i have officially moved. i am done w/ blogger. you can now found me here:
http://doulangel.wordpress.com/

little of that...

Tomorrow night is my 1st might of Bradley classes. My client invited me to go w/ her and her husband also, the teacher is the doula who organized our little Berrien county doula meeting. (all 5 of us lol) Should be great.

Sunday is a crazy day for me. We have church in the a.m. I will have to leave early from there to get up to the meeting in time. Then I have my 1st set of classes that I am teaching in the evening. We are doing things a little bit different for our classes. One of the ladies had already signed up for Lamaze but is also coming to this one. To save on some time we decided to try to do 2 classes per evening so we're done in 3 weeks. Here's hoping it works! There is a lot of material to go over, but I appreciate that she is still coming to this one for me so I'm going to try to work around her.

I looks like I am going to start the school year teaching the kids. Dh's grandma is fading and his mom has taken over most of her care. I am excited about it. I just hope I don't end up grumpy at them all day. She is more patient than I am. I also know that I will do things a little different than her, and I hope the kids adjust to it ok. I will admit that I am not looking forward to getting up early in the mornings again. I haven't gotten to sleep in like this in years.

My website is finally coming up on google! Not sure why or why it took so long. But yey it's finally there!

Oh, and remember the little post I did about the Laport County fair and the breastfeeding tent? Someone called me today and told me the Berrien County fair is having one this year too. Well done! I guess this one is sponsored by our local hospital.


ok, so i was playing around trying to download a cool new skin and lost all of my links. and for some reason i no longer have a layout button in my dashboard!! i still have my old template saved on my computer, but b/c i can't get to the layout button, i can't upload the file! sometimes i think i should just move to wordpress or something. blogger is so frustrating!!
aaannnd!! my navbar hasn't worked in ages. anyone who knows anything couldya help!?

little of this..

I have so many things to post about that I can't decide if I should make it one big post or little daily ones. I'm leaning towards the latter. 1st a prayer request. My friends 6 yo has to have one of his kidneys removed. It's scheduled for August 6th, in Ann Arbor at the U of M hospital. Please pray for him, but also his parents.

This weekend we were invited to no less than 4 birthdays. We went to 2 parties, but 3 birthdays. One was a brother and sister that I think are less than a year apart. We left Sis and Zai there, it was a sleep over for them and headed over to my sweet baby G's 1st b-day. It seems like there is something special about these babies that we get to watch come into the world. I just can't get enough of this little boy! He is therapy for me, whenever I get babylust I go to him. I will show you pics next week when I get to keep him for a couple of nights while his parents go away for their anniversary.

I was in the nursery w/ him for SS yesterday, he wanted me to take him o/o his car seat, so I did. Then he got down to play. Another baby came in who was having a really hard time of being left in there w/o his parents. I was holding him and had him calm on and off. He finally had enough of us and I had to call his dad back. G watched as the other baby left then crawled over to me and climbed up my pant leg! It was too funny! So of course I held him some more, but then had to go to choir. I put him down next to his mom who was holding another baby and he crawled after me crying as I left! Broke my heart! So I went back for him after we sang and held him during the service where he fell asleep on my chest during praise and worship, pure therapy.

I'm going to be making some changes to my blog. I'm changing the name, (the address will still be the same) and the look and tidying it up a bit.

This week looks fairly relaxing, compared to the utter non-stop of last week. Looking forward to the beach this evening!! Hope you all had a good weekend:)

gratefulness..

disclaimer: this is what is right for MY family. i don't claim to know that about others nor do i judge them...

I really do have a good life. I have had a few conversations lately w/ various people about life in general. One new mother asked me how I did it w/ 3 kids in a 2 bedroom house. My reply was that "you just do. There is no other option for us. We make sacrifices so that I can stay at home and be w/ my kids."

Very slowly things are getting better for us financially, little by little, and in the spring we are planning on adding on to our house. But we've also been in this house for 6 1/2 years. On average, 1st time home owners stay in their houses for 2-3 years. So ya, I have a small house, and we don't do car payments, so we have old cars. And right now, we only have one car.

But I have learned that this is a season and seasons have a way of coming to an end. I do grumble sometimes, but lately I've been feeling so grateful. I take time to look around me and end up coming back to my little house, with it's little yard and all my little flowers. My little garden, my little porch that I sit on and watch my kids play and I'm entirely grateful for what I have.

I started my orientation at the Care Center yesterday. It went really well. I quickly fell in love with the place. If I didn't have my own family I could be there every day. I still have a lot to learn, but plenty of time to do it in. I was also pleasantly surprised while sitting in on one of the videos shown to see a home birth, Michael Odent and Penny Simkin! The Center doesn't have anything to do w/ the birth of the babies. They were talking about bonding w/ the unborn.

My day yesterday was full of pregnancy and baby news! I spent the day at the center, came home to find o/ that my sweet neighbors had their 8 lb 12 oz baby girl about midnight, went inside and made a call to my doula friend who informed me that they were expecting again!! It was a great day...

I'm off, my fabulous friend Susan is coming to visit me and the kids today!!

My pixie face...

That's what I call him...More times than not lately I am at a loss w/ Zai. He is 7 now, and our middle child. He is what his nurse practitioner calls the "free spirit," of our family. He doesn't have the same social skills as the other kids. He has reddish hair and freckles. He says what is on his mind, w/o mincing words. He also has a HUGELY active imagination that he likes to share w/ you, ALOT. He is also very conscious of his weight b/c a couple of times he has been called chubby. He's not over weight, he's not even chubby. But, he's not as tall and thin as the other 2 tho. He is fiercely loyal, funny, too sweet, cute, cuddly, (I know, I could go on and on about him..)

Consequently, b/c of his personality, their friends often ask to play w/ Zac instead. Zai get's left o/ alot. I have tried to explain to him things about how he can change his behavior, the give and take of friendships, that type of thing. It's just so hard to see his feelings hurt over and over. I think he is learning, but I just wish I could prevent his pain more. I have been told that these are the kind of kids that end up being leaders. Sorry, but that doesn't make me feel any better about his now.

Zac doesn't make it any easier, he is a people pleaser. He will do what other people do, just to please them. He is also a good manipulator, he knows how to get his friends to do what he wants. There is nothing about Zai that is behind the scenes like that. What you see is what you get. He does it his way or no way. So of course people want to play w/ Zac more often. I think he is learning more the give and take, but it is just so hard to see him go thru it.

It's so funny, b/c the parents I talk to, they tell me they love Zai. They say he cracks them up, and that he's so cute. They say they like him. It's just the kids that don't seem to appreciate his uniqueness...

who knew how hard parenting is and why wasn't i warned!?

can't get enough of this song..

don't really luv the video, but the song is great....


took me a few minutes to realize why she was driving on the wrong side of the road(!)