Letter to Adalaide

I wrote this letter to my sweet niece.  I didn't know how else to capture everything that kept going through my head.  So I woke up at 6am on Thursday and wrote this.

We will be burying her tonight.  I don't know if I will be able to read it there, but I am going to give it to her parents. 

My Little Niece is With Jesus

I just cried through this song. Mark Schultz - What it Means to Be Loved.  Cried over the little niece that I will never get to hold.  Never get to meet.  Never get to watch grow up.  There aren't really any words.  Just shock and grief.  It feels so strange to be completely helpless to fix a situation.  To have no words to say.  To not know how to help, or what to do.

Then I remembered reading this post from a friend's blog.  It's called "Miscarriage: How to Comfort".  It's the first place I went.  I wanted to make sure I don't say any of the things on the 'what not to say' list.  I want to know what things I can do to help.  The second place I went was another friend's blog who lost their daughter about a year and a half ago.  She had a link to a blog with a whole series on "How to Help Your Grieving Friend".  What awesome tools.  As I've never been through a miscarriage, I don't really know how she's feeling, or what things I can do to help.  I know there's a long road of grieving ahead for her, but I know that I want to be there for her.  I want to help in whatever ways I can, but I don't want to be annoying.

The other thing that this makes me wonder is how anyone, and I mean ANYONE can think that abortion is okay.  These are little people we're talking about.  Children with a future ahead of them.  I just don't understand why there is such a big debate over it in our country.  What is there to debate?

Anyway.  Just needed to type out my thoughts.  If you have any advice for me how to help her, I'd be glad to hear it. 

Be Your Own 'Doctor' by Rachel Weaver (6/44)

I got this book a couple of years ago, and have been working my way through it for quite a while now.  Kevin and I take a naturalistic approach to our health care, and this book has been a wonderful resource for me in knowing how to remedy many things ourselves. 

Roughly the first half of the book goes through many different herbs telling the healing properties of each, and ways they can be used.  Many of the items listed are common things you would find in your kitchen i.e. onions, garlic, cayenne, ginger, parsley, apple cider vinegar.  The second half of the book goes through several topical sections such as pregnancy, respiratory difficulties, colon health, and others.  This section gives you herbal remedies for many areas of health.  Then it the back of the book are some recipes for teas, salves, tinctures, etc. and how to plan ahead to treat things with herbs.

Every chapter has at least one story about how she has used the herb being discussed and what the results were.  She also gives resources of where to order the herbs and items that she talks about.  

I think the one thing from the book that I have used the most is called 'People's Paste Powder'.  It's a combination of comfrey rood powder, slippery elm powder, myrrh powder, bayberry root powder, and garlic powder.  You use it to put on cuts or wounds.  All you do is pack it into the wound, and it forms a scab like thing.  The comfrey root increases circulation to the area which results in faster healing.  I have used it several times, and had situations where I was somewhere else and wished I had it with me. 

I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in 'herbal home health care'.  It does take a little bit of preparation and work to do, but in my opinion, it is well worth it.  I always keep this book within arm's reach because it is so quick and easy to reference something that comes up in our family.  If you are interested in the book, you can order it on Amazon.  I believe it's $24.

Thoughts for Young Mothers by Elsie D. Holsinger (5/44)

My sister-in-law and I take turns helping clean each others' homes each week.  A couple of weeks ago, we were at her house, and I was helping her move some books onto a bookshelf.  I came across this book, and the title intrigued me.  I'm a young mother, and hearing someone's thoughts for me sounded great.

It was a pretty quick read (only 128 pages).  It's an older book printed in 1953, but the Biblical truths it contains are timeless. Each chapter begins with a verse that goes with the theme of the chapter.  Actually, every chapter is filled with verses.

I think the first few chapters were my favorites.  In them, she talks about being like Christ, choosing to be content, keeping our spiritual nourishment a top priority, and learning from the example of Hannah in the Bible.

One quote that really spoke to me was this, "We Christian mothers are more than cooks and housekeepers.  We are children of God and joint heirs with Christ.  We are His representatives, His ambassadors.  God has given us our home with our children as a special place to serve Him.  Glorify and praise the Lord just where you are."

This whole book was an encouragement, and a good reminder of ways that I can be a better mother to my girls.  I was reminded that I, as the mother, set the tone of the household.  Meaning, if Mom is happy and cheerful showing patience and love, the home will respond in the same way.  If Mom is tired, cranky, irritable and cross, the home will respond in that way as well.  This was a good look in the mirror for me to realize that when my children are getting on my nerves, it's probably MY attitude that needs an adjustment.

I would definitely recommend this book to other young mothers.  And I found out from my S-I-L that the book actually belongs to our Church library, so you can borrow it from there!

Reupholstered Chairs Project

So, we have owned these chairs for almost a year now.  They have been used many times in their sorry condition.

I have had plans to reupholster them for a very long time.  Well, since we got them actually.  I picked up some fabric at a thrift sale earlier this summer, and have just been waiting for some time to get this project done.  Once I got started, it didn't take any longer than a couple of hours.  It's a very easy project to do, but I thought that in case you've never done something like this before, I would put together a little tutorial, just for fun.

Supplies needed:
*Chairs
*New foam padding (if needed)
*New fabric
*Screwdriver
*Pliers
*Sharpie
*Scissors
*Staple gun

Step 1:  Take the seat off of the chair.  Mine had four screws underneath and it popped off quite easily.

Step 2: Take the old fabric off.  This is where I used the screwdriver again (flat head) to pry the staples up, and then pulled them the rest of the way out with the pliers.  Pay attention as to how the fabric was put on i.e. which sides were stapled down first, how the corners were folded etc.  This will be important in step 7.

 Step 3: Determine the condition of the padding underneath, and throw away what can't be used.  For my chairs, the top white padding part was falling apart, but the straw type padding part underneath was in great shape.  I decided to keep the bottom layer and go from there.

 Step 4: Trace the board on the new foam with a sharpie for the correct size.

 Step 5: Cut out the foam using a scissors, and place on top of the other padding, on top of the board.

 Step 6: Cut out your fabric using the old fabric you took off as a pattern.  I cut mine slightly bigger than the old one because the foam I added was thicker than what was originally there. Lay the fabric face down (wrong side up) and flip your setup from step five onto the fabric.

 Step 7: Staple the new fabric onto the board using a staple gun.  I put the fabric back on the same way I took it off.  Sides first and then the ends.  Make sure you pull the fabric tight, as it will keep the fabric from being loose and floppy once it's on the chair.

 Step 8: Now flip it over and you're ready to screw it back onto the chair.

 Voila!  A brand new chair!

 I'm very happy with how my chairs turned out.  The only thing that perplexes me is that I am positive we had four chairs, but I can only find three in my house.  I have searched my house many times over, had other people search my house, and still only 3.  Oh well, maybe I'm just going crazy.

acTivity Tuesday

This week snuck up on me.  After last week, I was planning to prepare a little better for today's activities, and then I prepared nothing.  It's a good thing there is a long list of activities that we can do without any pre-planning.

This morning we did three activities.  We started off with a combination of 'Cruising' and 'House Tour' both from the Early One-Year Old list.  Cruising involves dragging them around the house on a blanket, and house tour is telling the names of each room in the house.  We did both.  The only rooms Evelyn could remember every time were her bedroom, our bedroom, and the kitchen.  She's doing pretty good, and I think a little more repetition of the name of the living room and entry way, and she'll know those too.

Cruising on their house tour.

Next we decided to play winter dress up.  This was my variation of 'Put on Your Jacket' from the Middle Two-Year Old list.  We went down in the basement (which is the coolest part of the house) and pulled out the totes of hats, boots, mittens, and coats.  Evelyn thought it was pretty fun to put all her stuff on, but didn't want mittens so she could still suck her thumb.  Elsie only let me put a hat on her, but she thought she was pretty cool too!

Elsie toddling around with her winter hat on.

I think the picture says it all.  This one is definitely going in the photo albums!

Our last 'tivavee' as Evelyn now calls it, was 'Painting the Sidewalk' from the Late Infant list.  Even though it was from a younger child list, Evelyn loved this just as much as Elsie did.  I took them both outside with yogurt containers full of water and 2 paintbrushes each, and let them paint the steps and driveway with water.  .

Evelyn got so into it, she was painting the storm door, the railing, the plants, her face, our name rock, and was having a blast.  They really surprised me with this one. I thought they'd dump their tubs so fast, but they were actually very into what they were doing.  It was so cute to see them both in their own ways learning the hand-eye coordination needed to use a paintbrush.

We had a lot of fun today.  Can't wait until next week!

acTivity Tuesday

Yesterday as I was browsing pinterest, I discovered a website that a friend had pinned called productiveparenting.com.  The pin had this caption, "Wow this site has HUNDREDS of activities for newborns to 5 year olds that are organized by 1/2 of their age all the way! Perfect for EVERY stage!!!"  It intrigued me.  So, I put the pin on my "Mommy Things" board and later went back to browse through it.  Wow.  There are literally hundreds and possibly thousands of activities to do with your kids.  They are divided by age.  I printed off the 'Early One-Year Old' list for Elsie, and the 'Middle Two-Year Old' list for Evelyn.  There are about 125 activities on each list.  Not all of them are necessarily perfect for every child of that age range, but most of them are.  They range from very little prep work involved i.e. singing songs to a lot of prep work involved i.e. making a balance beam, or a family picture book.

I realized that if I don't have a schedule for blogging, it tends (more often than not) not to happen.  So, I decided to start acTivity Tuesday.  Starting today, and every Tuesday following, we will do activities in the mornings.  Then, hopefully I can blog about them in the afternoons.  Because I didn't have any prep time for this week, we did a couple of activities that didn't require any prep work.

First Evelyn did two activities in one.  They're called Loose Change and Piggy Bank from the Middle Two-Year Old list.  Loose change involves sorting the change by putting each type in a different bowl.  Evelyn wasn't real enthused about this one.  The only coin that she could pick out on her own was the penny, and even then, she asked me each time before she put it in the right bowl.  She was more excited about the Piggy Bank.  This involved simply dumping out the coins and letting her put them back in.  She didn't finish all of the coins by the time we went to run errands, and the first thing she wanted to do when we got back was keep working on her "tivtee" (activity).  With the Loose Change activity, it's something we can keep coming back to until she gets it.  It's a learning and teaching activity as much as it is for fun. 

The other activity I took from the Early One-Year Old list.  It's called Kitchen Band.  I pulled out bowls, lids, pots and spoons and put them on the floor.  Each girl was armed with two spoons and started banging away as soon as I showed them what to do.  Here's a couple photos of the girls enjoying their 'band'. 

Evelyn actually banged on her pot so hard, she broke one of the spoons. I think I am going to enjoy these mornings as much as the girls are.  I can't wait to start working on next week!