Snapshot Sunday 07-05-09

How it began.

Other snapshots -
Sherry
Bona Fide Mama
Sunny Day Mama
Jessica is joining us today!
Ramblings
Rinnyboo

If you post a Snapshot, comment and I'll add you!

Ainsley's birth pictures.

I pulled these over from my old private family blog to share with some friends. And I didn't include any pictures of the actual birth. You're welcome.

Ainsley was my first homebirth, and it was surprisingly less intense than my pitocin-induced labor in the hospital with Hannah.



An hour and a half into labor I woke Matt up to take this picture ("It's not labor," he said. "Go back to sleep."). Four hours later, he was holding Ainsley.






Karen, our midwife, doing all of the measurements a few hours after the birth. She waited until we were good and ready to let someone else hold the baby. Such a difference from a hospital birth.



And that's me, fifteen minutes after I gave birth. It was amazing to be able to recover completely at home, wherever I felt most comfortable.

Sidenote: Ainsley came into this world staring (check out the picture of her with Matt - that's two minutes, max, after she was born), and didn't sleep for over twelve hours. I was sure at the time that it had something to do with the lack of medication contributing to an alert baby, but after almost three years with her, I'm thinking that it was mostly her personality.

A strange thing happened on the way to Photobucket.

I was moving my pictures from the camera to the computer when the computer just shut off. No idea why. When I turned it back on, most of the pictures that had been in transit were unusable - simply icons with no details or image. So sad, so many fun pictures gone.

So. Here's what we have today - one snapshot of each of the kids. Three of the five pictures that made it.



(Sorry. It's what I had.)

I live at a spa.

Some women complain about never being able to get away and pamper themselves at a spa. Not me. I live at a spa.

Sauna? Walking into a bathroom where little girls turned the hot water on high, walked out, shut the door, and forgot about it. (this also counts as mopping the floor)

Massage? Lying on the floor relaxing and little girls decide to use your back as a dance floor. (this also counts as going to the chiropractor)

Mud bath? Pssh. That's an every day occurence here.




Nice comfy place to relax after a long day at the spa? We got ya covered.



Pleasant dreams!

Lesson learned.

Lesson learned by them: cousins enjoy playing dress-up in Mommy and Daddy's clothes as much as you do.


Lesson learned by Mommy: when cousins come over to play and get very quiet upstairs, you might want to go check on them.


But if you do, you just might miss out on cuteness of this magnitude.

Right this minute.

I'm an Honest Scrapper.

The Magic Onions (and one of the cutest makers of felted items you'll find on Etsy), gave me the Honest Scrap award-blogshare thingy. Usually, I'm incredibly grateful for awards but never seem to get around to recognizing or passing them on. However, The Magic Onions' list really made me smile and I thought I'd try to think of 'ten honest things'. Here goes.

1) I'm scared of riding horses. I was just fine before I had babies. I loved horses. Adored horses. Rode them any chance I got. I worked for a real rootin-tootin cowgirl at her boarding and training stable near Boise, Idaho. I worked as a wrangler in Jackson Hole, Wyoming where I had to ride stay on some really rank horses while keeping my string of twelve to twenty dudes safe. Yeah, my boss wasn't really smart and I was too young to know better. I even went and worked at a stable in Ireland where I learned to ride English style and jump horses and absolutely loved it. I was bucked off a pony (don't tell anyone) and came off of a horse at the end of a triple jump. Neither fazed me (except for the pony - that hurt my pride a tad). Then I gave birth and now riding horses makes me so nervous that even the laziest plug gets antsy enough to crow-hop if I get on its back. Many theories abound about why this fear should have set in after childbirth, but it's a goal of mine to get past it. Sometime. Later.

2) I didn't want to be a mother. I agreed to have two children because my husband wanted kids so badly, but the deal was that he was likely going to be the stay-at-home parent and I would be the breadwinner. My parents hadn't exactly passed on a lot of good parenting skills, anger management skills, or (I thought) the ability to love little ones. So I went to the hospital to give birth making jokes like "Does the hospital have a layaway plan?" Sometime between the second before my daughter actually came out and when the midwife caught her and began to pass her to me, my husband became irrevocably relegated to breadwinner and I'm not sure he's ever recovered from the shock. I fell in love and have never looked back. I immediately wanted seven kids.

3) Hannah snapped this picture of me this afternoon. (I was ducking my head because I knew she was aiming low.)

Right after she took it, a man came to fix our sprinklers and stood talking to me while I put Grayson down, picked Grayson up, waved to my girls, threw a ball to the dog... lots of things that exposed my at-the-time hairy armpit. Didn't even realize the dang things were hairy until Ainsley lifted my arm up later, rubbed them and said "Soft!" So *that's* why he kept staring at me funny. I'm not talking stubble, either. I'm talking long enough to be soft. I shaved them in a hurry, but I will never look at that picture without thinking "Dude, how did you FORGET?" And neither will you. You're welcome.

4) I love ABBA and George Strait. There you have it.

5) I have never for a moment regretted leaving the religion of my childhood when I was pregnant with my oldest daughter. I have also never understood why some openly questioned my motives, some going so far as to say that I must 'desire to sin' (because a pregnant, devoted wife has so much sinning she wants to do). I am now much more authentic in how I live my life, and it feels good to finally have my spiritual self feel peace and to be able to explore different ways of expressing that spirituality that do not exclude the majority of the human race.

6) I didn't want to homeschool. My husband was not happy with the education he received in his rural schools and since we knew we wanted to live in a small, rural area, he wanted to homeschool our kids and floated the idea when we found out I was pregnant. I was completely against it because of the 'social issue'. Then I found out that the most stylish woman in our 'ward' (Mormon congregation) was a homeschooler (she said, when questioned, that she sent her kid to kindergarten knowing how to count and knowing his alphabet and three days later he insisted he didn't know either of those because none of the other kids did). I also found out that one of my husband's very intelligent co-workers and his wife homeschooled their kids for academic reasons. Then I talked with a cousin of mine that I really respect about why she homeschooled her kids. The rest is history. Now we're doing interest-led education (also called life-learning or 'unschooling'). See what happens when you dip your toe in the water? The river can sweep you away.

7) I do not, nor will I ever, understand the hysteria that surrounds the Twilight books or movies.

8) I do, however, fully understand the hysteria that surrounds Colin Firth, Johnny Depp, and Hugh Jackman.

9) I have warring desires, not in what I want to do with my life, but how I want to live it. I want to homestead, but I want to be a nomad. I want to use the milk I've milked with my own two hands to make cheese and yogurt and butter, but I want to not be tied down to dairy animals so that I can take my children camping. I want to have a centered, down-to-earth, hanging-clothes-on-the-line, homebody lifestyle, but I want to travel. I want to live in the wide open spaces of the Western US, but I also want to live in Europe. With these warring desires, I have yet to be completely comfortable where I am, even as I'm truly happy being there. Strange dichotomy, that.

10) If I have more children, I would prefer to adopt. Adoption is big business these days, however, and as such is very expensive. This saddens me in more ways than one.

I'm supposed to pass this on to seven bloggers. How about...

Sherry at Living and Learning

Farmgirl_dk at Critter Farm, though the punk's in Germany right now, so who knows if she'll get around to it.

The lovely Gina at Unschooled Family.

Madeline at Barn Raising.

The Blankie Chronicles.

my sister at Intermittant Ramblings

and my sister at Arizona Sunshine. I want to see if there are ten honest things I don't know about them.

I'm also adding Sarah at MamaCanon Blog because she makes me smile.

If you decide to do this (and I hope you do), you're supposed to link to the person who gave you the award-blogshare thingy, list your own ten honest things, and ask seven more to participate. Meme away!

Paint and horses and stables - oh my!

Too kitschy of a title?

Yeah, I agree.

We're not real big on crafting kits 'round here. Not sure why. The girls aren't too big on coloring books either, though - maybe there's a connection? Anyway, the other day, we saw these kits for making and painting a horse stable and the girls were ecstatic, so we got them.

I thought it was cool that you get to paint the horses also. The girls got their little horse book and pored through it, looking for inspiration. Then they both painted a 'paint' horse, like the one on the box.


The box only gave traditional colors for the stable, so we had to go to our paint shelf to get more exciting colors. Who wants a red and black stable? Pssh. That's for those with no imagination.

We needed to name our horses, so Hannah had me write her chosen name on a paper that she then copied onto a tag. Delphine Petal. It took two tags. Somehow Ains was able to fit Honey Pie onto one tag. It is still a mystery.
The horses seem to enjoy living next to each other.Now the stables and horses get lots of playtime and get carted everywhere. Hannah had to be convinced that she didn't need to take it fishing with her the other night.

With a dog and a little brother in the house, and receiving such constant attention, I'm not sure how long these will be treasured toys, but the girls are definitely squeezing every last bit of enjoyment out of them right now.

Some quick questions...

-What do I make with 'rib knit' fabric? Not that I have cute fabric in mind, or anything. Not that I could afford it if I did. *sigh* But what do I make with that type of fabric? And does it differ at all from a fabric simply labeled 'knit'?

-I want to make my girls some sun hats but can't find a pattern. I'd like one like this. Any ideas?

-When will I find time to get all of my projects done? Hmm?

Snapshot Sunday

Some Snapshot Sundays are difficult because you look around and there's just nothing that jumps out at you, nothing that says "This is our life!" I don't mind taking laundry and toilet and mess pictures, but they do tend to be a constant in my life, and five pictures of messy would get boring week after week.

This week, however, was easy. I grabbed the camera and everywhere I turned were little tableaus that whispered about what Mother or Hannah or Ainsley or Grayson were interested in during the last few days. Easy peasy.











How it began.

Other snapshots -
Sherry
Rinnyboo (welcome back!)
Bona Fide Mom (Welcome!)
West Coast Girl
Leslie
Ramblings
Cindy

If you post a Snapshot Sunday, let me know and I'll add you in!

Kids these days.

"Father, I'm making pancakes. It's hard to do while I'm talking to you because they're so hot. I don't think it's very safe. Guess what? I milked the goat today."

The sunshine fairies have blessed us.

It is finally warm enough to wear a swimsuit.

For some of us.


"Walk like an Egyptian." "Momma, I don't know that boy."

Them kids...

-Hannah's uncle asked her what the spots on her face were. "Freckles," she answered. "Are you sure they're not angel kisses?" he asked. "Well are they blue?" says she. "No, they're brown." "Then they're definitely freckles." Apparently angel kisses are blue...

-Gray and I walked in the floor from choring and I nearly tripped over Ains sitting on her knees scrubbing the floor with a washcloth. I thought that maybe she'd accidentally peed and was cleaning it up, so I asked "Is everything ok?"

"No, momma," she said, "me no make mess. Me Cinwella and Hannah stepsister. She bewy mean." and she happily goes back to scrubbing. A few minutes later I hear her say "Me done stepsister. Me going pay wif Bobo (Cygnus)."

-H: Mother, I just went poo potty and it had corn and peas in it.

M: I did not need to know that.

H: I didn't know that. What if you *did* need to know it and I hadn't told you? How could I live with myself?

-I asked Gray if he wanted a cookie and Ains answered "Me want cookie, Momma."

"You do?"

"Yes. I hooman baby. Hooman babies eat cookies."

- We were getting ready to go to a family reunion and while we were packing the truck, we were trying to finish all of the last-minute stuff that needed to be completed/turned off/packed. Hannah was ready, waiting, and impatient to be off to see her cousins. Finally she said, in a very frustrated voice, "Why is everyone hurrying so slow?"

-Ainsley's still switching words with hilarious results. If she wants a Jones Soda, I get asked for a 'baking soda'. If she wants to read Fancy Nancy and the Posh Puppy, I get asked to read 'Fantsy Pantsy'.

-Grayson? He's just gotten into teasing his sisters. Anything he can do to get squeals out of them he will. He put this to good use the other day when Hannah was sad. He gave her a bemused look and went up and started tickling her knees. Luckily, it was a small sad, so his tickles worked and he was mightily pleased with himself.

Cousin play.

My sister-in-law came out our way visiting, so we went to see her. Her little one is the same age as Grayson, but of the female persuasion, so I've been using her as a reason to unload our little girl clothes. I took all of the 18 month old clothes with us and Hannah and she went through them. Hannah was in her element.
Outside, there was a water fight going on between all of the boys that lived or were visiting there. Hannah jumped right in and held her own. They were moving too fast for me to get any good pictures.

The family my sister-in-law was staying with had more toys (they had five different *types* of bikes - about fifteen bikes total) than you could play with in three hours. Not that Ainsley didn't give it an honest try.


Her favorite toys were the skateboards




I love her little tongue out in concentration in this picture.


Her little cousin thought the little skateboard looked like a little bit of fun. And it was. A little.


Gray was mainly a one-toy man. (The sun was a bit bright.)


Hannah was tired from her water fight.

It was a stellar day. Epic even. (That's for you, Patrick.)

Look, Mommy, I found mine manimal!

"It's a diraffe!"

Flower presses are ready for our next hike.

Or the next time the girls step out the front door, whichever comes first. (You get no more than one guess on that one.)

Here's Hannah's -


Here's Ainsley's -


Here are the ones we made as gifts for friends.


It's unlikely that the flowers will press as evenly with all of those decorations on the top, but they will certainly be used more than they would otherwise, so I'll take it. If we do these again, I'll have some stamps and ink ready so that we can decorate with those instead, but this weekend we went with what we had on hand and I do think they turned out sweet.

This is the tutorial I used.

Snapshot Sunday

How it began.

Other snapshots -
Stephanie
Heart Rockin' Mama
Leslie
Tuan's Princess
Kyre