Different

I know I haven't posted in a while. Life has gotten fairly busy and when it gets busy, the "extra" stuff gets dropped first. And unfortunately, this blog falls under that category. But just because I haven't updated, it doesn't mean I haven't thought about what new posts I want to write. I have a ton of them swirling around in my brain.

For the next little while, though, I've decided to write about all the things that make us (Brent and me) "different" and why we have chosen these things in our life. Some of the topics are fairly controversial and so I would suggest that if you are one to get riled up easily or feel upset when someone has an opposing view on things, you may want to skip over those posts.


A few months ago, in a conversation with my brother about homeschooling and being vegetarian, he suggested that --from the outside-- it looked as though Brent and I just automatically disregard anything mainstream and choose the alternative paths. (I think the term "hippie" was used more than once.) I appreciated that he felt comfortable enough to tell us this and I have pondered about it often since then. After explaining to him our thought processes, and time spent researching, studying, and often praying, why we'd come to the decisions we have, he was better able to understand us and respect our decisions. He still disagrees with us on a lot of the topics, but he's at least able to understand our point of view.

This is my goal with the next few posts. A lot of people in our lives tend to disregard what we have to say because, well, we're "Brent and Ann." (aka: "weird" or "hippies") We see the eye-rolling and ears-shutting-off whenever one of these topics is brought up. And we're fine with that. We know that we sometimes approach these conversations in the wrong way. When Brent and I feel strongly about something, you definitely know it when we talk about it. We can get "intense." It's one of our weaknesses. (And unfortunately it's a weakness we both share.) So in bringing these things up on a blog, the hope is that it takes the "personal" aspect out of things, and just *maybe* there's someone out there who can learn something from what we've learned. And if not, then at the very least, maybe there will be some who have a better understanding of us, and hopefully a little more respect for our decisions, knowing we haven't just made them willy-nilly.

A few years ago, I was about 1 year shy of getting my bachelor degree when we up and moved to Michigan. I haven't been able to go back to school since. I still plan on finishing at some point, but in the meantime, I've focused my education efforts on all things "mother." I've always loved to learn. And I didn't want to stop learning when I stopped going to school. So about a year after we moved to Michigan, I made the decision to start researching and learning about different topics that fall under my jurisdiction of "decisions to be made as a mother."

It really all came about after my disenchantment with the medical community as a whole after Roo's birth and the subsequent agonizing months dealing with his reflux (and no doctors believing me that there was even a problem). I came to the realization that my children were sent to ME for a reason. *I* am their mother. And *I* know my children better than anyone else, including doctors and other professionals. I began to take my role as a mother a lot more seriously than before. I began to question things that before, were just a given "because the doctor (or insert any other professional here) said it was best." I began to see that what may be best for some is NOT best for all. And I began to question a lot of the decisions I had previously made and was going to make in the future.

So in the posts to follow I will share what I (and subsequently, Brent) have learned from my (our) studies and experiences. And hopefully I can do it in a way so that we won't lose too many friends along the way. :)

The Basement is DONE!!!

Besides a few small projects like caulking and washing windows, our basement is complete! I'm so happy, I can't even tell you. For the first time since we moved I feel ORGANIZED! And coming from the gene pool that I came from, that's a very important way to feel.

We're now done with 2am bedtimes, midnight runs to Wal-Mart for more primer and ceiling paint, and Saturdays full of trips to Home Depot. I am ecstatic!

Now maybe I can get back to blogging about other things. The basement has taken over our lives for the last month and I can finally concentrate on something else (including my children). :)

Here are some pics of the final product.

Kids' new playroom (a huge hit w/the littles)

Schoolroom (huge hit w/the teacher) ;)
And the bathroom (huge hit w/anyone who feels the urge)

There's also an extra bedroom and an exercise/storage room, but they're pretty much empty at the moment, so I didn't get pics of them.

Of course nothing is really decorated yet, but it's all functional and that's good enough for me right now.

Come on by for a visit if you're in the neighborhood!

Busy, busy, busy

(Can anybody name what movie the title's from?)

That's what we've been around here lately. So much so that my dear blog has been neglected. What have we been up to, you ask? Just small stuff like finishing a basement and starting school. You know, nothing huge.

We started school on Aug 24 and I think this is going to be my favorite year so far. I really do love teaching the kids and watching them learn and grow. Tink is more involved now and is having a great time with it. They're all learning Spanish this year. Isn't that fun? Roo keeps calling his sisters "nina." (How do you put that little symbol on top of the second "n" to make it Spanish?)

First Day of School 2009

Grandma and Grandpa came to visit that night and bring us our most-comfortable-and-most-economical-flooring-ever. (They get it at Sam's Club.) You can see it in the pics of the exercise room below.

Some before and after pics of our basement.....more "after" pics to come as soon as there's more "after" to show. ;)

Playroom before:
Sorry, no pics of the playroom after....hopefully later this week. It's got paint up except for 3 walls which we're going to paint some fun colors. And the carpet's being installed next week.

Exercise room before (Brent putting down the cheapest-most-comfortable-flooring-ever):
This was the flooring we used in the playroom at our last house, except we used the colorful sides. :)

Exercise room after:

School room before (floors were down, but no paint yet):
School room after:
Bathroom after (sorry, no before):
Brent's parents and brother helped us get the first coat of paint up last night. And we're having another "painting party" on Saturday to get the second coat up. Brent and I will paint the accent walls in the playroom sometime this week and then carpet's coming next Tuesday! I'm getting SOOOO excited! I think I'm more excited for the school room than anything else. I'll have space for everything! And the kids will get to do crafts again (most of the craft stuff has stayed "packed" since the move. Too much mess to deal w/in the kitchen).

So hopefully after next Tuesday there won't be anymore 2am bedtimes for Brent and me after working long hours in the basement after the kids go to bed. Although I do love working side-by-side on projects with Brent, I prefer them to end by midnight at the latest.

I have a ton more posts in my head, so hopefully I can squeeze some more time in for them sometime this week.

Song in my head

Thank you to Brent for showing me this song. Love it!

This is why I'm "crazy" about carseats and seatbelts

As many of you know, I'm a member on a carseat forum. Recently there was a car accident involving a woman who is a CPST (Child Passenger Safety Technician...one of the experts who checks carseat installation). So word spread quickly among the different carseat boards. The woman's name is Casey and she posted a quick version of her story from the hospital. She's since been released and has written up everything that she remembers about the crash. It's every parent's worst nightmare. But because her children were properly restrained, they all walked away from the accident with only minor bruises. Casey, her husband, and her brother all had a few injuries, but they will also "walk away" from the accident. The people in the other car weren't so lucky. There were 6 people in a vehicle not equipped to safely hold 6 people. Only 2 of them were wearing seatbelts (2 of the survivors). 3 of the occupants died-- 2 of them were kids (15 and 11). All 3 that died were brothers. (The video of the newscast I posted below doesn't have all the correct info....they said all but 1 person died. There were 3 survivors. The story of the mother of the 3 boys is here.)

Here is her quick version of the story:
"We took the family camping this weekend. We were towing the boat. Nobody was in front of us. About 15 minutes after we left the campground, we were coming up on some cars heading the opposite direction. When we almost passed the first vehicle, a 4 door Jeep Wrangler swerved into our lane and hit us head on. We were going about 50 mph, not sure how fast they were going.

The other vehicle went into a ditch. There were 6 people in the other vehicle. I think 3 of them died (although the news story I posted says all but 1 died...). Only one person in that vehicle was wearing a seat belt.

We stopped right at the edge of the ditch. We were all wearing our seat belts, and the girls were all properly restrained.

Dan broke his leg and had surgery to put a titanium rod in it. He also had a big gash on his other leg. He's ok, he's in my room with me. My brother is in another hospital, he broke his wrist and had surgery. I am OK... I was in immense pain, they did scans on me and there is a little bit of fluid (not blood) in my abdomen. I had a huge gash on my right hip from the seat belt buckle, it required about 15 stitches. I have some very serious seat belt burn. Its very painful. Im weak, and my neck/shoulders/back are still sore. I will most likely be discharged tomorrow, we'll just have to see how I'm doing.

The girls? Walked away from the crash, which IMO was pretty much a miracle. They were all properly restrained (Kelsey in the 3rd row in a high back turbo booster. Sarah in the 2nd row in a ff Marathon. Megan next to Sarah in a rf Marathon. I was sitting in the 2nd row. Kelsey has a little bit of belt burn on her shoulder, but she's not complaining. Sarah has it on her shoulders from her harness, she is not complaining. Megan doesn't have a single mark on her. We are all extremely lucky to be alive right now.

Here is a link to the video. We are the first story. We aren't sure what is going to happen now though."

And here is the link to her longer write-up of before, during, and after the accident. It's pretty incredible. As a warning to some, she goes into detail about the experience and what she saw, so there are some pretty sad parts.

People sometimes tease me because I'm so protective when it comes to car safety. But the reality is that car accidents are the #1 killer of children. (And they rank pretty high in adult fatalities too.) If there are measures I can take to prevent any of my children from dying in a car accident, I'm going to go above and beyond the minimum requirements so that my kids are as safe as possible. I was going to do another post on carseat safety soon -- specifically related to boosters. This just gave me more motivation. Look for that in a few days.

I'm glad that Casey was well-informed about carseat safety and because of that, her children's lives were saved. I wish more parents cared as much as Casey did.

2 Months Old

It's official. My baby is 2 months old. It's gone by so quickly and yet, she fits into our family so well, it seems like she's been with us forever.

"Important" stats:

- June weighs somewhere between 14 and 15 lbs. (According to my super-scientific weighing method: I weighed myself on our home scale and then weighed myself holding June.)

- I have no idea how tall she is...I should measure her today, shouldn't I?

Fun stats:

- She's gotten super-smiley and talkative. She's actually quite a noisy baby (I don't know why that surprises me, given the gene pool she swims in).

- She's an extremely pleasant, easy-going baby to be around.....unless she has gas, and then she lets you know.

- The other children all continue to adore her. As you can see in the pictures, if we're ever wondering where Lady is, we can usually count on her being right next to June. Heaven forbid this baby ever get a moment to herself. Luckily June loves her adoring fans and smiles quite readily when they come into view.

- She does fine in the car as long as it's moving. But come to a stoplight and she starts to complain about the lack of hypnotic movement.

- She's sleeps well at night. Usually a 5-6 hour stretch, which is heavenly. But after that she wants to eat every hour, which can be frustrating for an anti-morning-person-mama.

- She gains rolls by the minute. I think she's up to 5 or 6 on her thighs and she has at least 3 chins. She already has cottage cheese thighs (tell me again why this is cute on babies and not-so-cute on mommies). She has dimples in her elbows. And when I got her pictures taken professionally a week or so ago (and she was nakey for a few of them *gasp*), Brent was taken aback by the fact that she already has boobs. (He worries that the 3 month old boys in church will start to get some ideas in their heads. And since we don't let our babies date until they're at least 6 months old, this just won't do. I'm going to have to find some modest dresses for her, along with a sports bra to turn her chest into a uni-boob. ('cause that's always a turn-off, right?))

I love having a baby in the house again. June brings such a fun, peaceful spirit into our home. We feel very blessed to be her family.

I won't lie, it definitely helps that she's so cute and has completely chewable cheeks and thighs, but even if she were a skinny baby, we'd still love her. Probably. ;)

Proud of My Kids

Of course after doing a whole post about myself, I'm feeling selfish. So here's a picture post showing my pride for my children.

(And yes, my not-quite-2-month-old has love handles. My father-in-law says I have "high-octane milk.")