Friday, April 30, 2010

{this moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see.

























Inspired by SouleMama

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Wordless Wednesday

My Guys :)
















I am so grateful for all the family time we spend together :)

Friday, April 23, 2010

Baby Comparison

Here are my three sons :) at about 4-5 weeks old. Max, Sam and Silas. I think they all look very similar, but Silas favors Sam. I wonder if he will have blue eyes like Sam and Matt or brown like Max and me!
Silas and Sam also had similar personalities at this age!























I got the idea from my friend Drea and her blog.























Thursday, April 22, 2010

Happy Earth Day!



Our day began with spotting this Pileated Woodpecker in our tree! Max spotted him yesterday and came running in to tell me about seeing a GIANT woodpecker! I thought he was exaggerating but it is big!

We then went for a morning walk, trash bag tied to the stroller to pick up any litter along the way. After a dentist appointment for Max, and then a visit to our friends new home we will come home to work on our veggie garden and get things planted! The boys will have their own little garden spot! And then I get to take my nephews engagement photos!



Yesterday we took a hike with the neighbor kids and educated them on wild edibles and let them toss rocks into a nearby creek and I also got to educate a few young neighbor girls on breastfeeding :) They were very curious and full of questions so I happily jumped on the opportunity to tell them about how I nourish my babies :)

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Digital Detox Fail :)

Ok, 48 hrs into my Detox I caved. First I "HAD" to download pictures of my friends kids from my camera, and then I "HAD" to share them on flickr so my friend could see them, then I "HAD" to check my messages to arrange a location to do my nephews engagement pictures. So yes, yet another epic fail of fasting from the internet.

However, I only got on the computer when my kids were in bed. I did not read facebook updates and I am letting all my favorite blogs go unread. My children are the main reason I wanted to cut back on my computer time. No more, "I will get your juice in a second..." or "Shhh, tell me about your dream after I read this..." or "We are going to the park, give Mommy 2 more minutes..."

It is because of them, my adorable children that are growing right before my eyes....or not if my eyes are fixated on this screen for too many hours of the day. My breaking point for wanting to take a screen break was when I found myself NAK'ing...Nursing at Keyboard... :) A friend told me that one. It's not a horrible thing, but I love breastfeeding and I love to cherish those moments making eye contact and listening to the sweet noises my Silas makes as he nourishes himself. So I can not justify feeding him while I catch up on blogs or facebook status updates...

So while I can not break away from my computer entirely, I will continue to only be on here when all three of my sweet babies are fast asleep. I will no longer have them contend with my computer....

And now, I am off to sort through the boys toys and then to bed, I am still TV free :)

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Turn off your TV! This is Digital Detox Week!!





















April 19-25 is TV TURNOFF WEEK! and as Adbusters takes it a step further and declares it Digital Detox Week"! (sorry the image I 'borrowed' was last years dates..)

As far as TV, well, we do not watch TV. We own an old TV set which is in the spare bedroom on the 3rd floor. It is used for the kids to watch VHS and DVD's. But we do not have cable or local channels. We have been TV free for over a year now.

Now I do watch House, Fringe and The Middle online and my husband and I watch The Office online together and we are big fans of Netflix. So we are not essentially TV free. But it is a big step from not having cable. So turning off the TV for a week is easy for us.

My children, who watch at least one movie a day, will not think it is easy. But I think they will be able to do it and will be ok without watching videos after a few days, especially with the nice weather, we will be spending our time outdoors.

However, I will admit I am hooked on the computer. I am a facebook, flickr, Etsy, blog reading addict, so for me to Detox from it all for a whole week is going to be hard. I told my husband I will be "attempting" this, he corrected me saying that was no way to go into it, thinking it it will be an "attempt", so I am re-wording it to I WILL BE DOING THIS! See I have made some lousy attempts at kicking my computer addiction and came crawling back to turn it on just hours later...finding one excuse or another to log in.

One downfall is my photography business and client emails. I am booking clients for May when I return to work, so not answering my email could be a problem. I will have an auto reply message on my email directing potential clients to call me on the phone rather communicate via email. I think in turn this may actually be a good thing. So often I only communicate with clients via email until the day we meet for the session. I think it would be nice to actually speak with them before then! :) You know, the phone, where you actually talk to people and not text :)

Speaking of the phone, I hate my cell phone. I am kind of a phone-phobic, I cringe when it rings. So technically with this detox I should not use my phone, which is fine with me, but I will keep it on b/c it is our only phone. But I will not be texting, not that I text a lot to begin with. And it is not a fancy phone, I can't even get picture messages so I definitely can not get online with it :)

Wish me luck, I may not do it and be back here posting in a short time about my failures :) Or hopefully I will be back in a week telling about how awesome it was to kick the habit and in turn be on my computer less and less.

So as much as I would like to beg everyone I know to do the same, chances are NO ONE I know will actually attempt this. Everyone will think it is stupid or find one reason or another to not even try. I do think Turning off the TV for a week is something EVERYONE needs to attempt, but I don;t think many, or like I said, ANYONE (that I know anyways) will Digital Detox for a week...so I will save my 'breath'... but if you are planning to ;attempt' to do either I would love to hear about it!! Please leave a comment!

A walk into the woods....



This by far is my favorite past time. Being a tree-hugger at heart, spending a day in the forest with my family is just a perfect day.

I meant to post this last week after our adventure at one of our favorite trails in the woods of an old growth forest but I forgot to. Around western PA, old growth trees are hard to come by, because in the early 1900's they were all cut down. However Bushy Run was preserved because it was a battlefield where the British fought the Native Americans in 1763. So although I love this place, I can't help to think about the violent deaths that took place here...



I am a firm believer in letting children explore, and this is just what my boys do when we are here. We let them navigate us through the many trails and let them climb trees, cross logs and get dirty :)
(sam loves spring beauties)

































My husband and I also enjoyed searching for wild edibles, AKA as weeds to most people :)
We picked wild leeks, spring beauties and wild violets to add to our pasta salad picnic lunch!

One Month Old!




Time is slipping by just too fast, this precious little being will be in our lives One Month come this Tuesday...

He is getting better with eye contact..I love when we just sit in the quiet and gaze into each others eyes...I melt when I am nursing him and he stares so deeply into my eyes.



Have I mentioned how much I love breastfeeding? :)


Although I was sensitive the first couple of weeks and it was a bit painful, it is not nearly as painful now. With the exception of when my milk 'lets down'. It is more uncomfortable than I remember with my other two babies, but it is not that bad, just a strong pinching feeling.

I really try to make nursing time our special time of sitting in a comfy chair in the quiet, I want to savor these moments. Of course there are times where he gets fed on the go, literally, like when I am walking I nurse him in the wrap or sling. This is how he ate on our trip to the zoo the other day and a couple of days ago when he was having a restless afternoon and wanted to nurse all day. I went into supermom multi-task mode and he nursed in the wrap while I did dishes and got dinner ready :)

He spends so much of the day close to me in his sling or wrap and I cherish this time. He will only be this tiny for a short amount of time and as he gets bigger he will be in the sling less and less. I have BIG babies who tend to get heavy, FAST :) But when he is bigger I can;t wait to wear him in our Boba Carrier!
















I also love having him snuggle right next to me each night. Smelling his sweet little head, feeling his tiny warm body next to mine. Co-sleeping is a beautiful thing :) I love the convenience of just rolling over and nursing him. Co-sleeping is not for everyone, but personally, my heart aches at the thought of putting him in a crib all alone, let alone a bedroom all alone. Granted some babies prefer to sleep alone, but mine never did.

I love that my husband loves co-sleeping as much as I do, however he works night shifts and is not there all night. But when he comes home in the morning he gets in bed to snuggle with us and there are times during the day, when he is sleeping, I will tuck the baby in next to him while he naps.
















We co-slept with our other boys, Max until he was almost 4 and Sam until he was 2.5 and then he shared a bed with Max in his room. Although for one year, all four of us shared a bed when we remodeled our home and bedroom. We had two mattresses on the floor in the boys bedroom :)

We also finally got into the cloth diaper stash! My Mom-in-law had bought us a few package of 7th Generation Newborn diapers that I wanted to use before he outgrew, and he was just too small for most of the cloth we bought. I did buy a few newborn size cloth from Etsy, but after one week he was already too big for them!

I have a lot of cloth diapers, most are still a bit big and bulky on him, especially the AIO one size fits all type. But I have some small Gdiapers that fit him perfectly! They are so cute and so far no leaks! I am using the washable inserts vs. the flushable/disposable/compostable ones. And I have 6 in size Medium that he will be wearing very soon! This chubby guy has already gained 3.5 ponds in almost a month! He never lost any weight like most newborns do.

I also love hanging them on the line to dry :) It has encouraged me to hang all of our clothes out to dry!

Which reminds me! Tomorrow is National Hanging out Day! Hang your clothes out to dry tomorrow and every laundry day!

Friday, April 16, 2010

{this moment}..a trip to the zoo

Inspired by Soule Mama

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see.

Friday, April 9, 2010

Brothers














I took a few photos of my boys today, it involved some bribery and chocolate!














Sammy and Silas














Max and sweet Silas



















And a self portrait of me and my little peanut.

I can not believe he is 15 days old already! The days are just flying by, but I am treasuring every moment with my little baby. He is almost always being worn in the sling, in my arms or lying in my lap or napping on Daddies chest. He eats often and is really gaining weight! He grew a 2nd chin this week! I chose to not go to our 2 week appointment with our pediatrician to find out his weight, mostly because I know he is thriving and doing well! But I am going to weigh him on my mailing scale later just so I know what he weighs :)