Updates

I just noticed I have not written anything at all over the winter months. Well, if you want to call it winter at all. 

First things first, I gave birth to this handsome fellow a couple of weeks ago

I could stare at him all day...

Birth went so smoothly with him. I started to have contractions when I woke up that morning around 7:30, which I thought were just Braxton Hicks. According to my 'timeing' calculations I wasn't due until the end of March, I was off. They began to get worse throughout the morning, so I drank a ton of water and got into a position to relax my body and mind. Then my husband decided we should call the midwife just to have her look at me (we really did not think he was coming that day at all!). That was around 9:30. We arrived at the birthing center at 10:30 she took a look at me and told us I was dilated to a nine! And was going to have the baby! I started to feel the need to push a little after 11 and our amazingly handsome son was born at 11:28. We were homeward bound about four hours later where I was able to rest in my own bed (and recliner). 

Right after having him (he didn't come out with a bonnet)

Yes, using a midwife at the birthing center restricted me  from using an epidural, my choice, yes. I don't regret it one bit. That was the most amazing experience ever. Along side the birth of my daughter in which I did have an epidural. Both births were so different and yet so amazing. If we have another, I think I will do without the epidural. Plus, they say that each baby comes faster than the last. My daughter was here within 2 hours of pushing, my son within 28 min of pushing, not sure we will make it out the door of our house if I have another. Ha! 

Too much information?

Over the past few months I have had a few great goals of getting caught up on my scrapbooking before he was born. ALOT of scrapbooking. 

I was very successful at getting nothing done. 

This week I was feeling rather ambitious and decided that I'm going to start and finish my daughter's first year scrapbook. Start my son's first year scrapbook and begin a scrapbook for our everyday pictures as well. Shutterfly.com had free shipping if you ordered $30 or more so I took advantage of it. I ordered 350+ pictures, that should get me caught up on what I want. 

I am super excited about the new materials I'm going to use for everyday pictures. Has anyone heard of Project Life by Becky Higgins? Well, I have been following The Mom Creative for some time now and just about every Tues. she post a Project Life page or pages she has completed.  Here is a sample of one of her pages

You can find close ups of this layout on THIS POST.

Project Life is meant for quick scrapbooking. Not having to create massive page layouts (which I'm still doing for my kiddo's first year books). But, instead you can create multiple miniature layouts like this one 

Found over at MIRIAM'S BLOG which has some beautiful layouts,

whom I just discovered today via the PROJECT LIFE LINK UP

in which I hope to be joining in a couple of weeks. 

Click on some of the links I posted and check out more on Project Life, if you are interested in a bit of a quicker and easier way to scrap your photos. I get my kit on Thurs. and hopefully my pictures will be here some time next week! What have you scrapped recently?

Spring is officially here! Im assuming anyway since we had to Spring our clocks forward. Our garden is almost tilled up. We have to sharpen the blades and then we will be able to till the rest up. I can't wait to see what prospers this year! I haven't had much luck with big gardens (because I didn't have time to take care of them; now that I'm home, I'll be able to tend to this one everyday. And of course take lots of pictures of my kiddos helping me! 

Have a great week!

Your pal,

Chelsey

PS I'm going to try and update on a regular basis, sorry for slacking

"And try Me now in this"

This has been a hectic month. My hubby received a new job working as the youth pastor at the church I grew up in as a child, which in turn is allowing us to relocate to a new home. Yay! I love where we live now but very excited about the new place as well. We have been painting and cleaning at the new place for the past week. Today they are tearing out old carpet and next week putting in new stuff. Tomorrow we move all our little stuff over next weekend all the big stuff. Its kinda crazy around here.

Here is a few pics on what's been going on.

About a month ago, when it was still in the 80s, I took Charli to the Nature Center. They have put in a whole new kids area.

She got to build things

bang on things

get messy in a MASIVE sand box

And try to figure out how this shovel worked.

We went to the Buhler Frolic, Charli got to see her first parade, and I bought my hubby his first potato gun (regretting that one haha). It was a beautiful day out.

Since we are moving and it frosted, we went out and picked all our green tomatoes off our four plants to save and turn red. Here is a look at our bounty

And the weirdest one

I was reading Malachi 3 the other day and verse 10 has really been on my mind

" "Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, 

That there may be food in My house, 

And try Me now in this," 

Says the Lord of hosts, 

"If I will not open for you the windows of 

heaven 

And pour out for you such blessing 

That there will not be room enough to 

receive it. "

I think so many times I/we get stuck on blessings being money, to pay off bills, go buy nice stuff or whatever one does with it. Thats what society has conditioned us to believe, that money is everything. That day we were picking our tomatoes I had a laugh out loud moment, literally. This verse came to mind as I was filling up a third brown grocery bag of tomatoes. "there will not be room enough to receive it" Where are we suppose to put all these tomatoes while we wait for them to turn red?!?! What a blessing. I felt this was quite the literal example of this verse. As for now we are rotating them, inside, outside, warm spots, in the sun. Trying all the tricks recommended to us. We will be making alot of salsa, spaghetti/pizza sauce and diced tomatoes. I have to remind myself that the Lord's blessings come in so many different ways.

How has your fall been so far? 

It wont be long until Nov. 

Time is going to fast. 

Costumes

I am debating on making Charli a Halloween costume or just buying one. My mother made our costumes every year and they were some of the coolest costumes ever! I wish I had some pics of them, but fortunately for you I don't (on hand). There are so many cute handmade ones out there to choose from, or get inspiration from.

This 

owl costume

She could be

Princess Leia

I do love this

Little Red Ridinghood costume

Ha ha this

Sack of Taters will definitely have to be for the next babe

With Spaghetti being my favorite food I might take 

This one into consideration

or

make my own variation of it :)

This is probably the cutest one I have seen but way way way out of my price range

Here is a picture of Charli last year at Halloween 

Im pretty sure she is the cutest bumble bee ever! Don't argue with me...

Which one is your favorite? What are you dressing your kids/dogs up as this year? or are you?

Jonathan & Golden Delicious

Yesterday, I picked up our two bushel's of apples that we had ordered. I'm so excited. On my list next week I'll be canning apple sauce, apple butter, apple jam and spiced apples. Mmm, it'll be good. I might post some recipes if I remember. Last week we canned 10 quarts of pickled okra. I think we only have six jars left. They were pretty great. Just wanted to share my friday excitement with you. Its going to be a great weekend! I'll leave you with a short clip of Charli eating a whole apple. Peeled of course.

Isn't she adorable?

Happy Friday!

Beautiful Things

This wonderful song is stuck in my head

Perhaps stuck isn't the right word because that would imply I want to get it out of my head, 

which I don't.

I have locked this song in my head.

There it shall remain. 

Have a great Thursday!

*Edit: Just saw that it is Friday ha!
Have a great Friday!

So many tomatoes!

I have been checking my tomato plants twice a day in hopes that there will be some red ones soon.

No red ones yet. Just lots and lots of tomatoes. 

They are getting so big and beautiful. I can't wait much longer, the anticipation is killing me!

Charli has been loving to color after breakfast. It has been so fun to watch her just scribble away.

It has been so beautiful out this past week. We have been leaving all the windows wide open. We bought Charli some chalk and found some bubbles which are now played with on a daily basis. After she gets done drawing on the sidewalk she tries to draw on the grass, but then gets so frustrated because nothing will appear. Somehow she manages to draw on the tree. 

We bought a dozen baby chicks too! Our friends are keeping them with their chicks and taking care of them. But, we get to see them a couple times a week. Charli was able to pet one the other day. I'm not getting attached though, because we bought them to eat when they get fat enough. Yep, we are going to spend one of these beautiful Sat. butchering our chickens. We aren't bringing along Charli of course, I'm not sure what that would do to her psyche at such a young age. I'll get some pics of them on our next visit.

The fair starts tomorrow!! I'm so excited. My husband doesn't understand why everyone in this town is getting so excited for the fair. We are going Sat. and as soon as he eats some of that delicious once a year food, he will know why we get excited. Not to mention all the free junk at the booths!! Like paper fans, bookmarks and magnets! We will be heading over to the free food sample booths. Ah! Can't wait. 

Did you know they have fried butter at the fair? Yes, fried BUTTER. My gag reflexes just kicked in while I typed that. They also have Krispy Kreme hamburgers. Yep, you read that right too, a hamburger placed not between two buns but two Krispy Kremes. Won't be getting that either.  I will be getting fried snickers and maybe try the fried kool-aid because I can't wrap my head around how they fry kool-aid. Does anyone know? What will you be eating at the fair?

Can I get a "Woop Woop" for Fair Food!?!

Anger, Tomatoes and Hats

As most of you know I'm a pretty mellow person. It takes a little bit for me to get angry at something. Also, I don't really want this to be a place of griping and grumbling. But, since I'm super angry I'm letting it out. I think it is more pregnancy hormones. Ok, so now that I think about it I'm not really anger more so than SUPER irritated at our car insurance company and lack of simple responsibility to let corporate know that we are covered instead of just leaving it in there own local system where no one else can verify that we were insured during time x and time y. They seem annoyed that I have called only twice about getting this solved. But, no now that one of the Credit Union ladies has explained to me that the local insurance place has to do all this stuff, I will be calling every hour, on the hour until this is solved. I hate dealing with people, specifically over the phone. If they could see my face and my death stare this would be solved now.

15 minutes until I call again.

On a lighter note, I wanted to show a pic of our tomato plants

There are only four plants there. They are taller than James, who is 6'3'' ish and wider that 3 grown adults standing next to each other. They have been this big and beautiful all summer! We have received a whooping four tomatoes off of them. Yes, all summer. It has been soo hot that the buds are not setting and no tomatoes are forming. But, last week it got cool in the night and buds began to set!! We can see little tomatoes sprouting up everywhere! I'm so excited. I have BIG plans for them! Like spaghetti/pizza sauce, salsa, tomato paste, diced tomatoes and of course BLT's or as I like to have them BMT (bacon, mayo and tomatoes).  ahhh the anticipation is killing me.

Charli somewhere found one of her hats from when she was a newborn and had to wear it yesterday afternoon ALL afternoon. Here is a little video of her showing it off (once she goes off camera you can stop watching its uneventful after that)

Don't mind the mess in the living room, we like to live in there.

Well after venting (sorry about that, and thanks for listening/reading), seeing my tomato plants and watching Charli model a hat, I feel a billion times better. Not to mention I get a package from AVON today so... those that ordered something will be getting your goodies this weekend! woop woop! 

Just thought of something else to put me in high spirits, James has a 3 day weekend!! Yay Labor day and Yay State Fair with fried snicker bars!! next week. 

4 more minutes then I call again