Welcome to Baby #4! & News Interview: More women in utah and the nation are choosing to give birth at home

Ready or not, get set, go!

Yesterday afternoon I got an unexpected phone call from channel 5 news asking to be interviewed about my home birth experience as they were doing a story on the rising number of women in utah choosing home birth.

Apparently the number of women choosing this option here has doubled, though that does not mean much statistically since it was only 1% in 1990 and has only risen to about 2% in the last 2 decades.  They also cannot differentiate the data to know which home births were planned vs. unplanned which is a huge difference in safety.  They wanted to do the story because a report was just released by the health department stating which facts they did know about the rise in which the health department said that it just wanted women to become more educated about their decision and in choosing a qualified caretaker to prevent any risks.  This is so important no matter where you give birth as safety is most mother's number one concern.  Choosing home birth for me made sense because I came from a family that has experienced planned home births safely for generations, however my first I had in the hospital to appease friends and relatives on my husbands side of the family.  For me the hospital was a place full of fear and protocols that led one to another until I left with one very traumatic experience and a beautiful baby.  I am not against hospitals, but for me they have their time and their place.  As long as all precautions are met as well as everything is flowing just the way it should with an experienced care provider, I feel I have less risks for complications in my home births, which is why I have chosen home births for all the following kids (though I still like to see a medical doctor during and after the pregnancy on top of my midwife visits when possible).


It is quite funny that I was called because I had a dream just before, that I was on a tight deadline to put together information on birth for a large group of people.  When I awoke I thought this meant I needed to finish the short book I have been writing on "Christ Centered Hypno-Labor" that helps women who are preparing for a calm, safe and peaceful birth and who are either using or considering using hypno style methods or any other type of meditation (hypno is highly recommended by me as my 3rd was completely pain free from using these methods of working through labor).  I had just had enough time to get the kids breakfast and pull out the computer to start writing when I got the phone call asking to come in only 45 minutes!  I quickly showered, picked up the front room, got all the diapers changed, dressed the kids, threw on some eye shadow, and before I knew it the news reporter we always listen to on the radio was there... what a rush!  My voice was shaking a bit and I was so nervous.

I have not actually felt ready to talk about my fourth birth to very many people yet even though my sweet baby is over 3 months old now.  The birth was a good birth but a few things happened that I wasn't happy with and so its been hard to process.  I guess I was meant to process it in front of the world, because now its part of the news.  Since they typically only use the clips that spin things the way they want even if out of context I thought it might be time to tell my birth story in whole here, where I've been asked for it anyway.

Right on the due date, September 15th, a sunday night, I awoke in the middle of the night with some contractions.  It was a beautiful moonlit, peaceful night and I am used to having contractions before labor actually starts for at least a month before birth with all my kids.  I got up to work through them, put some relaxing essential oils on my belly and potentially go back to bed.  When I got up I realized that the waves I was working through were every 8 minutes apart regularly and there was this intense peace that just filled the air, like you could feel angels throughout the home there to await and support our little Bonnie Jane's arrival (I was told by my midwife that this feeling is very common in all the births she assists in).  I became very happy and excited to see my little baby.  As long as I stopped as I felt the contraction starting and supported my weight on the counter or some other place while doing a very low squat and rocking through them I was in no pain at all.  It was work, like an intense exercise routine that lasted a couple minutes every ten minutes, but it felt more like waves.  I felt a wave coming in, prepped my position, and then worked with my body to ride the wave until it fizzled out.  Much like a surfer catches and rides their waves through.  After a little over a half hour of timing them I woke my Hubby up to tell him I was in labor.

I was cherishing the calm serenity of it all and knew I had a while to go so I told my husband not to have the midwife come yet.  He wanted to call her and so I told him to just tell her she didn't need to hurry, that she could take her time and put off coming for a bit but that it may be that morning sometime.  I knew I needed more time that morning, but she had assisted another midwife at the birth of my 3rd and remembered how fast that was (I had Daisy an hour after I awoke in labor and called).  Nervous about being late to a birth she rushed over as did a doula and a secondary midwife (they work in groups so that there is extra support to keep things as calm and safe as possible).  Well, when I knew I wasn't ready for people, I was right.  Even though she was my midwife and I trusted her the distraction of having her preparing her stuff along with the quiet whisperings in the background from her helpers and the occasional tinctures between contractions was too much for me.  I needed to be going within myself to follow the waves and when assistants came it became harder to catch the waves, but also I became nervous about how I would look while I caught the waves in front of them.  I also almost felt the need to host them, though that sounds really silly since they were there to help me, not the other way around.  When the beautiful sunrise came up the contractions became further and further apart and eventually stopped, that angelic feeling also slipping away with them.

I do believe that had I insisted we wait until I actually needed my husband to help with pressure points during the waves, or even just insisted that she not set up and wait in the car until that point, I would have had Bonnie Jane on that day.  I've read many instances of labor halting like this but have never known anyone personally who experienced it, so it was interesting to experience first hand.  I also believe it would have been similar to my painless and very calm birth experience with Daisy 2 years ago.  After labor stopped I did many very empowering fear release exercises for both me and the baby that helped me come to new understandings of the spiritual nature of birth, so it isn't all bad that I had to wait two more weeks.  In a book called "Orgasmic Birth" it actually talks about how to have that calm, safe, and beautiful flow of birth that I had experienced previously in my 3rd babies birth, but also why some don't have that ability.  When my labor stopped I read a section of that book that explained the hormone progression in labor that would actually cause what had happened to me.  It was so nice to understand why.  By the way "Orgasmic Birth" is by far my favorite book on birth and preparing for birth right now (no matter where you're planning on delivering), though "Ina May's Guide to Childbirth" follows closely behind.

When I was nearly rounding out 2 weeks later I was having contractions on and off but nothing was really sticking.  Just as a hospital doctor doesn't want a birth to over-extend, my midwife didn't want me to have complications from too long a gestation period either (although she always factors in that there is many times a lapse by 2 weeks in the calendar date set and I usually am just under 2 weeks later than my due dates).  With all my stats and the babies stats the way they were we decided it may be best to kick labor into gear instead of just wait.  She gave me some homeopathics and essential oils to use together (I waited 15 minutes between the use of one to use the other so that there would be less risk of them not working, but she said these specific ones tend to work whether or not they are used at the same time).  I took them quite often for the rest of the night and nothing happened beyond me having what felt like the same old inconsequential pre-labor contractions.  The next day I kept taking it with the same result.  We skipped church as my contractions were about 10 minutes apart and we tried going for a whole bunch of walks but nothing like that angelic feeling of the baby coming soon was really kicking in.

I was getting a little agitated around lunch time because when I'd close my eyes for a contraction the kids would get really close to me and try climbing through my legs or some other really distracting thing.  I thought I'd be maybe another 10 hours out, judging by how things had gone in my 2nd birth that was 18 hours long at home.  Well, I called my mom to ask if she'd just come play with the kids in the basement playroom while I just relaxed and tried to take a nap, because I was tired and thought I could sleep through the contractions ok if the kids would let me be.  Turns out when she took them off my hands and I tried to sleep that I couldn't sleep too well.  This was a point at which I just couldn't understand the waves that were coming (this has never happened to me in labor before and I think it was because of pushing the labor to start with herbs rather than letting it kick in on its own, similar to the way the waves change unnaturally when pitocin is taken).  Instead of a smooth wave coming in to ride it felt like an unrideable rocky mess, but I tried to work through it as I would a wave as much as was possible.  This took a lot of support from my hubby doing counter pressure on my hips and back while I rocked back and forth.

I finally thought maybe I could calm the waves with water and maybe slow the rockiness of it down a bit.  Little did I know that water can speed up labor when your body is actually in gear, to have the baby faster.  I was still 10 minutes apart on the dot when I got in the tub.  I really wasn't trying to have the baby right then as it didn't feel like she'd be coming for a long time still, but we called the midwife anyway to update her as to what was happening.  As soon as she heard I was getting in the tub she started getting her tools together and jumped in her car.  Honestly I felt like the birth was only 10 minutes long because time feels different during a birth, however that is not how long it really was.  I was in the tub for maybe 10 minutes before my water broke and my contractions quickly became only 3 minutes apart and then on top of each other.  Then we let the water out of the tub and I very reluctantly got out of the tub where I had great counter pressure on my back and we made our way to the front room where I had a plastic sheet with towels and pads on top, my exercise ball for me to kneel against while rocking with the waves of pushing, and of course the blinds shut for the dimmer lighting effect.  She was crowning with the midwife in the car and on the phone with us 10 to 20 minutes after getting out of the bath. All in all I think the point when it became true labor to when she came was around 40 minutes start to end, feeling like only 10.

I think the part that made this part difficult for me was the fear.  Fear is what causes pain as well as most complications.  Fear causes you to work against your body, so your muscles are pushing against each other instead of working together as well as tightening areas that are meant to be loosening, and naturally loosen easily when fear is eliminated.  My midwife told my hubby over the phone to try not to have the baby till she got there so that we could make sure I was fully dilated before pushing.  She is an amazing midwife, but I do wish she had just said "good.  You're doing great.  Just remember to breathe that baby down.  Don't push.  Just breathe and trust your body and your baby."  Or maybe I just wish that is what my husband had said, since I never actually talked to the midwife directly; either way, that's what I really wanted and needed to hear.  Those words would have helped me more than anything because I needed to trust all of my experience and research and just trust myself, but in that super vulnerable state of birth where every woman is so susceptible to comments and guidance I couldn't do that after being told to try to hold her in, even though in the hubby's defense he did also tell me to breath her down (problem is you can't breath the baby down at the same time as trying to hold them in so it didn't do much for me to hear both).

My hubby was a little frantic checking the door quite often for the midwife when I wanted him right there and I relieved much of the intensity of it all through low animal like groans.  I told my Hubby that she was coming and trying to help my skin smoothly slip around her head, though the fear of tearing and the midwife not there yet was making it tighter than I wanted.  Before I knew it she slipped out right into his strong arms and belched out a beautiful loud cry with some very strong lungs.

The midwife pulled up to the house just after that and then I finished the after birth and fed my new angel while getting checked out and waiting for another midwife that specializes in stitches to come.  Even though this birth was a bit rockier than the last one, those stitches were far more painful than the birth itself.  My preparation paid off by making the skin and previous birth scars more elasticized for this birth and stitches, so the tears were not as extensive.  The tearing this time was less extensive, but where it did tear was quite deep still making recovery difficult.  The recovery has been even more difficult because of the NICU stay for high biliruben levels due to an unexpected blood incompatibility 2 days after her birth for a week along with trying to move and sell our home shortly after that, which is a whole other story.  One word of caution to those out there who are expecting, try to move before having your baby if you have to move.  Moving while pregnant is hard but doesn't mess with the hormones and recovery nearly as much as moving shortly after.  Give it 3-6 months before any big changes if at all possible for the sake of your health.  She is happy and healthy today and is as cute as a button.

Here is that news story and interview I told you about.  Its short and simple but changed my entire day yesterday.  Enjoy!  ksl news story : home-births-in-utah-doubled-since-1990-health-department-says

We're Raising a Family of 5 (almost 6) on a Teacher Salary?

Have you ever wondered how teachers can have so many kids at home when it is so well known that they don't get paid enough, or even what they're actually worth?

I would even argue the point that teacher's families get more "income" while in school through grants, loans and a part time job than they do once starting their actual career.  So how do we families of public school teachers make it all work?

The History & Why:

When I was younger my Dad always talked about the career of teaching as if it were one of the best because it was stable.  In public school it is funded by the state, meaning that there will never be a mass firing due to inadequate funds from an economy flop.  This sounded cool to me so I always kept an open mind about it.  My list of experiences and jobs I wanted to pursue was long and sometimes felt endless though.  I wanted to learn and experience so much and placing all my eggs into simply teaching was never really in the cards for me I guess.

I met my husband while we were still both going to college and we were not one of those couples to wait till events finished in order to start new turns in life.  So, we got married.  We also believe that "God will provide a way" as many others believe about having children.  I think my children are up to the Lord's timing, not my own.  I do have preferences, but would rather focus on what the Lord would give me, and when, then my own plans.  His plans seem to pan out better for me than my own ever did.  So, you guessed it, we had our first baby.  Yes, while we were both still in college.

I was unable to continue my education or my job nearing the end of the pregnancy and after the baby was born.  That was ok though.  It was a big transition and felt like a huge job to take care of a new life instead of focusing on those other things.  This left my husband to both work and go to the University full time.  Together we had grown dreams of creating art through video and photography.  Opening a digital media center and then expanding into other business opportunities, like running a reception center and art gallery.  They were big dreams and we had started the first classes to get a degree toward that purpose.  After I couldn't go with him anymore, he decided he needed to switch from where we had been going to school, back to the University we met at, and go into some type of stable degree like teaching.  We decided the most stable and most enjoyable degree for him would be the generalist art teaching degree because that degree allowed for him to teach any type of art.  It could be drawing, painting, printmaking, video, photo, ceramics... all the fun stuff.  Specializing felt like it would be limiting his potential for getting that future teaching job, so we veered away from that, although he did get a bunch of extra certifications in his favorite topics, like video editing.

Ok, so we had our first baby in college... well, by the time he switched programs he had 5 years of additional schooling he would need to do.  About a semester of that his old credits counted towards, but this decision basically started him over.  We also had him do summers and squeeze in the max limit of class credits to finish in around 4 years instead.  I've had a baby every 2 years so far.  Our second baby was born during one of his busiest semesters.  He'd wake up early to work at an elementary, go straight to class, do homework at the campus, and make it home most nights by 2am.  Thank heaven this wasn't every night, and thank heaven his work was flexible with his school schedule.  Our third baby arrived just a couple months after he graduated.  He was called with his job acceptance to teach video, photo, and drawing at a high school in a very nice east side neighborhood while we were in the hospital with our 2 day old little one.  He is in his second year of teaching now and we are expecting another little spirit at the beginning of next school year.  Wow that is coming up fast now.

The Finances:

Ok, so that is the history behind why and how we got here.  Now for the nitty gritty finances.  We have 3 kids ages 5 and under.  We love entrepreneurial projects so we like to do those, but we did much more of those while my husband was still attending college courses.  Time is a hard commodity to come by for a good teacher, and when he does have time our kids love and need him so much that those other things are hard to get to.  Our personal video business used to do about $10,000 a year, and then what we needed to live beyond that in school we budgeted per semester for and used grants, scholarships, and student loans to pull off.  We felt tight, but in control.  When I was pregnant I was able to get the government assistance program called medicaid to help pay for anything that went wrong (I barely used it though, because 2 of my 3 were home births).  Food assistance was also offered to us.  We felt very blessed, but wanted to be self sufficient as soon as possible.  We couldn't wait for my hubby to graduate and get into his career so that we could have enough extra income that we wouldn't need to ask for help anymore.

Actually dealing with finances once we didn't have semester by semester loans coming in, and instead had a monthly income, has been tough.  It is far easier to budget 4 or 6 months out at a time and just stick to that than it is to budget per month.  We thought our income would feel like much more, so we bought a house at the very tip top of our qualifying range within a mile or so of where my hubby was working.  Its a cute little house (small for having a fourth one on the way, but it'll work somehow).

Now, I know teachers in each area make different amounts of money and then that changes according to how many extra pet projects they do for the school, as well as extra certifications, and extra years of teaching experience within a district.  My husband does a lot of random projects, and took on an extra class period, so he is barely above base pay right now.  I tried to calculate what his take home pay was after all the deductions that they make for both taxes and for medical.  Take home pay is just over $28k a year.  No wonder I feel more poor now than I did while we were in school.  No one is helping us with food or co pay expenses anymore, we have almost double the housing costs (a little more than $1350 in mortgage a month with a little less than $250 in utilities), we have bigger stomachs to feed as the kids grow, and there is no more income now than there was with all those loans coming in.  We are on a repayment plan that allows us to not pay anything toward our student loans unless we want to, thankfully.  With this as our primary income and only maybe $400 coming in from our side projects a year now, its interesting to try to find a happy financial medium for raising kids.

What we're doing to survive:

We try to buy everything we can in cash, this includes small and big things alike, from books to cars.

We try to cut medical expenses by prevention.  Eating healthy, taking vitamins, using natural solutions and remedies to help with anything that comes up.  For example, it is much less expensive to use a drop of Lavender essential oil on a cut than it is to use something like Neosporin.  Though I have used both. Essential oils and natural solutions have taken care of most of the problems with health, first aid or hygiene my family has faced and has been much less expensive and usually is more quickly effective than the co-pays and doctor prescribed remedies I also tried many times.  This has saved our family hundreds, if not thousands of dollars (not to mention the saved time).  When we have a little bit more income, like we did in school, I like to go to a chiropractor that specializes in pregnancy and children once a month for each member of the family.  This keeps the nerves properly aligned so there is better behavior along with better health and immune function.  It also helps the kids recover faster when they do get sick or when they fall.  We have to live without this chiropractic perk for a bit but will continue it once we get a small raise or find time to do more entrepreneurial work (hard to come by lately).

We have never purchased a new car with car payments.  We usually purchase cheap used cars that seem like they would be reliable.  Some have been more reliable than others, but it has been cheaper to fix up a $2,300 van and spend $2,500 to fix it up that year, than it ever would have been to purchase a new van and make payments for both principle and interest.  We plan to purchase new one day, but only when we have the cash.  We will never have a car payment.

There have been moments where we have to use credit cards, but we try to pay these off within the month that we use them so that no interest is able to accrue on our purchase.  We try to avoid ever having a balance or even spending on our credit lines when possible though.

As of now our only debt is the student loans and our mortgage.  The mortgage is close to what we'd pay in rent for the same size home, so I think of it more as investing in a rental to ourselves.  A forced savings account for the equity is how my husband puts it.  Even if we built no equity, we've been able to stay here without a landlord looking over our shoulder, and paying the same price for our size in this area.  So the mortgage was worth its title of debt for me.

The student loans however, I do regret.  We needed them to get through school, but they are hanging over our heads now and we do not make enough income to even touch them.  So they are just there accruing interest until we get a raise in a couple years or we come up with some other inventive income stream.  They also have made it so we qualify for a much smaller home than we would have without them.  Even though we could earn a substantial equity by selling our house now, because of the student loans we don't qualify for the type of home we feel would best suit our kids.  Without those loans we would be able to qualify easily, and ironically our payments would go down drastically even though we'd be moving up.  Too bad the decision to take these loans gets in the way.  It does help us with getting more inventive every day to make life comfortable for adding a fourth to the home we are in now.

I laugh when people want to sell us things on a payment plan (big or little).  Really, we can't afford the extra payment for anything.  If we could, it would just come out of our food money, and I would rather eat.

For food it is easiest to stay in budget when we use a meal plan and buy our vegetables and fruit in bulk.  Meats are best bought on sale.  We love the bulk case lot sales and the year round case discounts we can get.  Buying bulk looks more expensive up front, but is cheaper in the end.  Produce can be cheaper at local farmer's markets as well as through co-ops too.

For the kids clothes it is rare that we buy them new clothes.  Instead we accept hand me downs from friends and family, gifts of clothing in every size, and if we need something that no one gave us (which happens occassionally), we make a trip to a local thrift store and find it for only a couple of dollars.  Even my oldest is in gifts and hand me downs regularly.

When the kids have outgrown their clothes I do not get rid of them.  Instead I have a system of bins, labeled by size.  When the next kid gets to that size I have clothes for them.  So we are always cycling through clothes.  Some clothes get more worn than others and aren't useable anymore, but luckily we can either replace those cheap at the thrift store or someone jumps in to give us more hand me downs.

One of our key values as a family is to be close in proximity to everything we need to be doing.  This helps us in many ways.  One way is it saves us when the car is broken or we want to not waste gas money.  My husband rides the mile bike ride to work in these times and most days that works out great.  There is a grocery store just down the hill from our home, about a block away, that we have used our bikes to shop at as well.  The kids ride in a bike trailer and we put the food in the back of the trailer to bring it home.  Another reason I value this centralized life is laughed at by many, but it is important to me.  I love knowing that if there were some major calamity, like an earthquake (which we are supposed to get here), then it would not be far for us to reunite as a family.

We started to do public school for our oldest, but due to a very long story of experiences and a very difficult transition of decisions in prayer we have turned to homeschooling.  This year we were enrolled in an online public school since I didn't really know where to start as I had never considered this for our family.  For our homeschool lessons I created a couple fun things along with finding materials that can be used and re-used for each child as they grow into needing the material.  I don't do the programs that I have to buy each year, but save money by buying entire programs that will last me multiple years at a time.  I regretted a few purchases, but was able to return those easily.  My lessons have to be next to no pre-planning (I just don't have time) and they have to be very interesting to keep my kids attention.  Most of it is literature based, as my daughter learns best that way, but my son learns best with kinesthetic learning styles, so for him we read it and then have to have an activity to reinforce what we learned.  Life has become much easier with teaching them at home.  I learn right along with them from their curriculum and it is just fun and easy to do school as time to learn & play together.  Without the right program in place both public and home schooling is challenging, but when you find what your family needs, no matter where that is, things just start to flow better.  It costs a couple hundred dollars a year for me to homeschool with my own choices of curriculum, but that is not per child, that is per family because the curriculum is reused for future kids.  There are lots of fees associated with public school, so I figure its not too big of a price difference, just a lifestyle difference.

Conclusion:

We have made a lot of mistakes and have a long way to go, but I still believe that when you have kids in the Lords timing he somehow makes the finances work, even if it feels really challenging to do so.  I am excited for the day that we feel like we have some financial wiggle room, but right now it just works out somehow, and that's ok.  If you have kids and are worried about finances like I was, you probably only found what I did.  People sharing stories like this, but they only had one or 2 kids, not 3 or 4.  It is possible.  It can be an emotional roller coaster if certain unexpected expenses pop up or when people respond to you in hurtful ways for having more kids with "that income."  In the end kids can get by with very little, and so can we.  The most costly portions of living are food, housing, and then whatever lifestyle choices your family deems necessary.  If you are satisfied with a very conservative lifestyle than this may be an easy feat for your family.  Every family is a little different, but somehow it all works out for the better.

Finding Dual Enrollment For My Kindergartener - My Story

The last couple weeks have been insanely crazy.  I would love to just say its because I'm so busy cause I love to get out and do lots... but its not.  My little girl, the oldest of my 3 is in Kindergarten right now. We started her full time in Public Kindergarten at the beginning of this year.  I had many tear filled mornings as I struggled to let her go.  I am the kind of mom that feels most comfortable and confident when I can see my kids at all times.  I like to let them go play in the backyard, but when it is an option I prefer to be able to see them while they are playing on their own.  In our most recent home this isn't the easiest scenario, so I've grown to be more ok with just being able to hear them out back while I am doing some of the household chores.  Optimally seeing is always better in my mind though so that I can help or prevent something really bad from happening ASAP.

After getting over the fact that letting her go into the care of someone I didn't know (even though she happens to be one of the most amazing teachers I've ever met), there were a myriad of problems that started to arise.  Firstly, her personality started to change for the worse.  She stopped enjoying to help around the house, she stopped enjoying learning to do new tasks at home, she started to break household rules that we've always had, she started to do a lot herself that was far too beyond what I feel is safe for her age (like trying to cut food on a cutting board), she snuck a pair of scissors and cut up a bunch of my bills, she started to talk about kids that were bullying her on the playground, she started pushing around her little brother and sister more than I've ever seen, and her focus along with ability to process my direction as a parent decreased drastically.  That on top of my little boy throwing tantrums every time we picked her up or dropped her off because of the school yard made life feel, in essence, like a total nightmare.

I pulled her out of the local public school, feeling bad because Mrs. Hurzeler was so good with her and was doing tons of extra stuff.  She was even in a center that was close to first grade level reading in the sense that they were ready to start spelling tests this early in the year and before 1st grade.  She also had a few friends that I just adore.  Summer is the sweetest cutest little girl and they play princess together, which touches my heart.  I would love for them to stay friends.  She thrives in social situations and I felt guilty taking her away from something social and advanced.

I put her into K12 which is an online public school.  The kids have a teacher online and the parents are the learning coach.  In the younger grades the parents do most of the work with the kids and then the kids can start doing most of it on the computers themselves as they get older.  This was a problem quick because she gets addicted to screen time fast and too much computer caused some different behavior problems.  I loved the curriculum that they sent, however much of it she was too advanced for (she would need to start at least half way through or she'd just be bored).  I asked what to do because of that and they told me that I'd have to pay $100 to get the curriculum she needed and move up when she was ready.  I thought she would be able to move at the super fast pace that she loves without finances being an issue!  This made me upset and so my decision became that I either needed to do her part time with the elementary again or do my own curriculum that I created or found that fit her needs better.

Guilt for that social and for knowing how cool Mrs. Hurzeler was made me lean toward dual enrollment (hoping she wouldn't revert back to the negative behavior again).  I felt good about it, but didn't know if it was right or not.  I took a week and did straight homeschool.  My own curriculum that I used all through preschool, but the portion that was still challenging her.  Her behavior finally normalized!  I could see my sweet girl coming out again.  The little girl that loves to help and play and serve.

My hubby came home one day and asked Eeva about the different school scenarios.  We wanted to get her take because its her life.  She likes any and every type of school so most of her answers were geared to what she thought we wanted to hear until now.  In their conversation she had an epiphany out loud "if I don't do Mrs. Hurzeler's class than I have to break up with those friends" and she started crying.  It was at that moment that in a rush we booked it over to the elementary, met with the principle and teacher, and arranged dual enrollment.

------Since dual enrollment started....  I want to say that in the last couple weeks that everything has stabilized and normal.  It's not.  She is better now than when she was full time at school behaviorally, however she did revert back a little.  She has much more "I know better and can do my own thing" attitude on the days she comes home from school and my 3 year old still throws tantrums most days we go.  The days we have homeschool is now my curriculum and it flows beautifully.  Though there are sometimes just hard days as a mom, as far as schooling goes, my homeschool days are far less taxing and some of the most peaceful and fun days for my family.  I am so grateful for those days of teaching her myself.  I promised to give dual enrollment 2 months to let things stabilize before getting frustrated and changing it.  I don't want too many changes to mess with Eeva's emotional stability.  So we are in it until the end of the semester at least.  I hope that things do stabilize well for her sake.

Some of the good things about school is that she and I have made some friends with kids and parents that we go to the park with occasionally.  I also love her teacher, the learning centers, and the Raz Kids online program she is offering the kids for a reading homework game.

Some good things about home school.  I love that the day starts of peaceful and continues that way really easily in contrast to a school day.  I also love that I get to be involved in helping her learn and grow.  Seeing those moments when something just clicks for the first time is such a treasure that we give away when someone else educates our kids.  I love that I just found some amazing friends for her who are also home schooled (This has been a somewhat hard task for my area, I had to create my own facebook group and events, because all the groups I found, most events were a bit far and I couldn't find those involved unless it was at someone's house - that doesn't feel like a field trip to me, sorry).

Essential Oils Class 101: My Favorite Videos On Essential Oils For Beginners

Learn some ways essential oils have helped so many families in these awesome videos!

This first video is of how much pure essential oils are helping in a hospital setting, how cool is that!?!

This video introduces what essential oils are, how they work, and a brief history of them.  Its an amazing video and I learn something new every time I watch it.  Enjoy it!

This next video is from a bunch of people that are so excited about some great experiences they've had by using self informed healthcare.  By that I mean that they obtained the knowledge they needed so that they didn't have to go to the doctor for the small stuff (although doctors are very much appreciated for the big issues).  Knowing how to help yourself and your family is an empowering thing that I invite all to feel.

This one is an interview with Laura Jacobs, an amazing business woman.  She is very knowledgeable about the use of essential oils and herbs and has been in the industry for over 17 years.  She talks about how she found what works, why it works and how important purity is to an essential oil actually doing its intended job the way its expected.

Wow... you won't want to miss this last one.  It is the story of a family who's niece had seizure's and was able to overcome them.  It's an amazing story! 

Link to Discount Form

I know, this is a lot of videos but this last one is kinda cool cause it talks a little about how essential oils are distilled from plants and what it means to have a pure essential oil.  I can't tell you how important it is.  Not only will you not see the intended results from a synthetic or diluted essential oil, but they could be toxic!  It took me years of using essential oils to realize that the label saying 100% of an oil didn't mean anything because there are so many loopholes in the laws and industry standards.  Then I found out how many toxic results that can stem from improper use of impure essential oils.  

I decided I needed pure essential oils for my family and not only did it solve the majority of our health concerns and first aid needs, it very quickly started to save us money.  We didn't need to buy products with additives but could "go green" in our cleaning and hygiene supplies which are much healthier, cheaper and simpler when homemade.  We also saved money because I redistributed the money I was spending on our other supplements every month and using the loyalty rewards program we got an extra overall discount on top of wholesale pricing discount with free product credits.  In the end we will get up to 55% off retail along with some free and discounted products based on monthly promotions they do.  Way to maximize my dollar!  I love saving money, and I have found an amazing way to do just that in most of the categories of my families care.  It's Awesome! 

My mission is to serve those around me so that they may be able to find solutions that will help them in their lives in the most affordable ways possible.  Please, don't be weary.  If you have a question, I am happy to help.  That's why I'm here.  There are no stupid questions or stupid problems.  Love to you all.  Kim

Teething Kids

So right now I have 2 teething kids.  My 4 year old girl is getting her big kid teeth right behind her baby teeth instead of under them and my 10 month old is getting her first baby teeth in front on top and bottom.  Every time a new tooth for my baby breaks through the gums she bleeds and cries.  There is also a lot of crying from the pain in between breaking through and that's not to mention the runny noses that come with the teething.

I went to a class on babies, pregnancy, and birth using essential oils about a week ago and learned so much.  The care provider teaching talked about how something like 90% of early childhood ailments were from teething and some things to prevent those conditions.  I took what she said to heart and decided to try a few new things.

In the past I've given my babies homeopathic teething tablets I got from Target, homeopathic Roman Chamomile from the health store (which I loved but am out of), and gum numbing cream (which just made my kids mad).

I ended up using an essential oil blend called Serenity that has Roman Chamomile, Lavender, and Vanilla; which smells divine.  It was actually really soothing for Daisy and really fun for me.  :)  I added a drop to a a small amount of carrier oil (fractionated coconut oil) in my palm and then rubbed it along her entire jaw line and chin, all the way to behind her ears.  I also rubbed a little on the base of her neck.  Then, to help with her teething runny nose, I put 1 drop of the essential oil blend called Breathe on the base of her neck with a little carrier oil.

This new trick is awesome.  It helps her pain so much and her symptoms go away for much longer spans of time than with any of the other things I've tried.    

Paper or Plastic? Both! When I get baby food in bulk with my groceries :)

About once a month we buy the baby food for that month in bulk so that I'm not always running back and forth to the grocery store and then I can take advantage of sales as well.  Its a nice system that saves me a headache and produced my personally developed bagging system and storage system for the baby food jars.  When we go to WinCo I bag anyway, cause that's their system, but at other grocery stores I usually get flak for even wanting to put the food in bags.  It was exciting this past trip to Dan's Market because the bagger was so excited to learn my system and wanted me to share it with the world.  Most importantly she wanted me to share it with other mothers who could use it.  You may love it or you may hate it, either way its been very useful and I will keep doing it for as long as I am buying baby food.

I do want to note that most of what I feed my 10 month old baby is actually breastmilk still, and then it is mostly fresh veggies.  She really likes heavily steamed carrots, broccoli, and cauliflower.  I also give her juiced veggies and fruit like beets, celery, carrots, and apple.  She can have nutritional yeast as well, which she loves; and then she likes raw pears and avocado.  Since starting to buy baby food I've found a lot more allergies with bum rashes and upset tummies, and.... lots of tears.  She can't handle banana, grains of any kind, or any of the typical bad food that kids love that I wouldn't give her at this age anyway.  If she has much of those things she not only gets a rash, it turns such a deep red its almost purple and sometimes starts to bleed.  I have a special cream I get from target and buybuybaby.  It's from a company called "Shea Moisture" is made from shea butter and has frankincense and myrrh essential oils in it that works better than any other cream I've ever found, though its hard for anything to help when its due to a negative reaction to food that's in the body still.

The baby foods are super exciting for my 4 and 2 year olds to eat as well.  I like to get a lot of applesauce because it makes a really fun snack for the older kids if I need something to tide them over while I'm preparing lunch, or while we're out running errands.  The jars are awesome to keep and re-use.  There are hundreds of fun things you can do with them, so subscribe to my blog or youtube.com uploads to be able to see a bunch of those as I get them done.

Motherly Challenges & Weight Loss Bring Dress Designing!

This is the video where I explain about how the overwhelming challenges of adapting to becoming a mother of three along with losing 50 pounds (through my healthy meal plans) brought me to a really fun project.  I designed some really fun and new mother friendly dresses!  The design is all set and I've purchased the inexpensive material (purposely designed to be good quality bed sheets from the thrift store to save money), now I just need to sew them.  I better hurry though, cause none of my pants want to stay up anymore cause of how much I've lost around my waist.