Proud Mama

Check out Justin's first "published" art!! We're proud over here and can't wait to hang it up in the house.

What Do Girly Time, Birth Control, and Family Vision Have in Common?

Do you need some more girly time in your life?
I do! Missy and I are trying to decide between the liquor store and the pawn shop so that we can have said getaway. (I linked her, showing I'm a little in denial that she's leaving the blog world.) Want to join us? Where should we go?

Birth Control. Want to hear the Catholics and the Protestants dook it out? No, seriously. Over here, you'll see a frank but very gracious conversation as we all bring our questions and thoughts to the table. Stop by and leave yours.

And lastly, I am very intrigued and excited about the possibility of creating a Family Vision Statement, as exampled here by a dear friend. I'm thankful he published his. Maybe we'll get to this after we marinate all the raw chicken I bought on sale, catch up on scrap booking, reply to some important emails from dear friends who have been buried in my inbox, catch up on sleep, etc.etc.etc.

So, after I wrote all of this, I realize now that these 3 subjects do- in actuality- relate... how interesting...

Let It Give You Chills Again

I pray these words will never become trite in my heart and mind.

I'm honored to have a brother in my Church heritage that would love Jesus enough to love his neighbor in such full, sacrificial, generous, real, Biblical, and challenging ways.

His neighbor was me and my family, which is so convicting.

But I don't stay immersed in the guilt. I let him give me hope for love... love horizontally on this earth and love vertically back and forth from Heaven. Let's allow his words to give us hope once again.

Considering Birth in America

Today I had the opportunity to see the film The Business of Being Born. It's a documentary of birth in America, produced by Ricki Lake. After some negative experiences during the birth of her first child, she began to ask lots of questions about birth and the culture of birth in America. Her research led her to "do birth" completely differently with her second child as well as to create this documentary... in the hopes of bringing to the surface these questions and challenge the status quo of birth in America. This documentary is a history of birth in our country, a collage of birth stories, interviews with obs/midwives/advocates/etc., statistics that make you think, and much more.

This film left me mourning, considering, celebrating.

I mourn that my own grandmother had an experience much like the women I learned about in the 40's. She gave birth to my mother alone (fathers such as my grandfather, a pediatrician by the way, were not allowed in the room with the mothers). She was tied to her bed... now I realize this procedure was probably done in order to "keep women and staff safe" during their encounters with drug induced Twilight Sleep. She was confused, afraid, unable to remember what was happening to her, dehumanized. During her labor experience, my grandmother was often told by the nurses to shut up if she were screaming. "Recovery" included weeks of lying flat on her back... a couple in the hospital and several out. It's a wonder anyone had more than one child and survived all the issues initiated by such an experience. I hurt for her and other women who had no other choice but to experience birth in this way.

I consider... in 50 years, what are the harmful aspects of the current birth system that will bring more such aforementioned mourning? What are the pieces of it that we have bought into as a society, the pieces our eyes are too dulled to see? What are the pieces of it that I have bought into? Lord willing, Doug and I will someday get to add to our family. How might we alter our birth choices to better suit our desires and the well being of our baby and of me?

And thankfully, I also celebrate. I celebrate that our God created women to be able to participate in one of the most glorious events ever imagined, birthing children into this world. I'm thankful that God has graced me to be one of them. I celebrate our sons and the beautiful aspects of both Justin's and Nathan's births. I thank God for the ways that those births were transformative for the intimacy I get to share with my husband.

Hair Thoughts and Introducing

This is really tempting me right now. Maybe it's because I'm due a haircut. Maybe it's because I could wear all those really cute scarves and headbands. Maybe it's because I'm drawn to the philosophy. Are you tempted at all?

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And introducing a guest poster...
I have invited my dear husband Doug to share with us some grass he's been chewing on the past couple months. We're blessed to work for an organization that greatly values continued learning... so he's had the opportunity to read about and ponder our stewardship of Creation from a variety of sources. Check back in the coming days for his debut post... and welcome him in his virgin blog post!

Eating Cheaply and Healthily

We are always trying to come up with new ways to eat more healthy and more cheaply. Towards that end, I just found a gold mine of blog posts about this topic. Check out this blog post and then follow the links and then follow the links from there... you can go on forever! I'm excited to sit down and really consider lots of these ideas. Those posts run laps around my following dinky ideas.

Here are some ways we save money at the grocery store:

We play the Grocery Game. Using this service, today I bought Smuckers Jelly for .30, Pam Olive Oil Cooking Spray for .80, and 1 lb of fresh Tyson boneless skinless chicken breasts for .98, Russell Stover Private Reserve dark chocolate for.50 (a girl's gotta splurge), and Peter Pan Peanut Butter 18 oz for free. The GG philosophy is to load up on food items when they are at their lowest price, never buy at regular price unless you have to, etc. This service costs about $1.25/week and they match coupons with local sales. It's not a perfect system but we've saved lots of money and learned a lot about shopping cheaply. And I only have to shop at one store, the grocery store down the street.

Doug dug (I just had to type that) out a space for our new garden. We plan to plant yellow squash, zucchini squash, tomatoes, cucumbers, bell peppers, melons, lettuce, carrots, and probably some herbs. We plan to save lots of money at the store during harvest time... and I plan to freeze and (learn how to) can so we can benefit from the harvest for months to come. This summer, I'll get back to you about how cost effective this was.

The only beverages we buy are milk (albeit it organic for the boys) and orange juice... of which we only drink a small amount with breakfast. Oh yeah, and we do splurge on free trade organic coffee and the occasional bottle of wine. We don't purchase any other juices or sodas.

We try to reserve desserts for really yummy homemade ones and go without at other times.

We sold our 3rd son in order to purchase a Vita Mix (sorry we hadn't mentioned him to you; we didn't want you to bond with each other). We've more than gotten our money back on making Nathan's baby food alone... not to mention all the smoothies, soups, chopping, etc. Instead getting back our 3rd son with the money, we're reinvesting in seeds for the new garden.

The last few months, we've cut eating out down to a family trip to Chic Filet or for a pizza once/month. If Doug and I go out on a date (we mostly "date" at home these days because we're lazy, it's more comfy, it's easier with the kids, and cheaper), we just make it a coffee and dessert or wine/hors devours time.

I've stopped buying convenient snack food like granola bars. I used to think I "needed" those things around for those busy, hungry moments. How ridiculous... if I'm that hungry, then maybe I should take the time to make something more substantial. But actually, I can probably simply wait for the next meal.

We try to eat meat at dinner only 4ish times/week. Other meals, we have meals that include eggs or beans.

We invested in a separate freezer last year so that we can stock pile items when they were at their lowest cost... like meat, veggies, virtually anything really. I've adopted the thought "if I'm going to take the time to cook, then I'm going to cook a lot!" If I decide to make my banana bread, I make 4 loaves and throw them in the freezer. I do the same with large quantities of soup, chili, cake, pies, etc. I'm slowly that you can freeze virtually anything. When we have a busy afternoon or hit a season when we're all sick and we don't feel like cooking, I can run to the freezer to save the day and not run out for a quick (and expensive and unhealthy) meal.

It takes more time and energy to save money at the grocery store... but I get motivated so that our family can eat more healthily, eat more enjoyably, spend that money on other more important things, give more money away, and save more money.

I would love to hear what you do to help save money in the food department!

A Big Boy

Today was a really big day in our home. Today Justin transitioned from crib to big boy bed. I feel quite full of that teary type of joy.

A little background... we just returned from a trip see my mom "aka Beep Beep" while Doug was at a conference. Beep Beep often rides on a train to visit my brother in northern Virginia. Justin gets very excited about any form of transportation... so he often asks to ride with her one day. Beep Beep would reply "when you're bigger, you can ride the train with me." And Justin would reply "I'm getting bigger soon!"

Meanwhile, Beep Beep's city decided to build a whole commuter train system. She planned a trip on the train downtown for lunch during our visit. While approaching the train Justin exclaimed, "I'm a big boy now!"... connecting riding a train with being a big boy... even though we were referring to the big Amtrak kind of train.. but anyway, we went with it. "You are a big boy!"

Justin loves his crib in many ways. It's literally hard to get him out of it in the morning and after nap time... he loves it. Whenever we brought up the idea of a big boy bed, he would say that he liked his bed. All along we had surmised we would wait until he was closer to 3- just a few months from now- for this transition for so many reasons. However, because of his high amount of crib attachment, we figured we should strike while the iron was hot.

With much conversation and excitement, our family traversed on foot to the very local bed and furniture store- literally 2 blocks away. It was worth the extra $30 we spent for this romantic experience in our neighborhood. With Nathan in my ergo and Justin at the front of our little group, we entered the store. When Mr. Fred, the owner, approached us, Justin told him himself that he needed a big boy bed (just the mattress and bunky board, really). Thus started my day with that teary kind of joy.

We made a huge tado about it... well, it IS a big deal ya know!? When we returned, Justin helped Doug put his bed together... Doug with his real screws and screwdriver, Justin with his. We talked about how the mattress came from Mr. Fred the bed man and how the frame was given to us from his big boy cousin Tyler. Knowing this bed was Tyler's made it even more exciting.

He had his last nap in his crib this afternoon, where he actually slept today. Afterwards, we brought in his new bed. We added his new car sheets and the other finishing touches. We had our family time, played some more, read some more. I read him his books and sang him Jesus Loves Me just like always... except tonight for the first time ever, he sang with me through both times! What a sweet little gift. I put him down with head on his pillow and he asked me to pull up his sheet. (He's never had any sheet or blanket or pillow in his crib... just his little blankies and animals... so there were many new things.) He then said, "I'm all tucked in now!"

Doug reminded me later how he's been pretending that little experience from seeing our bed and pillows and from books. I told him how proud I was of him for being in a big boy bed and how much I loved him and that I would see him tomorrow morning when the sun came up. He said he'd see me then too. And then he calmly said, "I'm in my big boy bed" several times. He was so proud of himself and so was I. I left the room with my heart full... full of that teary kind of joy that happens for us mamas at these huge occasions in our babies' lives.