Bloggy Giveaways!

Here are some fun giveaways that you'all should join in on!!









or here you can enter to win an organic onesie that says "my stroller is a hybrid" or "I am still mad at Yoko"


http://blog.littleonesbabygifts.com/2008/07/monday-morning-madness-giveaway-organic.html

REALLY neat program:

http://shoppinggems.wordpress.com/2008/07/27/enter-to-win-2-rejavanate-shopping-bags/




WANT ONE OF THESE:

Win the Essential Babywearing Stash from Along for the Ride (one Beco Butterfly, one Hotsling baby pouch, one BabyHawk Mei Tai, one Zolowear Ring Sling, and one Gypsy Mama Wrap)



or these great wine charms:
http://www.starryskye.org/blog/?p=1060#comments

Mommy Recovery/Nesting

"The ordinary arts we practice every day at home are of more importance to the soul than their simplicity might suggest."
~ Thomas Moore


Gabriel is now 2 weeks old. My midwife said to rest a day for each person in your home. That gives me a week. Two of those days I was out all day at Drs. appts for Gabriel. Our church and local homeschool group brought us meals for a week. WHAT a blessing that was--no planning, shopping or work during the "bewitching hour."

But, now here I am. I am honestly trying not to do "too much." I'm also wondering what too much is. I am bleeding still. There is so much that I WANT to do. I am sooo excited not to be sick with pregnancy and I have this beautiful baby and great family and and...I also have bouts of "all these people" and "all this activity" driving me bonkers. I sway back and forth.

My 12 year old son is trying us discipline wise BUT he has been solely taking care of his rambunctious 2 year old brother including putting him down for naps etc. That is pricelss. God Bless older children! He keeps trying to stop me from doing things and apologizing for him having not done them. As is? How would he know that I wnated a closet cleaned out RIGHT NOW. I have been moving furniture I think I may have read not to lift until 6 weeks post partrum ??) and fixing pictures on the walls and boxing up and labeling outgrown clothes etc. My mind keeps rushing to planning for the school year and excitement about Autumn. BUT what happened to summer? We NEED to do something this summer!!

Is the "what is too much" question one that is constantly asked and never really answered? Do I honestly have too much to do and that is just life? When will I stop looking so haggard and tired?

Cardiologist Appt for Gabriel

It was such a long day!

It took so much energy just to get to the appt. The cardiologist was very thorough and did an EKG, and an echocardiogram (basically an ultrasound of the heart) for a WHILE.


Apparently, there is some place in the heart where the blood seperates to go in two different directions. It is common to have a hole there that heals up before birth or right after. He still has a pin sized hole there, but it is closing. He also has a slight heart murmur, which is common and only scary if it lasts over one year old.
We are very blessed! It was good to get to the bottom of Gabriel's heart stuff and know what is going on.

The Birth of Gabriel

Our planned homebirth:


turned into a quick van ride, on oxygen, to Cottage Hospital when Gabriel's heart tones got funky.

I ended up in bed on fetal monitors for a day and a half waiting for something to happen wondering what was going on with his heart tones.

At 8:30 on Tuesday night labor still had not gotten started and we encouraged my husband to go eat dinner. Kathleen volunteered to go get him a pizza. Labor started. It got so hard that I said I was "done," I couldnt do anymore. I was 6 cm dilated; within 2 minutes I was at 10 and my body pushed out a beautiful baby boy at 9:12 pm.



Gabriel, and two very tired parents, spent the 6th day of his life at the pediatricians office trying to figure out his heart tones. We are now planning a trip to Santa Barbara to see a pediatric cardiologist--maybe we can get some answers. Not the "babymoon" we had envisioned and not the birth we had planned, but here we are blessed just the same.

Gabriel Issac

7 lbs 6 oz.

20 inches long

7/08/08

9:12 p.m.

10 months and 10 days in the making....

Our Fourth of July

Planning just isn't going well for us lately. We are now 6 days over our baby's due date. I wanted the 4th of July to be special and kind of planned things and then slept until 1:30. Yes 1:30. I am soo tired.

My husband and boys watched specials on the History Channel all day. We had bought hot dogs and buns (we NEVER do that) and popscicles and planned to barbeque and play outside together. Didn't happen. The baby never slept and we boiled hot dogs :)

We did color pictures:


And set up chairs on our front lawn to watch the city's fireworks display, (one of the benefits of living on a busy street down town.) It took all the energy I could muster to find myself a sweater and get outside. My 7 year old daughter made everyone tea. Right before the dipsplay, a 15 passenger van and two cars pulled up to our house.

It was our dear friends: Mom, Dad, 9 kids, sister in law, brother in alw, their 3 kids, and their Grandma and Grandpa. I was so happy for friends. They were a little embarasssed that we hadn't talked about it and they hadn't called. We didn't care. They didn't need to.

Our 12 year old boys wrestled in the grass. Our 10 year old boys wrestled and pretended each fire work was a grenade. Their almost 3 year old yelled "FIGH YER" with each one. They all laid out a blanket on the grass and sat together. We were having such a good time we didn't notice that they fireworks were done and just kept talking. :)

I didnt plan. I wasn't even that sociable. I didnt MAKE things happen for my kids like I wanted to. But it was OK. We had a fun day and a fun time because we were with friends.