A (cell phone) Pictures Post

As always, I have a list of things I'd love to blog about in my head. But Coen is starting to fuss at me so I figured I'd post some cell phone pictures of the summer so far...Lots of times it's the spur of the moment pictures that give a closer picture of our lives than anything else, and I don't want to forget all these little moments!

This is Seth and one of his favorite highschool guys from hangout, Trenton. The kid is amazing...he'll play with Seth for hours without complaining, even just after surgery on his wrist. Seth loves him. 

Ava's not the only song composer in the family...here is a song Jace made up for my birthday. The first twenty seconds make my day every time I watch. 

This was Seth trying to convince me to let him sleep in Ava's bed. It lasted all of five minutes, of course. 

At a local fundraiser Jace got his face painted to look like the Incredible Hulk. I think he just picked it because it was green, because I'm fairly certain he doesn't even know what the Hulk is! Regardless, he looks a little freaky.

This sign was in the yard with balloons when we pulled up after I was discharged from the hospital. It was so sweet!

A lemonade stand was Ava's summer dream. She marched up and down the sidewalk with her sign and Jace handled the money. Seth drank the lemonade. Believe it or not, they both made a few bucks and now they want to have a lemonade stand every day. Because they're obsessed with money. Ava because she wants to buy a stuffed puppy in a purse, and Jace because he wants to save up to take over the world.

Seth got this trike for his birthday (Forgive the mess; we were packing and preparing to move). It was time for his nap and he was very worried that someone else would play with it while he slept...so this is the way he insisted on laying down. He spent his entire nap sleeping underneath it. 

This is Evany practicing being nice to her baby doll. About ten seconds later, she threw it off the bed. It's probably a good thing she pretends Coen doesn't exist. 

Ava, Seth, and I posed for a picture one morning before church, and the next day, Seth and I both got hair cuts. So this is my before picture.

And this is after.

I took Seth to see the 3D version of the Smurfs. Most movies he is pretty scared and hides his face for the majority of the film. but he was actually thrilled about this one. I had to get a few seconds on video to remember it by. You can also see his haircut, I think. 

I had to get an oil change and a simple repair done on the van, and I was dreading taking the kids and having to wait in a typical auto repair waiting room. So imagine my happiness when I pulled up and saw this! We fed the fish and ran around in the grass while the owner did the quickest repair and oil change of all time. It was definitely my best car repair experience to date!

I love the pictures I get of the kids with my "good" camera, but sometimes I love the little things in these impromptu photos and videos just as much. Mostly I just love pictures of these precious kids!

Jordan

So one of the all time highs of living in Indiana has been getting to spend so much time with my cousin Jordan. I've talked about her sister Logan plenty on this blog and she's gotten to visit me in Florida multiple times over the years, but Jordan has spent a lot of her time the past few years in Brazil, doing lots of amazing stuff and ministering to kids every day. She gave up half of her Junior year of high school to move to Brazil and attend school there, teaching and doing great some great things. She'll be leaving in three weeks to head back there for the summer. She's kind of amazing.

And she's not just an amazing Christian...she's funny. She's my kind of funny, and we've both made it our goal for the summer to make the other one pee their pants.

Considering how much we laugh when we're together, I think it's a reachable goal.

Whenever I hear something I think is funny, I can look up and expect to see Jordan catching my eye across the room. The smallest thing can just set us off and we lose it. She's dry, witty, and super sarcastic and I love her a whole lot.

Which is why I was pretty darn excited when she asked if I would take her senior pictures for her. She's graduating on Friday and heading off to a college on a full scholarship. She's majoring in Missions and Youth Ministry and I cannot wait to see where life takes her!

Here are a few of my favorite pictures from our photo shoot last weekend.

Things are going great here! We've been very busy helping prepare for Jordan's graduation party on Friday and finishing up our own school year as well. I have some awesome pictures of the kiddos to post and a new belly shot to post but I have to take a test now. 

The post that's all about babies.

I got to spend some quality cuddle time with one of my very best friend's son Charlie the other day. Barely three weeks old and extremely cute, it was the first time I'd gotten to hold a newborn in a while, and it got me pretty excited for Thor/M6's upcoming birth. And I'm not just a little jealous of this hair. I was lucky enough to get to be around for Kara's labor and delivery and I was very happy to see this guy again!

The good news is, Seth let me hold Charlie without completely losing it. I was not expecting that. He was actually very sweet with the baby. So we may have hope that he'll tolerate our own new addition equally well, although he did try to set Evany free to find a new family the other day. 

Speaking of the new McCall addition, I have a picture of him, too! Forgive me, it's a photo of the ultrasound...Seth is sleeping in the room with the scanner. 

His forehead is to the right side of the picture, and he's looking straight out towards us. Do you see those chubby cheeks? Yeah. Those are serious. 

Seriously chubby. 

Thor is measuring...oh, I think the word my OB used was huge. I've been getting pretty frequent ultrasounds, and he's been two-three weeks ahead for a while. But now?

Now he's measuring roughly six weeks ahead, on average. He's about the size of a thirty-six week baby, except his head, which is the size of a thirty-seven weeker - for reference, I'm 30 weeks. Looks like someone is trying to show Seth up. (Seth measured five weeks ahead at his last ultrasound before birth)

I don't know quite what's going on...I've gained a healthy but not excessive twenty pounds so far this pregnancy, and my blood sugar has been under really good control, so as far as the gestational diabetes affecting him, we're pretty much in best case scenario land. So apparently he's just going to be big naturally.

Dr. C says to just keep trucking, and ultrasounds can obviously be off in either direction, but the gist is that all signs are pointing to a big baby, especially since I'm coming up on the time when babies start to gain the most weight before birth. Regardless things will be fine, but it makes me laugh...since the beginning of this pregnancy I have been saying it reminded me of my pregnancy with Seth, and apparently he is following in his big brother's footsteps every step of the way. 

Hopefully Thor decides to be an overachiever and be bigger and stay put longer than his older brothers did, too!

Real or Not Real?

So can I just skip all the "We're still alive" rigamarole? Because we are. It's been an intense couple of weeks. On one of my last posts, I got a comment asking me how real I was on this blog, mentioning that I tended to paint our world with a rosy glow and not really dwell on the difficulties we go through. This commenter, who was very well meaning, questioned whether I would be doing others more of a service by being real and gritty rather than painting everything with sunshine and roses.

I've been thinking about that comment ever since I received it.

I used to be very transparent and very real on this blog all the time. But for better or worse, I've backed away. We moved across the country to improve various situations in our lives, but I found that by posting everything that went on in my life here, I was still giving some others just as much intimate insight into my life as they had when I was living in Florida. It's the other side of the internet coin...there is no distance online. I want to be real and transparent here, but sometimes it's not worth the hassle it causes. I can be sensitive, especially now. Maybe it means I'm letting other people control me, maybe it's just keeping something just for me for a change. At this point, I don't know anymore. I do know that sometimes I want to keep some things just for me, good and bad.

I do know that I don't ever post anything on this blog that is not real. Just because I don't share every negative thing doesn't make the positive things I post any less real and true. Is it all shiny and happy here every second of the day? Of course not! There are four young children running around, we're staying in someone else's home surrounded by breakable things that don't belong to us, and much of the time, I don't feel great. My blood pressure is creeping up and I have to give myself six shots a day, some in the middle of the night. I sleep with a two year old laying on top of me most of the time. We have bad moments and days. I haven't found the right rental for us yet. The school I wanted to send the kids to next year fell through. Homeschooling is both incredibly rewarding and more challenging than I ever imagined. My brain is fried much of the time trying to keep up with their school and my own school and still give them what they need from me as "just" their mom and not their teacher each day.  Life as a single parent to four is not a cake walk, and I think that most people probably realize that, so I don't usually see the need to dwell on it.

Because sometimes good things come hard. Sometimes it takes walking through a valley to get to your place in the sun. Insert your own cliche'd phrase here. Life gets hard. It's what we do when it gets hard that matters. And I would not trade my hard life, this hard life, for anything, not the easiest, most stress free life imaginable, because this is mine. I have worked hard to rebuild my life in light of everything that has happened in the past couple of years, and I refuse to be a victim or to be pitied. I have had very dark days and weeks since my life changed so drastically, and I still have moments where all those feelings resurface. But above all, I know that God is building an amazing life for us and one day I'll open my eyes and every step I've had to take to get there will make sense.

 I'll never say that this course my life has taken is better than what my life and previous marriage could have been, because given the chance I would have worked just as hard at that, but I will be damned if it is not just as good. I refuse to let this break me. I refuse to let it break them. I will raise these kids to love God and honor marriage and work for what they want and need in life, and even if that's all I accomplish while I'm here, then that will be enough. I would love to be a wife again someday, a partner and helpmeet, but if that doesn't happen for me, it will still be okay. I got to experience marriage. I don't regret my marriage. I don't regret the choices I've made since it ended. I made every one of them with good intentions. And if I ever do get married again it will be for the right reasons to the right person, that God will toss them into my life and make it clear to me.

And because I know that, it's not so hard to post about the happy things, the shiny things in our lives, and let the other things rest. Because that video of Jace losing his tooth shows a happy little boy. The small things, inconsequential moments that I share here are valuable and true and I want to remember them. While I won't go so far as to say I'm deliriously happy, I am content. I know I'm working incredibly hard towards a life and career that will make me happy, that will make my children feel secure and will give us many opportunities.

And I think we're well on our way, as I can't even look at these pictures without a huge smile on my face. These are happy kids, and that is very real.

The zoo, summer homeschooling, and pictures!

Whew! My semester is over! I am still waiting for my official grades to be posted but it's looking like I've got four A's and one B. Of course, the B is an 89% and I am so annoyed about that I could spit. =) If I had gotten an 80 I would have been happy with a be, but an 89? So wrong. But overall I'm really happy with my grades!

Now I have two weeks off before I start my summer classes. Which is kind of insane because those classes end on July 22nd. When I will be nearly 38 weeks pregnant. Which would be the most pregnant I've ever been. I'm hoping I can take my finals early if need be, but I really don't want to waste time not getting more of my classes out of the way over the summer! I only have a few left before I'll be able to start the real nursing courses. I'm only taking about 8 or 10 credit hours this summer, so it will still be a bit of a break. Let's just hope the baby doesn't interrupt!

On the baby note, I was 26 weeks yesterday. Time is flying! We've officially reached viability! Overall I just feel really calm and optimistic about the rest of this pregnancy. I'm starting to get a little more uncomfortable and tired more easily, but I think that's just the third trimester looming it's head. In a few weeks I'll have to start non stress tests and biophysical profiles, so I'm trying to enjoy my last few weeks of pregnancy with just one OB appointment a week. This is the longest I've gone in just about any of my pregnancies with no complications or contractions, so I'm pretty excited.

The kids and I made our first zoo trip of the season on Easter! This is the zoo I grew up going to all the time, so it was really cool to see the kids climbing all over the stuff I climbed all over as a kid. This zoo is smaller than the one we have in Tampa, but it still has a lot of really cool exhibits and it's small enough that Seth managed to walk most of it. He got some major physical therapy points for that!

That's about all that's going on with us. I am really excited to start a new supplemental program with our homeschooling called Time4learning: 

I've been invited to try Time4Learning for one month in exchange for a candid review. Time4Learning can be used for homeschool,afterschool and summer skill sharpening. Be sure to come back and read about my experience.

I always struggle with just what to do with the kids over the summer so their skills stay sharp, and this could be perfect for us! I'll make sure and update on how it's going for us. We're within about a week of finishing all of our coursework for this year and I've enjoyed homeschooling them full time more than I ever thought I would! 

My mom is here visiting us this week! It's the first time we've seen her since we moved two months ago, so I'm excited about getting to spend time hanging out with her and getting outside in the warm(er) weather. 

And now I'm off to an OB appointment. Hope everyone has a great day!

Cloth, Really? Redux

I haven't been feeling great this week...morning sickness combined with blood sugars that are beginning to get a little wild on me means that I spend most of the day feeling a little off and sick. I'm hoping the morning sickness will clear up relatively soon, as I'm thirteen weeks today, and that not throwing up will make it easier to keep my blood sugar levels from swinging wildly about like monkeys on a chandelier. Here's hoping.

In addition, cell chemistry and transport is not fun. Three quizzes a week for ONE CLASS is also not fun. Not being able to transfer the pictures I wanted to post of Vivi to the computer is, you guessed it, not the most fun ever. So instead, I'm going to re-post an older entry about cloth diapering that has been requested. What with the most sensitive gag reflex ever this time around in pregnancy, all my cloth diapers are sitting, folded nicely and looking cute, in a laundry basket. But after going back to disposables, I'll tell you that I still prefer cloth and hope to go back to it with Evany and the baby. Seth is dipping his toes into the murky waters of potty training, so here's hoping I won't have three in diapers come this summer. 

Cloth, Really? Originally posted 12/21/2009. Random cloth diaper photos  of the three oldest thrown in there by me today. 

Cloth? Really?

If you had asked me five years ago if I would ever cloth diaper my children, I would have probably have told you you were crazy. There was NO WAY I would ever cloth diaper my kid! (For the record, there was a time I said the same thing about nursing. Oh, man, you know everything until you have kids!)

Of course, then I had my first two children twelve months apart and it wasn't long before we were spending more on diapers than we were on gas. It was not fun. Eventually I started to contemplate cloth and do some research. I couldn't do just jump in...there is an explicit list of things that I have to remember about myself whenever I want to start something do. This is it, or as much as I can remember right now:

• I tend to shop when I'm down, planning a trip, or just plain bored. Is this a compulsive purchase?
• I get really excited about new things, have to have them, get them, then lose interest if it's not everything I imagined it to be (and it hardly ever is)
• When it comes right down to it, I'm kind of lazy. Simple is good. 

So I researched for a few months so make sure I wasn't jumping into things. I looked into every kind of cloth diaper to make sure I would buy the right type for us. Then once I had a good idea of what I wanted, I tried to find the easiest, most user friendly option.

As far as the actual diapers went, I found I was looking for a type that I could:

• Fit under my kids clothes without buying them a size up in clothes. Plus I just didn't like the super bulky cloth look. 
• Snap or velcro. My kids are wiggly...I didn't want to have to snappi or pin anything.
• Either an all in one or a pocket diaper...I didn't want to deal with covers AND diapers. 
• Able to go in the washer AND the dryer. 

Finally, when Jace was about 6 months old, I took the leap and visited a local retailer and bought my first stash. It was made up of the old version of the BumGenius one size diapers and Swaddlebee's Larges. I wanted one size diapers so that both kids could wear them, but at the time they were a little bulkier than I liked and the Swaddlebees were really trim, so I got a mixture of both. After using them extensively, I learned that I liked the liked the gussets on the legs of the BG diapers as they almost never leaked, and I loved the snaps on the Swaddlebees because my kids couldn't take them off. With velcro, by about 18 months they can just rip those diapers right off. It's annoying. With both brands, after washing I had to "stuff" the absorbent liners into the diaper, which didn't take long, but was kind of a headache. Overall, though, they met all of my requirements and saved us quite a bit of money. I think we had maybe 18 diapers between both the kids, and we did laundry every other day or so. I prefer laundering every other day even if I'm not out of diapers, as otherwise the dirty diapers are sitting an awfully long time and in my head I think it could affect the fabric, although I might be totally wrong, just seems to make sense.

We used those diapers until both kids potty trained...Ava was fully trained at 24 months and Jace was about 2 1/2. For various reasons when Seth was born, I fell out of the habit of using cloth because he was too small to wear the diapers I had, and by the time he was big enough, I had fallen back into disposables.

Then I found the BumGenius Organic All In One. It was the diaper of my dreams. Organic cotton on the inside was super absorbent. Snaps made it easy for me to use and hard for the kids to take off. It was adjustable from 8-35 pounds. It came in cute colors.It was an All In One, which means that there is no stuffing...the diaper comes out of the dryer completely ready to use. And last but certainly not least, it was practically as trim as a disposable diaper.

That's the brand I've used exclusively with Seth, and I'm still in love. Now that he's bigger I do add a doubler (extra absorbency) at night, but we never have leaks and maintenance on them is super easy. The only issue we've had is that a couple of the snaps have stopped "snapping" well, but that's a pretty easy fix and since it hasn't really affected the use I've been too lazy to send them to get fixed.

No matter which brand you try though...and if I had unlimited funds I would probably try more and probably fall in love with more, but since these work for us I haven't branched out...I find that cloth is not really any more work than disposables, believe it or not.

I used to use a diaper pail, but now I just use a wet bag on Seth's door knob. When I change him, wet diapers go straight into the bag and dirty diapers get shaken into the toilet then thrown in the bag. If your baby is nursing and hasn't started solids, it isn't necessary to dump anything in the toilet when a dirty diaper comes along.

When it's time to do a load of diapers, I pull the wet bag off the door knob, walk it to the washing machine and dump the diapers out and then drop the wet bag in as well. Then I do a cold rinse of the diapers before adding detergent and doing a wash on Hot with an extra rinse after the cycle. Then I throw them in the dryer, set them on heavy dry, and when they're done, they're ready to use. Basically all I have to do is laundry and aside from the extra rinses, it's identical to any other load of wash. When we're out of the house I bring an extra wet bag with a diaper or two in it and as I change him, I throw the dirty diapers in the wet bag until we get home and put the clean ones on Seth. That's pretty much it. I do find our water bill is marginally higher than before we used cloth, but not prohibitively so.

I know lots of people who swear by using prefolds and covers, and that's certainly a great, economical way to go. Other people love using wool and don't like using synthetic fibers on their babies, which I can understand. There are as many ways to cloth diaper as there are to parent, I think, and no one is right or wrong.

I just like the easy way, and believe me...If I am still using cloth, it is easy. Because like I put on that list above, when it comes down to it, I like things to be as simple as possible and if they aren't, I'm not likely to stick to them.

If you're on the fence about cloth, feel free to post questions or comments, and if you use cloth, please chime in! If you think it's crazy to use cloth, you can say that too. You won't hurt my feelings, and I used to think the exact same thing!