Mamas, You are GOOD!

I've had a hard week.  First the baby got sick.  I tried home remedies, took her to the Dr, got no answers, and then after two nights of her crying/whining/coughing through the night with slight breaks allowing her to sleep 10-30 minutes, and then going back to the crying/whining/coughing spell I took her back to the Dr.  Diagnosis? Ear infection and a viral infection that's settled in her lungs causing fluid in her lungs.  That said, getting some breathing treatments and seeing minimal results, we are back to sleeping.  If you want to call it that.  More like sleeping and waking up 5+ times during the night, requiring Mama to nurse babe back to sleep.  Sleep one hour, nurse,  then repeat.  I'll take it over the crying/whining/coughing though.  On top of that, the big started getting a head cold and has been insanely whiney and misbehaving.  

The weekend came, another weekend of missing church due to sick kid(s), another weekend of not getting my spiritual cup filled, another day of whine whine whine.  

On Sunday, I had, had it! I lost my temper, yelled, doubted myself and my role as a Mother, stomped out of my daughter's room, let the baby cry herself to sleep because I couldn't get her to sleep…I was done. My husband held me, kissed my forehead, and said I love you.  I responded why do you love me?  He said, because you are good.  

Mamas, you are good!  You can do this.  one step at a time. One foot in front of the other.  When you feel like throwing in the towel, take one breath at a time, one step at a time.  You are good, you can do this.  

I mumbled a little prayer, there was no way I could keep going with out God's Grace.  And HE gave it to me. One breath at a time, one step at a time. Both girls ended up napping at the same time (which N.E.V.E.R happens), just in time to get the kitchen cleaned up.  I brewed some more coffee, and sat down to start writing this blog post.  

Mamas, you are good, you can do this.  The first moment you looked down at your child, God bestowed the spirit of Motherhood in you.  

The first picture of Me holding Emri when she was born, just seconds old

Whether you gave birth to your child, adopted your child, or took them in as a foster child, you were given the Spirit of Motherhood.  You can do this, you are good.  And the moment (or in my case many moments) when you feel like you can't keep going, look up to the one who gave you the Spirit of Motherhood.  He will bring you through it, one step at a time, one breath at a time.  Mammas, you are good!

"Leaning on the Everlasting Arms"   

Today I'm joining in on Mindful Mothering Mondays.  Of course I'm blogger illiterate and can't figure out how to put the linky here, but you can read a beautiful post from Lydia and other Mamas Here at Small Town Simplicity

Save a penny!

I've started praying about this blog.  Yes, really praying?  I've neglected it to focus more on my family (which is a good thing!) and I finally feel that I have a somewhat (or not ha!) routine down that maybe I can actually do something with it.  I pray that it blesses others and write about our family's adventures and mishaps, maybe you can give me advice, and maybe I can help you out!  I've  had quite a few people ask me lately how we "do it".  Living basically on one income, both of us at home (my husband has a freelance graphic design business from home), and survive. Well, I don't have an answer because we are still trying to figure it out, living day by day.  But our way of life has changed tremendously, since back in the days of being child free, to these past 7 months when our second daughter was born.  So I thought I'd talk about ways we try to save money, or more like spend money wisely.  I'm not perfect, we sometimes (or many times) make the wrong decisions, but here are some things that have worked well for us.

* Stay home!  Seriously...have you not noticed the price of gas?  It takes us 30 minutes to get to the nearest city, and that's just to get to the edge of it.  To get anywhere in the city, that's 40+ minutes.  So, I generally go to town twice a week. Mondays, when I go teach at a Home School academy, and when we go to church.  Typically when we go to church, that's all we do in town, unless we are visiting with friends afterwards.  but when I go to teach, I try to make the most of that trip.  Stop at the grocery store on my way home, any other errands.  Sometimes it becomes the day I dread because of how long it is, and I'm typically alone with two kids, but it saves a lot in gas.  Sometimes we do have to go to town another time during the week, and we maximize it.  What do we need?  What are we about to run out of that we will need in 3-4 days?  I don't remember the last time I was at the mall, or went shopping for fun, etc.

* Food Budget
I hate to use the word budget, because this is one of our downfalls.  We try to budget, do it for a month or so, then stop or just fail at it.  But, since I stopped working, we've had to cut our grocery bill down tremendously. Ironic as I stopped working when I had my second child, so our family grew, and our grocery bill went down.  I got paid every 2 weeks, and would go to Walmart and easily drop $200 right after getting paid.  Not any more.  There was so much CRAP (sorry for the vernacular) that we were buying.  So much processed food that was junk.  We are eating better, making more things from scratch, buying less convenience food, and no junk/filler food we don't need.  Now we are not perfect.  We don't have a "whole foods diet" and I buy stuffing in a box because..well..yeah.  But, no more soda, frozen biscuits, etc.  Most of our "sweets" we make. Last week in the span of 3 days, I made banana bread, chocolate chip cookies, and apple pie.  We really don't eat sweets like that real often, that was just kind of a fluke week, but all of that was made from scratch.

* Animals
We've really had to look at what our animals are costing us.  We used to have goats.  We wanted to milk them, but we didn't have the right set up.  So they were pets, not giving us anything in return, and during the winter, we had to buy hay.  So we sold them.  Eventually we'd like to get milking goats...when we are READY!

* Garden
Last year was our first year of canning our garden.  We also went to an apple orchard and did a lot of canning of applesauce, apple pie filling, and apple butter.  Our canned good this year consisted of green beans, spaghetti sauce, and peach jam.  We grew more than just those things, but didn't produce enough to can.  Those have really helped us in cutting down on the food bill.  This year, we plan to grow more, and can more.  Our garden is mostly started from seeds instead of buying plants.  It's really not hard to do seed starts, and our tomatoes from seed did better than the tomato plants we paid outrageous prices for.

* Cloth Diapers
This has really saved us huge money.  I already did a post about this. But living on one income...there's no way we could afford $50/month in diapers

* Breastfeed
The littlest is 7 months and still going strong with breastfeeding!  Cost? $0 I could go on and on about the health benefits, but since it's a money related post, I'll just leave it at that!

* Heat
We invested in an outdoor wood stove. It plugs into our duct work and we have an electric blower to blow the head from the stove into our house.  This saves tremendously on our heating bill.  While the blower is electric, it still costs a lot less to run that, then to run our heat furnace.

* Home Birth
We had an aaaaammmmaaaazzzziiinnnggg home birth experience.  I won't try to convince anybody to do a home birth.  You birth where you feel safest, home, birthing center, hospital.  But I can tell you that it was a great experience for us, we had a qualified midwife, and it fit our lifestyle.  Our home birth was about 20% the cost of a normal uncomplicated hospital birth.

*Vehicles
We drive older vehicles that are paid off, we have no car payments.  We will probably have to replace our van, which is our main family vehicle in a few years. I'm not sure what we will do then, but I can tell you it will be an older van, just a bit newer than what we have now.

* Social Life
When we first got married, we went out all  the time.  I also didn't realize how much "money" we had then compared to now.  We now rarely go out to eat, movies, and we value our money more than to just go blow it.  That doesn't mean we don't ever go out and do anything, but they are treasured dates when it does happen!  We value our friends, and enjoy having them over to visit, and that's free!

*Stop Shopping
Like when I said, stay home.  I don't shop for fun, and if I did, I'd spend money.  When we go grocery shopping, I have a list.  We are not perfect, and probably always buy something not on the list.  But if you stop shopping, except when necessary, you can't spend money!

* Buy Used
Almost anything we buy "big" is used.  And kids?  Most baby gear is used, (EXCEPT CAR SEATS), many toys are used, and all of their clothes was used, or gifted to us.

Those are the main things that come to mind.  We are not perfect, make mistakes, and still trying to figure this out.  But those are some things that have worked well for us.

Cloth Diapers: Is it worth it?

When we found out about baby #2, I knew I wanted to cloth diaper.  My husband wasn't quite as on board, but more of a "you can do cloth, but when I change a diaper, it's going to be disposable".  I saved money, and bought diapers gradually.  I knew I wanted to do the pocket style - one size.  Meaning, there is a place to put an "insert" (pad) into the diaper.  No safety pins (a thing of the past), no special folds, etc.  It looks like a "normal diaper".  I thought I would like the pocket style because you can increase or decrease the absorbency if needed.  I researched different brands, and yes, in general, they are quite expensive.  I ended up buying two different brands, one because of the price, and the average reviews, and the other, because my midwife's assistant was getting rid of her stock-making me a good deal. (She used to be a retailer for this brand)

So:

I bought 12 Sunbaby Diapers with 24 inserts.  These were the "cheapos", I think they were around $7-$8 a diaper.  (price range depends on what kind of fabric you want for the insert)

I also bought 10 Bumgenius 4.0 with snaps diapers.  I got these new, from my midwife's assistant for $15/diaper.  (normal retail is around $18 I think)

I did buy some used Fuzibunz size small diapers off of craigslist, but ended up selling them (sold them for $15 more than I paid for them) because I decided to stick with the one size diaper.

I can go into what I like/don't like about each brand of diaper, but that would really call for a whole post of itself.  So I will say, I use all of my diapers, Sunbaby and Bumgenius, I would recommend the BG diapers over the Sunbaby - and there are a million other brands, and lots of work at home moms that make and sell diapers to check out.

I have 22 diapers total, and would probably like to have about 4 more.

Here's a rundown of my cloth diaper regimen:
I wash my diapers on Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday.  Yes, I have it down to a strict system!  I ALWAYS line dry my diapers.  If the weather isn't nice, then we have a makeshift line in our dinning room.  However, an occasional dryer isn't going to hurt them, so if I was in a pinch, I can toss them in the dryer.  Line drying enhances the longevity of the diaper.  I use All detergent, free of perfumes and dyes.  I have a front load HE washer.  I do not have the option to soak because it's HE, so I do two rinse cycles, then wash on "heavy duty" cycle, with an extra rinse cycle at the end.  I do have some light staining that I need to research on how to get out better - but they do come out clean and smelling ok.

How often do I cloth?
Probably 80% of the time.  Yes, I don't do cloth 100% of the time.  I would like to get to that point though.  We do disposables at night.  At first I did this because Emri (my 3 1/2 month old) was sleeping through the night beautifully 12-13 hours each night.  I was scared cloth wouldn't last that long.  For some reason, she's back to her "infant stage" and waking up 2+ times through the night.  So I really ought to try cloth at night and just see.

Also, we go to a Home School Academy on Monday afternoons.  Emri goes to the nursery, and there can be 13 kids in the nursery.  I feel bad asking the nursery workers if I can send Emri in cloth.  However, she's famous for her blow out diapers in the nursery, and she doesn't blow out as bad in cloth, so maybe cloth would actually save them time.  ;)

We've done 2 big trips since doing cloth, and did disposables during our trips.  Each time I wished I had done cloth instead.  For Thanksgiving, we'll be going up to my parents, and I would like to do cloth, however my whoooole family will be there (siblings, plus more grandkids) and I don't want to hoard the washer as we will all need to be doing laundry - so it will probably be disposables.  (10 people under one roof)

What are the pros?
MONEY SAVINGS!!!!!!!!!  Yes, the diapers may be expensive in the beginning, but it saves you tons (I mean thousand(s) of dollars)  This was one of the biggest reasons for me to want to switch.

Health Benefits:
Have you researched the chemicals in disposable diapers?  Did you know a lot of chemicals we (U.S.) put in our diapers, are ILLEGAL to use in other countries?  And we are putting this on our babies skin? Which then is absorbed into the body?  Obviously, I can't preach a whole lot about this since I still do disposables, but STILL!

Comfort:
Have you felt the inside of a cloth diaper?  It's so soft, if didn't know what had been put on it before it was washed (hehe) I'd want to snuggle it against my face!  I'd rather have that against my bum, then some weird paper/plastic stuff.

Looks:
This may not be a good reason to only go cloth, but seriously, a baby with cloth on it's bum, is just too darn cute!  And they've got some adorable patterns now!

CONS:
With all my preaching about cloth, there are draw backs.

It is more work.  I have a dry pail in our bedroom we toss the dirty diapers in. (I use disposable wipes and shake the wipes in the trash)  The pail has a lid, but depending on how many poopy diapers are in it, you might be able to start smelling it by day 2.  But with my washing regimen, usually they get washed before it's really stinky.

It adds 3 extra loads of laundry a week for me.  More work on laundry, more laundry detergent, more electricity used, etc.  However, still, it is more cost effective to go cloth.

Cloth to go - I try keeping Emri in cloth when we go to town.  I carry a wet bag (small bag to put dirty diapers in, and keep odor out), and it's a little bit more to lug around.  Between lugging the dirty diapers, and then the clean diapers in the diaper bag (which take up twice as much room as disposables do), it is more.  I do enjoy the conversations it starts in the bathroom while changing her.  "oooooh, is that a cloth diaper? Wow, they have changed, they weren't like that when I had kids".  Great conversation starter while you are wiping a poopy bottom.

Is it worth it?
For me, and our family, and our situation...YES!!  My husband is now sold on it, and will change little Em's diaper, and put cloth on her!  Putting the diaper on, really is almost the same as putting a disposable diaper on, super easy.  The only extra work is in the laundry, and you can't just "toss it in the trash".  The savings is amazing.  We can make a $6 package of diapers last over 2 weeks.  That's $12 a month in diapers...only because we haven't been doing it full time.  When Natalie was in diapers full time, we were doing $40-$50 a month.  It's not that difficult, they are cute, and I like knowing what exactly is going on my kids' bum!

As a side note:  Emri is exclusively breastfed.  Because of that, I do not have to "dunk" her poopy diapers, spray them, etc.  If we were doing formula, they would need to be sprayed before washed.  (you can buy a diaper sprayer that attaches to your toilet, pretty easy!) When we start introducing solids, we will have to buy a diaper sprayer.

That's my take on cloth.

The Summer of DO!

You know when you (or people) are all talk and no do?  We've been like that for a long time, and this past summer has been the DO summer!!!

We successfully and safely birthed our second daughter in our own home (our bedroom in a birthing pool in front of a 55 gallon fish tank and little fishies watching over me to be exact).  We have talked and talked about a home birth and I chickened out with Natalie and went the hospital route.  Well going the hospital route is what pushed me into a home birth this time.  It isn't for everyone (as my midwife says, you should birth where you feel safest, at home, at a birthing center, at the hospital, etc.) but it fit our goals and lifestyle.

We raised a semi successful garden this year.  Our 4th garden, and first garden to really produce anything worth canning.  I think we did close to 80 jars of green beans (we have a fall crop coming on now), and some spaghetti sauce with our tomatoes.  My strawberries died, our melons were very seedy, our peppers did well, cucumbers died, and the squash died.  We are lucky if half of our fruit bushes survived.  So when you see all my "success stories" on facebook, be reassured we are still in the very VERY beginning of the learning stages of all of this and we have just as much (if not more) failures as successes.

We don't have fruit trees, so we hopped 10 minutes west of us to the Apple Orchard.  We are still in the process of "processing" those and hopefully I will have some totals for the next post!  We've learned that when apple pie syrup boils over, it fills your house with a lot of smoke.  That wasn't cool....
Thankful for a glass top stove and the burned nastiness comes off great with a razor blade!

I said I was going to cloth diaper...and we are DOING IT!!!  Oh my, the savings of cloth diapers are unreal!  And my husband who said "I'm not changing a cloth diaper"..... is in fact changing cloth diapers!!  Now I will be honest, I put a disposable on her at night (this child does not nap well during the day, but can sleep 13 hours straight at night!!), and put disposables on her when we go to the Homeschool Academy.  The poor nursery workers have so many kids, I think they might slug me if I ask about cloth diapers.  But, it is so much easier than I thought!!!!  And who doesn't like a cute bum?

I've become a "baby wearer".  My littlest wants to be held (she was "held" inside of me for 9+ months so this makes sense!).  She takes all of her day time naps while in her wrap.  It's been a long couple of months of figuring her out, but she's an individual, completely different from her sister...and I'm bound determined to figure out what works and what doesn't....and we are getting there!

Speaking of which, little Emri is almost 11 weeks old and is exclusively breastfeeding!  So this is huge for me....Natalie didn't do so well with this so we did the pumping thing for 6 weeks, formula for 2 weeks, and goats milk until she was 1 1/2 years old.  I  was so depressed.  I was determined to make it work this time around, and after a few days, it was a breeze.

I've come to face the facts.  When Natalie was born, I was depressed that we hadn't moved to our new house yet, so I didn't have a nursery to decorate, and felt like my child was going to be missing out on something and "deprived".  What was I thinking?  A newborn could care less about the color on the walls and if you have cute little bears hanging on the walls, or a bear head from the taxidermist hanging on the wall.  This time around, I was thrilled to be sharing a room with our baby and not having to fret about putting a nursery together.  

And our second biggest change this summer (first being the birth of little Emri), employment changes.  I will be home with our girls, teaching piano lessons, and teaching one day a week at a local Homeschool Academy.  Blessed?  Yes!

So Summer of 2012, you were the summer of DO!!  Probably some of our biggest life changes, and when we really took what we were "talking about" and turned it into "doing it".  We have a long ways to go, (still a lot of "talking about" that needs to be changed to "doing it") and I'm excited about the journey!

New Beginnings

I apologize it has been several months between posts.  I honestly don't get on the computer nearly as much.  Our wireless router is kicking the bucket, I'm too lazy to plug an ethernet cable into my laptop and sit at Natalie's kiddie table....and my time on the Imac is few and far between thanks to Kris being so busy with work.  I keep up with things on my Iphone, but that's about it.  Speaking of work, I'm pretty excited about what Kris has been doing.  His latest major projects have been designing new labels for Hiland Dairy products (if you buy their milk, he did that label!) and other brands Hiland owns.  And most recently, Russell Stover chocolate.  Pretty soon you'll be seeing his work where you see Russell Stover.

On the animal front: We've bought some more chickens!  Ha, like we really need more?  Once these new ones start laying, we'll sell a few of our older girls.  They really only have about 2 years of laying, and they've been laying for almost a year so we will be cycling them out gradually.

Our Kinder goats are doing good!  Emma had her first Kid in March.  It was a doeling so we kept her.  Natalie called her "baby goat" so "Baby" has stuck for her name.  Nemo is huge, looking pregnant, has a sack, but no kid to show for it yet.  So call us goat stupid, but we don't really know if she's pregnant.  After Emma kid, we sold Shadow, our "Billy".  We bought a new buckling to take his place  "Gravy".  He's brown and white and will hopefully put some color in the future kids!  Gravy is pretty, err handsome, but that's about it.  All he does is yell all day.  Kris is wondering what baby goat meat tastes like.   Uh oh!!!

On the other kid front....I'm super excited.  My nephew will be born in the next week or less.  The first boy grand baby of the family!!  And the first time I get to be an Aunt!!  I'm super excited to see what he looks like!  And while I am thankful to be pregnant, and "almost done" I sure wish I could travel down to Texas to meet this little fella soon after his arrival!  But, I'm too close to my due date and will just have to wait until our little one comes.   Natalie is going to have a little sister. While I would like to have a boy eventually, I am thrilled to have another girl!  I always wanted a sister - and am so thankful she is going to have one!  A couple of weeks ago I got out all the newborn and 0-3 month clothes.  Are they really that tiny?!?  I don't remember that!!  Anyways, I think God knew what he was doing when he gave us another girl.....there is no way we could start storing boy clothes!!!!  I've got about 9 weeks until my due date.  Little sister is breech and is in a very  "unique" breech position.  At my last midwife appointment, she had her assistant with her and another midwife.  All 3 had to feel my belly as they aren't used to babies in that position.  It's not of great concern right now, but I have to start doing exercises to encourage baby to turn. Please be praying that she goes head down!  I've been dreaming of our home birth and am now starting to get really scared/anxious of having to deal with the hospital again, and possibility of C-Section.  Other than that, baby is checking out great!

On the food front, our garden is looking wonderful!!!!  And it is all thanks to my husband.  I honestly haven't done anything to help out (between teaching piano, chasing a 2 year old, and having a basketball I don't bend over very well).  And new this year we have started our fruit orchard.  It won't produce much for the first few years, but the important part is to get it STARTED!  We've got raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, gooseberries, and soon strawberries.  We would still like to put in some fruit trees.

I think that covers it all!  Hopefully I can update more often after baby comes and I'm off work for awhile.  Until next time....

Rhythm

While I was sweeping and mopping the floors this morning, I realized I sweep/mop in a rhythm.  And then I realized my life in general is a rhythm, predictable (most of the time) and I know what to expect each day.  Most people would probably find my life rather boring, mundane, not exciting.  However, I see so many little blessings each day, I never know what to expect, each day is like a little present being unwrapped for the first time.  While nothing in other people's eyes happened today that was "exciting" God's given me so many little blessings!  Cooking a big breakfast for my family, and seeing my husband and daughter enjoy my "special" scrambled eggs....because nobody cooks them like how I make them!  (And I learned the special touch from my own mother)  My husband playing with my daughter for 20 minutes so I can deep clean the bathroom it desperately needed 2 weeks ago.  Or my husband willingly taking my daughter with him to "Mimi and Papas house" so I can have 45 minutes of no little feet under my feet.  I was able to get done a typical 1 1/2 hours worth of cleaning in 45 minutes since nobody needed "Mommy's attention".  Drinking a warm cup of coffee on a slightly chilly day, taking 10 minutes out of my "rhythm" to write a simple blog post.  Hugs, kisses, and "I love you's" from my daughter.  A surprise "jab" in my belly, reminding me there's a wee one growing in the womb.  Those and so much more are the blessings I get to experience during the daily rhythm of my life.   

A New Year!!

One of my favorite times is New Years.  And this was BEFORE my daughter was born on New Years.  Yes, she entered this world on January 1, 2010.  Maybe she knew it was one of my favorite times! =)  

I love that feeling of a fresh start, a blank slate.  Just how when Christ forgives us, giving a fresh start and blank slate.  I'm not one for "New Years resolutions", but I like to make goals for the New Year.  My husband and I began discussing this and we both had a common goal: Be Healthy!  

Our family was very very sick from mid November almost up until the New Year.  It would go from one person to the next, and I don't think I have ever been so drained!!  Not to mention, being in my first trimester of pregnancy just sucks the life out of you, let alone put sickness on top of that!  We were miserable, and really losing our spirit.  Oh yeah, we are expecting a baby in July!  We are beyond thrilled and excited.  My brother and sister in law are due in May so my side of the family is going to have lots of new babies =)  

Anyways, back to the point.  Yes, winter brings "illness" but it was just beyond that.  I believe a lot of being sick, or more how quickly you get over being sick, is how you eat and treat your body.  We were seriously lacking eating healthy.  So, that is a huge goal this year is to eat better.  I have started by eating fresh spinach salad, oh like 5+ days a week!  

Other than that, I feel like last years focus was the farm/homestead getting projects done.  We were just so overwhelmed and didn't have a good focus.  This year, I'm not too worried about the land.  I feel that things will develop when they develop and come together.  I want to focus on

1) Lord has given me a huge craving for His word.  Studying it word for word. 

2) Focus on my marriage.  Marriage should come before family/children.  There is always room to strengthen your marriage, which then pours down to your children and makes you better parents.

3) Being an intentional parent.  Everything I do with Natalie and the new baby, I want purpose and intention behind it.  As I add on more parenting years (I'm still a newbie, Natalie is 2) I have become more focused, and want to continue that.  The Lord has blessed us to be parents, and I will not take that lightly.  

4) Health-as I had mentioned before 

Those are my 4 main focuses for this year.  I feel that if I stay focused on the 4 most important aspects of life, everything will fall in to place.  We have a lot of uncertainties in our life, jobs, finances, etc.  When we loose our focus, that's when things fall apart.  If I can keep my eyes on those four things, then I know everything else will fall into its place.