One year ago today, this is what I was doing. Holding my sweet baby boy for the very first time. It was one of the most awesome days of my life.

I’d been having mild contractions for quite a while. By December 2nd I was 3 centimeters dialated without hardly feeling a thing. We spent the next 3 days in breathless anticipation, certain every night that we’d be going to the hospital. Ugh. Longest 3 days of my life! Everyone told me the last trimester would drag on like crazy. For me, the trimester flew by – it was those last couple of days that were agonizing!

Finally, Saturday morning – my due date exactly! – I started having uncomfortable contractions. They’d be consistent for an hour, and then spread back out if I moved around too much. That happened two or three times. We got our hospital bag ready and all our various sundry gear together by the front door. Around 5:30 in the evening, my contractions changed. I called my husband – who was across the street helping at a family member’s house – and told him he’d better come home. Things were feeling different.

This time, I was determined not to spend an hour in one position only to be disappointed. I paced up and down the short length of the townhome we were living in at the time. I bounced on the exercise ball. I tried laying down and OWCH. Not a good idea. Not trying that one again. Okay, let’s try squatting – that’s supposed to be comfortable for contractions. OWCH again! Best for me was either standing up rocking side to side, or sitting on the ball. I love that ball. I think every pregnant woman needs one.

When my contractions stayed consistent for over an hour and started intensifying, we ordered dinner. Which took FOREVER to be delivered. But I held on – I knew they wouldn’t feed me after getting to the hospital until after the baby was born, and dagnabbit, I wanted my food. I like food. Food is my friend.

Dinner didn’t come until almost 8 o’clock. I’d been sitting on the ball and watching Celine Dion’s Las Vegas show, and squeezing the life out of my husband’s forearms while he coached me through contractions. We wolfed down our food, made it to the car, and took off. Husband called friends and family in between my contractions while we drove.

Said contractions had rapidly gotten to about a minute and a half apart. It was crazy. They were never exactly consistent – five minutes here, two and a half minutes there, three minutes…but for sure, by the time we left for the hospital, they were CLOSE. And I was hollering. Loudly.

We got to the hospital at 8:27 PM on December 5th. I remember looking at the clock in the car before getting out into the bitter, bitter cold. The temperature was already well below freezing, and the windchill factor was about twice as cold. The wind felt like icewater cutting through my clothes. I had a contraction just as I got out of the car. I leaned against the trunk and hollered my way through it while a stranger walked past. Nice. I had another contraction halfway to the door of the hospital. Dang, it was cold out there. I just wanted to get inside already!

The desk attendant at the main entrance was just getting up and putting on her coat to go home when we walked in. She took one look at me and said “Good Lord! Do you need a wheelchair?” – and then I had another contraction. Wheeeeeee!

Mercifully, after I got into the wheelchair I didn’t have another contraction until we were settled in our triage room in the birth center. I was 5 centimeters and almost completely effaced. I was in triage for all of about ten minutes before being whisked away to a delivery room by my nurse.

Incidentally, I had the best L&D nurse EVER. Her name is Radiance. Here she is with us:

Lemme tell ya, if you deliver at the new St. Francis in Colorado Springs and Radiance is your L&D nurse, you just struck the Lottery, my friend. She ROCKS.

I got an epidural right away. I had gone into this whole labor thing with a goal in mind – I wanted to make it to a certain point before asking for any medication, and if I got to that point and felt I could keep going without it I would. Or I’d be satisfied that I met my goal and ask for the drugs. Well, I was at my goal when I got to the hospital. And my curiosity about labor was thoroughly satisfied. Bring on the epidural!!!!!!

My epi was gooooooood. I barely felt a thing for the rest of the experience. And y’know, I wouldn’t change that. I laughed and joked my way through pushing and delivery. My husband and Radiance and I were cracking up the whole time. Those are some of the best memories of the evening, and I wouldn’t give those up. It was fantastic.

I started pushing around 11:40 PM. I pushed hard, man! I wanted to give birth on my due date!

Well, 26 minutes past my due date wasn’t too bad. My little Caleb was perfectly healthy, big and strong at 9 pounds 5 ounces. When my husband carried him over to me from the warmer, wrapped up tight in a blanket with a little hat on his little head, I held out my arms and said “Gimme gimme gimme!!!!!!” Oh, such a perfect baby! He looked around with blinking eyes and pouty lips, just taking it all in. In the next few minutes he met all his grandparents and one of his uncles. It was awesome.

My perfect little baby.

And here he is today.

Mama’s big, snuggly boy. After too much excitement and cake and ice cream. Five minutes later he was sound asleep in his pack ‘n play.

Happy Birthday, baby. Mommy loves you!

I’m tired tonight. Very tired. And after the burst of energy I had last night that sent me dancing around my in-laws’ kitchen like such a maniac that I left them wondering “Who is this and what has she done with our son’s wife???” this tired feeling is rather strange.

We had our baby’s First Birthday Party today. It was a total blast. Friends and family from all over came. We have some great pictures and adorable video, which will be its own post. There were meatball sandwiches and salads and presents and ice cream cake, and laughter and chatting and cooing over adorable babies.

Oh, and barf. Even on birthdays the barf is not dormant. Sigh.

But that’s another story.

There are also less fun reasons why I’m tired. This week was the 1 year anniversary of my aunt’s passing. I miss her. A lot. I thought about her today at my baby’s party. She would have cooked something positively gourmet for us to share, and been right in the thick of the kitchen activity helping and serving. It’s what she did. How she rolled. Things like this – parties and holidays – aren’t the same without her. Part of me doesn’t like writing about this, because I know it’ll make people cry, and I hate making people cry. But she needs to be remembered.  I’ve been remembering her all week.

Yesterday, in the midst of the remembrance, I attended the memorial service of an old friend. It was a lovely service – one of his sons wrote and performed a song he had written for his dad, and wins the Best Icebreaker EVER Award for what he said when he walked up to the keyboard and scanned the huge audience: “This seemed like a much better idea earlier this week, writing a song for my dad and singing it. But hey, if I screw up, nobody can say it was bad because it’s my dad’s memorial service!” And then everyone laughed hysterically. Part of me was really shocked, and part of me was really relieved. Why shouldn’t there be laughter? It was such a huge part of the life of the man we were there to honor, so laughter should have a part in the proceedings. It was right.

Sort of like at my aunt’s memorial service last year – my mom and two of my brothers led a few worship songs, and at the end of the first one my then 2 year old nephew clapped and loudly cheered “Yaaaaaaay!” for his Grandma and Daddy’s and uncle’s pretty music. Awesome. I love kids.

I love MY kid. I can’t believe he’s one. Well, about to be one. His birthday is technically Monday. He’s not crawling just yet, but he recently mastered the art of getting from laying down to sitting up all by himself. He loves pushing buttons on his toys, and reading books. Okay, really, he likes turning pages. The actual reading thing, he’s not so into, but we’re workin’ on it. He babbles and chatters and shouts a lot. He signs “please” when he wants more cereal puffs to munch on before and after meals. He has two teeth on the bottom, and I can see one just under the surface on the top. He goes to bed at eight o’clock and gets up at eight o’clock in the morning for breakfast. He nurses three times per day and eats solid food four times, and gets a sippy cup in the late afternoon/evening. We officially started the weaning process – we dropped the 4 o’clock nursing, since he pretty much barely nursed at that time anymore. We’ll go with that for a while before dropping another one. Probably the noon one will be next. That would just leave breakfast and bedtime. Not sure which one of those will go first. Meh, I’ll cross that bridge later.

Right now, the bridge I’m going to cross is the one that leads to bedtime. Goodnight!

Things about me you may or may not know:

I’m a veritable walking talking encyclopedia of facts about celebrities and the entertainment industry.

I love trivia games.

I hate strategy games.

I could barely cook when I first got married. I don’t think I had even made mashed potatoes by myself up until that point.

Living in a state of slight to moderate clutter does not bother me in the least.

I hate leaving the house without makeup and avoid it at all costs.

I do not have just one favorite color.

I like super dark nail polish.

I’m not such a fan of dark lipstick, though. I’m more into pink or nude lipgloss right now.

My current favorite restaurant is Souper Salad. Lots of stuff I can eat, and soups I can mash up and feed to the baby. Kiddo thinks it’s an awesome treat.

I am a master of procrastination. In fact, this post is me procrastinating cleaning my kitchen.

I will clean the kitchen over cleaning the bathroom any day, though.

One of the first weird things my husband and I discovered we had in common when we first met is that we both love strawberries dipped in sour cream and rolled in brown sugar.

My husband and I met on the internet.

We got engaged 3 ½ months later.

Yeah, we’re crazy. We know. But it worked.

I have watched “Celine Through the Eyes of the World” several dozen times since Husband bought it for me last spring.

Yes, I like Celine Dion. Go ahead, make fun of me. I don’t care.

I listened to Celine while in labor. Don’t ask. When a pregnant lady has a craving – any craving, be it for food or movies or music – don’t ask. Just make it so, Number One.

I leave my baby in his pajamas most of the day sometimes. Like today.

I leave myself in my pajamas most of the day sometimes. Not today, but yesterday I did.

I was also very unproductive yesterday. But I have to be productive today. So I’m going to go do that now.

I’ve chosen to follow a crazy diet. People’s eyes get wide when I describe it. I live without wheat, rice, corn, potatoes, coffee, sugar (well, a dash here and there), honey, and tropical fruits. So far I’ve been pretty  happy with my decision. It doesn’t bother me when people eat the things I can’t have around me. This was my choice, and I don’t expect everyone to tailor every situation to my choice. If worst comes to worst, I can eat before a gathering or just bring a Tupperware of my own food. No big deal.

There are times, though, when cravings strike. A couple of weeks ago I was going stark raving mad wanting some form of bread. I was literally hopping up and down in the kitchen whining to my husband “Dagnabbit, I want bread! NOW!”

And then, genius struck.

Him, not me. I was out of my mind with cravings. So Husband’s brain was the only one available.

That night for dinner, we made oat flour pancakes. And they were DELICIOUS. I’ve modified the original recipe we used to make the batter thicker and added a few flavorings and other things. So if you’re looking for a slightly less guilty way to have your pancakes on a Saturday morning, here ya go:

You will need:

2 cups oat flour (we make our own by grinding steel-cut oats in our blender – you can sift it if you want to, but I’ve done it with and without sifting and didn’t notice a difference)

2 eggs

¾ cup of milk

¾ cup of water

½ cup oil

3 tsp. baking powder

About 1 tsp. vanilla

A healthy dash of cinnamon

2 scoops of your favorite protein powder

2 heaping Tbsp. of ground flaxseed (again, we make our own – just buy the seeds in bulk and pulverize them in the blender – it’s a beautiful thing)

How simple is that?

Mix all the ingredients together in a large bowl with a whisk. If the batter is too thick for you, add a little more water or milk.

Drop the batter onto the skillet in about 1/3 cup portions. Flip when the edges are visibly cooked and bubbles are rising. Stack them together to keep warm until you’re finished cooking.

Munch on the “sacrificial first pancake” that didn’t cook up prettily enough.

Oh heaven.

Someone else likes them too!

Now, you may be wondering, what in tarnation do I put on my pancakes since I can’t have sugary syrup or honey? I have a solution that I actually like much, much better than syrup!

Put ¼ cup of frozen blueberries and several frozen strawberry slices (what you see pictured is doubled – husband decided he wanted some too) in a microwave safe bowl, and defrost them in the microwave. On my microwave, I push the “defrost” button and then “3”, which to my microwave means about .3 pounds. I think it’s about two and half minutes on half power. Something like that. I let the microwave do the thinking for me on this.

When they’re done defrosting, mash them up really good with a fork, and pop them back in the microwave on full power for about 30 seconds to finish heating them up.

Dump the resulting warm mixture over two stacked pancakes. No butter necessary. Because I can’t have that either. I know. My life has no meaning.

Well, okay, it does have meaning. Said meaning just doesn’t have butter in it.

But it does have pancakes.

In honor of the official first snow today (and the fact that I, like, hardly ever blog and need to write something!), I thought I’d explain my whacko-ness.

I love snow. I love fall and winter. Spring, I can do without. As can most Coloradans. That whole romantic “Springtime in the Rockies” thing? Hah! Whatever. More like Mud Season in the Rockies.

Huh? Where was I? Oh yeah.

So why do I love the snow?

- I get to wear sweaters and warm fuzzy clothes in general.

- Tea and hot cocoa somehow taste better when it’s snowing.

- I have an excuse to make rich, warm, calorie-laden soups and stews.

- It’s pretty. At least when it’s falling.

- I get this weird “Yeah, that’s right, I’m from Colorado – boo ya!” thrill when I drive in the snow. Even though having a baby has turned me into even more of an old lady behind the wheel (or in the passenger seat – my apologies in advance of this winter season to my husband).

- Snowy nights often end up being our best hang-out times with friends and family. Nothing like a blizzard (or an ice storm…will have to tell that story sometime…) to bring you closer together!

- The first snow means the time to make my cranberry-apple pie is drawing near. I didn’t make any last year because I was pregnant “out-to-here”, so I’m really looking forward to it!

- Funny story how the pie thing got started. I don’t like pumpkin pie. After years and years of eating it every Thanksgiving, it occurred to me that I have control over my own dessert destiny! So I made a cranberry-apple pie and brought it to my parents’ house that year, so I would have pie to eat. Aaaaaaand…everyone ate MY pie. And then my older brother informed me that they were making my pie a family tradition. So now, no matter where I’m going for Thanksgiving, I make sure both sides of the family get a pie.

- The first snow means Christmas is coming, and as hectic as it gets, I really do love it. The number one thing I’m looking forward to is Christmas Morning in our new house, going downstairs in our pajamas to open presents and spend time together as a family, and making a big so-unhealthy-it-makes-your-arteries-cringe breakfast. Oh yeah.

- The baby is old enough to get bundled up and go out in the snow. I can’t wait to take pictures of his first confused look when he gets a gander at the white stuff!

- And I love snow because it means Starbucks has Peppermint Mochas again. Oh heaven. Oh bliss.

Wait, except I can’t drink coffee.

So scratch that.

But everyone else can drink Peppermint Mochas, so ya’ll drink one for me, okay? They’re from heaven. Trust me.

It’s quarter-to-midnight. Which means I should be asleep. But instead I’m awake. House Hunters International playing in the background. Husband in his office (he has an OFFICE! HalleLUjah!) playing games on his computer. Baby snoozing peacefully upstairs. Me trying to resist going to the freezer and glomping down (yes, that is a word – because I said so) several more spoonfuls of the sugar-free ice cream husband got me to satisfy my ravenous cravings of late.

So about that office. The glorious office. It. Is. FINISHED. His desk is out of my living room! The office is a small-ish room just off the family room, with a (still unfinished) bathroom attached. It was left unfinished when the house was originally built, and the people we bought it from did an absolute hack job on it with some random sheets of drywall and terrible, terrible framing. So we ripped it all out and started over. My dad did a ton of the work – the man is a machine and we don’t know what we would do without him! My father-in-law and a couple different friends helped hang the drywall. Husband and I painted. We tacked down some carpet generously donated to us by some friends who recently re-carpeted their own house (we won’t do real carpet until we re-carpet our own house in a couple years). And last night, we moved The Titanic -as I affectionately call my husband’s massive desk – OUT of the front living room and into the office. Eventually, we’ll also move the bookshelves in our family room into the office, as we plan to do built-in shelves in the family room to house electronics, DVDs, and books.

Our beautiful pumpkins are doing well. At least mine and the baby’s are. Husband’s wolf is quickly collapsing. He’ll either have to do a new one, or we’ll just saw the sucker off at the ankles and reattach it with toothpicks. That was my idea. The pumpkins don’t spend much time outside, as they’d get soaked by our sprinklers. But we plan to have them out in full glowing glory on Halloween to greet trick-or-treaters.

We love giving candy to little kids. Come on, admit it, you love it too.

The baby is making all kinds of strides recently. We started offering him finger foods, which he kind of plays with and smushes around, and sometimes it ends up in his mouth. He has really gotten the hang of drinking from a sippy cup – which is AWESOME. When he was about three months old he started refusing bottles, so I’ve been pretty restricted as I’m the only thing he’d drink from. It made having date nights with husband rather difficult. But we’ve made friends with Mr. Sippy Cup. This evening I gave him a beverage in the sippy with dinner and he seemed to like it.

I can’t believe my baby is less than two months away from turning one. Guess that means we should set about planning that party, eh?

Okay, I’m going to bed now.

Luv ya!

No, not me. I’m like, the most under-achieving blogger ever at this point. This is my first post in how long? Yeah. Oh well. You still love me, right? Because I love you! All of you! Pioneer Woman says to tell your readers you love them. Often. And of course Pioneer Woman is right. Smart, that one.

Anyway…

We started a new fall family tradition tonight. Carving pumpkins! We’ve been meaning to do it ever since we got married, and this year we finally made our way to the pumpkin patch – okay, okay, the produce section at WalMart – and picked purchased three perfectly plump pumpkins. One for husband, one for me, and one for Baby.

Let’s see if we can guess who the overachiever is.

Mine:

Husband’s:

Baby’s (okay, well, Husband and I carved the baby’s, but still, CUTE!):

And the whole happy family!

Happy Fall, everyone! I must now go tend to my roasting pumpkin seeds.

Love ya!

We all have flaws. We all have bad moments. We all have a dark side.

Mine is my temper. Sometimes I can control it, sometimes I lose it. The times I lose it are few and far between any more, thank goodness. I’ve learned some coping techniques to keep it at bay, my husband has learned how to recognize when I’m about to lose it and what will diffuse the situation. It’s been a team effort for sure.

*Not to mention I also take an absolutely wonderful natural supplement I affectionately refer to as my “happy pills” that helps keep my raging hormones regulated.

But sometimes, I still lose it. When I’m tired, or overwhelmed, or any number of other things that might be beyond my control, my resolve against my temper weakens. And I hate it when that happens. Especially as a mom. I love my son – and my future kids – and never want to lose my temper around them. I feel absolutely horrible when it happens. Ashamed, guilty, undeserving. I’m a grown woman! I should be able to handle this!

Yesterday, though, a friend of mine posted a guest post from a mom who has made it her mission to let other moms who struggle with anger know they’re not alone. Because that’s one of the biggest problems in dealing with anger as a mom – feeling alone. Afraid to talk about it. Afraid of being judged.

It was so refreshing and encouraging to read those words. I’d had a rough afternoon and was feeling pretty blue, wondering how I was ever going to handle having more than one child. But the writer summed up how to handle it in three simple steps (which I shall paraphrase in my own words – to get the full detail, read it here):

1. Get some time to yourself at the beginning of the day to talk to God and read the Word.

2. When something frustrating happens, react in the opposite spirit (positively).

3. Love your kids in their individual love language.

I almost cried while I was reading it. Because I haven’t been doing #1 on that list for a very, very long time. No wonder I’ve been struggling with 2 and 3.

At the end of the post, she asked how many of us could use a fresh start to this week, how many of us wanted to commit to those three simple things. I wanted to jump up and down! Because I can do those things. I know I can.

This week, I started getting up an hour before the baby’s breakfast so that I can cook and eat my own breakfast without him fussing in the highchair because he’s ready to get down and play. So all I did was add praying and reading my Bible for a few minutes to that hour of time. My prayers are nothing fancy – just talking to God, asking for patience for the day, praying for my husband. Then I’ll read a couple chapters in my Bible.

If the same frustrating things that happened  yesterday happen again today, I will react in the opposite spirit. I will not get angry. Because getting angry is not productive and will not solve the problem. It is okay to feel frustrated, but what happens after that initial feeling is up to me.

And I will spend time loving my baby in his love language. As he gets older and more expressive, I’m learning what he likes – sometimes he just wants to be left alone on the floor with a soft blanket and some toys, sometimes he wants me to just sit next to him, sometimes he wants me to talk to him face to face, sometimes he wants to sit on my lap with a toy and alternate between playing and cuddling.

Three simple things.

And the knowledge that I’m not alone.

It’s a world of difference.

…the need for change. To my style. My face is clearing up, I’m losing weight, my hair is growing out, and the season is changing…and I’m feeling the urge to change with it.

I love style and fashion and clothes and hair and makeup. I love experimenting with it. It’s a little harder to experiment with clothes because, well, those cost money I don’t always have. But thanks to some birthday money and a little babysitting and saving up my monthly “blow money”, I’m going shopping next month. And I can’t wait! I love fall and winter clothes. They’re my favorite. The rich colors, the soft fabrics, the endless layering possibilities. And the coats!!! I love coats. Our first married Christmas, my husband bought me a beautiful black wool winter coat that I have worn the dickens out of. Unfortunately last winter the zipper broke. And, um, being able to close my coat is kind of up there on the list of needs. So guess what’s going on my Christmas list this year? Husband is awesome at finding the best quality for the deepest discount. So I’ll leave that little detail to him.

Meanwhile, I’m going on the hunt next month for dark, saturated colors. Long-sleeve t-shirts with embellished camisoles underneath. Maybe a thin scarf to wear on days when I’m feeling a little chic and boho. And possibly a pair of shoes my feet don’t freeze in. That would be nice.

And then there’s the hair and cosmetics. I’ve been growing my hair out over the summer, and after browsing through old pictures of myself last night from our dating days when my hair was past my shoulders, I’m so ready to have it long again for a while. I want to be able to pull it back in fun ways and style it in loose, wavy curls. And I want to wear black eyeliner. I haven’t had black eyeliner in ages. Now I want some again. And dark nail polish. I used to do my nails a lot. I haven’t lately. But there are some gorgeous colors out right now and I want me some of that, starting with a deep, dark purple.

So ultimately, I’m glamming it up a little for a while! What better time to do that than in the fall? Summertime is for light fabrics, fresh-faced makeup, and casual backyard barbecues. Fall is for soft, warm fabrics, slightly darker makeup, and comfort foods in front of the fireplace. I love fall. I can’t wait to make my first big pot of soup. And I can’t wait to put on some black eyeliner. Bring on the change of seasons!

We have been a busy busy family over the past few weeks! I’ve got tons of pictures to put up, which always seems to take me forever to get around to, since they’re on my husband’s computer, and I primarily blog from my laptop.

My husband took a week of vacation starting Labor Day weekend, which was awesome! We didn’t go anywhere – we joke that having a baby and buying a house was our vacation this year! – but we spent tons of time together and did a lot of fun things. Camping with his parents, big family barbecue at my parents’ house, shopping trips, house projects, dates, and wrapped it all up with a Celtic Woman concert at Red Rocks.

We changed the baby’s schedule recently, too – dropped a nap and a feeding, started putting meat in his diet. He’s done incredibly well with the change. It only took 1 day for him to adjust! He was so ready. And he loves his meat! I make it myself – I think the jarred baby food meat is disgusting. I sure wouldn’t eat it. So I figured it out. I make him a mixture of chicken breast, thighs, and brown rice, and mix it in the blender with some water. Baby really likes his meat! We mix it with veggies – it’s the only way he’ll eat green beans.

Incidentally, the baby now weighs 21 pounds 10 ounces! Oh my gosh he’s huge! We had his 9 month checkup last week and he’s doing great. We only had one little sick incident in the past month – he had a reaction to something and his eyelids got all red and puffy. But a little medicine and some sleep cleared that right up and he’s fine.

Oh, speaking of allergic reactions, I’ve been on my own crazy saga. 2 weeks ago during my husband’s vacation I had an allergic reaction to something I put on my face (something I’ve used many times before so the reaction pretty much came out of nowhere!). My whole face turned red like it was sunburned, and over the next 24 hours it broke out even worse and then dried up so bad, it was flaking everywhere. And oh the stinging! It was horrible. Everything I put on my face – no matter how gentle – stung like crazy and no moisture could penetrate it.

Thanks to my mom and my husband, we got the dryness under control, and thanks to a family friend I’m finally getting my acne under control. I’m attacking it primarily through diet and nutrition. And it’s working really well. My face looks better than it has in months. Maybe once it clears up for good I’ll post a picture of it. Maybe.

And I have more pictures to post of our first family tent camping trip last weekend! We went with some friends up to 11 Mile and spent the night. Can’t say the baby was a fan of the tent experience…but that’s a whole story in and of itself.

Okay, that’s all for now. I have to get off the couch and start my day. Or I never will.