Jocelyn Paige Bechtle

At 41 weeks, I was beginning to think baby #3 wasn't going to be making an appearance. Praise the Lord she came!!! *hee, hee*

We had planned a home birth, but after laboring for around 8 hours at home my midwife offered to break my waters and I accepted. They found a lot of meconium in the fluid and...there wasn't a lot of fluid. This posed a possible problem "if" baby happened to swallow a whole bunch of the meconium and "if" her lunges were filled with it, the midwives would not be able to preform the needed procedure (at home) to clear her airways.
We could still deliver at home, but we had to know the risks.

Being extremely tired and fairly anxious, I/we decided to head to the hospital "just in case" there would be a problem.

An hour after checking into the hospital baby Jocelyn came into the world (I'll spare you all the details, but let's just say it was very dramatic and VERY fast, haha)

7lb 13.4oz and 19.5" long. she was absolutely perfect. She let out a wonderful, powerful, scream after being rubbed down for a short while and all the doctors and nurses (there were a lot of people in the room due to the potential risk) declared her healthy and strong!! PRAISE THE LORD!

This momma is SO happy to be blessed with three beautiful children and to welcome our newest member into the family! We all love you Jocelyn!

I'm in need of a bread knife.

So my sister was emailing me last week about her mad bread baking skills, on top of "normal" bread (I think she made 3 or 4 loaves!) she'd also made some "no knead" bread. I've heard of this fabulous bread, but figured it would probably require more time and energy then my 9month pregnant self had time to give.

But then...I was on pinterest...I found this recipe and figured, what the hay. I'll try it

A.MAZING!

I know my picture isn't great and I probably let it brown a few minutes to long. BUT WHO CARES! IT'S SO YUMMY!!!

Upon completion of this task I did discover that. 1. the one knife long enough to cut into this massive mound of deliciousness...sucks. and 2. the jam I wanted to slather on to my "test" piece of bread...I am not strong enough to open. (ya, I nearly cried)

Thankfully, my friend (THANK YOU PIA!) gave me some of her homemade marionberry jam a few weeks ago, and it's pretty devine. So...besides the fact my slices are a bit wonky (hence no pics of the sliced awesomeness) and it was different jam then I'd imagined in my head...I'm pretty much in 9months pregnant food heaven right now.

apparently the 9th month calls for black

 Here I am 9mons with Jade                                          9 mons with Cutter

9mons with Bechtle #3

And the side-ish shot for Jade

                                      Side shot with Cutter                                                          and baby #3:-)

school time with my kiddos

I know these are three of the same picture, basically. But just tickles me pink when Jade is working and Cutter is trying very hard to copy everything she is doing himself:) 

 He has his own book open here, like Jade, "Coping" spelling words out of it. 

 here he's telling Jade "write that" 

more on Egypt

Something I'm loving about Tapestry of Grace (only three weeks into the school year, LOL) are the lapbooks for Jade to work on. It's a wonderful and fun way to review everything she is learning. 

Below is her completed lapbook for weeks 1-2. Under each topic they have a flap for her to fill in with answers, pictures or drawings. 

 For our craft time this week we did some research on the Egyptian water lily, the Lotus. I was going to have her sculpt her own, but sadly found my sculpting clay all dried out:( So she painted a picture instead.

 I think it came out so well I plan on framing it and hanging it in the school room:-)

Learning about Egypt

This month in school we are learning all about Egypt. Most of the geography we are studying is centered around the Nile river. As part of her activities craft we got to make "salt dough" or playdough. Jade shaped her's into a map of egypt, filling in mountain ranges, pyramids and part of the Nile, Red Sea and a bit of the Mediterranean. 

 After her salt map dried, I she got to paint it and mark what each part was.

Then, the homeschoolers at our church, just so happened to organize a field trip to the Pacific science center that was doing an exhibit on King Tut! The same week we were learning all about King Tut! We weren't aloud to take pictures in the exhibit, so here we are outside before and after, enjoying the lovely day. 

oh, and enjoying some large as life chess play. I think Jade won;)

Teaching

My sister recently posted a fairly humorous article on "facebragging". It was all about a sweet stay at home mom, who riddled her facebook page with her numerous daily accomplishments...mostly related to her amazing mothering. And how annoying it was to her friends...but was helping to teach then "godly character" to deal with her. (I'm dying laughing thinking of the self-rightousness of those having their character built up)

I relate to this article. Like this braggadocios women, I ADORE posting my parenting successes on facebook. Or cooking successes, or personal, etc...Is it not in our nature to brag about our children or dare I say...ourselves? hee, hee

In an attempt to not post to many bragging posts on my facebook (so I don't have to give my friends a reason to have their character built up, in order to deal with me), I'm going to try to balance out my awesome-ness, by using my blog a bit more. hee, hee

Today's brag. Jade and her flute. 

We just finished our second week of 1st grade, and so far, it's going pretty good. Nothing to awesome to brag about, but we are all alive and, so far, confidant the rest of the year (or semester) won't be an entire disaster. This past week we introduced music and some music theory. I'd LOVE for Jade to take music lessons in Jan, so to get her ready, I'm teaching her flute.

Now flute, can be a difficult instrument to learn at first. Simply because blowing into said flute, requires  precision and controlled breathing. It took three days, but Jade is finally able to get sound to flow from the mouth piece!!! Hence, todays' pictures and brag.

She had just been crying/throwing fits a day earlier over the fact she couldn't get any noise to come out of the flute. So to cheer her on, I took some pics of her "playing" the mouth piece and working on her timing/breathing.

I wasn't planning to teach Jade flute, I was "planning" to have her take piano and be taught by someone else. But now that we've started, I'm pretty excited to pass down my flute to her and teach her what I know.

In other news. I have baby on the brain something awful!

Having the green light to go ahead and start prepping the home with birthing related things (there is an actual "home birth" kit you can buy so that the midwife has everything extra she may need for the home birth). Today I'm hoping to go out and buy a few tiny infant hats, a few tiny infant onesies and maybe some new receiving blankets, cause heaven knows I don't have enough already! haha! I wouldn't want this kid to have ALL the hand-me-downs, right?

My Mom also bought me this adorable bag for my birthday, and I'm planning to use it as my diaper bag this time around. So I'm gonna go buy some fun new things to fill it with. Like a new changing pad and some miniature lotions, etc so it's all freshly stocked and ready to go.

I know, I have a ways yet (Oct 20-24-ish due date) but I have energy now, so better get cracking before  it takes a crane to remove me from the couch! HAHA!

3 of me at 8 months

I pulled out a brown tunic top that I only wore while pregnant with Jade. I decided to wear it today even though it's suppose to get up to 80! I just skipped the long sleeve top underneath:) It was then that I realized that the last time I wore the top was when I was huge pregnant with Jade. So then I had to go find a picture of what on earth I looked like at 8months preggers with Jade...which then lead to needing to find one of me with Cutter...and then post them all together! 

My children

Playing dinosaurs in the grass together

checking out the fountain near the capitol 

30 weeks baby!

Jade loves when I wear any kind of animal print. She told me I could be a leopard or a cheetah, whichever I preferred:) hee, hee

Feeling good. Just a bit huge, of course. We still don't have baby names picked out, but I've made lists of boy and girl names and I'm hoping to get one for each, pinned down next month!

Only two months left! woohoo!

Fourth of July treats

 The kids and I picked free strawberries at Spooners farm on Monday in prep for this perfect pie. Super easy to make: pre-baked pie crust (flour, butter, touch of salt and water), strawberries halved. Glaze was water, sugar, strawberry gelatin, lemon juice and strawberry extract. Brought it all to a boil, let it cool, topped my berries. It's setting in the fridge as we speak. For the amazing recipe go here


Breakfast this morning was waffles and bacon, sometime between the bacon sizzling and the coffee ready to perk I realized we were fresh out of maple syrup. What's a girl to do?  Solution...strawberry sauce! I dumped a pint of my fresh picked berries in a blender, with 1/3-1/2 cup of sugar, a tablespoon of fresh squeezed lemon juice, set to puree. Tada! Fabulous fresh syrup for our waffles!

 lunch was the usual American fare (hot dogs, chips, cola, etc) but instead of a potato salad I did an antipasto salad thanks to Giada. Chunks of hard salami, green olives, smoked turkey, asiago cheese and a homemade dressing (basil, red wine vinegar, olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper) and we have a delicious , amazingly light, salad. Jonathan says this is the only pasta salad I should ever make. It was also suppose to have chunks of provolone. But I'm pregnant and how is a girl suppose to follow a shopping list when she's in my condition? LOL Check out the yummy recipe here

now time for fun in the sun (okay, laying in my lounger with a book) until fireworks!

Granola

Quite a few of my friends have had the wonderful luxury of sampling my delicious granola. Today I'm making, yet another batch, to bring and share with granola-less friends.

Sadly, this isn't "my" recipe, as most recipes I make aren't. It's really Alton Browns on foodnetwork.com, which my mother graciously shared with a me a few years back when I was in need of a simple granola recipe.

But I have altered it slightly, thus making it my own.

The wonderful thing about granola is it's versatility, adding a little of this and a little of that. Over the years I've made it with all kinds of nuts, dried fruits and various sweeteners. A few examples are Almonds, walnuts, cashews, peanuts, pecans, flax seed, dried mango, dried pineapple, raisins, cranberries, strawberries, blueberries, sweetened and unsweetened coconut, maple syrup, honey, sugar, brown sugar and my current favorite, sucanat. As for my oil choices I've stuck with canola but olive oil has also been used and I honestly can't tell much of a difference.

My basic recipe is:
3 cups rolled oats
1 cup sliced almonds
1 cup walnuts
1 cup crasians (to be added at the end)
1 cup organic shredded, unsweetened coconut
1/4 cup sucanat
1/3 cup oil (canola or olive, depending on what I have on hand)
1/4 cup plus a bit extra Maple syrup
1 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven 250

Mix dry ingrediants together. Mix wet ingrediants. Combine the two until dry ingrediants are well coated. Pour into a large cookie sheet and spread out evenly. Cook for 1hr. Remove and turn granola, cook an additional 15min. Cool completely, add dried fruit and store in an air tight container.

My family and I usually eat our granola with a milk, but we also enjoy it over plain greek yogurt and as a crunchy topping over ice-cream. These also make delicious granola bars!! (but here is a really good step by step granola bar recipe!)

Update

I don't think I'm coming back to regular posting. But regardless of how Facebook has overtaken any time that I would normally spend blogging...I just felt sad that there were no current pictures on my blog. Even though myself, nor others I assume, read my blog any more. LOL

Oh well, so here is my big Jade-y girl. At 5yrs 6mons she's finished Kindergarten and has her very first loose tooth! This summer she's continuing with gymnastics and spends a lot of time helping me and playing with friends.

 Cutter is 2yrs 3mons and I think I'm confident enough now to say he is potty trained! I bought him some boxer briefs to celebrate and he happily parade's around the house in his little man underwear forcing me to give his little tushie plenty of pinches throughout the day. He's starting to talk, though I'd say his favorite words are still "run, jump and "help-a me mommy"

 Here are my 20mon pics of me and baby Bechtle. I'm at 21 weeks now (oooo *wink*) but I look exactly the same. haha! Jade was gracious enough to be my photographer for these.

 My baby guess is it's a girl. JB is fairly confident it's a boy.

 We won't find out until d-day though, so we all get to be caught up in the suspense!

I still enjoy cooking and I'm finding Pinterest to be my best friend in finding new recipes and inspiration. One day I hope to turn this family blog into "What Missi's cooking for dinner" blog. But I have yet to master the art of "pretty food pics". Sadly most of the food pics I taste do not do my delicious food justice and it's just not fun taking pics of food that aren't appealing. One day blog world, one day!

My Kids

At the beginning of the year, look how cute and young they looked. Jade had just turned four here.

Cutter was just at the scooting from here and there stage, but not actually walking. Not quite a year old here.

Then summer finally came (it was really late last year!) And suddenly Jade is this big four year old, doing swim classes and gymnastics and asking every day if we can play with friends or go to the park

Cutter starts walking around 15months and is into EVERYTHING and clearly loving his more mobile life!
At the end of 2012 Jade is clearly an old four, her play time with her friends is a big deal to her and she gives her girlfriends hugs good bye and hello. She enjoys AWANA, school and helping me around the house
Cutter starts talking a bit more, instead of just "Dada and Momma" he also says "baby" and "ni night" starting to sound out words like more "mooo" and please, "peas" and thank you "ank ou" He pretty much runs every where, in his little toddler toddle run

It's so much fun to see the progression of my kids in just a years time. Not just physical differences but even the way they interact with friends and family. Love my little bundles and can't wait for another fabulous year with them!

Oh, and here is my superman opening gifts at Christmas. The spoon rest is a joke gift, but I love that I captured his obvious enthusiasm over the gift. hee, hee

He's grown and been amazing this year too. With all his responsibilities as CEO of the Freedom Foundation, you'd think the man would go batty and never have time for his hot wife and wonderful kids. But he does and clearly has tried very hard to keep family first. I appreciate his dedication and the sacrifices he makes and I'm so proud of his accomplishments, and through it all that he can still strike an awesome pose at Christmas over a spoon rest! haha!