My Coupon Soapbox

As promised, a totally non-baby post! :)

Jarred's working unbelievably long days right now so last night, after bathing and getting Emma to bed, Colson and I cuddled up on the couch and watched TLC's new show "Extreme Couponing." I know lots of people are really getting into couponing these days, and I've always wanted to join in, but it seems really overwhelming to me. I have success with the way I do things now, but wondered if couponing could be even better. I hadn't seen the show before and was excited to see how these people do it...maybe I could get some tips!

So here's my thing...
Right now to maintain a low budget, I meal plan a week at a time. I make a grocery list based on the items I need to prepare my meals plus the things we need each day (lunch things, yogurt, eggs, etc). Then I head off to Aldi and get everything I can there. I usually have one or two items left that I pick up at Giant on my way home.

So I'm watching this show and these people are getting INCREDIBLE deals...I mean, buying over $1000 worth of things for $21. It was crazy. But they're getting ridiculous amounts (way more than anyone needs) of non-healthy, non-fresh things. Most of the food was boxed or canned...like 17 frozen pizzas, 45 cans of Chef Boyardi, etc. Don't get me wrong: we are all for a yummy frozen pizza every so often around here. And I'm partial (especially when pregnant) to spaghetti-o's. But I try pretty hard to make a homemade, relatively healthy meal for dinner each night. So based on what I saw on the show and seeing what some other friends are buying with their coupons, I'm gathering that with coupons I could "save" lots of money...meaning: I could buy lots of things, but not spend a lot on them. BUT those things wouldn't really work for our meals and I'd still have to end up buying a lot of things for our week like fresh fruit, meat, etc.

Am I the only one who feels like couponing is cool when you see how much you can get for practically nothing, but it doesn't really seem practical when trying to keep your family on a grocery budget and healthy lifestyle?!?! I feel like everyone's gone a little coupon crazy and I'm still not on the bandwagon....


*Granted, I totally realize I've only watched one episode of a TV show and I completely confess that I don't really understand couponing. So fill me in, how do you make couponing work for you?!?!

Crazy for Colson

When Emma was a baby, I took monthly pictures of her with Bear Bear. (You can read the story of Bear Bear here.) We decided to continue the tradition with Colson. For the first month, I plan on taking a picture every week because they change so much from week to week when they're this little.

1 Week Info:
*Colson wears newborn size clothes and newborn size diapers.
*He eats every 2.5-3hrs.
*He sleeps between each feeding.
*At night he's generally doing 3 hour stretches. A few nights this week he's sleep for 4 or 5 hours and I had to wake him up to nurse him. (momma was READY!)
*We are praising God that at this point, Colson isn't showing any symptoms of having a dairy allergy. I prayed and prayed that this would be the case and his sister was already reacting by this age. Pray that I would continue to believe that he is fine and healthy and not live in a spirit of worry.

How cute is he?!?! He looks like such a little man. And those man hands? Oh my goodness gracious! I'm already amazed at the differences between boys and girls - even just in the size of their hands. Emma had long fingers, but dainty little palms. I wonder how my 2 kiddos will be similar and what will be unique and different about them both. I can't wait to watch Colson grow and develop into a little boy.

We are getting newborn photos taken tomorrow morning and I am so excited. Holly took Emma's newborn pictures and we LOVED them. Hopefully he'll cooperate and we'll get some amazing pictures of our little boy. I'll definitely post some when I can!

I promise to try to post something non-baby related sometime soon, but this is our life right now. We're adjusting to being a family of four and obsessed with this ridiculously handsome little boy. And since this blog is a journal of our lives...this is where we're at right now! :)

One Week

Colson is one week old today!

I could eat him up for dinner! You can't see it in this picture, but my baby boy has DIMPLES! Oh goodness, I can barely stand how cute it is. There's only one, but it's a big one on his right cheek and I think it's probably the cutest thing I've ever seen. (Aside from his sister's rolly polly leg rolls)

Speaking of his sister, she is beside herself...in more ways than one. On the one hand, she is head over heels in love with this "baby" at her house. She loves to kiss the top of his head, give him his "fire" (aka pacifier) when he's fussy, pull off his blanket, and tickle his toes. She's very gentle with him and loves having the baby around. We're so thankful she loves him so much! On the other hand, she's acting out and dealing with the change in the only way she knows how....emotional meltdowns, whining, testing boundaries/limits, and sassy attitude. Our pediatrician recommended getting down on her level and doing lots of close contact one on one play when the baby is sleeping. I've been trying my best, but it's hard to play with her and carry her without overdoing it and slowing down my healing. We're praying she'll adjust quickly and I'll have abundant grace and patience to guide her through this transition.

Can you see how proud/happy my hubby is? haha Our hearts are definitely full these days! :)

Wishing all of you a joyful Easter weekend! 

He's Here!

I'd like you to meet my little boy....

Colson Scott

April 16, 2011

7lb 2oz      20.5in

"the story"

Friday, April 15th was "the day"....the big due date. By this point I had pretty much convinced myself that he was never coming out. My body had been playing tricks on me for weeks, acting like I would be going into labor but nothing would come of it. My best friend Lindsay was getting married on Saturday, April 16th and although I had initially thought we'd be going to the wedding with a 2 or 3 week old baby, it seemed as though I was still going to be able to be there, albeit ginormously pregnant. Lindsay had asked if I would read scripture during the ceremony (a job easily replaceable if I was unable to be there) so Friday evening, we headed to Harrisburg for the rehearsal. I immediately understood why I hadn't had the baby yet. It seemed as though everybody involved in the wedding came up to me and said, "oh I'm SO glad you're here! I've been praying you'd be able to be here!" It seems as though Lindsay's friends and family were praying a little bit harder than mine were. (I kid..haha) After an uneventful rehearsal and a fun dinner, we packed up and headed home to put the little ladybug to bed. On the ride home, I began to notice that the contractions I'd been having for weeks were starting to feel more regular....about 7 minutes apart. By the time we got home, put Emma to bed, and relaxed for a little bit, I was pretty convinced that this was the "real thing." Contractions were getting more and more intense and closer together. Around midnight we decided to call my doctor and she confirmed that we should make our way into the hospital. I really didn't want to get to the hospital sooner than I needed to be and I was afraid that because I hadn't been in labor that long (only about 3 or 4 hours) that I hadn't progressed and would get sent home or be barely dilated. Jarred convinced me that it was time and as we drove to the hospital, I knew he was right. Contractions were now 1-2 minutes apart and very painful. This was the real thing! Even though I believed this was really labor, I still wasn't expecting to hear the triage nurse tell me that I was already at 5cm. Thank you Lord!! 

I labored from then (2am) until around 6am with a wonderful Christian girl who is the daughter-in-law of a couple from our church. It was AMAZING to have a support system of my husband and a nurse who declared scripture and prayed through each contraction with me. At 6am, we decided to get an epidural and by 7am I was feeling much better! :) No more pain; however, we soon discovered that the dosage was too much for my body and so I was numb from the neck down. This made it difficult to expand my lungs to breathe deeply. They turned the epidural off for 30 minutes and after restarting it, I told Jarred to go get something to eat. I was planning to rest and sleep for a bit and I knew he'd be getting hungry. They dimmed the lights in the room and soon I was all alone to rest. Almost immediately I felt an incredible amount of pressure and at the same time, the heart rate monitor for the baby's heart decreased to a very very slow pace. All I could think was...this baby is COMING and he's in distress and my husband isn't here! I beeped to get the nurse back in and she quickly got oxygen on me and changed my position to help the baby while trying to get ahold of my doctor so I could push. A student nurse ran to find Jarred, but I was so worried he'd miss the birth!

Luckily, Jarred got back to the room just as I was set to start pushing. A short 13 minutes later, Colson Scott VP was born! I am incredibly thankful to have been given the opportunity this time to "help" deliver him and hold him on my chest immediately. Emma had some issues that needed to be checked out so we weren't able to hold her for almost an hour. I will never forget pulling my son onto my check and all of those first few tender moments. Birth is a miracle.

We enjoyed a few minutes with our new son as I held him in my arms and Jarred stood beside me holding my legs while the doctor finished the delivery and stitched where I had torn. A combination of no sleep, no food, hot lights, and watching his wife in pain suddenly caused Jarred to become light headed and out of nowhere, he fell onto my lap and slumped to the floor, hitting his head on the way down. Our peaceful, tender hospital room was immediately filled with 15-20 nurses tending to my husband, alarm bells ringing, and chaos. They took him to triage to be sent by ambulance to the ER for evaluation, all while I lay on the delivery table holding our new son whom he hadn't even gotten the chance to hold yet! He was totally fine, aside from a bruised ego (passing out in the delivery room isn't exactly macho for this tough farmer) and a sore head. It was several hours until he came back, and my heart broke for him as I knew he was dying to be with us and embarrassed at what had happened. At the time it wasn't funny, but it has become something we all laugh about and I can't wait to be able to tell Colson about his delivery someday! :) 

I will try to get more pictures uploaded soon and share some other things like why we chose the name Colson, how Emma's handling the transition to big sister, and all that other fun stuff! Thanks for celebrating with us! 

Blessings

Rather than throw a pregnancy pity party like my flesh is often tempted to do these days, I want to share this song with you lovely ladies. You've probably already heard it, but just in case you haven't....enjoy, soak in it's truth, and be blessed! 

Here are the lyrics...

We pray for blessings
We pray for peace
Comfort for family, protection while we sleep
We pray for healing, for prosperity
We pray for Your mighty hand to ease our suffering
All the while, You hear each spoken need
Yet love us way too much to give us lesser things

‘Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You’re near
What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise

We pray for wisdom
Your voice to hear
And we cry in anger when we cannot feel You near
We doubt Your goodness, we doubt Your love
As if every promise from Your Word is not enough
All the while, You hear each desperate plea
And long that we'd have faith to believe

‘Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You’re near
And what if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise

When friends betray us
When darkness seems to win
We know the pain reminds this heart
That this is not, this is not our home,
It's not our home

‘Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
And what if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You’re near
What if my greatest disappointments
Or the aching of this life
Is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can’t satisfy
And what if trials of this life
The rain, the storms, the hardest nights
Are Your mercies in disguise

Warm Days

I'm pretty sure all of my readers are generally from this area. At least I should say...the 14 followers that I know of are from around here, but I can't speak for those "lurkers" who read and don't comment or follow. :) Anyway, so I'm assuming it's safe that you'll understand what I'm talking about when I say...How gorgeous was the weather yesterday!??!!?

The little miss and I spent most of the day outside and it was wonderful! I think this is true for a big majority of little ones, but this little girl is SO much happier to be outside playing than doing anything else! One of the greatest things about living on a farm is that there's always things to do. We have lots and lots of room for her to run and play, there are always people, tractors, trucks or animals to watch come and go, and we can hang out with Daddy while he works! Emma loves to swing and slide and days like yesterday make me wish that we had a swing set at our house. The playgrounds were mobbed I'm sure and our local one doesn't have much shade so we just hung out at home. We have this farm-appropriate wooden swing hanging from a big tree in our front yard and I can barely believe that she's big enough to swing like a real big kid in it! Jarred did it with her at first (and pushes her WAY higher than I do), and I was really nervous, but now after many weeks of her doing it, I'm convinced...the girl knows that she needs to hold on, she tells us when she is "all gone" (aka all done), and she loves it!

We did some walking (aka "let's try to get this baby out"), some 4 wheeler riding (aka "let's try to get this baby out") and then grilled with her cousins and aunt/uncle last night (aka "let's distract ourselves from the fact that this baby isn't coming out yet!"). It was such a fun day and was a total tease for all the good times this spring and summer hold in store. It also made me very thankful that I won't be pregnant during the hot summer months. Heat makes me swell and feel even fatter than I already do! :)

Baby boy is still relaxing and seems to be content where he's at. My due date is fast approaching (Friday) so we're praying that my body will go into labor by the end of this week so that my midwife will be able to deliver him (she goes away for a week on Friday) and I won't have to be induced.

Hope ya'll were able to enjoy the beautiful day too!

Now I lay me down to sleep (pregnancy style)...

Now I lay me down to sleep

I pray the Lord my soul to keep.

If perchance my water would break

I pray that not a big mess I would make...

Oh, That's not how it goes? Oh sorry, I'm slightly obsessed with all things labor and delivery these days...

Corny poem jokes aside....sleep is tricky right now. And because there's not much else going on other than just waiting around for this little guy to arrive and I can't write yet another "still pregnant, nothing changing" post, ya'll are going to hear about my sleeping troubles. Thrilling I know...And I wonder why I only have 14 followers. haha :)

-However sleepy I may be before heading to bed, when I lay my body down, I am no longer tired. I don't think I've fallen asleep before 1am the past few nights. So now I'm in a vicious cycle of staying up too late, getting up a few times throughout the night to use the bathroom and/or roll over, being woken up way too early (hello 5:00am this morning), and then taking an afternoon nap which I think is why I'm not so sleepy at night. I should really just skip the afternoon siesta, but I keep telling myself...if I go into labor this afternoon or tonight, I want to be well rested. Plus, I just love a good nap on the couch and my days of quiet afternoon naps are numbered. Who knows how long it'll be until I get two kiddos to nap at the same time so I'm living it up while I can!

-While in the process of rolling over after crawling into bed tonight, Jarred told me that the noises I was making sounded like I was (and I quote) "a 500 lb moose." He's so sweet to me.

And on that note, this moose is going to lumber back into bed and hope for some solid sleep and then to wake up in labor! Hey, a girl can dream right?!?!

End of pregnancy = surrendering control and believing God's timing is best

I'm still here....or I guess I should say, I'm still pregnant. No baby yet! :)

Monday morning my sister-in-law called asking if they could watch Emma that evening so we could go on one more date night before this little guy comes. We couldn't pass that offer up, so Emma hung out with her cousins and we had a fun night out. Monday was gooorgeous (high 70's and perfection) so after getting home and tucking Em into bed, we went outside to sit on our porch. I was having some painful contractions and commented that I wished we could go for a walk. A relatively busy street with no sides combined with a sleeping baby meant that we couldn't really "go" anywhere so we walked up and down our long farm driveway for almost an hour, popping into the house every so often to make sure the babe was still sleeping and not ruining the house. It was hilarious and fun and random. The contractions subsided shortly after we came inside, but I really enjoyed the time with Jarred and was blessed by his willingness to walk the driveway with me. :)

Yesterday morning I had my 38.5 week doctor's appointment. I'm still 2cm and 75% effaced (no change in the last 3 visits), but my wonderful midwife offered to "shake things up" and hopefully get baby moving on out! (aka strip my membranes). Jarred came along, knowing she'd be doing this for me, so I wouldn't have to worry about how to occupy Emma during the procedure. The whole thing took about 10 seconds after which my husband says, "That's it? You did it?" Cheri looked at him and laughed and said, "Um yes that's it. Would you like me to do it to you? It's not as nice as it looks." haha It was fast for sure, but definitely uncomfortable! :)

She said that probably within 24-48 hrs labor *should* start, and worse case scenario: I'm back in another week for my 39 week appointment. Leading up to the appointment I tried really really hard not to get my hopes up and assume that it was going to work. I had heard plenty of stories of how it did nothing or took a day or two to work so I tried to keep that in mind. My sister-in-law (who has babies like it's a walk in the park) has had this done her last 2 pregnancies and delivered the baby within hours. So with that as an example, poor Jarred was calling every few hours the rest of the day checking in on me.

At this point (over 24 hrs later) I really don't feel much different than I did before the appointment. Without going into yucky, end of pregnancy details that should really be kept private, I will just say that I'm still having random real contractions, but it's only false labor. This morning I really struggled with feeling discouraged and then was frustrated at myself for feeling that way. It's tough when my body gives signs that labor could start at any time, but then doesn't. I think in the back of my mind I was thinking that my body was probably pretty ready so this procedure was going to do the trick and start the ball rolling! Granted, I know, it still could. It's only been one day... But I'm not counting on that. God and I've been talking it out and remembering who is really in control.

In the meantime, I decided to wash the windows for the first time since they were put in 2 years ago. Emma was on bug patrol, pointing out every dead bug in each window sill and we had a fun morning cleaning and dancing to music. The house is clean, we're all healthy, the baby is doing great, and we have all of our needs provided for....and then some! I'm big, tired, and slightly uncomfortable, but I am blessed beyond measure. I needed a reminder of that today.

And I do promise to keep you posted over the next few weeks when we do welcome our son into the world!

Big Girl

We've been working on potty training Emma lately. Overall she's doing great! She is SO proud of herself each time she is successful - claps her hands, says YAYY!!! We make a big deal about it...lots of positive reinforcement. She must think she's got this skill mastered (I assure you...she doesn't) because she's moving on to teaching others.

Twice now I've found her helping her doll use the potty after wandering off and being very quiet for a few minutes. I think she's going to make a very helpful big sister, don't you? :) haha, what a goof!

This morning Aunt Jessie came to play with Emma while we went to a funeral. Emma l.o.v.e.s her Aunt Jessie and it's no secret why. She gives her treats, buys her adorable things like rain boots and tutus, and the latest....

she gave Emma her first manicure!! What little girl doesn't love purple sparkle nail polish?? I know it's not the greatest picture to see the beauty of those little nails, but believe me...she is beside herself with girlie excitement. She was grinning from ear to ear when she woke up from her nap and could show me her nails. haha I love having a little girl!