I subscribe to Bath and Body Works emails b/c I like their lotions. But, when this popped into my inbox a few weeks ago, I furrowed my brow with a face of disgust and disappointment. It looked like a Victoria Secret ad.
I just wrote them an email explaining my disappointment in choosing this picture to advertise their new line. I originally just deleted the email, but, after going to the mall Saturday and seeing this picture plastered all over their store and then receiving another email from them with the same picture on it, I decided to DO something about it. So, I wrote them an email.
If you feel so inclined to do the same, you can here.
* I should add that the reason this is so disappointing is b/c B&BW up to this point has not had scandalous advertisements such as these. So, I feel like this will be the norm now for them. That makes me sad. Sad and then angry.
I believe that we can make a difference by doing small things like writing emails. In so doing, I feel that I am doing my part to strengthen and protect the family.
"We call upon responsible citizens and officers of government everywhere to promote those measures designed to maintain and strengthen the family as the fundamental unit of society."
This has been a great multi-tasker for me. While nursing Vince or straightening up around the house I've been listening to the live radio station, the scriptures, General Conference talks, and they even have the Ensign articles on there!
It's a lot easier to do this on an iPod Touch. Charles just got one for his rotations. I've also just listened on the computer and turn the volume up really loud.
I've realized you can incorporate almost anything into a celebration when you think about it. Last night Charles and I watched Bella, one of our favorites. We just got it for *free through Swaptree. You should definitely check it out. We've traded in the most ridiculous movies for awesome movies. For example- a friend of ours gave Azure all her kids' old movies. One of them was Air Buddies. Of course, we did not want this movie so we traded it for Bella. Score!
After watching it, I thought, "This movie is about the sanctity of life, which the Proclamation speaks of. We just celebrated and didn't even know it!"
"We declare the means by which mortal life is created to be divinely appointed. We affirm the sanctity of life and of its importance in God's eternal plan."
*You have to pay to ship the item you're exchanging. This could be as little as $1.
15 years ago this month The Family Proclamation was issued by President Hinckley and the Quorum of the 12 Apostles in the General Relief Society Meeting. So, there is a celebration! How fun huh?
Click here for some posts about it. Here's one of my favorites.
Last week Charles and I were discussing the goals that we have for our family. I've mentioned before that our goal is to have an intentional family. That concept comes from this book.
We don't have TV in our home. It's more of a circumstance than a choice. When we moved here we hooked up the cable to our TV and...nothing. Not even local channels, everything was fuzzy. Didn't matter, we don't like TV anyways, except for BYU games. And I like the Food Network. Not sure we'll even have TV in the future.
But, something that Charles and I both love is the internet. We don't waste hours watching TV, but we sure do waste a lot of time on the internet. It's so bittersweet. We live far from friends and family so we like "staying in touch" through Facebook and reading blogs to know about things like the Family Proclamation Celebration. However, being on it at the expense of spending time together, was affecting our family goals. We had made attempts in the past to "limit" our time somehow but, had failed. With Charles being in school it was too hard. He needed to be on the computer to study and what not. With him gone at school and studying, I was also on the internet a lot.
Two weeks ago Charles finished his coursework for Pharmacy school! Hooray! No more classes! He wouldn't need to be on the computer as much to study. He had the fabulous idea that when he got home from work or his rotations that we would not get on the computer. We would wait until the kids were asleep. Both of their bedtimes is around 8-9pm so we'd have about 2-3 hrs at night to surf the web. Plenty of time.
We are 2 days into our goal and it has been wonderful. Tuesday was one of my favorite days in a long time! Charles came home so excited about working in the ER. It was so fun to see him so excited to learn and enjoying the beginnings of his career. We made dinner together. We cleaned up together. All 4 of us went running together with our new jogging stroller. It was a day of family work and togetherness and not until after we had put the kids to bed did we get on the computer. Some of you might already do this, we are a little slow :)
I haven't yet decided how I'm going to limit my time during the day when I'm here w/ the kids. Sometimes writing an email or reading a blog serves as a small break for me and refreshes my "adult mind" and gives me ideas of how we can play together. The main goal of this is to be together as a family when Charles gets home and focus on each other, all 4 of us.
Though we made this goal before finding out about the Family Proclamation Celebration, we are now following through with it, with the proclamation in mind. I wanted to write about this to inspire others to do something too. If you decide to do something, please let me know. I'd love to hear about it!
"Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities."
Vince is finally sleeping through the night again as of last week. Praise the Lord! You know, it's amazing how much nicer of a person I am when I don't get woken up in the middle of the night. It changes my attitude drastically! I don't know how people go months and even years without getting a good nights sleep. I would die. Seriously. Gratefully the Lord has blessed me w/ 2 children who are good sleepers and who only vary in that every once in awhile. Because of this I know we'll have at least one more :) So, what was the trick? Giving him his own room! We only have 2 bedrooms so we had to get creative. After lots of prayers and racking my brain the thought: Put him in the laundry room came to my mind. Brilliant! His pack and play fits perfectly in there. Now his little squeaks and squeals don't wake us up, as cute as they are. I think one of the reasons he was waking up was b/c he sensed me near and could actually see me 5 ft away, so naturally he just wanted to nurse. We're back to 11 hrs straight again. Hallelujah!
Last Friday, a week from 7 months, he weighed 18 lbs and was 27 inches. Azure weighed 14 lbs at her 6 month visit! I love having a chunky baby. I think the extra 4 lbs are in his thighs :) He still has yet to get up on his knees but, I think it's b/c of the extra weight he's carrying around.
Some random things he does:
Stretches out his hand, looks at it intensely and opens and closes his fist like Spiderman. Cracks me up!
Sweats profusely. This one is definitely a boy. Every time I nurse him, his head just beads w/ sweat, even when the air is on and he only wears onesies pretty much everyday. Azure never sweated (<- is that a word?) like this.
Babbling mostly "Dada" and "Baba". I've heard "Mama" once or twice but, not consistently.
His nick name of Chubbalub Bear and Chubbs has morphed into just Chubba.
Our schedule as of late has been bath around 7:30pm, asleep between 8 or 9pm and waking up at 7 or 8am. Two hours after waking up for the day he gets tired again so I usually try to put him down for a morning nap. However, he usually wakes up when I'm transferring him into the pack and play and then won't go back to sleep. Most of the time he won't nap at all during the day. But, I won't complain since he sleeps so well at night again!
He's also been eating solids twice a day now for the past few weeks. Him and Azure have been playing together and keeping each other entertained and it's so nice. I thought it would take longer for them to play together but, they already have for the past little while.
My heart turns to mush when I see these two like this!
First time eating sweet potatoes. He loves to watch the ceiling fan go around!
Being as cute as possible! My heart strings get pulled in a million different directions when he flashes me this flirtatious smile. Look out girls :0 He and his Daddy sure have me hooked!
I wrote a submission for this book a couple weeks after Vince was born and decided that it needed some polishing before I sent it in. Up until now I have not polished it up and pretty much forgot about it, and Vince is now 6.5 months old. However, I just read this post and knew I had to submit my story. Now or never. Polished or not polished. So here is my submission for the book (this is not the birth story in it's entirety that I will some day publish on the blog :)
I prepared for a natural birth with my first baby using Hypnobabies.After my water broke, I started having back labor and was not making much progress.Once I reached a 4 and after laboring for 24 hours, my midwife found out my daughter was breech; because my water had already broken, I had to have an emergency c-section.I was devastated. Right before finding out she was breech, my husband had given me a priesthood blessing saying that I would be able to have the natural birth that we had planned and practiced for.We talked about this later and felt that the Lord was referring to a future birth.I knew right away that I would try for a VBAC for my second birth.
The disappointment of my birth coupled with a colicky baby led to post partum depression. As I shared my experience with other women and helped influence them to make their own decisions regarding their births, I started to feel some closure from my own experience.I realized that had I not experienced the heartache and depression that I did with my daughter’s birth, that I might not have the passion or motivation or empathy to help empower other women to feel good about their births. This quote by Elder Wirthlin helped me understand that my pain was being restored to something greater.
"The Lord compensates the faithful for every loss. That which is taken away from those who love the Lord will be added unto them in His own way. While it may not come at the time we desire, the faithful will know that every tear today will eventually be returned a hundredfold with tears of rejoicing and gratitude."
I knew that the Lord loved me and that He needed to teach me things that I could only learn through the disappointment of my daughter’s birth. I learned to trust in His will and timing.
With my second pregnancy I again practiced with Hypnobabies and envisioned the natural birth I had wanted the first time around.I found the only OB in my city who supported VBACs and hired a doula.Though I wanted nothing more than to have a VBAC I had faith in the Lord’s will and knew He knew what I needed better than I thought I did.
A week after my due date I started having contractions.They were intense enough that I couldn’t sleep through them. I felt them in my back again which alerted me that again my baby was not in an optimal position to be born.The next day I had an ultrasound to check my amniotic fluid level since I was “overdue”. It was down to 4.5. Five is normal. My Dr. was concerned and could have scheduled me for a C-section right then but, told me to come back in two hours to admit me to the hospital. Two hours later I was still at a one.
My Dr. broke my water and gave me pitocin. Of course that increased my back labor.It had been over 24 hours and I could no longer take the pain and the fact that I was progressing so slow. I knew it was going to take even longer so I asked for an epidural.I was still able to move around with the help of my doula and husband to try to get my baby in a good position.After about 40 hours of labor I was at a 6. I knew that my chances of having a VBAC were getting slimmer as time went on.I was also coming close to the 24 hour “deadline” that most doctors give to laboring women after their water breaks.
I tried to prepare myself mentally for having another C-section but, the thought of that made me cry. It didn’t seem fair after having labored all this time to just have another C-section. My Dr. was supposed to come back to check on me but, she got caught up in a surgery. During the time she was in that surgery my back labor finally stopped andI had completely dilated to a 10! I know it was no coincidence that she was in the surgery for so long. Had she come back any earlier I think she would have made me have a C-section.Never before in my life could I feel the intense power of my friends and family praying for me.
I was able to have a VBAC! Having a vaginal birth was more important to me than having a drug-free birth. Sure, (again) it wasn’t the way I had planned but, being able to push my son out of my own body was a wonderful feeling. And I don’t mind that I needed an epidural to be able to do that. I did it! Will I try a third time to do it naturally? Yes! But, if not, I will accept the Lord’s will and just be happy to have a healthy, beautiful baby.A few days after the birth I read this scripture and felt the Lord speak directly to my heart:
“And it came to pass that after I had prayed and labored with all diligence, the Lord said unto me: I will grant unto thee according to thy desires, because of thy faith”(Enos 1:12).
My righteous desire was to have a vaginal birth. I’m so grateful He saw fit to grant me that desire not only because of my faith, but because of the faith of my family and friends too. Together we all witnessed a miracle.
We made an impromptu trip down to Orlando on Fri. July 16th b/c a "young man" (not sure what else to call him) in our ward was going to receive his endowment in the Orlando temple before leaving on his mission AND Charles found out that one of his high school buddies was there for a conference. So, we booked a hotel on Hotwire for $19 and drove the 5 hrs down.
Keep in mind we had just gotten back from VA the week before so this was somewhat tiring. And the kids didn't do well in the car. And there was a TON of traffic in Orlando. Everyone and their dog was there for summer vacation to Disney World.
But, we had some amazing Cuban food! We walked around Celebration again and I found out the name of the beads I've wanted since first visiting there in March 2009. Can't put up a pic, but check out how delicious these beads are!
So, turns out that the temple session started at 2pm, we thought it was at 2:30. Whoops! But, I made the best of the situation, did initiatories and met him and his family in the Celestial room. They were surprised to see me there. It was wonderful! The Orlando temple is beautiful. The only way it could of been better was having Charles there. He was driving around Orlando trying to lull the children to sleep. I felt bad that we both couldn't go inside since that is what made the whole trip worth it to me.
Being the great husband that he is, he checked out a top rated salad and sandwich shop beforehand on Trip Advisor for me and we had dinner there before heading back up to Savannah. I ordered a salmon salad but, they ran out so gave us a $10 gift card. That's some sweet customer service if you ask me. So, we bought key lime jam and habanero jam from their store.
As we were coming to St. Augustine I begged Charles to let us drive on the scenic highway along the coast and not the boring tree laden interstate. He hesitated because our lovely children were crying in the back seat and Azure had about 4 accidents in less than 48 hrs, so naturally we both wanted to get home- the sooner the better. But, we weren't sure we'd ever have the opportunity to do it again. So, just as we were about to pass the exit, he obliged me and made the turn off and we got to drive through St. Augustine again :)
We stopped on the beach at sunset. Here's the proof:We are SO happy to be out of the car, on a beautiful empty beach and NOT listening to the screaming cries of children :)
But, they are sure cute, aren't they?!
Because we like FL so much we are tentatively planning on applying for a residency in Tampa. By we, I mean Charles :) It'll be exciting to see where we end up next June!
