Whip 'Em Out!

Hi! We're at the beach right now but I wanted to schedule this video to post. I saw it on someone's blog last week and LOVED it. I may not love all of the names used for boobs in it :) but I do really love its message, its honesty, and its humor. After 2.5 years, I'm still a very proud breastfeeder!!! It really does help keep your little one healthy, happy, and it creates such an incredible bond that is beyond description. YES it's hard...it can be VERY hard in the first few weeks! But seek help (and lots of it if necessary), research, practice ALOT, and you and your baby will get the hang of it. I promise it does get easier, although it will ALWAYS have struggles and challenges (yes, even 2.5 years later), but it's SO worth it. It really really is. Anyway, I could write pages and pages on breastfeeding, but for now, I'll just let you enjoy the video!



Have a wonderful Labor Day weekend!!

Some serious antiquing

Not really...just some serious fun! Look at one of my intense partners above though who definitely had her eye (and hand) on those shelves :). Well it really was another wonderful Antique Weekend trip! It was just a blast walking around with my two Loves trying to find vintage treasures. However, things were pretty crazy the weekend we left with a very dear friend's wedding, my sister and her husband's arrival home from South Korea (YEA!!), a family garage sale, and THEN all the getting ready that a trip requires. But we somehow made it to everything and got nearly everything done and then were finally off. We stayed with some cousins of mine whom were so hospitable, laid back, and just wonderful. I haven't been able to take any shots of our finds yet but I will SOON. We were able to find some lovelies I think though! In the meantime, I thought I'd share some pictures from our trip.


The weather treated us pretty well minus the first day which was SOOOO incredibly hot!! Then it rained a bit which was actually nice, except it made some areas pretty darn muddy so thank goodness for rain boots! They tend to be a necessity for both our spring and fall trips.


Lovebug had a great time too! She loved being outside and getting to see lots of people most of the day. She really loved all of our stops in more open areas where she got to wander about and explore (and run). I just wish one of the vendors or the event organizer would put a little playset somewhere on one of the MANY acres...oh AND a parenting tent/station for breastfeeding, naps, changing, etc. Now that would be awesome!


This is our favorite spot! It's where we picnic, breastfeed, rest, play, nap, and so forth. It's also right next to one of our favorite vendors which works out pretty well. Look at these two sweeties...they really make my heart just melt!


During our trip we were also able to visit our alma mater campus which was fun. We showed Lovebug some of the main sights and just reminisced. She wasn't as into it as we were :) but she had a good time running around and seeing all of the "big kids".


It was funny seeing the difference in the students though! Of course everyone looked SO young, but they all had earphones on and were listening to music and texting. There didn't seem to be as much interaction going on like what we remembered when we were there, which was interesting...


It really was a pretty relaxing trip but things started right back up as soon as we got home! We had another family garage sale and have been busy helping to pack up my parent's old longtime house, amongst other stuff around our own nest. Last weekend was yet another busy one as well but I'll share more on that later.

Hope everyone has had a great week!

Bowlful of kale

How was your weekend? We had an enjoyable one, although we weren't home much of it. It involved alot of fun with family and lots of outdoor time with the weather around here being so darn nice. We even ate a birthday meal outside in the shade, which was quite enjoyable. My two Loves accompanied me to the park for my long run Sunday morning and Lovebug had a blast walking, running, and playing in the dirt. That girl loves rocks! She loves finding them, collecting them, organizing them, and holding them in her hands. She loves getting dirty too and ANYTHING outside - anything.

Yesterday was another really great day. It was the perfect combination of playing, learning, and productivity. Lovebug fell asleep nursing in the maya wrap or "ling" as she calls it while I was doing some things in the kitchen. So precious. No matter how much of a little girl she is looking and acting like, she's still my sweet baby and loves being worn. I love it too because we get to snuggle and be so close to each other :) while I do random things. Plus, she gets to be in on the action and see everything I'm doing, which we talk about and discuss. Wearing her is SO much easier than holding her and makes things "doable" that wouldn't be otherwise. Even though there are days when for whatever reason I forget about them, slings/wraps/carriers are a true lifesaver and I don't know what we would do without them.

Anyway, I was able to get Lovebug on the bed to finish her nap and when she woke up she was quite hungry. Her Daddy had set aside some steamed kale the night before from the pasta dish he made us, and she just devoured a big bowlful of it. I am so proud of my little vegan! We love kale around our nest and put it in alot of different dishes, but it's just as great on it's own too. So nutritious and yummy! Tell me, how do you like your kale?...or do you even like it?

Well, have a wonderful day...OH and happy September (which I still cannot believe)!

How our nest does it...

So I've talked about WHY our nest does 100% organic, but HOW do we do it exactly?

Well, first of all, let's talk about our budget. For 2 adults and 1 breastfeeding/solid eating toddler, we spend an average of $100 a week on 100% organic groceries. Probably about $50 of that is spent on fresh vegetables and fruit. Lately, Lovebug has been eating alot more vegetables, so sometimes it's $125, but most of the time it's right at or around $100.

This amount does not include supplements or personal care products, as we get those from other sources. It also does not include any cleaning or laundry products since we make all of them with supplies mostly from Mountain Rose Herbs. Since we cloth diaper/wipe, this amount also does not include those, which saves us quite a bit of money. Further, that amount does not include any cooking/baking oils, herbs, spices, salt, pepper, and so forth, because we also get them all from Mountain Rose Herbs in bulk.

We do our weekly shopping at Central Market but make a monthly trip or so to Whole Foods as well. From April - November, we go to the local farmer's market every Saturday morning where we stand in the long line at the ONE organic stand. At any of these places, if they don't have it organic, we don't buy it. It's really that simple. Even if that means changing things up that we had intended on doing, we go in another direction or find an organic substitute that will work.

Things that help us buy 100% organic 100% of the time:

-My Love keeps great track of what we are spending. As he is the "top chef" around our nest, he also does our grocery shopping. Sometimes Lovebug and I tag along especially when it's farmer's market season, but alot of times, it's just my Love heading to the store early Saturday morning with the list we carefully made together. He has his ipod and listens to music while he tallys up things as they go into the basket. Somtimes he put things back if we're going to go over what we had intended and sometimes he calls me to say "do we want this or that this week?"...And we make that decision based upon what we really need. We never ever take anything away that is for Lovebug though as her health is our top priority!

-Simply, we don't overbuy. Probably most anyone that would come over to our nest and look in our refrigerator or pantry would probably think both are pretty bare, but to us, they're completely full. We just don't overbuy and keep to our list, which helps tremendously. Actually, come Saturday our refrigerator does look pretty empty! :)

-We buy in bulk. As mentioned above, about every month we load up on organic agave, maple syrup, and other things from Whole Foods. Also every month, I generally take a trip to another grocery store, Market Street, to load up on organic nuts and chocolate chips because they have the best prices on those. Then, every couple of months, we load up on LOTS of beans, lentils and such from Whole Foods. Buying in bulk truly helps! Plus, you're using less packaging (especially if you re-use your own bags).

-We keep our paper products to an absolute minimum at our nest and this helps our budget a great deal. So that means no TP (except for guests), no paper towels, no napkins, no paper plates, no diapers, and so forth. These things can quickly add up...

-As mentioned above, from April to November we go to the local farmer's market every Saturday morning to load up on organic vegetables. This helps our budget a TON because we can go and spend $35 on veggies with the same amount normally costing us $50 at Central Market! Find your local farmer's market here.

-Since we eat by far mostly vegan (with the very rare local eggs and fish we catch), our organic protein sources are much cheaper than meat-eaters. Organic beans cost a great deal less per pound than organic chicken or beef, so that's something to consider. Even if you can't go vegan, vegetarian, or pescetarian, then consider at least making more of your meals meat/chicken free per week than not. You'll end up saving money for sure!

-We drink a ton of water and don't buy bottled beverages hardly ever. We don't buy soda and I know this is kind of crazy to most people, but we just don't drink the stuff. We also don't buy bottled water, but instead have our reusable bottles that we re-fill. This saves us quite a bit! We do buy a carton of orange juice every week that we partake of a little bit every day, but a treat is when we can get an organic beer for my Love and a GT's Kombucha for me! :)

-We don't buy packaged foods - no cookies, crackers, cake mixes, boxed dinners, and so forth. That stuff can easily add up in more ways than one, so we just don't buy them. Plus, fresh is just best...

-This may seem minute, but we compost and recycle like crazy. Thus we don't buy trash bags but once a year. We only put out trash maybe once a month if that, so this is something little but a small money saver.

-We are still breastfeeding and practice baby-led eating/weaning. This also might seem minute, but it has saved us money for sure. However, financial savings is by far NOT the reason we have done either of these things, but rather, an added benefit. We have never done baby food, cereal, formula, bottle-feeding, and so forth, but instead have only breastfed and started to offer cut up fresh vegetables to Lovebug around 10 months once she started to show interest. She has always fed herself and decides how much/little she wants to eat. Her vegetable intake continues to increase although her breastfeeding really hasn't decreased much :), but we have definitely noticed a small difference ($15-25) here and there certain weeks in our grocery bill due to this and know it will only increase from here.

SO these are some things that came to mind in how we save and are able to keep to the 100% organic diet. However, we also have to do away with other things (like cable, etc.) to maintain it. There are certainly ways that we can improve though:

-We would love to get where we always make all of our breads. I make them here and there and always make our pizza dough and baked goods, but would love to make all of our tortillas, and sandwich and pita bread as well. Currently for these things, we buy Ezekial 4:9 which is sprouted and very delicious.

-Currently we buy a big thing of purified water every week, but really hope in the near future to install a whole house water filtration system so we don't have to do this. We had Eco Water Texas come out not long ago and test our water - eewwwww! Disgusting what's in it!! Really. I highly recommend getting your water tested and not drinking tap water!

So, maybe some of this will help a few of you. It IS really hard, especially with today's economy to stay within budget and make things work...but I truly believe if it's a priority, everyone's diet can be 100% or at least mainly organic.

The above is what currently works for our nest, but I would love to hear any tips of how you make it work for you and your families as well, so please share!

Oh and the photo is a little box I've been working on by making use of all of the organic produce stickers we go through :)...

End of an era...for now

So we had our last day of cable...it is no longer. We could not justify the cost of that luxury anymore (especially since there are only a couple of shows we actually watch on it) and saw it as another way of simplifying our life - getting rid of something else that is not necessary...

However, us foodies will miss our "Top Chef" (my pick was Antonia from episode 1 and Jonathan's was Richard...but Stephanie is awesome too - DON'T tell me what happened tonight - I don't want to know YET:)...DOES ANYONE KNOW IF THOSE ARE AVAILABLE ONLINE ANYWHERE? I looked on itunes and no luck! I'll miss the creativity on "Project Runway" for sure with Heidi's "we're going to have a chat", "one of you will be the winner, and one of you will be out", and Tim's "make it work!"...


I know we'll miss the Tennis Channel for when one of the "opens" is on...and the occasional decent movie that you can find on some random channel. Jonathan will miss Anthony Bourdain's travel/food show (and my "Nooooo Reservations" impression every time it comes back on -right honey?:) and a sport or fishing show from time to time, but other than that we don't watch much of anything else on any of the ridiculous number of cable channels we've been getting. We're followers of "Lost" and "The Office", but those are local channels so we're safe on those -whew - thank goodness!! First thing I did was unplug the receivers so they're not sucking vampire power ANYMORE (need to post on vampire/phantom power soon!) and put the TVs on a power strip so we can flip the switch when not in use...

So it's a bit sad but also exciting because we're really interested to see what we can do with that little bit of time some evenings we might spend in front of the TV...read, paint, crafting, projects, home remodeling (YEA!), and just overall more family time together. Not that you're not having family time when you're laughing over a show and sharing conversation about it, but you know, different family time -a greater quality of time I would venture to say...


Anyway, we're going to see how it goes...I have to admit though that it was really nice after little Miss was born to be able to find SOMETHING on while I was up nursing her during much of the night/morning, so we'll see if when baby #2 comes if a new era of cable begins :)! REALLY wish though that you could pick whatever channels you watch and pay for just those - but of course not - dang cable companies!

Oh yeah and these pics have nothing to do with the post, but since I'm a photo gal, I like pics with posts...but they are of me and my wee one playing in the grass which she loves oh so much - she's an outdoor gal for sure! We're relaxing/playing which...hmmmmm...IS something we can do more of now that cable is gone so maybe YES they are related to the post in a roundabout way :)!

Branches, Beads, and Butterflies...Oh my!

We're almost there - I think I can see the light at the end of the tunnel...the centerpieces are nearly done but I still have the bouquets and boutennieres to make and my Lovehas the metal trees to decorate...We just got back from the morning rehearsal and subsequent lunch after an early morning road trip to the big "D" to pick up the flowers. We had to do quite a bit of maneuvering for all the flowers to fit in our frig so thank goodness it was near empty since it's the end of the week. Our nest is a mess with decor materials and finished centerpieces everywhere but we're getting there slowly but surely...





In Lovebug news, our little one rolled over - back to tummy - Thursday and was so proud of herself...She's been working on it for a bit but finally got those little hips over and found out how to adjust her arms. Her newfound enjoyment is playing with her feet and toes, as seen in the pics...We're so blessed and proud of our baby girl!...Speaking of, I think she's done nursing now and nearly asleep so I better get back to the decor...

Baby Lovebug

Well hello! Yes I am VERY behind on blogging – it’s been gosh forever…but a lot has happened since the last (only:) post…I gave birth to our beautiful daughter, Isabella (Lovebug), intervention-free and naturally on December 11th at 4:54 AM at Inanna Birth Center in Denton, with about a 6 hour labor. She weighed 8 pounds and 4 ounces, was 21 inches long, and as healthy as can be…Today is her 1-month birthday – WOW, how time flies when you’re having fun!

Pic taken day Isabella was born - December 11, 2007

SO, here is my account of Lovebug's birth (and yes, it's long - I promise most posts won't be this long :):

It was an absolutely incredible experience that I will never forget. The night prior to the birth, I went and worked out at the gym, went to yoga class, and then came home where my Love and I enjoyed some yummy winter soup and decorated our Christmas tree. As I started to get ready for bed, I started having contractions, around 10:45 or so. They started off pretty intense – I tried to go to sleep but couldn’t so we began timing them, which we did for an hour. They were already 2.5 – 3 minutes apart and lasting about a minute so we called our midwife, Jean, who told us to get up to Denton.

We finished packing up some things and my Love loaded up the car and off we went – it was about 12:30 AM or thereabouts at this time. I don’t remember tons regarding the drive as my contractions were coming very fast and I was very focused, but I do remember it being extremely foggy out and I think in between contractions I remember my Love running a red light or two and passing some cars :).

Pic taken December 12, 2007

We got to the birth center around 1:15 and Jean checked and saw that I was already dilated to a 9! So that was pretty crazy…it got more intense after that…I stayed vertical to allow gravity to assist in the process so I did a lot of pacing to get through the contractions and I remember doing a lot of hip swaying and rocking while squatting on the birth ball. It was just so serene and peaceful at the birth center and I can’t imagine having my baby anywhere else (except maybe my own home – next one hopefully:) as I was so comfortable…It was so incredibly quiet and dark and very intimately beautiful…Jean had lit some candles in the room prior to us arriving so there were no lights on…and we had brought our oil diffuser so my favorite essential oil of lavender lingered lightly in the air.

It was just my Love and I alone together in the room most of the time with Jean coming in occasionally, which I loved. It just seemed so surreal as it was happening so fast. After some time, Jean checked me again and my water broke…it was clear – no meconium – so I decided to get into the birth tub sensing I would start pushing soon. I did indeed get the urge to push not too long after being in the tub and did that for maybe 30 minutes or so before I decided to get out and do the remaining pushing on the bed. I never had any back pain during the labor so that position felt fine thankfully…

Pic taken December 17, 2007

I pushed for maybe another 30 – 40 mins, while Jean, her wonderful assistant, Lynne, and my amazing husband encouraged me…I remember my eyes being closed nearly the whole time – just focusing and concentrating on listening to my body. I remember thinking how serenely quiet and beautiful it felt – I remember moaning a bit but there really wasn’t much noise or talk during the process at all, except some light music in the background.

I pushed Lovebug’s head out, and the rest of her body came quickly and then my Love caught her and laid her on my chest…Her eyes were wide open and she was as alert as can be…The moment Lovebug and I locked eyes was life-changing…We wiped her off a bit and I just held her and was amazed that I had just given birth to this beautiful little human being – it still felt so surreal. Once the cord stopped pulsating, my Love cut it and I then delivered the placenta, which wow, is amazing as well – to see what sustained our baby for 10 months – incredible. Then I nursed our little daughter for the first time and we called our families, which we had not done at all since it had been such a fast labor…Lovebug was never taken away from us for a second and the 3 of us were left to bond together as a family – and oh how wonderful it was!

Pics taken December 24, 2007

Anyway, that’s my account and the past month has flown by and has been tons of fun and work of course, but fun work… Lovebug has already changed so much in the last month…she is so precious and when she smiles my heart just melts. She looks so much like her gorgeous Daddy did when he was a baby. Speaking of, I always knew my Love would be the best Daddy, but I am still so in awe of how amazing he is! Lovebug loves her Daddy so much! I LOVED being pregnant and now I LOVE being a Mommy and I have the most incredible husband and baby daughter whom I LOVE more than I could ever express. God has truly blessed me!

Pics taken January 5, 2008