Florabella Giveaway

I have been oogaling over these photoshop actions ever since I saw them featured on Joyfolie. I'm not much of a photographer so it's hard to justify the $40+ expense but right now Florabella is having a giveaway and I really hope I win!

Potty Training

Had a fabulously busy week! Could not have made it through without my amazing BFF. Thanks, Hunny!

We have bordered the potty training train and it is a bumpy ride full of ups and downs. It's sometimes a little scary, like today when I heard the potty singing in the living room from the kitchen at my sister's house and went to wipe a bum, not only did I find poop in the potty but everywhere around it too and my sister's dog trying to eat it.

But it's really exciting for all of us and Giovanni is doing really well (as long as he is not wearing any pants.) Yesterday we read Once Upon a Potty and Giovanni loved it. He had me read the part of the accident over and over and then skip to the part where he gets it in the potty and we "oohed" and "awed" over that again and again. Some days are better than others but I feel optimistic. :)

We got a ton of whipping cream today so I made butter. I want to make pancakes in the morning so I can put bananas and whipping cream on top. I gave a bunch to my neighbor who will be making ice cream and who just told me some exciting news, she's expecting.

Giovanni's Daddy put him to bed for the first (intentional) time tonight! Yay! I'm not sure how or when I can get Giovanni to sleep in his own bed. My friend says she still has trouble with her attached 16 year old son.

Snow Day

Yesterday morning, when we stepped outside to let the dog out we found a nice little surprise, snow. This is a big deal for a little desert town, so of course we layered up and went outside to play in it.

Giovanni couldn't quite put his arms down for so many layers! I felt like the mother in A Christmas Story who stuffed her son in so many layers his arms stuck out and he could barely walk and when he fell over in the snow he couldn't get up so Ralphy had to come help him.

Daddy started building a snowman. Giovanni was watching with this arms stuck out.

Giovanni looked very pleased with his snowball.

Giovanni helped build the snowman.Carrot for a nose, stones for eyes and teeth.

Giovanni was so pleased with his new friend, he gave him a big hug.We went across the street and helped our neighbors with their snowmen.

The snow was so enticing Giovanni decided to taste it and found a leaf.

Giovanni pulled the carrot-nose off the snowman's face and played it like a flute.
Giovanni loved his snowman so much he gave him a snowball heart.

Mercedes Rose

It's been a few weeks but I don't want to forget this experience so I'm going to put in my blog.

November 16, 2010 sometime around 6:00 am I got a text from Kelsey that they were at the hospital and the baby was coming! Around 10:00 am I got antsy and started calling, her husband. Dustin answered and said that everything was going good and they gave her Oxytocin to speed up her labor. A little while later Dustin called back and asked if I could bring some chewing gum, of course I said yes! We (Giovanni and I) hurried and got ready but when we went outside the car was gone. I called Biggy and he said he would get the gum, they were leaving anyway. 35 mins later (exactly, I checked) impatiently I called him back and told him to forget it and then I called my mom and she came and got me.

Biggy showed up with the gum and I finished whipping up some Labour Aid at my mom's house which is conveniently located across the street from the hospital. I left little Giovanni with his Papa and uncle Cheyne and my mom and I ran across the street to see Kelsey. When we got there Dustin met us at the door looking tired so I asked him if he wanted to get something to eat while we stayed with Kelsey. He thanked us and went downstairs to the cafeteria.

I stepped into the clean, simple hospital room, it was larger than I expected (bigger than mine, anyway). Kelsey was sitting in a lounge position on her hospital bed looking exhausted. My mom took her hand and not really knowing what to do I just stood there awkwardly and watched for a moment. A contraction came and Kelsey's face suddenly went from relaxed to pained. I tried rubbing her back but she said no.

I tried to think of something helpful and I remembered some of the experiences I read in Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth when I was pregnant with Giovanni. A couple of women used visualization to aid them in childbirth. One woman pictured a flower blooming and the other visualized a cave opening. In a low even tone I started describing a flower blossoming and opening up, a few minutes later the nurse came in and started updating Kelsey. I was already feeling kind of silly so I hushed up, but Kelsey asked me to keep talking. As embarrassed as I felt I couldn't say no, it was a simple request so I kept describing a blooming flower. Dustin came in a little while later and I wonder what the scene must have looked like to him. On one side of Kelsey next to the monitors and machines was my mother, putting pressure on Kelsey's back during contractions and holding her hand in between. Sitting on the other other side of the bed her "hippie" sister chanting nonsense about flowers and waves. He seemed unsure of where he fit into this unusual picture, but we all found our place and focused our entire energy on Kelsey. Once the nurse saw Kelsey was fully dilated and ready to push suddenly there was this huge commotion and the nurse was yelling for someone to get the doctor (stat!) and people began filing in. I looked up for a moment and couldn't believe how many people were packed in there. I wish I had taken the time to count but I quickly centered my focus back on Kelsey not wanting to slow her down or halt her labor in any way. The doctor rushed in and they took part of the bed away. Three or four pushes later little Mercedes was born. They immediately laid her on Kelsey and began wiping her off before they laid her on Kelsey's chest, skin to skin. It was such a special experience, I felt very blessed to have been apart of. We had not intended on being there for the birth but unexpectedly only about an hour and half after we arrived Kelsey had her baby.

After Kelsey had the baby she was suddenly alive with energy, I thought that was so funny especially since I felt so exhausted and at one point lightheaded. I went home and took a nap with Giovanni afterward. But what a miracle I got to be a part of.

Sourdough

Lately I have been obsessed with sourdough, making everything from sourdough bread to pancakes, crackers and cake. I lovingly feed my starter every day, twice a day and it resides safely on the top of our cabinets where it is nice and warm. At one point every bowl in the house was being used for sourdough as I had 4 starts going and a couple of side projects like tortillas and bread. I ran into sourdough baking on a blog (I can't remember which). The post had an interesting sourdough cracker recipe that was inspired by the GNOWFGLINS' eCourse on sourdough. I signed up for the eCourse and have been hooked ever since. Not only are these delightfully sour loaves and other bake goods delicious but they are actually really nutritious too. Because the flour is soured it neutralizes phytic acid which blocks mineral absorption in the body, neutralizes enzyme inhibitors, increases vitamin content and begins breaking down the difficult to digest proteins, all of which makes me feel a lot better about my love affair with bread. :)

Hoot Hoot Halloween

We had a fun filled Halloween and Giovanni actually wore his adorable owl costume I made him (it only took a little bribing is all). We were so exhausted by the time it was actually Halloween (Sunday) we were so over it!

We started trick or treating at Dixie Middle School where Giovanni saw a scary witch! Pumpkins, witches and ghosts and some of the "Carewee Tings" he's kept an eye out for this season. Then we went trick or treating around Kelsey's office, all the ladies gushed over how cute Giovanni was and he was starting to get the hang of this trick or treating thing.

We had planned squeeze in a visit right before nap time to my aunt Marsha with Sky and her girls next but Giovanni passed out on the couch in a heap.


But after nap we hurried over for a quick visit while the girls were still there. Emma dressed up as a vampire and Ashley was another owl. I made her hat too. Sky tried to get me to make her costume too but after Giovanni's costume I was done cutting and sewing tiny little feathers so I handed her my sewing machine instead and she actually did most of the work (I only helped a little). And Moose helped cut out feathers, it turned out fabulous.


And that was Friday's festivities. On Saturday we didn't get ready until that last minute, I had been busy starting pickles and getting supplies for more pickles since we got 48 lbs. of pickling cucumbers that morning in our Bountiful Basket. When Moose and the girls showed up (poor Sky was home sick), we headed up to the church for some chili dogs and trunk-or-treat.



Since we were so early and already finished with our food we decided to go bring the kids by my parents house before the trunking began. Only Papa was home and he suggested we pop into the hospital across the street and see Jack.



Poor Jack is recovering from a heart attack that almost killed him. His leg had to be amputated and he has had several surgeries to save the other one. It's a miracle and a blessing he is doing so well. Seeing the kids in their Halloween costumes was a nice treat for him and for us too.


We barely made it back for the end of our trunk-or-treat, Giovanni, Emma and Ash only got a small handful of candy each as most trunks were out of treats by this time. So Moose and the girls went to do some old fashioned door to door trick-or-treating and Biggy, Giovanni and I had to head over to the other grands so they could see Giovanni too.


On the way out my mom stopped by our house because she missed Giovanni when we came by.

Dorothy was dressed as Dorothy (pun intended) and Biggy thought it would be funny to put on a suit coat with his street clothes and pose as her husband Dave.


It was way too much fun crammed into one small evening and by Sunday morning for us Halloween was a thing of the past.

ABCs

The other day Giovanni had scaled a chair on his own and was sitting at the table studying the cover of one of his Daddy's books. He was slapping and prodding the book shouting, "Tee! Tee! Tee! Tee!" I decided to investigate what he was doing and as I approached him I was surprised to find that he was pointing to each letter "T" on the cover of the book and shouting, gleefully, "T!" And these were lowercase letters.

It's not uncommon for Giovanni to hunt for letters, his first and favorite letter is "O." I remember one time at the grocery store he was pointing out "O's" everywhere. Then we stopped underneath a great, big "Sea Food" sign high above us pointing and saying "Oh! Oh!" A little old lady stopped and watched us curiously and finally asked what we were doing, when I told her he loved finding the letter "O" she looked as though she didn't believe me.

Giovanni's next letter surprisingly enough was "W," which he calls, "Double." Then came "B," "Q" and "R" and sometimes "A." I say sometimes because he doesn't always recognize it and even the later four letters can sometimes be elusive to him.

We started learning letters from a simple ABC board book, at first we were only learning the name of the thing that began with with the letter pictured next to the brightly colored lower and upper case letters. Then one day he pointed to the letter "O" and said, "Dis?" (meaning: What's this?) So I signed and said "O." We only learn the ABCs when Giovanni shows interest, which is why I was so surprised to find him pointing to each letter "T" on the book because that was a letter we had never spent much time on.

Today as we looked over his alphabet book in church he pointed to the "V" and said, "Vacuum." Well in this book there is a picture of a violin next to "V" not a vacuum but in a ABC flipchart we have there is a vulture vacuuming and the picture is in the shape of a letter "V." It is the most requested page at the moment as he is obsessed with vacuums. When I vacuum the living room Giovanni pushes a small red dirt devil right beside me. He also enjoys, sweeping, wiping, scrubbing and cooking, and insists on being included when ever I am doing any of these chores. His dad thinks he's a little OCD but I think it's adorable. He freaks out when he gets too messy or dirty or wet and we have to wipe him up quick, but isn't cleanliness next to godliness?