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7 months later

...we received visits from Auntie Heather in June, Grandma, Grandpa and Uncle Brandon and Sara in August and went camping in Prescott, Ama and Papa came in August; As a family we traveled to Montana to visit J's family and Canada to visit our friends Tom, Malora, Noah and new baby Jude; shortly after that J went to Ukraine and Vienna for business; we did the Polar Express in Williams, AZ where the kids "met" Santa; had fun hosting Aunt Joanna and Uncle Mark in Nov., and had a Christmas for the 1st time in Arizona. Daniel is now crawling and pulling himself up all the time, has 2 teeth. I'm continuing to read up on health at WAPF (Weston A Price Foundation) and learning why saturated fats are good for us and why we need cholesterol from egg yolks, butter, and grass-fed beef, and I finally got back out in my garden after a 4 month hiatus (ie, since Daniel starting being mobile!). We're looking forward to visits from family in the near future!

Daniel Lloyd

Born June 21, 2009. 9 Lbs 13 Oz.

Home for our Chickens

Our chickens now have a new home, which I am very proud of. Jamie and I worked on it together, making the plans, painting, sawing, screwing it together and this past weekend to finish stapling the chicken wire to the coop frame. I love it; we can walk inside it easily (even my 6'3" husband) and the chickens have plenty of room now. Only thing left to finish is the nesting/laying area, and adding a roosting pole for them to roost at night. Sometimes I let the chickens out during the day to peck around the yard, and usually after awhile they drift back to their home. We're still defining their names - so far we have Tigger, Penguin, Sweetie and maybe Red. I never thought it'd be a challenge to come up with 5 chicken names!!

Pregnancy up-date

So, most people reading this may not know that we are planning to do an at-home birth this time around. We've had two successful births with mid-wives at our hospital, and they've also been really fast labors, (6 hrs and less than 3 hrs), so I wanted to plan to be at home instead of having to worry about making it to the hospital "in time", (I mean, who wants to deliver their baby in a car, right?) I found a terrific mid-wife, Mary and her mid-wife assistant, Nedra, who have been doing this 30+ yrs, and have delivered over 2000 babies, and so I feel I am in good hands, with ones who have seen the gamut of what "could" happen during a labor, and they are very cautious and conscientious about who they will take, making sure that you are truly a low-risk candidate. So, anyways, all that said, I just had my appointment today, and although my due date is on Sunday, they are predicting that I won't go into labor for at least another full week, so we went ahead and scheduled another appt. for next Thurs. In part I'm really wanting this part of waiting to meet our Daniel or Sonja to be over, but in part I'm a little in relief, because I don't feel "ready" yet for the labor part. It's like you have to both gear up for something really hard, and yet let go of all expectations of what it could be like, and just go for it. So, I think this week is a week of mental/emotional/spiritual preparation so that I will be ready in the moment to give myself over to this birth experience. And my favorite part? In the end, we will have a precious gift to enjoy - our newest Watne!!

Swimming class

Miss Amy has taught Ana and Bjorn to love the water these past two weeks. It's been so fun to see them transform from crying all the way through their class, to willingly doing everything she wants them to do. She has been a gentle, yet firm teacher, and they've learned to put their heads under the water, open their eyes under water, reach for the wall, jump off the side of the pool, attempt freestyle stroke, float on their back, dive for rings at the bottom of the pool and do kabooms off the side of the pool. Ana loves to practice with me now and she has no fear of of water anymore! Neither of them is swimming independently yet, as you can see from the video footage, yet, they are confident in their attempts and with practice they'll keep getting better at it. As one fellow mom put it, this is the first really hard thing we make them learn living in Phoenix where there is a pool behind most homes. It's been amazing to see both of them rise to the challenge and succeed at the level they are at!

Night away

Jamie and I enjoyed a night away thanks to some friends, Jan and Rawd who graciously watched our children while we camped in Prescott. The weather was great and we were grateful to find a spot since we arrived rather late. We should journal about all our camping adventures, because we certainly seem to be full of them no matter where we go. This weekend's adventure was the fact that we took someone else's campsite without realizing it, and once we did realize it, we had already had the tent and bed set up!! We were so tired by the end we didn't think straight about how to handle it, so we put the other person's tag on another site, thinking that at least we'd have another spot to stay once the other person showed up. OH, I forgot to mention, the only article on the whole campsite that indicated it was occupied was a small dark green poop bag laying by a stick. No tent, chair, stove, nothing and we arrived when it was dark. So anyway, we went into town, because the pump for our air mattress wasn't working and I'm 9 months preggo and so I didn't feel like sleeping on the ground; we never found another pump, but we did find a body pillow, and we headed back to our site. Then Jamie figured out a way to get it pumped up, and we went to bed, ears open for whenever the other person came back to claim their spot. (We were planning to move locals once they showed up.) So, turns out our air mattress had a leak and we were sleeping on the ground anyway!!! And when we went outside our tent at 7am, who is standing there, but this dear lady, with her dog, who we bumped from her spot, quite upset and not understanding why we were so rude as to take her spot. And I did my best to apologize and make amends, but pretty rough start to the day I must say. In the end though, Jamie and I found an awesome, perfect size little lake to tull around in our small fishing boat, perfect for a family, with a playground and grills and hiking. So, we enjoyed our little boating outing before heading back to Phoenix. All in all, despite the travails, we always find ourselves refreshed from leaving the city and getting into nature. I suppose that is the adventure that we are learning to embrace, that when we leave our comfort home, and seek to "get away", we are accepting the inevitable bumps in the road that will occur, but it's worth it, because only by getting out do we experience the refreshment that comes with newness and not knowing what to expect in a day, not to mention the joy of God's creation in it's rare beauty.