Pictures of our girls

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Family Pictures

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So What if Summer is over

Our trailer isn't quite done, but given that we did not camp once this summer we decided to go anyway.  It was so much fun!  We just love being in the mountains!

 And we had so much fun that we went again the next weekend and invited the Shockeys.  We took the kids to Old Ephraim's Grave. 

And on the way back we got stuck behind about a million sheep.  Never seen so many sheep in my life.  Can't wait to go camping again!

Enjoying the fruits of our labor (and my Dad's)

In past years learning to can pretty much consisted of my Mom doing it for me.  I know, I'm the worst daughter ever!  This year I've canned beans, salsa and jam and frozen corn and whole tomatoes.  I'm so proud of myself.  I did have some, ok a lot of help from my Dad.  He has the most amazing garden and he shared lots of it with me and he spent all day, I mean ALL DAY doing salsa with me.  I don't really like jam and it was all I could do to not eat the entire bowl of raspberries.  You see, I have this weird addiction to produce - particularly fruit, and raspberries are among my favorites.  When I say addicted to fruit I am not kidding, all summer long I ate an entire watermelon every week.  One week I ate an entire watermelon and 6 pounds of cherries plus several other fruits. People ask me all the time if I get sick from eating so much fruit and the answer is no.  My body is used to it. I'm trying to eat less fruit now because I'm sure my blood sugar was through the roof.  I'm so fascinated by the human body and can I just say, I love food!  I want to eat more like my ancestors ate.  Not even my ancestors, just my parents and grandparents (with less lard).  My Grandpa was a wheat farmer and my Dad has always had a huge garden, raised cows and sometimes chickens and that's what we ate all year.  My Mom makes everything from scratch and we sat down as a family to a home cooked meal every night.  (Sigh), I dream of raising my family this way.  I dream of a bigger garden and feeding my family food that is actually food.  As a child watching the butcher shoot our cow and soon after seeing it on the dinner table freaked me out a little, but I have since learned a thing or two about food and I actually really love this way of life.  Now I mentioned that I don't really like jam, but my family does.  Dustin eats raspberry jam on mashed potatoes (so weird) so, I resisted the raspberries and turned them into this freezer jam.  Isn't it cute?  So proud of myself!

Did you know...

October is breast cancer awareness month and in honor of someone very important in my life I ordered myself one of these.

Can You Believe We Made These? Aren't They Beautiful?

Walked In On This Yesterday...

Brinley reading to London.  It was pretty much the cutest thing in the whole world.

I Love My Life!

(London 11 Days)

Everyday my Mom calls me and asks how we are doing.  I always say, “We’re good.”  The other day she said, “You always say you’re good.  You never complain” but the truth is, it doesn’t get any better than this.  I feel so blessed to be the mother of the two most amazing little girls in the whole world, but I got thinking, maybe my Mom is right.  Shouldn’t I be feeling just a little bit postpartum?  Shouldn’t I resent the fact that I rarely get more than one hour of sleep at a time?  Shouldn’t I be feeling just a little bit stressed and overwhelmed?  Shouldn’t I feel exhausted in the middle of the night when I can’t get my baby to stop crying? I don’t feel any of those things.  I just hug and kiss them every chance I get, even if it is in the middle of the night. I’m not sure it’s normal to feel this great after having a baby.  I can’t get enough of my girls and I’m sure Dustin is wondering what has gotten into me, I can’t get enough of him either.  Love my little family, I’m just really really happy, that’s all. 

Ok, maybe I am feeling just a little postpartum because the other night when Brinley was asleep I climbed in bed with her, put my arms around her, told her how much I loved her and that I was sorry if the changes were hard for her.  I thought she was asleep until she told me it was ok.  so, I just talked to her and told her how I felt and she said, "Mom, why are you whispering?" and I told her because it was really late and she said, "Yeah Mom, so you need to go to bed!"

The Story of London

(4 days old)

So many people ask me where we came up with London's name.  As you may or may not know, Brinley has wanted a baby sister for years!  She talked about babies and we talked about babies, but she was ready long before we were.  A couple of years ago Brinley was telling me she wanted a baby sister.  I told her that we don't get to choose if we have a boy or a girl and asked her what we would name it if we did have a baby.  We threw out several names both boy and girl, one happened to be "London"  she liked it and we liked it too, but  from that moment on she referred to her baby sister in heaven as "London".  Elle comes from me.  Some people have a hard time understanding that so let me spell it out shELLEy.  So, long before London was even conceived she was Brinley's baby sister "London Hell".  Yes, I do realize I said London Hell, that's what Brinley called her for a long time.  She would sometimes cry for her baby sister and when she outgrew something she would put it in her old nursery to save for her baby sister London. 

Before we found out what we were having we tried to talk to Brinley about the possibility of having a boy, but she was still convinced it was her sister London.  And when we found out we were having a girl, Dustin and I were both shocked, but Brinley said she knew it was a girl because she's smart.

We didn't want to name her London just because that's what Brinley said her name was so we tried to come up with other names too.  I liked "Payton" and even warmed Brinley up to it a bit, but when I asked Dustin if he was set on London he said, "I think that's what it should be."  And he was right.  We all love her name and I guess Brinley knew what she was talking about. 

Where did my little girl go?

Just after we brought London home Brinley started preschool.  I didn't think sending her to preschool would be hard, it's just preschool, but I was wrong.  I may have cried when we drove away, but only because she cried when I left her.  This feels like an entirely different life for me.  It's just been Brinley and I for so long and now I drop my child off at school then go home and take care of a different one.  Weird!  They are all good things, just different from what we are used to.