The Bark Mulch Saga Continues...

 It is nights like last night and days like today that make me long for a farmhouse in the country. No neighbors, no drama. Don't get me wrong I love our street. Some of my closest friends here have been made on this street. But things have been a little strange lately, or estranged I should say.

Do you remember my post about our bark pile? If you missed it you can catch up here. This is what the pile looks like as of today. Some is gone but most is still there. This seemingly harmless pile has been causing me a lot of angst. I'm going to spare you a lot of the details but I just wanted to say there are a lot worse things out there I could do than pile this stuff in my driveway back in the alley. I keep trying to reassure myself that I could have a yappy dog or a big dog with a lot of doggy manure. I could not take care of my lawn or be a chain smoker. I could scream and yell at my husband and kids at all hours of the day and night outside for all the neighborhood to hear, or I could play loud music 24/7 with a lot of bass. But I choose to get bark mulch, come on now is that so bad?

Let me just say that I am doing the best I can. We are not rolling in the Benjamins and I am trying to do the things I love (like garden) alongside of raising a family. I get to spend my birthday money on my garden every year or my fun money as I please from the monthly budget but we don't have a lot of extra money to purchase garden and landscaping supplies for our home. When we started this whole home ownership thing this yard was a manicured mess (if that doesn't make sense you can read this). I knew I needed some kind of mulch around my garden to suppress weeds and grass and I debated between bark or gravel. In the end the bark won costing nothing, as I broke even from selling one truck load for basically what I paid to have it all dumped in the alley.

 At the end of the day today I am felling a little terrible as I have been belittled by the way my garden looks. This has really hurt because it came from someone I cared about. I am not sure if my garden actually looks bad or they are just mad at me.

 Does this look terrible because if it does I need to do something else because I don't want my property to be an eyesore. Please comment and honestly let me know if I should figure something else out to use as a mulch in my garden or if you think it works.

The worst part about all of this is that where my garden grows, nothing used to grow. When we moved in this spot under the pine tree was struggling to even grow grass. So I think that anything is an improvement from that.

Immunity Boosting Super Smoothie

 Immunity Boosting Super Smoothie (aka Orange Julius taste alike, as my husband called it).

1 Ripe Banana cut in fourths
2 packets orange emergency
2 teaspoons Primadophilus Children
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup pure orange juice
4-7 frozen strawberries (depends on taste and texture you want)
1 handful of spinach
1/2 cup of filtered water (this helps it mix up easier in the blender)

We have all been super sick with a nasty colds around here I was looking for something easy to have for dinner and that would also help us to start to get better. I used the childrens probiotic because that is all that I had in the fridge. I also decided to skip on the yogurt because of our colds but you could put some in if you wanted to drink this smoothie as a preventative to getting sick.

Lets be honest here I am not into food photography or food blogging as of yet... that may come more in the future but I am blogging this because Hubby liked it so much he told me to write it down. When I write a recipes down I tend to loose them so I had the brilliant idea to blog this then pin it on Pinterest in one of my boards and then I would never loose it. Thank you to the cloud.

Plus I had to include a picture of our Beaner for those of you who love us and are interested in my children. I think she is growing, what do you think?

wood chip whoops

 So this is how I loose my baby weight. I order 4 yards of compost and have it dumped in my driveway to spread around my garden. This is one of my favorite spring activities. This is a picture of my giant pile after a couple of days of work (by days I mean nap times). My little kids just love the "mountain" and they get the trucks out, or their climbing shoes and are all over it. I guess I love that part too. Nothing makes me feel like a better mama than when we come inside after a long day of work outside sweaty and covered in dirt. It feels nice to know they played hard and I worked hard.

 Here is my ever expanding garden filled with fresh compost and ready to be planted.
If you look to the left you can see the more brown garden beds that are our newest addition. You can also see our chicken coop... we are skipping the chickens this year because I need some sanity.

I love the way the compost looks so fresh and rich in my flower beds.

So last year I got two yards of compost and this year I got four. While I waited for my delivery date I thought the pile was going to be huge. When it came I was shocked with how small it looked. I have decided I could have used six yards in my yard. That sounds crazy right? Well I also contacted a tree service company and arranged to have a truck full of bark mulch dropped off. They wanted 10 dollars for the whole truck. After my compost I thought it would be a little much but we could use up most of it. Well they brought it and WHOOPS! It is waaayyy toooo much. I'm not sure what I am going to do, except never do that again. They made me take the whole truck.

I guess if it sounds to good to be true it probably is.

Anyone need bark mulch?

                P.S. Good news! I also checked my memory card and all of the pictures are still there my camera just doesn't want to show them. I suppose all that nervousness about blogging was for nothing.

A little pause

Well it seems I have been a little absent from my blog lately. So sorry about that. All I can say is that things are CRAZY around here. I spin around in a whirlwind all day long and it feels I don't even get to breathe until I finally sit down after all is done and well at 9 o clock at night. Last time I blogged to show off our new baby bean the camera did something weird  I lost all of the best pictures I took of her first few hours and days of life in the big world. Needless to say since then I have not been looking forward to plugging in my camera to see just how bad the damage is to my memory card and that has made me unmotivated to blog. Nervous much you might ask.

But truth be told I am loving life right now. The weather is just perfect and I have always loved being busy as a bee. I have energy again and the evidence of pregnancy is slowly melting off of my body. I probably will never be like I was before I had 3 kids in 4 years but it sure is nice to move and garden and clean with ease again.

Here are a few of the things that I am up to and loving right now with my life and three very small
kids..

We have started to get a weekly delivery of organic fruits and veggies right to our front door.
My flowers are starting to grow and bloom.
I have the best neighbors in the whole wide world.
I am loving the supremely soft head of my three month old baby girl.
I am trying to encourage imaginative play as much as possible around here.
I love that my oldest two are starting to really love to play outside for long stretches of time.
We are trying to avoid processed sugar at home...that means I have had to change the ways cook a bit.
We are getting our windows and trim painted on our house and let me tell you it looks Aaamazzing!
I have zapped the TV and we are trying to be screen free as much as possible.
I am loving the giggles my oldest two have when they play and are being nice to each other.
My middle child is super silly and sweet all wrapped up into one cuddly bundle of exploration.
I am loving how my middle child gives so many kisses to so many things.
I am loving how my middle child loves her daddy.
My boy is growing so fast and is starting to display quite a knack for memorization.
I am starting to look into schools in our area and how I want my children to be educated.
I am loving our daily walks around a hum drum loop of houses and yards in our neighborhood.
I love how my baby girl is starting to regulate her sleeping. Afternoon naps are the best.
We just got a new vehicle that can accommodate our family way better than our little car.
I just bought 5 cubic yards of compost and hauled it all around my garden and yard and still don't have enough.
I love our little daily routine of walks and then lunch and then singing, story, poem time followed by quite time or nap time depending on the kid.

Hopefully this little post has been my block breaker and I will start to keep up better again. I do have much to share such as before and after pictures of our house and garden as well as some really awesome paint that we have been using around here on our windows and trim. Oh and there are also plenty of pictures of our family that I should show you too.
I could go on but feel that is enough for now. It is nice to be happy and busy.

A Birth At Home.

Baby A, born January 16th 2013, At 11:15 pm.

 Now that things are starting to find a new normal I feel I have time to tell the story of our delivery of our third little one.

My parents came to town and stayed for a week in hopes of meeting the new baby and helping us after she was born. As it turned out she needed more time in the oven and didn't make her appearance for them. With my other two babies they came before or just after my due date and so by the time I was a week passed my due date I was ready for her to be here. I was having a very hard time sleeping. My hips were killing me and some nights I had a lot of contractions. It was nice to have my parents here to take the kids in the daytime I spent quite a few days sleeping while they took the kiddos out to play. Finally last Tuesday I decided to get my membranes swept. I have never considered doing this before and I had mixed feelings about it. Deep down I was hoping it would work immediately (which is super unlikely  it takes about 24 hours if it even works at all) and she would be born before my parents went home the following morning.

At about one in the morning on Wednesday I was having solid contractions that were real. They came about every 10 minutes and lasted about 30-40 seconds long. I told hubby and we called my midwife at about 3:30. She lives about an hour and a half away so I told her I didn't want her to come until later that morning especially since I hadn't had any blood or fluid. We were all expecting the labor and delivery to be fairly fast because my two previous children were. I got up at 4:30 and ate some food while hubby took the kiddos next door. Then we went back to bed. I woke up at 7 and realized I hadn't had a contraction in about an hour. I called my midwife back because i didn't want her to drive all the way here for nothing. After that I called my neighbor and we decided that she would keep the kids until at least noon to give me a chance to see if things would start back up. Hubby was convinced things would start back up and at 8 am I had another contraction. Hubby then decided to try to trick my body into thinking it was night time and he covered all the windows to make it dark in the house. Then he started recording all of my contractions and the times they lasted. We did this and watched a lot of X-files on Netflix until about 2 pm.

 I took a shower at some point and was surprisingly hungry. I ate a lot of food all day long. All that time I had about 2-3 contractions an hour and they were pretty mild in intensity but they were lasting 30 seconds to a minute. At about 2 they started to speed up in frequency and length and my midwife called and said she would be coming to town later to check on me. By the time she got here at 6:30 at night I was having a contraction about every 4 to 5 minutes and they had started to last longer and were more intense. She decided to go get some dinner and I was debating setting up the birth tub in our living room. Right after she left things sped up dramatically. I was having a harder time with the pain and I decided to get in our tub. I didn't want to set up the birth tub because now that I was having baby three it was less of a "fun" thing and I always commented before how I felt it slowed things down for me. Hubs drew me a bath and I got in it and then my midwife returned with take out. She decided to be fast because of how things seemed to be progressing when she left. She listened to the baby's heartbeat and told me the water was to hot. We put in cool water and shortly after that I was out of the tub because the cast iron cools down so fast it stopped being effective for me. I also wanted to be checked to see how dilated I was.

 I was at an 8 and things were getting intense and I was hoping the baby would be out soon. I think it was about 7:30 at this point I kind of lost all sense of time and my contractions were coming really fast and hard. I remember moving around the house a lot and trying to get into all sorts of different positions. I found myself praying that the baby would come out quickly and everything would be fast. I had my midwife check me a couple more times and then at some point I decided I would like to try to push. I had been feeling a lot of pressure. I did a few pushes and then I ended up lying on my side on the bed. As I pushed in this position I started to feel really large movements from the baby and I started being very vocal about how much pain I was in. All I remember is how bad those movements hurt. They almost opposed the contractions and when there was a break in the contractions the movement would happen and it was worse then the contractions themselves. This lasted for what I think was like 5 minutes or more and when it was done I declared that I swore that the baby just spun around inside me. After that I got up never to lay in that position again and we went into the bathroom to push from the toilet.

I have no I idea how long all this went on and I tried to leave the bathroom a few more times to do various other positions  I kept saying that everything hurt and nothing felt good. I remember our midwife saying "well ya everything is going to hurt because I was in labor." Eventually I started to ask to have my water broken and my midwife told me it would break on its own when it was time. Sure enough it did break while I was pushing in the bathroom.  Right after that my contractions went away for a while and we moved into the living room. While we were in there I whispered to hubs that I couldn't push this baby out and that I didn't want to try anymore. I was starting to be really tired. We moved back to the bathroom. Shortly after that I managed to muster more energy to push and I could finally feel it working. Her head started to come out and I remember  feeling so relieved to have that sensation. I remember my midwife announcing that the baby was posterior and that she had been having suspicions that she was. Shortly after that she was born and I was holding her in my arms. We went to the bed and I was so happy she was out.

During the time I was being attended too just after the birth we talked about the position of the baby. How I had felt her turn during the labor. Hubby said that it was weird looking when she started to come out and that he thought it was a bunch if cord all balled up but then he realized it was her face. I realize now that it was because of her position that made me so tired and made it take so long. Really it wasn't that long of intense labor and pushing, just a little over 4 hours.

Looking back I am glad we have decided to have our babies at home naturally. I have found that it truly is possible to manage the pain of natural birth. I have thought a little about my 2nd and 3rd labors and the untypical or strange way they progressed and it makes me shudder to think about what would have happened if I had been  at the hospital. You can read about the birth of our middle child here. Baby three was a whole pound lighter than the other two and I finally accomplished my goal of not tearing.

I am grateful we live very close to a hospital in case something had gone wrong. I am grateful for my midwife and her assistant and the relationship I have with them. I am grateful for my husband and the awesome support he gives my during labor. He holds me up, stands in uncomfortable small spaces to encourage me for hours and is right on the same page as I am of how and where we want to bring our children into this world. I see the birth of a a child as a special spiritual event and am grateful I am healthy enough to have my babies at home.

I am looking forward to our future as a family of five and am happy to be on the other side of pregnancy and delivery. Lets hope I can keep it this way this time.

And Now There Are Three..

The day finally came last Wednesday that our newest member of the family decided to make her appearance. We have been hit by the kid tornado. Sometimes I look around and laugh at all of the little bodies in our small house. Hubby took two weeks off to be with us and help me heal and adjust. He has been working really hard to keep everything together. It has been really nice to just be together as a family of   five.

I can't quite remember what day I took this picture of all of them on the couch. I am pretty sure it was the first day I left the bedroom. I think it was Friday. Look at how snugly they are. If you look really close you can see R just tanked out sleeping in her daddy's arms. She has always had a soft spot for her daddy and it was really nice that after I had the baby she has been able to be clingy to him.

Sweetie also came down with a nasty case of the hives. She had them for several days. At first we could give her relief with some Benadryl but by Saturday she refused to swallow it. We still are not sure what caused them and we are suspecting a mild food allergy.

Here is our little Bean all snuggly and sweet.

Big Brother has been super sweet with his newborn sister. I cant quite figure it out. He has always been good at picking on R and I was nervous how he would treat baby A. As it turns out he just wants to give her soft kisses and pats and hold her nicely in his lap. I guess it is because he is a little older now and he can tell how little she is.

 I have been having a hard time taking pictures of R with baby A because she is a little rough. Still she is getting good at giving kisses too.

Waiting for Baby

Its been quiet around here and I have been just waiting to have this baby. It keeps snowing and  I don't think I have been outside in a few days. I like the snow. It makes things cozy and I have been preparing my home for her arrival and the work it will take to get her here.

At first when I found out I was pregnant I was really upset. Mostly because my last pregnancy was still so fresh. My memories of labor and delivery were so fresh. I couldn't comprehend another nine months of feeling sick and uncomfortable. Now that its has been almost two years of being pregnant I cant really remember what it feels like to be normal. I have the knowledge that I will have more energy and no longer have heartburn but I am having a hard time imagining my life that way.

My official due date is tomorrow and last week I decided that I needed some projects to take my mind off of the waiting and wondering when this baby would come and what the labor would be like this time. I was pleasantly surprised with baby 2 how much easier it was than baby 1 but I am a little nervous about baby 3 for some reason. I decided to finish an old project that has been on the back of my mind since we moved into our house. I did a blog post of it way back when and you can see it here. All I had left to do was the binding and thanks to the internet and Pinterest I was able to find a couple of tutorials on how to do a binding fast and easy. It didn't turn out perfect but it is finished and I am happy.

Here is another project I finished. I got this idea off of Pinterest as well. They are burp clothes. I used some fat quarters that I had lying around from a project I thought I would do almost a year ago but never felt quite right about, and some old towels I had. I was really tempted to use some of my more tattered cloth diapers but decided to go with the towels because I thought they would look better. Normally when I use something for burp clothes I use my infant sized prefolds because they are just so dang adsorbent, but they are not very cute out in public. I am hopeful these will be adsorbent as well. I don't know about you but something can be as cute as it wants but if it doesn't work I will use something that does.

Here is a picture of our back porch  It is my staging ground for our home birth. It turns out that you have a lot of stuff to gather to have a baby at home, especially if you are going to have a birth tub. It is nice that we have a room to shove it all in so it doesn't have to take up a corner of our living room.

I am anxious to get this baby out of my body. I am ready to feel and look normal again. I love how right after  I have a baby I am so happy to eat. The negative associations that have built up around food for the past nine months immediately go away. Last time we ordered in Indian food and if we can we are going to do it again. It was sooooo good.

I am nervous about what labor will be like and how long it will be. I am nervous about how it will start. Even though I am doing this for the third time I still worry about my water breaking and soaking the bed while I sleep. Deep down I know I can do this at home, in the setting I have chosen surrounded with the people that I know. I know that once it starts it will be ok and I will make it to the other side. Its the anticipation that makes it hard.

I'm going to hope and wonder again if this baby will come tonight.