Asher, I am so proud of you.

I wish there was a way to tell my little six-month-old how proud I am of him.  Since this blog has served as a sort of "record" for his firsts, I thought I would write him a letter.  Maybe when he's an adult he'll read this, cry, and hold his mommy and tell me that he'll never love anyone as much as me.  I can dream, right??

Dear Asher,
           I never had any clue just how remarkable you would be.  I knew you would be cute, I knew I would love you, I knew you would be smart, but I had no idea what an amazing miracle you would be.
       Your latest "tricks" have been crawling backwards, and rolling in all directions to get something you want.  I just can't believe that you have figured out a way to move.  The look on your face is so cute--sheer determination to reach the toy that is just out of reach.  When you do reach it, you turn your head to find me and give me a big, proud smile.  You're amazing.
        Right now you are upstairs taking a nap.  Even how you go to sleep is amazing.  When you get sleepy, I put you in a sleepsack and start to nurse you.  While you nurse you keep your eyes tightly closed.  When you've had enough food, you open one eye (as if to make sure I'm still there) and put your right thumb in your mouth.  When I place you in your crib you roll on your side, keep sucking your thumb, tightly close your eyes, and go to sleep. Daddy and I love to watch this--we think it is so entertaining and adorable how you know exactly what you need and put yourself to sleep.  Every night when we leave your room after putting you to bed, Daddy and I look at each other and comment on what an awesome kid we have.
      You could not be more boyish.  You laugh after you poop, you are a very stinky kid, and you are attracted to things that are fast or shiny.  You are also the smileyest baby I've ever known--you honestly smile all the time.  Even if you are crying and fussy, if someone smiles at you you can't help but give them a giant smile back.  Your laugh is infectious and I would do just about anything to hear it.
         I love you so much and am so proud of you.  I adore you and feel so very blessed to be your mommy.  Always know that you are so very loved, valuable, and perfect just how you are.
Love, Mommy.

Christmas Cards!

One of our accidental traditions as a family has to do with our Christmas card.  Our first year of marriage we weren't sure whether it was appropriate to send a letter because we didn't have cute kids for our friends and family to tape to their fridge.  We ended up sending a card from shutterfly with a wedding picture.  Nice, simple, real crowd pleaser.

So, in 2008 we were not going to send anything at all.  Again, no cute kids to speak of and we had always mocked those who sent cards without kids.  I mean seriously, what are we looking at?  How you have changed your hair since last year?  However, that was the year of the huge snowstorm.  We were snowed in and stranded for about three days, but really life was not normal for about two weeks.  When the snow first started, we ran outside, asked a random guy putting chains on his car to take a picture, and got this gem in one shot!

So, in the middle of the snowstorm, we ordered cards from shutterfly and overnighted them.  We then had the genius plan to write a letter from Wilson's perspective and send it with the card.  We sent the photocard with the letter and were mocked mercilessly for the letter and got raves about how cute the picture was.

2009:  We are now pregnant and busier than we have ever been.  We now own a house, work full time in very demanding careers, and are trying to have a social life before little baby gets here!  We decided to send the letter from Wilson, but not  a picture.  We literally got emails and notes on Christmas cards asking where the photocard was.  People were ticked!  

So, for this year, we will not make that mistake again.  We have scheduled our pictures with our photographer and are determined to get a Christmas-card-worth pic.  We will certainly be ordering our cards from shutterfly.  I find their products to be the BEST and their customer service cannot be beat.  They are giving me free cards for blogging about them, but I think I would rave about them even if they didn't!

Since we don't have a picture yet I haven't picked which cards I want, but I have looked!  You can see their holiday cards here. 

Here are some of my favorites! 

Update:

Okay, so I have no pictures or anything interesting to say.  This post is just so I have some sort of record of when this stuff started happening!!
Asher has his second tooth.  It is right next the his first one on the bottom.  Also, he LOVES pears.  He squeals with delight while eating them and protests when they are all gone.  Adorable.
He is also sitting by himself for a few seconds and army crawling backwards.  He seems very frustrated that he isn't crawling yet.

K, I have to go fold more laundry!  :)

He is jealous for me.

I have an amazing husband. Every night he comes into Asher's room, reads him a story, and then we sing and play the guitar. Most of the time it's a very very silly time. Last night, I think it was for me. I've been so discouraged and angry about so many things in regards to God recently. Both things about what God allows to happen, as well as how so many of his "followers" act in hate and stupidity.

This song has always been a favorite of ours. Thank you, Tyler, for bringing this song up when I needed it most. Thank you for reminding me how God loves.

He is jealous for me,
Loves like a hurricane, I am a tree,
Bending beneath the weight of his wind and mercy.
When all of a sudden,
I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory,
And I realise just how beautiful You are,
And how great Your affections are for me.

And oh, how He loves us so,
Oh how He loves us,
How He loves us all

Yeah, He loves us,
Oh! how He loves us,

We are His portion and He is our prize,
Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes,
If His grace is an ocean, we?re all sinking.
And Heaven meets earth like an unforseen kiss,
And my heart turns violently inside of my chest,
I don?t have time to maintain these regrets,
When I think about, the way?

We have a tooth!!

So I don't have a picture because he is currently sleeping in his crib--but baby boy has a tooth!!!  What a big boy!!  Stay tuned....................

5 months and counting!!!

Super Fun Solid Starting on Sunday!

After talking last night to friends (thanks Meade and Geigles!)  I decided that Asher is probably ready for a little bit of solids, even if his mommy isn't.  He was sleeping through the night, and  now is waking up hungry, he's grabbing for food, he's mouthing like he wants to eat while he watches us eat, and he just seems like he wants more after nursing.  I have been fighting it, but I thought I would try a little rice today.
It went well!  I have no idea how much he ate since most of it ended up everywhere but his mouth but still!  I kinda felt like I was feeding him poison seeing as how until today the only thing to go in his belly has been breastmilk and baby Tylenol, but that's a "me" issue.  :)  Oh, I should also say that I've been in so much denial about starting solids that I haven't gotten a high chair yet.  If you have one that you would like to give/sell to us please let me know!
For your viewing pleasure:


Rice.




pre breastmilk addition




Scared Mama.......  (note Asher holding the bowl.  "Gimme!!")





:)



And Happy Halloween!!



How I'm able to spend $35 a week on groceries.

I've always been a coupon nut--I blame it on my mother.  I was raised with the belief to never pay full price for ANYTHING and I follow it.  Money is tight these days for everyone so I thought I would write down some of my "rules".

My title is true--I budget and spend $35 a week on groceries.  I should say that every 6 weeks or so I spend about $75 to stock up on stuff (examples: flour, sugar, etc.) but I think that still probably puts us below the average.  (If I may brag, my big claim to fame is that in October of last year I ended up spending $20 on groceries for the entire month.  I remind Tyler of this whenever I go over budget.)  So, here it is for your reading pleasure.


#1:  Get over being ashamed to shop with a calculator.  I mean it--get over it!  I literally shop with my list, a pen, and a calculator.  Nothing goes into my cart without being entered in the calculator, and the price written on my list next to the item.  I was never able to keep an accurate total in my head, and I've noticed that writing stuff down on my list forces me to stick to it.  I was so embarassed at first, but I promise you as soon as you start carrying a calculator with you, you will see tons of other people doing it.  Promise.

#2:  Read ALL in-store ads before you go shopping and plan you meals around what's on sale.  If you're on a tight budget, just tell youself you don't have the luxury to buy whatever you want--you are at the mercy of whatever the Fred Meyer/Safeway/Alberton's gods deem is on on sale.  If pork is cheap--make a couple of meals out of it!  Ground beef on sale?  Chili it is!  Don't plan too many meals in too far advance--change as the sales change. 

#3:  Know your seasonal produce.  You will seriously save a ton of money.  Knowing whether produce is on sale because it is in season or because it is about to go bad is huge, too.

#4:  Decide which items are worth spending money or worth saving.  For example, I don't buy produce that is on sale (unless it is seasonal) because it tends to go bad like a day later.  Ground beef, on the other hand, can be really cheap.  I believe the all canned goods are created equal, but eggs are not.

#5:  Clip coupons, but don't use them right away.  One of the big no-no's when it comes to coupon clipping is buying things you don't need at full price, just because you have a $0.35 off coupon.  I've noticed that most of the time the stores don't put items on sale the week manufacturers send out coupons on items for this very reason.  Save the coupons, and only use them when you need the item and it is already on sale.  This is how you get free groceries.

#6: Don't forget online coupons!!  You can load coupons on your store card, but then also use a coupon from the paper.  You just doubled your coupon!  And if you have a double coupon, you just tripled the deal!  Score!

#7:  Always have a few cheap, backup meals in your mind.  If you are reaching the end of your grocery budget and need a few more meals, always have something cheap in mind (salad, chili, etc.) to fall back on.  Another:  I;ve noticed that we really only use milk for cereal.  So, if I am running out of room in my budget, I can skip buying both milk and cereal and instead but a thing of oatmeal which is usually cheaper than a gallon of milk and lasts forever.

#8:  Ah, the power of beans.   I have learned that most  meals can be stretched enough to have a ton of leftovers if you just throw in a can of beans.  Try it, you'll see.

#9:  See food for what it is: fuel.  Yes, I love to cook and I am married to the best baker I've ever known.  However, it is not a priority to us to always have elaborate and fancy meals worth bragging about on facebook.  Food is yummy, but it is what it is.  We made the decision that we would rather spend money on other things than food.  Once we made this decision, buying rice and beans instead of steak became a lot easier.  Buying fancy food just didn't seem like a need anymore, which leads me to my final rule:

#10:  Decide what are wants and what are needs.  For us, fresh produce is a need and wine (after much prayer, consideration, meditation, and therapy I can say) is a want.  We don't have money for everything we want, so we buy the needs and if there is leftover the wants get in there.

Anywho, I hope this helps!  If not, feel free to make fun of my coupon-clipping ways. 

Hiccups + Daddy doing funny things = PURE JOY! :)

Hi, my name is Brittany and I am addicted to Tea Tree Oil.

                                                    
If you haven't already started using Tea Tree Oil for everything you must do it now!  It is a natural oil that apparently makes unicorns levitate among other things.  It cleans, disinfects, deodorizes in a safe and natural way.  I think what I love most about it is I can clean while I have Asher in the Ergo.  Here is what I've done with it so far:
-Mixed a couple of drops with water and a splash of vinegar to disinfect.  I put this in a spray bottle and cleaned the bathrooms and kitchen as well as Asher's diaper pail.  They all smell so yummy (minty smell), and I literally used three drops for the entire bottle.
-Mixed 1 tsp. with a GALLON of water to disinfect my hardwood and bathroom floors.  That's right folks--my floors are both disinfected but also not full of chemicals so my baby can be on them. 
-Dipped a q-tip in some and rubbed it on the bottom of the front door where I think we've been letting spiders in the house.  According to what I read online, it will keep creepy crawlys from coming back.

Other things to do with it:
-Put it on scrapes/cuts.  It will soothe and heal
-Use it to deoderize diaper pails.  And, yes, it is cloth diaper safe (!)
-Make a cloth wipe solution
-dillute with water and put on diaper rash
-cures ringworm
-kills yeast


I bought mine here: http://www.soap.com/product/productdetail.aspx?productid=48286  They are on sale 2 for 1, and if you use the coupon code CheprPleez you get 20% off and free shipping if you spend $49 at soap.com or diapers.com.  I got a box of household products at soap.com for super cheap when I bought it.  Anywho, just wanted to share in the joy!

Disinfecting the healthy, cheap, and easy way!

Countertops, bathrooms and laundry OH MY! Want to disinfect and clean without breaking the bank or breaking out the harsh chemicals? Try this: Take a Glass Sugar Pourer (approx $4-5), fill 2/3 with baking soda (maybe $1 worth), 1/3 with Borax (a few pennies worth), then add approx 5-8 drops of Tea Tree Oil (a few pennies worth). Shake shake shake, shake shake shake, shake that Cleaner!

I love to take this to my kitchen for my Countertops and even my wood cuttingboards and granite topped island. Shake a little on and use a wet washcloth to rub it in. The borax will clean and freshen, the baking soda will act as a mild scrubber and odor eliminater, the tea tree oil will kill bacteria. What's not to love? I let it sit for about 10 minutes then squeeze a little warm water over it and wipe it away.

Don't stop there, take it anywhere you need to kill bacteria or eliminate odors like your bathroom, door handles, switchplates, etc.

It's cheap, it's healthy and it's really not that hard!

Lessons Learned in Cloth Diapering: Newborn

So I spent most of my pregnancy researching cloth diapers.  I knew I wanted to cloth diaper even before I was preggo--good for my baby, good for the environment, cute, and CHEAP.  What I had decided to do was use infant sized prefolds and covers for the first couple of months, and when Asher was around 12 pounds start doing one-size diapers.   This is what my sister-in-law did, this is what most moms do.
Didn't work for me.  The prefolds were so bulky his legs would stick straight up in the air--forget getting clothes over them!  I did find that newborn sized diapers worked well, but are pretty expensive (at least $10 each). 
What I ended up doing was keep a couple of "cute" cloth that was tiny sized, but sell most of the others and just do disposable.  Seriously, the newborn sized diapers at target are $5 a box and have 50 diapers.  Maybe I'll try again next time.

Such a sad month.

This has been a strange month.  Not long ago a friend's four month baby passed away from SIDS, and yesterday my beautiful cousin's husband passed away after falling from his bicycle.  They have three little kids who won't have their daddy as they grow up.  I feel sick.  I hate that I live in a world where innocent babies and daddies die for no good reason.  I hate it, and I don't get it.

A new appreciation

Having a baby was the best thing I've ever done for my body.  For the record:  I currently weigh 30 pounds more than I did when I got married.  By the end of my pregnancy I weighed 50 pounds more than when I got married (I gained 37 during pregnancy.  You're welcome.)  I have never been this heavy (exception: when preggo), my hair is falling out by the handful, my skin is going crazy, and I am sleep deprived.  However, I've never had more respect and love for my body.
I've struggled with body image my entire life.  I spent years being treated for an eating disorder, and though I haven't acted on those desires in a very long time they are always in my head.  I know that I have a distorted body image. 
I feel like my whole life I've had a me versus my body mentality.  When I exercised it was to beat my body into submission; I attached emotions to food and either allowed my body what it wanted or overcame it and declined.  It wasn't until I witnessed my body create this beautiful life that I really got it.  My body had never made a baby before, yet it did everything perfectly and produced this healthy little boy.  It took care of him and his needs as well as my own.  Once he was out, my body shrank back down yet continues to provide the food and protection that my baby needs.  This is amazing to me.  Who cares if I carry more weight than I did before I had a baby, or that I have stretch marks or wear a bigger size.  If that's what my body needs in order to keep my baby healthy than so be it! 
I'm done attaching emotion to food; I'm done beating my body into submission; I'm done obsessing about how small my body is in comparison to someone else's.  My body made Asher, and because of that I will treat it with respect.

One year ago I peed on a stick and everything changed.......

Yep, that about says it.  One year ago today I had this persistent feeling that I, perhaps, was preggo.  We were going away for the weekend, so I thought I would go ahead and pee on a stick so I could stop obsessing--if only I knew that was the beginning of the obsession!!  So began the 38 weeks of worry, morning sickness, weight gain, stretch marks, maternity clothes, BIGGER maternity clothes, and those precious kicks from inside.
Here I am, one year later with a four month old.  Right now, I am sitting in a room that is totally different, listening to my husband play with our son at an hour when we would have been sleeping if not for baby.  I can honestly say that I've never been more exhausted, yet utterly happy in my entire life.

Asher--4 months