Meant to Be

Last night I came across the song "Meant to Be" by JJ Heller.  I'm loving her music right now.

Enjoy!

Okay, I can't help myself. Here's one more. And do yourself a favour and browse the rest of her music videos on youtube. ;)

Still looking

It's official now: the house we've been renting has sold. And not to us. We now have about six weeks until we're homeless.

We've looked at pretty much every house in the area that's in, or even near our price range.  There is no obvious "perfect" home for us. We've really been hoping to buy something out of town but really close to town and it looks like that's just not realistic.

At this point I feel pretty good about the prospect of buying a house at all...but still sad to (probably) be giving up the dream of a little acreage.  And yes, "not right now" doesn't mean "never". But I'm still sad.

Please keep praying for us as we consider our options and make decisions about housing for our family.

Dreaming of a home

So much has happened in these past six months. So much.  Moving and baby are the big ones. Huge ones. But still life marches on at breakneck speed.

We have been renting since we moved north, and are hoping to buy a house up here. We've looked at so many houses! Lots are immediately stricken off the list  of possibilities...and some we keep thinking about, keep reworking the numbers...keep dreaming.

We're in the thick of winter up here, but I keep thinking toward spring. Thinking about the garden I want to plant (that I can't in this house), about the dog we want to get (that we can't in this house), about the desire to finally have our own space, and land with room for the kids to run and explore.  Spring is coming and we'd love to move and finally settle into our own place.

The problem is that there is no clear "right place" just yet. A few leads, but nothing that feels right.  We keep hoping, praying,  looking at every possibility that presents itself.  We know it will happen eventually, but we just feel so ready to settle! I personally have lived in fourteen different houses (not counting temporary living situations and all the different dorm rooms) in the past fourteen years. I'm ready for one last move, so we can settle in and not move for a few years.

Would you join us in praying for a house? A place where we can settle in and stay a while.  Much appreciated.

This earth is so not our home!

post-baby body image: a shared struggle

Life after baby is blissful in many ways.  The smiles, cooing, snuggles, the warmth of sweet baby breath. And then you look in the mirror.  A quick glance is okay, but if you linger too long, it's easy to have your self-esteem come crashing to the floor around you.

Most days I can handle it.  "I have four kids, and really overall I'm doing pretty good" I find myself thinking.  Of course I'm going to look a little different than I used to.  I don't expect, or even want, to get into my tiny-size-four clothes from before I ever was pregnant.  But some days, especially when I just can't find something that fits right, it's easy to lose perspective.  Shopping was so easy when anything I tried on seemed to look good. I guess twenty-year-old-never-had-babies bodies are like that.

But now, instead of a twenty-year-old-never-had-babies body, I find myself in an almost-thirty-carried-and-birthed-four-babies body, and it doesn't look quite the same.  Things have rearranged and stretched and all-around gotten bigger.  It's not all bad, by any means.  But it is different, and change can be hard.

"I look at my body in the mirror, and the familiar internal conversation begins. First there is the still present feeling of surprise. That’s me? Then comes the uncontrollable feeling of disgust constricting my throat. But on its heels the thought: wait a minute, these scars are sacred, they represent one of the most significant stories within my story, something I don’t want to forget, and there, right there is evidence of my own rebirth into something more. But I hardly take a breath before my hands are moving to my stomach to stretch it out flat and make it look like a long-gone me. If I could just change this one part…" (These are the Lines of a Story by Mary Martin Wiens).

I write this simply to say: you are not alone.  I believe this is a struggle we all share.  We've had babies and our bodies will never be the same.  Nor should they be.  My hope is that the more we talk about the struggle, the more we encourage one another, flaws and all, the more normal and acceptable our post-baby bodies will be.

To end, a quote from one of my favourite authors, Rachel Jankovic:

"...our bodies are tools, not treasures. You should not spend your days trying to preserve your body in its eighteen-year-old form.  Let it be used.  By the time you die, you want to have a very dinged and dinted body.  Motherhood uses your body in the way that God designed it to be used.  Those are the right kind of damages. ... Scars and stretch marks and muffin tops are all part of your kingdom work. ... So realize that your body is a testimony to the world of God's design.  Carry the extra weight joyfully until you can lose it joyfully.  Carry the scars joyfully as you carry the fruit of them. Do not resent the the damages that your children left on your body.  Just like a guitar mellows and sounds better with age and scratches, so your body can more fully praise God having been used for His purposes. So don't resent it, enjoy it." (Loving the Little Years, pp. 58-60).

Birth-y Musings at Christmas

As a mother and a doula, I often find myself wondering over the missing details of the Christmas story. Was Mary really alone with Joseph when she gave birth? I doubt it. The little that I know and understand of the culture of that time, and the culture of birth throughout history leads me to think there must have been a midwife present, or at least another woman. But as a lover of a good birth story, I want to not justbspeculate, but know exactly how the greatest birth story of all actually happened.

How long did Mary labour?  How long were Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem before she went into labour?  Was it the effort and exertion of the trip that pushed her into labour, or did it start gradually the morning after they arrived? Who was with her in labour?  Did the wife of the innkeeper come when she heard there was a young woman in labour? Did she  fetch the local midwife? Or was it really just Joseph with her as she struggled to give birth to her firstborn, as movies and pictures usually depict.

I will never know the answers until I get to heaven, but this Christmas season my heart is full of wonder at the virgin birth and how unique and amazing it was and still is.

Not only the unique circumstances of Mary giving birth in a barn, but the whole event. A virgin birth. God, born as a man. Entering frail humanity, becoming one of us, to save us. The absurdity of shepherds being visited by angels and coming to worship a baby. And how bizarre this all must have appeared to anyone else who overheard the story but didn't witness the angels. The baby born in the barn is a king? And angels visited shepherds - only shepherds - to tell them the Good News? How strange.

And yet, how true. Amazing. Miraculous. Wonderful.

"But Mary treasured up all of these things,  pondering them in her heart" (Luke 2:19). As I snuggle my own little baby boy this Christmas, I too am pondering these things, and treasuring my Saviour and His miraculous birth.

And looking forward to the day when I can get all the details in my heavenly home. ;)

My Annual Cheesecake

I'm a bit of a traditionalist, and for my birthday that means cheesecake.  Some years my mom (or someone else) has made one, some years we've bought one, and some years I've made my own.  Because a girl's got to do what a girl's got to do! Especially when cheesecake is on the line.

This was one of those years.

I couldn't decide between plain cheesecake with berry sauce or a more decadent chocolate cheesecake. In the end I decided to take my usual plain cheesecake and swirl it with chocolate.

It smells amazing.

And based on the taste of the batter (which you shouldn't eat due to the raw eggs...I know, I know), it tastes pretty amazing too.

Charisa's Chocolate Swirl Cheesecake

Crust
1 cup graham crumbs
3 Tbsp melted butter
2 Tbsp sugar

Cake
3 packages cream cheese (250g each)
3/4 cup sugar
3 Tbsp flour
1 1/2 Tbsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp vanilla
4 eggs

4 oz dark chcoolate
2 Tbsp cocoa powder

Topping
3/4 cup whipping cream
4 oz semisweet or dark chocolate
2-3 tsp honey, to taste

pinch salt

 

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.  Combine crust ingredients.  Press into 9" springform pan. Bake 10 minutes. Let cool. Turn oven to 425 degrees.

Melt 4 oz chocolate on low heat and set aside to cool slightly (must still be runny).

Soften cream cheese in a large bowl and add sugar, flour, lemon juice, vanilla. Mix until smooth. Add eggs one at a time and mix to combine.

Pour half mixture into cooled crust.  To the other half add melted chocolate and cocoa powder. Combine.  Pour into crust on top of plain batter and run a knife through gently to swirl.

Bake for 10 minutes.  Reduce heat to 250 degrees and continue baking another 45 minutes or until centre of the cake is firm to the touch.

Let cool at room temperature. Once cooled, store in fridge until you top it - at least two hours prior to serving.

Combine whipping cream, chocolate, honey, salt in a medium pot over low heat. Stir until smooth. Cool slightly.  Pour over centre of the cake to fill any cracks, and spread to within 1/2" of edge. Chill until topping is set, about 1 hour.

Let sit at room temperature for an hour before serving.

Enjoy!

Adapted in part from Decadent Chocolate Cheesecake from Mel's Kitchen Cafe.

Oh, and happy birthday to me! ;)

My Favourite Budget Meals: Dal Makhani

This is the beginning of a mini-series featuring some of our favourite frugal meals.  Some recipes I will post here, and some I will simply link to; this is one of those days.

Dal makhani is one of our favourite Indian dishes, and simply by nature of being vegetarian,  it's very cheap to make.  This creamy lentil dish isn't spicy, just rich and flavourful.  Dal and rice on the dinner table makes for a very happy family in my house.  And a happy wallet too!

You can find the recipe for Dal Nirvana over at Budget Bytes, and it is similar to dal makhani at our favourite Indian take-out restaurant.

Our Winter Storm in Photos

Micah and his Great Grandpa built a snow castle!

It took a long time to dig out the driveway.

the view from our front door!

A Winter Storm

We've spent much of this last week digging ourselves out from an incredible snowstorm. Anything I had previously considered a winter storm pales in comparison.  It snowed non-stop from Tuesday night to Friday morning, with the bulk of the snow falling on Thursday. We had about three feet of snow dump on us.

Along with the mass amounts of snow came power outages.  Many, many power outages.  At our house the outages were reasonable; I think the longest was five hours.  But many people in our town had no power for 24 hours, or even up to 72 hours in some areas. The snow stopped falling several days ago, but the power outages have continued as trees still heavily laden with snow topple onto power lines.

And it was cold!  In the couple days following the snowfall it reached -38C on more than one occasion. You can imagine that a house left without heat in -30 for 24 hours or more is not a good situation.  When the power was out the grocery store closed, and neither of our two gas stations could pump gas.  We, as a region, quickly slipped into survival mode, and our community facebook group was flooded with offers of warm shelter and food (by those fortunate people with either wood heat or generators).

My grandparents live just down the street from us, but their half of town was among those without power for 24 hours.  So we enjoyed their company and the kids got lots of snuggles and stories while we waited for their power to come back on and then for their house to heat up.  (Without heat the inside of their house dropped to just three degrees.)

I was amazing to see our little village band together as a community.  We are so blessed to live here.  Although the weather is cold, the community is indeed warm.

What You Really Need for a Baby

As I've mentioned before, Stewart and I lived very simply and very frugally for the first few years of our marriage, while he was in college and I was a stay-at-home-mom.  Among other things, this means that we've often made do without a lot of baby gear--even things that many others consider necessary.  And so we find ourselves, with our fourth baby and still without a crib!  From our experience so far, here's our list of essential baby gear (followed by our list of unnecessary items).

we love our Phil & Ted's double stroller

Every baby needs:
-a carseat
-diapers
-a bed (bassinet/playpen/crib)
-sleepers and onesies (or pajamas and undershirts, depending on what you call them!)
-blankets (some big flannel ones for swaddling, and some warmer ones)
-a good stroller
-baby carrier of some type (sling/mei tai/beco/ergo/etc...)

Seriously.  That's it for essentials.  Well, and food of course, but for breastfeeding moms the food is free and built-in. :)

Three items that we have found helpful, but not necessary are a bouncy seat for a newborn, and a Bumbo and an Exersaucer for an older baby.  These are items that each baby only uses for a few months, so they are often items you can easily borrow from a friend.  (With our first three babies we used a borrowed Bumbo - a different one each time.)

Lastly, my list of items that we personally have found to be unnecessary (ie: we've never needed):
-crib (we have used a bassinet/playpens instead - easier to haul around)
-diaper genie (just empty the garbage often)
-baby bath (just use the kitchen sink or bathtub)
-change table (we just got one for free and I rarely use it)

And a word about baby clothes.  They are cute.  And adorable.  And totally unnecessary!  It's fun to have baby clothes and dress them up sometimes.  But really, it's totally okay for a baby to wear onesies and sleepers for the first few months of life.  Baby clothes are very cute and tempting to buy but the reality is, if you want to, you can definitely do without them.

Is there anything you can add to my list of essentials?  Or any baby gear that you've found unnecessary?  Leave a comment!

This list is not meant to condemn anyone who has more baby gear than us.  We have been asked many times by couples considering having a baby, about what a baby actually needs, so this is simply intended to answer that question from my perspective.

Mastering the Laundry Chaos

Laundry. It's one of those never-ending chores, like cooking and cleaning the kitchen.  Everyone needs to do laundry,  but once you have a baby the amount of laundry grows like crazy, because not only do they get their clothes dirty, they get your clothes dirty too!  And I've found that the more kids we have, the more out of control the laundry seems to get.

As I sit here, there are six--wait, make that seven--piles of sorted laundry on the floor of my dining room, waiting for their turn in the machines.  That is a pretty easy laundry day for us right now! Last week I did nine loads on laundry day.

keeping it real!

I don't think there is (unfortunately) any one tried-and-true solution to the laundry chaos.  Over the years I've tried a few different strategies to try to keep up, each having its merits and being effective for a time.  So I'm offering you the various methods I've employed at different times, hoping someone might find it helpful.

Regardless of our the laundry strategy I'm using, I always have a missing sock bin. Usually, as I fold laundry, I toss all the socks directly into the bin. When I'm done with the rest of the clothes, I dump the socks on the floor and have the kids help me find pairs. We call it the sock matching game and they love it!  You could even make it a competition to see who can find the most pairs.  Then, of course, all the socks without a pair go back into the bin.

Along with a sock bin, I also have a bin for each child. As I fold clothes I immediately sort them into the bins as I go, so they are ready for the kids or I to take to the bedrooms and put away. If I am only washing a load or two at a time, I leave the bins in the laundry room and put clothes away once they're full (after a few days). In the meantime the clothes are still easy to find if you're looking for something. 

Sometimes I have tried to wash only one or two loads a day and fold each item as I take it out of the dryer. This keeps me from even getting started with the dreaded clean laundry pile (which in my house sits there forever before getting folded).

I have also tried to immediately sort but not fold clothes as I remove them from the dryer. I put them into the kids bins,  and when a bin gets full, I fold it as I put it away in the bedroom.

Currently, I have a big laundry day once a week. I gather and sort it all and keep the machines humming pretty much all day long. It usually takes me 7-10 loads!  As they finish in the dryer, I make a massive pile of clean clothes on the couch.  The pile is rather daunting, so I often would enlist Stewart's help and we'd make an evening of it. However, for now, I have a friend who has offered to fold laundry for me once a week (I call her my laundry fairy). I work to get it all washed and heaped on the couch, and she folds and puts away.  (She is a huge blessing,  especially in this season of four little ones!)

the massive pile :)

My final laundry strategy is to only fold what's necessary.  That said, in my opinion, almost all clothes fall into that category.  However, I generally do not fold kids underwear, cloth napkins (I can fold them as we use them if it's a special meal or for guests - see this post), or rags.

As my kids get older, I plan on teaching them to each do their own laundry. My oldest is almost five years old, so the day that I am back to being responsible for only the laundry for Stewart and I is a long way off!  In the meantime, I've found it helpful to intentionally pick a strategy and try to stick with it for a while; it helps me feel like I have a plan of attack and am not just constantly swimming upstream.  :)

Do you have any laundry tips and tricks?  I'd love to hear them! Leave me a comment. 

--
I have learned many of these ideas from other moms, including:
Lindsey Edmonds at Passionate Homemaking (specifically this post)
Mary Ostyn in her book A Sane Woman's Guide to Raising a Large Family
Michelle Duggar in their book The Duggars: Twenty and Counting
My good friend, Cherilyn, mom of seven kids

Winter Baby-Wearing

Baby-wearing seems to be the best way to keep Judah warm while we're outside,  but it's been tricky to bundle up enough to cover both of us...until today.  With some gift money from a couple of our grandparents,  I ordered a jacket adapter from MakeMyBellyFit.com. It zips into my jacket to make room for either a pregnant belly or a baby carrier.  We tried it out this afternoon, and it fit great and kept us both cozy. If you wear your baby much, I would definitely recommend buying one!

Train up a Child: A Portable Bedtime

We've had people tell us over and over how remarkable it is that our children are able to go to sleep fairly easily in places other than their own beds.  To me, I see this as a natural result of the purposeful steps we have taken to teach them this skill. Now, I don't take full credit, because some kids are naturally better sleepers than others. But overall, we work to instill in our children from the very beginning the skills, abilities and attributes we want them to have later on in their lives, and so I am not surprised at their ability to sleep.

Even I was impressed with Jackson's nap in Costco this summer!

Just as Proverbs 22:6 states "Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it." I believe there are many skills, abilities and attributes that we need to be working to teach our children even from a very young age.  Of course what we work on teaching a newborn is different from what we teach our toddlers, which will be very different from what we teach our pre-teens.  But the principle remains: as parents we should be looking ahead to the attributes we want our children to possess and start teaching those lessons while they are still young.  (I'm not saying that teaching your children to sleep anywhere is a skill all parents should teach, but we've been asked about it so many times, I thought I'd share it as an example of something we've tried to be intentional about.)

As parents of small children there are a few practical life skills we have intentionally worked to teach them, and are already working to teach Judah as a newborn. The very first skills of this nature relate to sleep. We want our children to be able to go to sleep anywhere, and even with a moderate amount of noise.  We do this by putting our babies to bed in various places right from the newborn stage.  I make sure that even at home, the baby doesn't sleep only in his or her crib.  Starting when Micah was a little baby, I would put him to nap on a blanket on the floor, or on our bed, or in his stroller, so he didn't grow to need his own bed as a sleep cue. Then as he grew a little bit older and we created a bedtime routine for him, we purposely chose to incorporate only activities that were portable.  For example, we didn't bathe him every night before bed, because we couldn't always do that if we were out somewhere.  What we did do was get him in pajamas, brush teeth, read a story, sing a lullaby, and say the same words each night, then put him in bed. This way we provided consistency even within the flexibility of going to sleep in various places.

Along with putting our kids to sleep in various places right from the beginning, we also did our best to get them used to sleeping with noise. We purposely keep making noise and aren't quiet during baby nap times, so that noise becomes normal.  I've heard it said that the sounds in the womb are as loud as a vacuum cleaner to a baby, so as newborns they are used to loud background noises. I believe babies lose this ability as we tiptoe around them and train them to need quiet.  With our first baby I purposely did loud activities and put on music while he napped. Now with three older kids, I have Judah nap on the main floor and we don't have to put any extra effort into making noise!  I think this is why Jackson is our best sleeper yet - the background noise in our house is near continual. 

We repeated this with each of our children, and the result is that we are able to go out in the evenings with the whole family, and still maintain a usual bedtime for the kids.  Earlier this week we had a lovely adults-only dinner at a friends house, by first feeding our kids and putting all four to sleep there.  The older two shared the bed with a head at either end, and Jackson slept in his playpen, while Judah napped on a living room chair.  Each of the older three were happily cuddled up with their own special fleece blankets that we bring with us every time they sleep in a place other than home.  And I found myself again thinking how thankful I am that our children have the gift of portable sleep.

Weekly Soup Night

One way that we save money on groceries is by having weekly soup night.  We've found that a big pot of homemade soup is a pretty frugal way to feed a lot of people.  I like to make a big pot, then we can invite someone over to join us, have the leftovers for lunch later in the week, or even freeze enough for supper another day.  We tend to let it slide in the warm summer months, but during the rest of the year we have soup on a pretty regular basis.  For us, weekly soup night entails homemade soup, usually accompanied by buns, bread, or biscuits.  

These past two or three years, we have been joined every Tuesday night by our friends Megan and Mairi for soup night.  For a few months we invited our entire small group to join us each Tuesday and bring something to contribute to dinner, followed by our Bible study time.  The soup potlucks were a great a low-key dinner enjoyed by friends.  Because I always made a big pot of soup, people could bring something simple to share, such as salad, buns, an appetizer, or a dessert.  Folks could easily stop at the store after work and buy something to bring, without having to really cook or plan ahead much.  It worked well for most people, solving the problem of what/when/how to grab supper between work and small group on a busy weeknight.  If everyone showed up, there was no soup leftover.  If only a couple people came, we were happy to have lots left.

Over the years my soup repertoire has really grown.  Part of the reason we can enjoy soup on a weekly basis is that we rotate through many different kinds of soup.  Here is a list of the different soups that I make:

-beef barley

-beef minestrone

-beef stew

-black bean

-borscht

-broccoli cheese

-chicken corn chowder

-chicken noodle

-chicken stew with butternut squash and quinoa

-chili

-clam chowder

-curried butternut squash

-ham and bean

-harvest pork stew

-lasagna soup

-loaded baked potato soup

-middle eastern red lentil

-potato leek with ham

-quinoa chicken chili

-salmon chowder

-split pea and ham

-tex-mex tortilla

-tortellini

-turkey rice

-ground turkey, kale, and brown rice

You can find some of these recipes, and many more that I haven't yet tried, on my Pinterest Soups page.  If you want a recipe not listed there, let me know and I can probably get it for you, or at find one similar (since I don't always use a recipe).

A great thing about making soup from scratch is that most recipes can be adapted, even at the last minute, to feed extra guests.  Simply add more water/milk/broth as applicable, throw in a few more cooked veggies and you can accommodate a few extra people around your dinner table.

What is your favourite kind of soup?  Are there other soups you make that aren't listed here? I'd love to hear about them!

Feeding My Family on A Budget

Feeding our family on a budget is something we have been doing since day one of our marriage.  We honeymooned locally where we rented a cabin and cooked most of our own meals.  Once we returned home from our honeymoon, we spent the first month of our married lives both out of work (I was job-hunting, and Stewart's boss was between carpentry jobs).  Since August 2009, I have been at home full-time and we have relied on Stewart's single income, except for when he was in school, when we relied upon Stewart's part-time income.  For eight months we lived in West Africa on the financial support of friends and family.  And now, Stewart is employed as a pastor in a small town (and we all know pastors don't exactly make buckets of money!).  So we've had lots of time to learn to prepare food frugally!

Eating frugally looks a little different for every family, so this isn't meant to be prescriptive, as much as descriptive.  These are things that we have done at various times in our married life to keep our grocery bill down (not necessarily at this moment, or even all at the same time).
 
Shop sale items.  I'm not really into couponing.  I don't really have the time to look for and save coupons, but I sure love a good sale!  When I find non-perishable items that we buy on sale for a good price, I make sure to stock up.  At one point recently, I bought four jugs of liquid laundry detergent on the same day, because I came across a good sale at two different stores!  I've found that I do need to be discerning and make sure I only buy the sale items that we already regularly use, and not get sucked into buying things we don't need just because of the good price.

Grow a garden.  Big or little, every little bit helps.  Of course the cheapest way is to start with seeds, but even seedlings are cheaper than purchasing full-grown plants (such as potted tomato plants).  And even buying a full-grown tomato plant that produces well is likely to be cheaper than buying the equivalent number of organic tomatoes.

Buy in bulk.  Costco is great for buying in bulk, but you can also buy items such as rice and dry beans in bulk at import grocery stores.

Minimize your meat.  Use meat to flavour your dish rather than as the main course.  We often eat meat in our meals (ground beef in our spaghetti sauce, for example) rather than having meat as our meal (chicken breast with a side dish, for example).

Buy bone-in meat and use the bones to make a broth.  Homemade broth is healthy and delicious, and easy to make!  By using bones from your meat (chickens, ham, roasts) and veggie scraps (carrot peels, celery ends, etc.) you can make your own broth for a fraction of the cost of buying it ready-made.  (Read this article for a basic how-to.)

Use dried beans and lentils instead of canned.  I used to be afraid of dried beans.  They seemed like so much work!  While you can soak them for several hours before cooking them (best-case scenario), I often just put them directly into the slow-cooker on high for a few hours until tender, depending what kind of bean I'm cooking (black beans cook faster than kidney, for instance).  I'll often cook up a full slow-cooker of beans at a time, then portion them into roughly the amount that comes in a can, and freeze them, so they are ready to thaw and use.  I also use these slow-cooked beans to make my own refried beans (I usually just mash them and add seasonings, but I've been wanting to try this Garlicky Refried Beans recipe which also uses dried beans).

Shop in the States for key items.  When we lived near the US border, I would buy our tortillas, refried beans, butter, and cheese in the States at a much lower price than I could find in Canada.  Tortillas freeze nicely and a thaw quickly in a warm oven.  There are some items that I refuse to buy across the border due to the difference in food production standards.  For instance, I personally do not buy meat or milk unless it's organic due to the hormones/antibiotics that can be used in the animals.

Freeze or can seasonal produce, especially if you can buy it in bulk for a good price.  Peaches, pears, tomatoes, applesauce, salsa, jalapenos, are all good items to can in the summer or early fall.  Blanched green beans, pureed cooked pumpkin, grated zucchini, and fresh berries are just some of the items I like to stock in my deep freezer for us to enjoy all year long.

Cook from scratch.  Of course this takes more work, but if your biggest concern is finances, it certainly helps to avoid buying prepared foods.  With enough time and effort, bread, buns, cookies, cakes, bagels, english muffins, tortillas, naan, etc, can all be made from scratch.

And finally, one of the biggest ways we've found to cut down our grocery budget is to stop eating out!  This seems so obvious, but it really does add up fast.  When we lived in the big city, we found it so tempting to grab lunch at a drive-thru on our way home, or order in Indian food when life got busy.  But now that we live in a small town where that just isn't an option, I've realized it's not that hard to live without!

What are some of the ways you've found to save money on groceries?

4 kids, 4 years and under...how do you do it?!

I've had people tell me I must be crazy.  Or brave.  Or something.  And sure, our house is really busy.  And loud!  But overall, I'm finding four kids to be easier than two or three.  Impossible?!  I think it's totally possible, because I've learned a few things along the way.

-I've learned to let go of the housework - but not entirely.  I know what things bother me, and what things don't.  So I choose to focus on keeping up with what matters most, and letting the rest slide.  For me, that means I focus on keeping our laundry washed (but rarely folded by me), meals cooked (but our kitchen is often messy), and kitchen/dining room floors swept daily (but the rest not).  This is made possible because...

-I've learned to ask for and receive help.  With the exception of my 86 year old Grandma, if someone offers to wash my dishes, I take them up on it.  If people offer to help, I almost always accept.  I have a friend who helps with folding my laundry.  My husband is amazing at cleaning the kitchen.  This means that sometimes things aren't done the way I like.  But they are done, and I've learned to let go of some of the specifics, even if it means hunting all over my kitchen to find that item someone else put away.

-I've learned to make time for me.  For my sanity, I need time to invest in myself.  This sounds selfish, I know.  But having struggled in the past with depression, I realize that I have to be investing in me if I want to be healthy enough to give to others.  And as a mother, I do a lot of giving.  "Me-time" includes reading my Bible and prayer, reading parenting books, knitting, sewing, going for runs, etc.  These things don't necessarily happen when I'm "off" mommy-duty and my whole house is calm.  Sometimes I will sit and knit for a few minutes in the morning while the kids are playing well.  Or have a long bath in the evening after the kids are in bed, and let my husband take care of the baby.  I know from experience that if I wait for the perfect opportunity to care for myself, it is likely to not happen; I choose to make time for me.

-I've learned the importance of sleep for both me and baby.  I remember being completely exhausted when Micah (our oldest) was a newborn, yet feeling like I shouldn't be taking naps.  I stopped napping when he was only three weeks old.  Looking back, I see that as foolish.  As a mom of a baby, even just as a mom of little children, sleep is precious.  If you can fit in a nap every day, DO IT.  Yes, this means setting aside the dishes, or laundry or whatever, and sleeping while your children nap.  For me, it's completely worth it.  The second part of this, is that we work hard to help our babies sleep well, so they are happy and rested, and so am I.  The simple explanation is that we teach them to fall asleep on their own, right from day one.  But that's a post all in itself.

-I've learned to recognize the seasons of life and adjust my expectations accordingly.  There was a time when I was focused on our family eating extremely healthy (ie. soaking our rice, making bone broth from scratch regularly, avoiding all refined sugar and processed foods, etc.).  We felt better for it, and yet, I've chosen to relax my standards in this season of life.  Do I still value those healthy-eating choices?  Absolutely.  And yet, I have four small children and time is precious.  We eat healthy as much as we can, and then sometimes I serve my family hot dogs for supper (we do love a good weiner roast!).  As the kids get older I'm sure I'll be in the kitchen more, making more from scratch, soaking grains, etc.  For now I'm letting that go and choosing not to feel guilty about it.  Likewise, I believe cloth diapering is a wonderful, eco-friendly option.  I used to cloth-diaper, but I've chosen to use disposables for now, and let go of the guilt.  With 2-3 kids in diapers at a time, just keeping everyone clean and dry is a big enough task.  I don't need to add washing diapers to my list of duties.  Instead I am choosing to be thankful for the convenience of disposables in this season of life. 

-I've learned to anticipate and plan for busy seasons, and lessen the cooking.  Part of this is what I mentioned already: choosing to let go of some of the values I have about food in this season of life.  But more specifically, I try to plan for busy seasons such as moving house, having a baby, Christmas, house guests, etc., by preparing freezer meals ahead of time.  With both our third and fourth babies, I stocked our freezer ahead of time with 15-20 meals.  We still happily accepted whatever meals people offered to bring us after the birth, because the point isn't to be self-sufficient.  I know that the help only lasts so long, and babies are a lot of work.  One way I can simplify life for a while is to have a good stash of meals ready to go.  Currently our baby is five weeks old and I am choosing to cook supper every other day and heat up freezer meals the rest of the time to ease the cooking burden.

-I've learned that it's okay to stay home.  I used to feel a lot of pressure (mostly from myself) to get out of the house most days.  I enjoyed the change of scenery, but I found myself often stressed about getting out the door on time.  Since we moved, we've stayed home a lot.  Initially it was just because we didn't really have anywhere to go, but now more and more I'm choosing to have people in, or ask my hubby to run to the store on his way home from work, rather than go out by myself with the whole clan.  And you know, it has really taken away a lot of the stress.  Rather than rushing out the door in the morning, my goal most days is to have everyone dressed by 10am... which often doesn't happen.  But you know, we're almost never still in our pajamas at supper time.  :)

You don't have to be SuperMom.  I'm not SuperMom.  And I hate to break the news, but neither are you!  Choose what matters most to you, what is reasonable for you, what works for your family, and let go of the rest.  And let go of the guilt already!  Moms of little ones, enjoy the season of life you're in, and the little people God has given you.  This is only a season of your life, and it will be over all too soon.

One month

We've already reached Judah's one month birthday. It's so hard for me to believe that my baby boy is already a month old! He's gained three whole pounds and weighs 10lbs 12oz. He sleeps 3-4 hour stretches at night and smiles on occasion (life is pretty serious!). And we're all in love!

Winter is knocking at the door

As I sit here there are wet snowflakes falling outside my window.  While the rest of the valley is groaning at the October snowfall, excitement is building in our house. Will there be enough to play in later?!  Only time will tell (although the forecast makes me skeptical).

We are lovers of snow around here. I know that very well may change as winter goes on and on and on...but for now we may as well enjoy the thrill of the first snow.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

Not so little anymore

My Judah man is gaining weight quickly. Of course this is a good--even great--thing, but it leaves me feeling like he's growing up a bit too fast.  It's possible that he will be our last baby, and while I'm eager for him to "grow up" enough to sleep through the night, I'm not so eager for him to lose his tiny newborn squishiness.  This morning he weighed in at 10lbs 1oz...which is almost two and a half pounds more than he weighed at birth,  only 3.5 weeks ago.  Not so little anymore.

birth story: Judah James -- part two

Disclaimer: This is a birth story.  Graphic details and all.  Proceed with caution.
---

We spent more than an hour there, labouring down by the river on a gorgeous fall day.  Between contractions we also picked some high-bush cranberries we found growing wild - mostly because the longer we were there, the more sparse contractions became.  Eventually we headed back "home" to my Aunt's house, where she had made us delicious Reuben sandwiches for lunch.

By the time we finished lunch the contractions had mostly stopped altogether.  We spoke with Sarah, our midwife, on the phone, and she suspected I had a "irritable uterus", meaning that it was easy to get contractions going, but they just were slowing down and stopping whenever I sat or lay down.  Her solution: keep active, keep vertical.  She wanted me to spend 20 minutes climbing the stairs to get things going again.  I was exhausted, so since they had already stopped coming, I had a nap after lunch.  I woke up after a while to a contraction.  While laying down!

We decided to skip climbing the stairs since contractions were coming again.  Instead we headed out to Target to get some errands done and stay up and moving.  Stewart and I spent two hours in Target, wandering aisles, getting stuff we needed, but also just killing time.  It actually worked well - whenever a contraction came, I would just scoot my cart into a quiet aisle and labour there, leaning on the cart for support.  The most awkward part was when Stewart was doing the double-hip squeeze (basically pushing on my bum) during contractions...I just kept hoping no one would notice!  :-)

By about 5pm, contractions were coming closer together and more intense, and I was ready to go back to the house where we could have a little more privacy to labour.  And besides that, it was supper time and I was hungry!  I really don't get nauseous in labour, and I really enjoy eating in labour (okay, maybe I just enjoy eating all the time!).  My Aunt knew this and so had stayed home all day so she could help us out with things, and especially make us delicious food.  She made fettucine alfredo with chicken and veggies, caesar salad and garlic bread for supper.  We ate upstairs in our room while I laboured.  Yum.

As we ate, contractions slowed almost to a stop.  We called Sarah, and she came around 8pm to sweep my membranes again.  Shortly after she left contractions picked up in a big way - stronger and closer together.  We decided to go for a walk around the block, but only about two houses down I stopped for an intense contraction and noticed a neighbor watching me from his porch...and decided that was enough walking!  It was as we slowly made our way back to the house that I lost it: Stewart is awesome labour support, but I just wanted my Mom!  We called her and she was so encouraging.

After our very brief walk, I got in the shower and stayed there until it ran cold (and then some).  Sometime around then Sarah came and stayed until after the birth.  She checked me when she arrived, and I desperately was hoping to be dilated at least 7cm.  I was only 6cm and I cried.  I was exhausted from all the early labour and not sure that I could do it this time.  Sarah reiterated that if I wanted things to keep progressing well I would need to stay vertical even though I desperately wanted to rest.  I think I kept crying for a while.  Long enough that the water was hot again and I could get back in the shower.  It was around 11pm.

This is where things really get fuzzy in my memory.  Labour was getting harder, and I got out of and into the shower whenever the water ran cold and then heated up again.  Eventually, sometime vaguely around 2am, I began to feel "pushy".  Sarah noticed the purple line, indicating that I was fully dilated, and gave me the okay to push.  After a few minutes, she decided to actually do an exam, and discovered a cervical lip, and so I ended up panting through a few contractions before really having an urge to push. 

At this point my water was still intact, even though I had asked Sarah a couple times about the possibility of having her break it.  I didn't actually want her to break my waters, but I knew from Jackson's birth that things progressed much more quickly after they broke it, so it was appealing in that sense.  I moved from the shower to the toilet, and did some pushing there.  The baby was still quite high, and had a long ways to descend, so the pushing phase took longer than I had anticipated.  (I pushed for only about 5 minutes with Jackson.)

My water broke just before he was born.  Once he descended enough to really start pushing his head out, I scooted off the toilet, and into a squat.  I felt his head and slowly pushed and panted it out.  The cord was wrapped around his neck twice, so the midwife slipped it off while I continued to catch him myself.  It was so amazing to be the first one to hold him, and not just have him handed to me.  I snuggled him for a minute, before Stewart prompted me to check the gender.  It was a BOY!  Then after another minute, he prompted me to announce his name.  Judah James.  (Judah means "I will praise the LORD!", and James is my brother's middle name, plus the name of two of Stew's good friends).  He was born at 2:44am on Sept 29th, the day after his due date.

We moved to the bedroom to rest, snuggle Judah skin-to-skin, and deliver the placenta, etc.  I had only a couple small skin-level tears, and needed no stitching!  That was a big deal to me, and has made recovery so much nicer.  The second midwife arrived right around when I got off the toilet to start pushing, and was gone less than an hour later.

 
I have a history of delayed postpartum hemorrhage, so Sarah stayed longer than usual, kept a close eye on my vitals, and made sure I was healthy and confident when she left 4.5 hours later.  And this time around, I did not hemorrhage!

I feel so blessed to have been able to give birth at "home", catch him myself, not tear, and not bleed.  And of course, to have a beautiful, healthy baby boy to boot!  I am so blessed!