Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Mercy's Birth

As this baby's birth approached I made it a point to finally get the pictures of Mercy's birth that our midwife took. I had some of my own (right now they are stuck on an old computer and I can't get to them) but I had always wanted to see the ones she took. So she sent them to me a couple days ago and I enjoyed looking at them.

This was right after Mercy was born (in our tub at home!) The fourth picture was me looking and finding out that we had just had another girl and then the last ones are her daddy cutting her cord. :)


Here Nama and Aunt Dee are holding her right after birth while I was getting dried off. Mercy peeked around and said, "Where am I?" :)
I love looking at Caleb & Charis' faces of excitement and the fourth pic is Caleb exclaiming his surprise at her "dark hair!".
I can't believe how little they both looked.

Caleb had waited to hold her so long and then he was like, "she's heavy!".
Mercy getting weighed and measured, Caleb and Aunt Cee watching.
Aunt Dee helping Hope do her footprints and midwife Sharon swaddling her into a little glow worm. :)




Good friend and midwife, Sharon, with Mercy.


The family with the newest addition with our midwife Sharon (and then student midwife but now licensed midwife) Hope. :)



My mom took the cutest video of C & C while they ate their breakfast right after she was born. It is stuck on that other computer right now but when I get it off I'm going to have to post it because they were just too funny!
Until next time...



Monday, March 23, 2009

Ready for a New Home!



My sister's Shih Tzu Puppies are ready for adoption, e-mail Amanda at mooluvspooh@gmail.com and mention you saw it here on my blog to get a special price of $350 male and $450 female. They are AKC registered with worming, shots and health certificates. There are 4 of each and if you are interested you would want to reserve one soon as they can go home as early as next week! Enjoy. :)

PS to all our friends down in Williston, if you could pass this news around in case you know someone who may be interested we'll find a way to get a puppy down there if there is a home to go to. Thanks!

Snooze Time



I'm cute...


Come and take us home!

Pick me! :)

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

We have names! And how we chose them for our baby :)

To preface this, Charles and I both like old-fashioned and traditional names so these might seem a bit strange but we like them. :)

If it's a boy his name will be ~ Isaac Morris Charles

Isaac is a name we have liked since I was pregnant with Charis and Charles is of course, after Charles. :) His father and grandfather are both named Morris Michael and although we used Michael as Caleb's middle name Charles really wanted to use Morris for his dad and pap pap. So if we have a little man this time we are going to slide Morris in the middle there. :) And I really do love the name.

If it's a girl her name will be ~ Julia Kathryn

Kathryn was a definite middle name to go with whatever first name was chosen since it is Charles' grandmother's name and he really wanted to use it. The first name however had us stumped. We had a list of about 7 names and we were constantly going through them trying to decide. One reason I really liked Julia is because it begins with a "J", and while I have no intentions of naming any of my daughter's Jenifer I thought having one that started with a "J" would be nice. But none of the 7 girl names had any difference in why we should really use it first (as we liked all of them)...until Sunday night.

A little background is since Charles' mom left him at age 13 and his dad lives 900 miles away our pastor and his wife have been Charles' adopted parents for many years and they are very special. We had thought that we would like to use their names somehow in naming our children someday. We've got our pastor's name ready in another boy name but we couldn't figure out how to use his wife's name. Her name, we thought, was Mary Judy. While Mary is okay it wasn't a favorite of ours and Judy is just hard to put it with another name. I had made up girl name slips to help us visualize them easier and they were in my purse Sunday night. Mercy was playing with them on the pew after the service and my sister snagged them and went through them and picked out the ones she liked. Julia Kathryn was one of them and our pastor's wife was sitting there and when she looked at them she said, "Why, that's my name! My name is Mary Julia." I think my jaw hit the floor as I had no idea that was what her name was as she goes by Judy. Needless to say, I told Charles about it and that kind of settled it. I just thought it was so super neat. :)

And so now, we have both a boy and a girl name picked out. I think this is the earliest we have had names decided on (I'm about 30 wks). And although it would be kind of nice to have another little guy this go round I am just excited that we actually were able to decide on a name if it is a little girl. And that the name is special and for a purpose.

So that's my little story and I just thought I'd share seeing how I was a bit excited. :)

Saturday, March 14, 2009

A favorite recipe

Pumpkin Cheesecake

This is my grandmother's recipe that my family has used for years, after a trip to Olive Garden last fall I modified ours a little bit. And of course, I try and use organic ingredients but I won't list them as such. :)

Ingredients:


1 package Pound cake mix ( I used Whole Foods 365 name brand organic mix)

3 eggs

2 Tbsp butter, softened

4 tsp. pumpkin pie spice ( I just mix cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger together)

1 (8oz) package cream cheese, softened (neufchatel works fine)

1 (14oz) can sweetened condensed milk (WF sells a natural or organic brand named Santini)

1(15oz) can pumpkin

1/2 tsp. salt

1 (8oz) heavy whipping cream

1 tsp sugar

1/2 cup finely chopped pecans

caramel syrup



Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a bowl combine HALF of the cake mix, 1 egg, butter and 2 tsp pumpkin pie spice with a pastry cutter until crumbly. Press into the bottom of a lightly greased 8" springform pan. (You will have half the cake mix to use on your next cheesecake ;P )



In another bowl, with electric mixer beat cream cheese til fluffy and add sweetened condensed milk. Then add remaining 2 eggs, 2 tsp pumpkin pie spice, pumkin and salt. Mix well and pour over crust. Bake for 45-55 minutes, or until knife inserted comes out clean.Let cool in pan, run metal spatula around edges and then open pan. Transfer to another plate, can run metal spatula under crust to help separate from springform bottom. (You may not have a problem with this as my pan is old.) Chill, preferably overnight, but at least 2-4 hours until cold.



In a cold bowl whip whipping cream with sugar until stiff. Spread over the top of cheesecake. Chop nuts very finely and sprinkle over top of whipped cream. Drizzle caramel syrup over nuts.Keep chilled until time to serve.

Enjoy! :)

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

First trip to the beach

Yesterday afternoon was so beautiful outside I asked Charles if we could spur of the moment make a trip to the beach. He actually said yes! We didn't get there until 5pm so it was still warm but beginning to cool off. The water is still a bit chilly but Caleb & Charis didn't care. Charles and I were happy with just getting our feet wet and Mercy decided to content herself with playing in the sand and watching birds and dogs. :)



Charles had the camera so I wasn't sure what kind of pictures I would be getting but I just loved this one of Charis with her reflection in the sand.





Walking out to feel the water together








Happy girl



Happy boy




Mercy was not happy that the waves were coming towards her and would not smile even as I was tickling her, of course Charles caught me with my mouth wide open. ;)



Finding shells and writing in the sand





You can't tell she had a good time can you? She was the one who got wet the most!



do de do



The distance each of them kept from the water. :)






Cute little people





I have a picture of C & C sitting here when we went to the beach while I was pregnant with Mercy. I love having one of all them now. :)



Saturday, March 7, 2009

Just a reminder...

...that if you want to enter the bow giveaway the deadline is tomorrow night. All you have to do is leave a comment on their blog. :)


Hope you are all having a lovely day!


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Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Hairbows

So at a baby shower I was at recently I was able to chat with some twins that I knew back in middle school. They recently started their own Etsy shop making and selling hairbows. I know how much most of us enjoy having cute bows to put on our little girlies so I thought I would share the link to their blog. They are having a free giveaway and said they will mail anywhere in the US if you happen to win.

Hope you stop by and enjoy the fun chance for some cute hairbows. :)

BOWquet Giveaway!

It is our first official GIVEAWAY! We are so excited!!! We are giving away 5 of our custom made, unique bows. It's so easy to enter the giveaway! You will have many chances to win.You can enter as many ways as you would like, but only 1 entry per type.
1. Leave a comment to this post
2. Blog about our contest (leave a comment here with a link to the post for verification)
3. Write about our contest on Twitter, Facebook, Etsy Forum, or more (leave a comment here with a link to the post for verification)
4. Purchases from our shop
5. Be a follower of our blog
6. Send your friends on over!
But hurry, our contest ends on March 8, 2009 at midnight

Monday, March 2, 2009

Prayer for the Lockwood Family

Awhile back I asked for prayer for the mother in the Lockwood family down in Mexico. Please continue to keep Jaynee in your prayers as she has now been admitted to a hospital in California. The details of her condition are kind of complicated to explain but you can read more about it on their blog . She has reached 31 weeks and prays that the Lord will allow their little boy to remain in the womb for at least a few more weeks longer. Here are the specific requests she listed if you don't have time to go over and read them yourself:

*Pray for our little baby that he will continue to do well inside me and that the Lord will continue to keep him there as long as possible.

*Pray that my bleeding and contractions will remain calm

*Pray for Daniel as he is managing the home and 11 children right now; I know how hard it is with his concern for me, wanting to be up here, yet having to make sure the children are cared for.

*Pray for wisdom in all the decisions needed to be made in the days ahead for both Daniel and I and the doctors Thanks for praying!