So Thankful!

22) Going on walks with my husband and children
23) Baby wearing
24) Cotton
25) Breastfeeding
26) Squishy cheeks
27) Interesting books
28) A comfortable bed

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22) Andare a passeggiare con mio marito e figli
23) bambino che indossa
24) di cotone
25) L'allattamento al seno
26) Squishy guance
27) libri interessanti
28) Un comodo letto

The Past Two Years: Part eight

For Cosette's second Christmas I made her a Waldorf doll.

Then I made her a dress to match. Here she's playing with her new tea set.

The Past Two Years: Part seven

Last summer we spent a LOT of time at the beach.

Cosette turned ONE!

And a couple weeks later we found out we were pregnant!

Almost too many blessing to count in one year!

So Thankful!

15) Godly Fellowship
16) Loving Grandparents for my babies
17) Green grass
18) Wooden spoons
19) Fresh dinner rolls
20) Baking with my daughter
21) Homemade blankets

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15) Fellowship Godly
16) I nonni d'amore per i miei bambini
17) L'erba verde
18) cucchiai di legno
19) cena rotoli Fresh
20) di cottura con mia figlia
21) casalinga coperte

The Past Two Years: Part six

I spend some time sewing for a couple wedding we attended last summer. The first was a maxi dress that I totally love. Too bad it doesn't fit me...

Here's a picture from the photo booth that was set up at the reception. Brilliant idea! You can tell we had fun :)

This is the skirt I made for the other wedding.

And the complete outfit I wore.

The Past Two Years: Part five

March, 2010, I got the dreadful mastitis. My daughter was 8 months old. She had four teeth by this time and had apparently bitten me. This coupled with a lazy latch are what I think brought on the mastitis. It really is a terrible thing and if you think there is even the slightest chance you will get then, please, get off your feet and take care of yourself! The pain was so great that I was having to take vicodin just to feed her. For some reason, I don't know why, I ended up with mastitis again two week later. I ate a lot of raw garlic when I had the infection and continued to take a clove a day for about a month.

You can see the redness here. Almost my entire breast was infected.

The story of my son's birth. Part one

I did a guest post at CFPN! The rest of the story will be posted next week :)

So Thankful!

8) Sleeping babies.
9) Working husband.
10) My broom.
11) A quite home.
12) My brother's advice.
13) Comfortable running shoes.
14) Cloudy days.

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8) Sleeping bambini.
9) marito di lavoro.
10) La mia scopa.
11) Una casa abbastanza.
12) consigli di mio fratello.
13) Scarpe comode corsa.
14) giorni nuvoloso.

The Past Two Years: Part four

With this great California weather we got to go hang out the laundry in February!

This is one of my favorite videos. She's such a doll!

Cloth Diaper Blog Hop!!

The Past Two Years: Part three

Most of our free time was spent hanging out with the chickens. Romeo, Donna, Daria and Cienna.

And taking walks. My dear husband wore her most of the time. He's such a great baby wearin' daddy!

10 things never to say to a stay-at-home Mom

‎

I got them from a friend, thought you might enjoy them as well. :)

 

1. When the kids are older, do you think you'll get a real job?

2. How June Cleaver of you!

3. Oh, so you don't work?

4. Since you have extra time on your hands, could you whip up a few dozen brownies for the bake sale tomorrow?

5. All day with your kids? I can't even imagine.

6. I'm jealous. I wish my husband were rich so I wouldn't have to work either.

7. What do you do all day, anyway?

8. I'm sure you're not the only one who's ever wasted money on a college degree.

9. That explains why your son is so clingy!

10. Weird. I assumed your house would be superclean.

The Past Two Years: Part two

In July 2009 Cosette came out of my belly and into our lives. You can find the story of her birth HERE.

This is my favorite breastfeeding picture I have with her.

So Thankful!

To keep a gracious spirit I am listing a few things I am thankful for every Thursday. Want to join me?

1) Jesus, my Lord.
2) My husband.
3) My children.
4) My momma.
5) My family.
6) Encouraging friends.
7) A place to call home.

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Per mantenere uno spirito gentile io sono messa un paio di cose sono grato per ogni Giovedi. Vuoi venire con me?

1) Gesù, mio Signore.
2) Il mio marito.
3) I miei figli.
4) La mia mamma.
5) La mia famiglia.
6) Incoraggiare gli amici.
7) Un luogo da chiamare casa.

The Past Two Years: Part one

Since I have been mostly missing in action (aside from the random post here and there) for the last two years I thought it would be a good idea to do a few update posts. For today I have a few maternity pictures from when I was pregnant with Cosette. The pictures were taken by my friend, Melanie, and edited by my husband.

 

Learning Italian

My daughter (22 months) and I are learning Italian together, if you couldn't tell by the translation on the bottom of my previous post ;) We are using a version of Rosetta Stone that is about 7 years old, so it's not the newest version which I hear is pretty darn cool. It's going well and the words seem to be sticking in my head a lot better than the last time I tried to learn.

Our studying goes like this, we go through the first part of the lesson once or twice. This is the part of the lesson where something is described and you pick the out the picture that matches. Since she can't read or write yet this is all she has to do. We usually do this while we drink our tea in the morning. After the lesson I look up cartoons in Italian on Youtube.

I am also using the words I know mixed in our daily conversions. For example, instead of saying "come sit at the table", I'll say "come sit at le tavelo." I know the grammar isn't correct but I figure I'm just working on the vocabulary right now and as we advance in the lessons I'll get better at randomly saying things that are grammatically correct.

For further study, for me, I continue and finish the lessons on my own while she's napping. Also, I find that it helps to keep me motivated to have blogs in Italian that I follow. I'm really liking Le Frufru and Little Emma English Home. Because I'm following these blogs I am finding Google Translate to be quite helpful.

And for some fun, here is a picture of my daughter's sand covered toes when we went to the beach last year.

How do you choose a baby name?

One of the hardest things for us is choosing the perfect name for our babies. Both of them were at least two days old before we were able to settle on a name. All the names that I had thought I would use before I got married I either don't like any more or my husband doesn't like them, so finding names has proved to be a lot harder than I thought it would be. But I do have one tip. Choose a theme. By doing this you narrow down your choices so it's not quite as overwhelming. There are countless themes you can choose from. The theme that we settled on is classic literature. Our daughter's name is from Les Miserables (Cosette) and our son's name is from King Arthur (Arthur). So, here are some themes you can choose from:

Literature
Shakespeare
Same first letter (all kids starting with c, etc)
Nationality (Italian, French, German etc)
Family names
Biblical
Historical (my brother's daughters are all named after British royalty and his sons after preachers)
Virtues

There are tons more, but this ought to get you started!

ps. I've done a couple guest posts on the CFPN's blog here and here


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Una delle cose più difficili per noi è scegliere il nome perfetto per i nostri bambini. Entrambi erano almeno due giorni prima siamo stati in grado di risolvere su un nome. Tutti i nomi che avevo pensato che mi sarebbe usare prima mi sono sposato io o non mi piace più o mio marito non le piace, così la ricerca di nomi ha dimostrato di essere molto più difficile di quanto pensassi che fosse. Ma io sono una punta. Scegli un tema. In questo modo a limitare giù le vostre scelte in modo che non è così schiacciante. Ci sono innumerevoli i temi si possono scegliere. Il tema che abbiamo scelto è la letteratura classica. Nome di nostra figlia è da Les Miserables (Cosette) e il nome di nostro figlio è tratto da King Arthur (Arthur). Così, qui sono alcuni temi è possibile scegliere tra:

Letteratura
Shakespeare
Stessa prima lettera (tutti i bambini che iniziano con c, ecc)
Nazionalità (italiano, francese, tedesco etc)
Famiglia nomi
Biblico
Storico (figlie di mio fratello sono tutti nomi reale inglese e ai suoi figli dopo predicatori)
Virtù

Ci sono tonnellate di più, ma questo dovrebbe iniziare!

ps. Ho fatto un paio di guest post sul blog del CFPN qui e qui

Interview with Christian Family Planning Network founder

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
Sure! My name is Stephanie. I'm a 25 year old Bible College graduate. I've been a work-at-home-wife since June of 2008. The CFPN is my full-time job! My husband, Daniel, and I have been married for three years. We used the Fertility Awareness Method to avoid pregnancy for our first year of marriage, and have been waiting for child #1 since then.

What is the purpose of the Christian Family Planning Network (CFPN)?
The purpose of the CFPN is to educate engaged and married Christians about their options for birth control beyond artificial or hormonal contraceptives. We hope to overturn the common misconception that all natural birth control methods are the Rhythm Method of decades past.

How is this purpose accomplished?
Primarily through our message board. We have a vibrant community where women from all walks of life, and all theological perspectives, can come together and support each other in their decision to not use hormonal birth control. Some of our members join the community while still on the Pill, or the Shot, or the Ring. In situations like this, members of the community who have been in their shoes will come alongside and support them, answer their questions, and encourage them that they are doing a good thing!

Many of the women on our “Avoiding Pregnancy” forum have been using natural methods their entire marriage. Some of our long-term members have avoided pregnancy for up to four years, before deciding to try to conceive their first child. Now some of those members have given birth to their first child and are avoiding again with FAM or NFP postpartum!

In addition to supporting women who are avoiding pregnancy, we also have forums and buddy groups for women who are trying to conceive, are dealing with infertility, are pregnant, or parenting. We encourage all of our new members to join a buddy group and to plug into the community where they need support.

Our first online course began in January. The first section is FC101A: Just the Basics, and teaches people how to begin charting their fertility signs so that they can know when to avoid or abstain, or have sex if they're trying to conceive. FC101B: Beyond the Basics covers more advanced charting techniques, like what to do if your temperature or cervical fluid sign is unreliable, if you're not ovulating, or if you're post-partum. FC101B also covers the effect that exercise, nutrition and lunaception (moonlight) affects your cycle.

Why did you decide to start the CFPN?
Back in summer of 2007, when I was engaged, I joined a secular site that promotes the Fertility Awareness Method. I noticed that there were a few other summer brides asking similar questions to me. We wanted to know what to expect on our wedding night as we were all virgins and new at this whole charting and being married thing! So, I started a "buddy group", which is a small group of women who are all interested in the same thing. This gave us our own place to ask our questions of each other and get answers. Throughout the summer, our group grew in number, as the 2008 brides began to get engaged and research their options, and circumstances of the 2007 brides began to change.

In the spring of 2008, we split the original buddy group into three groups: 2007 brides, 2008 brides and those who were trying to get pregnant, or were already pregnant. By the Christmas of 2008 we had enough babies born that we started a parenting buddy group. About that point, the administration of the website we were on made a decision to support a pro-choice view of emergency contraception. I had been thinking that we needed to move our network of buddy groups (at this point we had about 50 women) to our own website for a few months, and it seemed like a really good time to do it!

January 17, 2009 was the first day we were on our own website. We stayed there for a few months, but we quickly realized that we were no longer the "Engaged & Newlywed Network". In order to change our name, we had to change our URL. So, the moderators decided that we would pay for our own hosting and our own domain, and we became the Christian Family Planning Network on May 15, 2009 at our current URL. As our name changed from one site to the next, so did our purpose, and that's how we got to where we are today!

Who can join the CFPN?
Anyone who is interested in learning about how a woman's natural fertility cycle works! This means men, women, young, old, dating, engaged, married, etc. You do not need to be a Christian or agree to our Statement of Faith to be a member, but all our leaders do hold to our Statement of Faith. Christian values such as marriage between only a man and woman, abstinence before marriage, and the sanctity of life are all upheld by our leaders, and we do hold those in high regard on the message board as well.

For women who are not engaged or married, we have a section of our message board called "Just Curious". This is for people who are not engaged or married, who are "just curious" about what their bodies are doing. We encourage them to participate there, and in the off-topic parts of the board, but ask that they refrain from joining the buddy groups for people who are actively using (or planning to use) the method in a marriage relationship until they are engaged.

Fitted Cloth Diaper Sewing Tutorial

I cut the pattern out on a fold to make sure it's symmetrical. I cut two flannel pieces for the inside and one jersey (tee shirt material) for the outside.




I sew them right sides together.



Leave an opening at the top so you can turn it right side out when your done.




Mark where you want the elastic to go on the legs and across the back. Cut elastic about 1/2 the length of where you want it.



I use a clear elastic, I've read that it lasts longer.



I sew the elastic to the seam allowance. Zig zag stitch the end of the elastic on to the diaper. Then stretch it tight and zig zag over the elastic to keep it in place. Yes, I do end up sewing into the elastic it's self.



This is what it looks like when the elastic is all sewn in but before it's turned.




Clip the corners.



Turn it right side out and sew a top stitch on the top/front to close it. And you're done!



Inside of the finished diaper.



Finished diaper folded. I use a snappi to keep it closed.




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I have made some with more of an inner soaker material but since they take so much longer to dry I like to do them like this and just lay in the extra absorbent insert. The ones that I have sewn the inserts into I just use those cheap prefolds that you get a target that most people use as burp rags.

And I should add that the flannel I used is from extra receiving blankets (I have over 20!) and the outside tie dyed material was a top bed sheet. I've heard that you can use jean and it makes for a great night time diaper because of it's absorbency. Old tee shirts work well too.

Chicks and Baby

We got four little chickies about 4 weeks ago. Two of them were about a week old when we got them and two were between 3 and 4 weeks as far as we can tell. I kinda hope one of them is a rooster, if not then I hope to get a rooster sometime this summer or fall so he can keep an eye on the girls for me ;) Cody has been working on the coop for me, just making it out of scrap wood so it may take a few weeks just to get everything they way it needs to be. It'll be a small coop, about 2'x4', maybe a little bigger but it's plenty of space for our four chickens.

I've been researching milk goats recently too, not that I want any right now, but they are something I might want to consider for the future, especially given my sensitivity to some cow milk products.

Aparently my baby has turned head down, which is good, she's quite the wiggler so I hope she stays that way. I'm getting a little anxious to meet her. I'm 36 weeks today so I only have a month to go and I know I shouldn't hope for her to come too early since I still have so much that needs to be done.