange, red, blue, purple, green and yellow
She counts to 15 and knows so many animal noises (and names) I can't even count

She sure is growing fast. My little munchkin.

Nothing really that new with me either. I'm almost done with Nannying, MOPS only has two more meetings left. I'm still working in the 2-3yr old Sunday school class at church. Bible study group still meets at my house. I've been meeting with a personal trainer for a few weeks now which has been really cool. I "think" I'm getting stronger. hee, hee.

A few things I'm really looking forward to are:

Jenny coming to visit me in three weeks!
My parents coming to visit with four kids in June
My In-laws coming to visit and watch Jade for us in June
And getting to go to Hawaii in June!

I guess that's all. Take care!

Just some more tutu pics

She loves to dance!

First time this summer to pull out the sprinkler

Kam and his Ladies

I got to watch all these munchkins for a few hours on Friday. After playing outside and running around for a few hours I had them all take a break so I could get this picture. Cute huh?

My new little Nephew

Presenting: Alexander Vincent Mangione

Isn't he a cutie pie?! He was born on Thursday sometime around 8:30am. I just want to squeeze his little kissable cheeks! Congratulations Brother and Vicka! For more pictures go to GJ and Vicka's blog

My project for the day

I am babysitting two extra kids today, but I've actually found it seems to have given me more free time to work on projects since Jade is entertained by the little girl who is her age.

The bad news is, her room is a mess...but we'll clean that up later.

Here is her new child sized apron! I used left over scrap fabric from a quilt I made years and years ago. I kind of like all the different materials though, gives her apron some character. Hee, hee

A playmate for Jade

I am watching a friends little girl today and tomorrow. I haven't had her over for a long while so I wasn't sure how Jade would react when she woke up this morning and saw her little friend staring at her. To my wonderful surprise Jade was ridiculously thrilled! All morning they have been gabbing like old friends (in both baby language and real words), coloring, playing tigers, eating "crispies" (rice crispy cereal) and trading off wearing each other's shoes.

Young friendships are so sweet to watch

One (of many) blog I'm loving!

My friend told me about Sew Liberated after she saw my attempt at making an adult apron. She told me about it because on her side bar this website has a pattern for making a child-sized apron.

I am printing off the pattern and instructions now and hoping to maybe make this very soon (perhaps today)

But I just wanted to send a shout out to this blog because she has so many beautiful posts, projects and creative stuff to share.

Happy Easter Everyone!

When I lived in Michigan we often had snowy, cold Easters, moving to Washington I did think/hope that maybe Easters here would be a bit warmer. But, they aren't. Thankfully we have had no snow today, but lots and lots of rain.

We started our day at church. Having gotten there a bit early we let Jade hang out with us in the sanctuary before her Sunday school class started. Instead of sitting in the chair, this is what she did.
Goofball.

After church we came home and I finished making "Hot cross buns" while Jade napped. They didn't quite turn out how I had hoped, but it was my first time ever making them.
Here is a picture of our cherry pie. I was proud of the little rabbit cut out I did:)
After nap time, skype-time with grandparents, lunch/dinner time and all around "Chill time" we let Jade open a little gift we got for her.

Side walk chalk.

She was thrilled to try out her "crayons" and so we let her go out in the garage (since it was raining pretty hard) to use them. Being it was fairly cold out, I had her put on boots and a jacket.
She and daddy got a lot of coloring time in while I "hid" easter eggs around the living room.
Jade found the easter egg hunt very exciting and quickly found all her eggs.
Even though I hid them so well...I didn't think she'd find the one by the footstool (hee, hee)

After collecting all her eggs she had to count them all and make sure they were all there.
This is Jade putting all her eggs in one basket;) (har, har, har)
After her egg hunt Jade helped me turn the Easter eggs into devil eggs (or "filled eggs" for those who are offended by the other name, hee, hee).

And that's pretty much our day. Hope everyone had a fabulous Easter!

A flower in her hair

I know this flower is more the size of a hat then a hair clip, but my Jadey girl keeps requesting to wear it in her hair. I love having a girly girl!

My baby girl is feeling better

Poor Jade had a fever off and on for most of the day yesterday. This morning she woke up seeming and feeling much better. However, just a bit ago I thought she felt really warm and tried to take her temps. She would have none of it. So instead of taking her temperature I just let her play with the thermometer. Oh and this cute little summer outfit she is wearing is a gift from her Aunt Jo!

From Sunday

Because she is so cute. She posed for Daddy to take this picture:)

Thoughts on babies, home birth and sick kids *WARNING* Very LONG post

When I was a young child I use to think to myself that I wanted to grow up and have five children. My logic in having five children was simple, if I had five kids and was married then five + two would equal seven and seven is the perfect number.

Then I grew up, got married and became pregnant. It quickly became quite clear to me that pregnancy was not something I wished to repeat five times (unless, of course, the Lord decides otherwise). My thinking of having five babies quickly went down to one by about month, 8 of pregnancy. After I had my lovely girl...and she began sleeping through the night...my number of children went back up. I decided three was defiantly do-able and what I wanted. Then one very sad day in mid-January something happened that I never thought would happen in my young, healthy, happy, life of 25 years. I had a miscarriage.

While I have been very grateful, and so happy, and ridiculously blessed by my two year old daughter, I don't think I fully understood the goodness of God and the grace given to me through my child until I had to go through knowing a pregnancy of mine had ended so quickly and so easily. Suddenly life, childbirth, expectations and "planning" all changed.

Over the past three months I've put a lot of time, thought, and prayer into children/babies. We would like to have more children, and hopefully...even soon...we'll get to have another child. But there is a huge part of me that is terrified of becoming pregnant again, terrified that all those high hopes will abruptly end. Terrified of losing faith, trust and peace in the Lord. Terrified of something going wrong or maybe worse...everything going perfectly right and realizing all my fears and dis-trust were in vain and seeing what a control-freak seeking mortal I really am.

One amazing thing that came from my miscarriage was the comfort, wisdom and stories that were shared with me by other mothers who have lost babies. In comparison my experience doesn't come close to most all of these stories. Yet still, it was my loss, my pain, and for me something really hard that I am still going through. I am so blessed by the women who have reached out to me through this. If there can be good that comes from something so sad I can only hope that I could one day be used to touch another woman's heart when she shares in the same loss, or at least have a better understanding of what she is going through.

This post isn't meant to sound like a pity party, I'm not looking for more sympathy or encouragment. I'm just sharing. *smile*

So, all these thoughts aside I have been looking towards the future and wondering what I'd like to do when I am pregnant again. That brings me to home births. When we were pregnant the second time we had decided we wanted to do a home birth. There were many reasons for this choice but a big aspect of it was cost. Home births are ridiculously cost effective and the care is wonderful, personal and...natural. With Jade I had high hopes for having an all "natural" birth in the hospital, but after 24 hours of labor in a hospital, with having been on pitocin for a very long while (I HATE pitocin), and tons of tempting, wonderful options available, I ended up opted for an epidural (which I in no way regret).

At any rate, this past week my friend, who knew I was thinking of home birth, let me borrow a video she had gotten from the library. It's called "The business of being born" click on this link and you can see a preview of the movie on the website.

Growing up in a family of a eleven children where six of the births were done at home, you would think I'd understand fully why my mother chose to have home births. Some how (and mom I hope I'm not offending you) I thought it was just a hatered she had of doctors and various things they put her through for the first 4-5 births she had in the hosptial...but I guess I didn't understand that frustration (maybe it wasn't really hatred, lol) that my mother had. I didn't really understand why the interventions and "helps" given to a women who is having a hosptial birth (not all, but most/many) were unnecessiary. Why not opt for a little help if you can? Why not ease the pain or move things along faster? What can it really hurt?

This movie put a lot things into perspective and I realized I really DO want to have a home birth and not just because it would be cheaper then a hospital birth. I don't need the help and intervention that the hosiptial so willingly provides. I'm not a he-woman and I'm not really all that femanist or "I am women hear me roar" kind of personality. But I do want to have a baby the way I'm made to have a baby. Because, from all the research I've done and am currently doing. It's EASIER that way! It's healthier that way and not just for babykins for ME! In a world that is so focused on SELF why aren't more women looking into this option for themselves?

I think I was afraid that if I started having home births, on top of deciding to home school, on top of being a conservative and a christain (gasp) that I would just be looked at as a freak, or weird, or "Granola". But I'm not. I'm cool *hee, hee* and *light bulb* I don't care if others do see me as odd.

If you watch the film you will get to see a whole bunch of home births, complete with some very "granola" midwives. However, you'll also see a birth that started at home but had to be transfered to the hospital due to multiple complications. Everything ended up okay and mother and baby are fine, but it was good for me to see that, "Yes", there is a very good reason, purpose and need for Obgyn's and there are plenty of high risk pregnancies that should and need to take place in a hospital, ceasceran sections have saved a lot of babies and mothers so the technology is good. But, having a baby in a hospital...for me...is no longer an option I wish to use. And I'm really excited about coming to this realization.

I can't explain it all, but if you are even thinking about maybe having a home birth, but you aren't really sure why...watch this film and see what you think afterwards.

I think I always knew I'd grow up and be just like my Mom. Though there have been times that I swore that would never happen. I remember telling my health food eating, home school teaching, politically conservative thinking, hallalujah praising the Lord loving, extremly short standing...Mother that as soon as I could I'd go live on my own and buy cheese you could unwrap individually from a wrapper and I thought...I'm gonna be TOTALLY different. HAHA.

Of course I am different from my mother and there are plenty of things and will be plenty of things I'll do completely different. But it's kind of cool to see how I slowly am following in her footsteps. I don't buy pre-wrapped, processed cheese, I do plan, and am already, home schooling my child, I am a proud conservative who loves the Lord with all her heart, soul and mind, who happens to be very short (Praise the Lord for high heels!) and now wants to have home births. Ironic, no?

So back to babies, my baby is sick. She has a fever. As horrible as this may sound, I have to admit out of all the sicknesses my baby can have, I love fevers best. Why? Because when my baby has a fever all she wants to do is cuddle. She is warm, and cuddly and calm, and just lays on me and sleeps and lays on me and sleeps. It makes me feel like such a MOM. Of course, I hate seeing my baby sick and I want her well as soon as possible, but I love that God gives me these moments with my child where I can just love on my baby and hold my baby and just love on her.

Have I mentioned that I love being a mother? And I think being a SAHM is fantastic, fun, diverse, interesting and exhausting? I also love to cook, color, sing, play music, dance, zumba, run, workout, type, EMAIL, blog, shop, dress cute, curl hair, wash my face, wear perfume, be the center of attention, play games, host parties, go for bike rides, eat FOOD, get snail mail, drink coffee, go on dates, make out (and love, hee, hee) with my man, read my bible, teach sunday school, go to MOPS, go to church, sleep in, sleep long, take naps, sun tan, paint my toe nails, weed my garden and love on my daughter?

Is this a long enough post? Watch, I'll probably delete it in a hour when I realize I've gotten WAY to personal on my blog and now all my friends who read this are gonna talk behind my back about what a FREAK I really am. AH! Hmm...maybe I won't delete this.

Jade's new tutu

I had my friend make Jade a tutu for an Easter gift. It was ready today so I went ahead and let Jade try it on. She LOVES it. She won't stop dancing!