Cha-Cha-Cha-Changes!

Well, we can expect some changes! Tim and I started trying for our third child in November. Clearly, that isn't something you really advertise. It's a little TMI for most people.

I got preggers the second week of December and we found out 13 days after I ovulated, which is super early! After dealing with some agonizing and terrifying ruptured ovarian cysts last year, I am SO thankful that my fertility was spared.

Today, I'm 12 weeks and 2 days pregnant. Some would still say that's a little early to be telling people, but my midwife thinks that I, and this baby, are in pretty good shape. We're going to visit an Ob-Gyn a couple of times (today was my first appointment) just to do a few tests that my midwife doesn't do and have an anatomy scan and level 2 ultrasound in about 8 weeks. Our insurance covers it 100%, so why not?

I do feel a bit hypocritical and uncomfortable seeing an Ob-Gyn, especially since I generally don't think that they mesh well with my ideals about women's health and natural living. I detest the medicalized approach to pregnancy and childbirth, finding comfort and the feeling of "YES! I knew there was something out there for me!" with the Midwifery Model of Care. My dream is to be a homebirth midwife myself, so I do tend to feel a little uncomfortable in the office I'm visiting.

For those that are curious, yes, we are having a homebirth if all goes as planned. My midwife is qualified, educated, and experienced. I trust her with my life and the life of my child. If something were to not go as hoped, my attending ladies would recognize it and handle it in the best way possible for me and the baby, up to and including a hospital transfer.

I've had two hospital births, one medicalized and the other hands-off. My only regret about my natural hospital birth was going to the hospital. :)

I am not going to change my mind. I've done the research and feel such a peace about my decision to birth at home. The plan is to have a photographer present to capture the experience for us. Some of those pictures will be shared. I just want people to understand that labor isn't dangerous, pregnancy isn't a terminal illness, and my body was MADE to do this! Your body is, too. Our bodies WORK! Amazing, isn't it?

Can't wait to meet this little one at the end of August

By the way, yesterday was our anniversary! Tim and I have been married for 3 years!

Making mistakes and being mindful of mercy

I make mistakes. I sincerely dislike being on the wrong end of wrong.

I occasionally let my mouth run away with me and say too much, say something out of line, hurtful, what have you... I will say, though, that I don't ever set out to intentionally hurt people. In my younger days, I was a spitfire, Baby. I let it fly, but these days I tend to keep a better hold of my tongue. I'm a work in progress.

Earlier this week, I made dinner plans with an old friend. I realized that I had a commitment for tonight (the night of our dinner) earlier today and my phone died, so I told myself that I'd charge my cell and call her before she got off of work to give her plenty of time to make other plans for dinner.

Call it mom brain, call it general forgetfulness, but I truly 100% blanked. I have never done anything like that in my life and I hope to never again. I should have met her for dinner at 6 and I realized that I'd totally forgotten at 6:30, with a dead cell phone and a room full of children that I'd committed to being responsible for tonight months earlier.

I called my dear friend and she was in the restaurant waiting for me. Can you imagine how low I felt? I've been sick with remorse all evening... which is coming up on about 5.5 hours now of just feeling positively ill over it.

I let myself forget someone as important to me as this friend. Who does that?!

Apparently, I did. I apologized profusely and told her that I was taking her out for a nice dinner to make it up to her, I even researched the cost of having flowers delivered to her at work, but alas- they are out of my budget. A delicious dinner next week and my heartfelt apologies will work or they won't.

Which brings me to something I've been marinating on tonight.

How quick are we to judge those around us who stick a foot in their mouth or make a simple mistake? Are we quick to accept the apology of a person who regularly takes care of business and has a momentary lapse in brain power or lapse of judgement?

I know that I hate being wronged, but being wronged gives me the opportunity to be upset, get over it, forgive, and move on. When you are the one who has wronged another person, you don't really deserve any sympathy, but you hope for understanding and forgiveness all the same.

Tonight, among many things, has taught me 1) to never ever make an appointment/date/plans without putting them in my date book AND phone, and 2) to make a conscious effort to show mercy, even when it is undeserved.

My friend could have bitten my head off tonight. She could have ripped me a new one. I absolutely deserved it. Do you think she did? Of course not, which only makes my sadness at hurting her unintentionally so much greater.

Isn't it stunning and humbling that we so often get what we don't deserve? We are blessed beyond measure and act entitled. We have a bad day and act like we deserved better, when we truly deserve and are owed nothing.

Humility. It's what's for dinner, at least for me.

Sweet Saturday

Saturday morning cartoons with the kids, reading Hubby's resume, a little crafting <3

In a few, we're heading to a friend's little boy's 3rd birthday party. Present: check. Card: check. Which leads me to a question...

Why are eco-conscious toys always the ones so strangely shaped? I should take a picture of this terribly strange looking wrap job. I appreciate the toy maker's commitment to using less materials for packaging, hence the lack of easy to wrap corners, but man!

Alrighty, I'm off to dry my hair and try to locate my shoes. I believe I saw two year old Jackson stomping around in them earlier, so who knows where they ended up! :)

We won!!!

One of my favorite bloggers

http://heartshapedleaves.blogspot.com/

did a giveaway on her blog!

The winner could choose one of 3 Barefoot Books!

Well, I (who have never won anything in my life) won!

We chose "Skip through the Seasons" and are so excited!

I showed the kids the picture of the book and told them

what it was about, so they're looking forward to it arriving.

Thank you, Samantha!

You guys go check out her blog!!

Happy Monday!

Sunday night, Jackson (our newly 2 year old boy) decided to wake me up multiple times. Doesn't make for a restful sleep

I woke up this morning feeling a bit like I'd been hit by a truck, but I took Keelin to preschool (she goes Mon,Wed,Fri from 9-1), then the little guy and I ran to the store for popsicles.

I thought for sure that since Jackson slept almost as terribly as I did last night that surely he would take a great nap late this morning. Nope!!!! The little dude sat in his room yelling for me the whole time he was in there in a sing-song voice-- "Mom-eeeeee! Mommy?! Mom-eeeeee!"

I trudged through the day a bit like a zombie, got Keelin from school, came home, and we all crashed around 3pm.

Jackson fell asleep in his bed, Keelin fell asleep on the couch, and I fell asleep in my bed. I slept so hard I hurt when I woke up... after 5pm. *sigh* My kids normally go to bed at 7:30, so that wasn't great. I jumped up, prepped dinner, woke the kids up, and we ate, played, watched a short kids movie, took a bath, read a Junie B. Jones book (Keelin's new favorite), and both of the kids happily went to sleep just before 9.

I am SO glad that Keelin doesn't have school tomorrow. I desperately need to put laundry away and work on some cloth diapering accessories for a friend due next month.

BUT overall, it was a happy Monday <3

Root Beer Floats and other awesomeness

I have been craving a root beer float (more like root beer awesome), so I bought a 6 pack of Blue Sky certified organic root beer at Earth Fare yesterday and a pint of my favorite organic, fair trade vanilla ice cream.

See? Even your junk food can be kinder to the planet!

I cannot tell you how delicious these things are! I have 3 cans of root beer left and half a pint of ice cream. Running out of ice cream before I run out of root beer would be like running out of carrots when you still have ranch dip in your cup. Just a sad state of affairs.

We ran out to grab dinner (thanks to my Dad for staying home with a sleeping Keelin) since the chicken I had been thawing/marinating all day in the fridge was still half frozen (epic fail) and nothing else sounded good (thanks to my sweet Keelin throwing up all day, I think... poor, sweet girl). We went to Bonnie Kay's and had some salt and pepper shrimp (hit the spot!), then went to check out the yard sale they had going on to benefit a child in our community who needs to travel for medical treatment. I won't rub in ALL of the amazing deals I came across, but I will tell you that my son now has an awesome pair of black Chucks, I found the coolest costume bling, got a $5 Kozy Carrier (Yes, you read that right!!! and in perfect condition), a bazillion hardback kids books, and a huge box full of other goodies. My grand total was $14, but we donated some cash on top of that... Altogether, killer deals for a good cause. Blessings to that family. I cannot imagine having a child with health issues- parents that care for children with special medical needs are my heroes.

On another note, I went onto Amazon to order Jackson a few more prefold diapers, since I have credits on Amazon and a few of his prefolds are getting a little sad looking. NONE of the good brands had Prime shipping. That did not excite me. I decided then to forego the prefolds and buy them elsewhere and started looking for Econobum covers, since we could use a couple more One Size diaper covers around here that aren't bulky and can fit in my purse easily. There were NO Econobum or Flip covers in stock. I take that back, there was 1 Econobum and it was $9 + $7 shipping. How about no?! Nothing economical about that!

So, the story of my night... I had a delicious float, I went to a great indoor yard sale, and I was disappointed in Amazon. I hope our girl feels better tomorrow, but I fear we'll be missing our friend's little boy's pirate birthday party. Can't risk bringing the Outbreak monkey to the party, though.

Inspiration!

Here is a little photo love.

I wouldn't mind waking up here!

Or relaxing here!

Or serving a meal here!

Or living here.

As long as someone else did the dusting!

Discovering http://www.weheartit.com/ absolutely made my evening yesterday. I was really offended last night by someone that should not have gotten under my skin and as much as I hate to say it, I let someone's negativity and unkindness affect how I felt.

As someone that has battled depression for most of her life, some days are harder than others. Winters are usually pretty tough on me, quite so now that we have children. Why? Because even when the sun is shining and I might be happy to go outside or run errands all day, those kiddos will be chilled to the bone regardless of bundling them, and nap times are necessary. This mama is really looking forward to spring temperatures, I tell you what

- but back to business!

If you need a dose of happy, definitely check out that amazing website!

You will find something that brightens the moment and makes you smile- I promise.