Blogging from an iPad

Yup, I feel like I'm part of some techy geek elite now. While the app for blogger is actually kinda lame. It's totally made for a iPhone. It lets me work on my blogs when I'm away from my computer. No pictures but hey, no biggie. I've found my self not being able to sit down at for very long any more. I blame Genesis. But that's okay. I have an iPad

Yes, the iPad is amazing. It's provided me with new freedoms that I have kinda lost with becoming a mom. But I have put most of my church calling on to it, ( which by the way is so awesome to have to take just a diaper bag and not two bags to church) I have a place to work on my children's story, wasted a lot of time on angry birds and so much more. I take it with me when I go nurse look at stuff on pinterest.( google it, amazing page) I have such a awesome husband. Best early birthday gift ever. Now that I've gushed about my iPad I'll go do something else now.

Hopefully I'll get more blogs up. I spend more time editing them then I probably should. I might have a little OCD maybe.

Genesis, 10 week update!

Week 5
- Daddy had to go away for a month, Mommy had to learn new skills as Mystery fusses came about.
- You really enjoy the sound of the running shower. The sleep sheep rain just that different it doesn't work.
- First shower with mommy. Not so sure what we think of that. No tears though
- We started Co sleeping, Big bed to our selves

Week 6
- Really can hold your head up high!
- First real smiles!
- You discovered Standing! Using your tipy toes only very owwy on my tummy
- You fell a sleep in the tub. Guess with a towel it's pretty comfy.

Week 7
- Started talking to everyone with your coo's and other sounds.
- Tossing joy!
- Introduction to Doggies, it went well.
- You started to fight sleep, might have been some of that mystery fuss time that really wore mommy out

Week 8
-Finally learned that little song my Dad use to sing to me when I was a baby, You really like rolling your hands to it.
- Some of your new born stuff doesn't fit so got and then your feet are almost to big for some of your sleepers!
- Jolly jumper joy!
- Fuzzy head! I spotted new hair growing on your head. Turns out your keeping most of your baby hair.

Week 9
- All of your new born stuff doesn't fit now.
- Poo rocket seemed to be going down, still get a few blow outs.
- Not so much of a fan of showers now.

Week 10
- The first hints of laughter
- Daddy came home and started trying to walk with you
- You really enjoy sleeping on mommy now, sometimes if I put you down you wake right up.

From Bubbles to Genesis, A Birth Story

This is my epic birth story.

I say epic because the complications that happened just happened to be rare, like 2% rare, and I had to face my greatest birthing fear. A Cesarean birth. I suppose this is what I get for having one very awesome pregnancy, what's life with out a trial to make you stronger.

It all started Tuesday morning. I was up an about (actually I hadn't even gone to bed yet) deciding that now would probably be a good time to get to sleep. To the wash room I waddled my very preggy self to brush my teeth at 4:00 am. As I was looking at myself with toothbrush stuffed into my mouth brushing away, something became not so right. A gush of wetness between my legs and a mighty one at that I rushed my bottom on to the toilet and waited for it to stop. There was no doubt about it, my water had just broken.

I wasn't quiet sure what to do at that moment as I waited for a second phase of gushing to pass as I tossed my soiled clothing into the bathtub. ' Do I go to the hospital now? Should I just wait? I didn't get my birth plan written... I should probably contact my Doula, wake up Mike wait this is really happening. Stay clam, darn Mindy for posting on my Facebook about today being the day he came.' Those where among many of my thoughts. So after deciding I probably shouldn't just stay seated on the toilet looking like a deer caught in headlights, with legs tight together I shuffled over and woke Mike and contacted my Doula.

We chose to head to the Hospital. We where admitted and they checked me out. Sure enough they confirmed what I already knew, my water broke. My contractions where all over the place, and honestly I had the naive moment of "Oh, if they don't get much worse then this I can totally do this. Easy as pie." I'm a silly person, what can I say. After being in triage for 3 hours, most of it was spent waiting since 3 other women came in at the exact same time and the resident on hand was dealing with some 80 year old man that was dying, they let Mike and I go home at 8:00 am.

Krystal (my Doula) showed up and while Mike tried to go back to bed, we chatted and watched Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog. (insert geek points here) 11:00 am was when things really started to not be so relaxed.

Remember how in my pregnancy blogs I commented on taking the pain out of childbirth by not even using the word pain? And that Birthing embraces is what my prenatal course wanted me to use and I decided on birthing pressures. Well, Embraces is defiantly not the word I would use. It's not a big hug and if some one is giving you a hug like that then some one doesn't know their own strength. The word pressure was defiantly closer and I was starting to have pressure on my lower back. Much like when your back is out of place. Only in spasm format. I started on my hands and knee's rocking during a contraction. I started my breathing focusing internally.  This is where my brain loses track of the time line, but either way it was back to the hospital with us. I think this was at like 1 pm.

We waited in the triage while a labor room freed up, and I really didn't enjoy having some external monitors strapped to my belly. So once they got the information they needed they where awesome enough to let me use the shower in the triage to help manage my contractions which had increased with intensity. The fun part was that the water would cool and warm randomly. It made things interesting, nothing like a hospital shower to make you appreciate the wonders of apartment showers. Once I got into that shower that's where I stayed until the room was ready. The water was wonderful on my back, with the knees and hands I got a pretty awesome system set up. I was going to do this.

Now, back labor that should have been a clue to me right then that not everything was going to go smoothly. I thought Bubbles was facing the right way, back to the world, head in my pelvic area. Well, I guess he wanted to see on the way out so he turned so his back was against mine. So Occipito-posterior position for Bubbles, lots of discomfort for me and we where in it for the long haul if he didn't spin around. Looked up the stats for this one, happens in about 10% of labors. Most of those manage to spin around before birth, those that don't fall into the 2%.

We headed to the labor room once it was ready. It was nice to be in a big room, even better it had a shower. I even started using the water droplets as a focal point to keep my rhythmic rocks, Mike stayed in bathroom with me being my cheer team I stayed there as long as I could before they started doing some checks, once I got in the bed though I ended up not leaving it. I got on my knees again and let me tell you it was far harder to use a plain white wall as focal point, there is not much to focus on.

Then things got annoying. I'm pretty sure it was close the 3 or 4 pm and I still hadn't really progressed a bunch. Bubbles was still facing the wrong way and the back labor was the joys that it was since I've read it's the most painful way to labor, I also had not dilated an awful lot. Turns out at the foothills IFM (Internal Fetal Monitoring) is standard procedure after a certain point/time. I didn't want that, it really ment that hey, your not going to move around. It also didn't help that when they where telling me this I was in a contraction and after the 7ish hours of back labor I finally caved and tried the gas which.. made me loopy. I couldn't think right, but with a fair bit of annoyance I let them stick the monitor on Bubbles head. And after an hour I gave up on the gas, I didn't like being loopy and it didn't help.

Now that they could tell what was going on, Bubbles heart rate was kind of all over the place. This is when they first started talking about doing a C section on me. As I tried to do a little bit of rocking all I could think was, not a fat chance. It worried me a little but I had to keep my focus on breathing so that I could get through the contractions. So they had me lay on my side, apparently only one side kept the heart rate pretty stable. Picky picky baby. At this point too, Mike gave me a priesthood blessing to help. I'm so thankful for the priesthood because after that, things really got going again.

Bubbles still hadn't turned but my body was on the move again, going about a cm per hour. This scrapped the C section they where thinking about ( YAY!), but then something else nasty happened (BOO!). My body started trying to push at what I think was 7 cm. Either way, his head was being forced into my cervix which wasn't giving way for his head to come down more. This was not pleasant, nor helpful by any means. The result, my cervix was swollen and I could not get past 9 cm.

My body continued to want to push, and I had to stop it if I wanted any chance at all of my cervix to become unswollen. They started me on fentanyl, which seemed to really help take the edge off and helped me to stop pushing. Each time my body wanted to go into a pushing phase it stole my breath a way. I would just stop then start back up again once everyone snapped me out of it. Mike and I connected during this phase, well at least it felt like it on my end. The rhythmic slooow we breathed together helped to comfort me so much. I'm so thankful he's my eternal companion. I'm so thankful for my doula as well. She was able to give Mike a break and it was so wonderful to not ever have to be alone during all of this. As this went on, I remained at 9 cm for 4 hours. Eventually I got a new dose of fentanyl every 10 minutes and I had to shout to stop my self from pushing. The result got me a frog voice after everything was done.

They had talked to me about turning Bubbles, but that wasn't going to happen if my cervix didn't get out of the way. I agreed to the epidural they wanted me to have, they gave me an hour for my cervix to recover. Once I had the epidural my contractions let up completely, so even if I could have a vaginal birth my body no longer had the push power behind it to get Bubbles out. Drugs, they mess things up. So it was off to the operating room with me to have a C section.

From that moment on I was a trembling wreck. I cried. This was my worse case story, next to a still birth, for a labor experience. I prayed for the comfort and the strength to face my fear. I was worried I would tremble right off the operating table since it was so narrow. I couldn't help but realize that I was on a cross my arms spread as I was mentally battling my fear. Mike came in and I tried even harder to stop myself from shaking. All of my fears melted away the moment Bubbles let out his first cries at 1:30 am July 13th. 21 hours of labor.

I didn't get my gooey baby on my chest, I wasn't able to let the umbilical cord stop beating, I didn't get to hold him right away and I didn't get a lot of the things I wanted out of this birth. When little baby Genesis finally found his way to my chest it was the most amazing feeling. It washed over me like the warm bask of the sun as the tears of joy fell down my cheeks. I waited a long time for this moment. It was like a healing moment and I would do it all over again.

Genesis, The first 4 weeks.

I know, I know I haven't put up the birth story that is still a work in progress and lots of it is foggy. So I'm waiting for my birth story from my doula (she takes notes! So useful.) In addition the writer in me has died off as new mommy hood has taken me tightly with a few breaks for sleep and a little bit of fun (Woo video games). So here is a short form of the things that happened.

At the Hospital

Week 1:
- He lost 10% of birth weight while mommy and him figured out this breast feeding thing. Nurse made him drink some supplement, but I continued to express (hand at first then pump) my engorgement ridden breasts. (Thank you IV fluids)
- Daddy was super, staying with Mommy as much as he could.
- Only Grandparents where allowed to come visit, Some how Aunty Jackie got snuck in.
- He loves water, your first bath no screams, you loved it.
- On the way home Daddy rushed off with him to the car while sore mommy trailed behind, amused but sore.

Tuckered mom and babe

Week 2
- We figured out breastfeeding! It was hard stuff
- You where a nekked guy, only running about in a Diaper since our place is so warm
- You regained your lost birth weight!
- Projectile vomit, got daddy lots with it.
- You survived the long trek to Edmonton to see and say good bye your Great Grandma P, she was so excited to be a great grandma. She missed you by 7 hours before you where born. You got to meet lots of Family too.

Just before the trip to Edmonton

Week 3
- Started tummy time, you lifted your head just a wee bit. Strong strong little guy
- Grandma P put you to sleep every time she burped you, as you got older you burped at her to give her the hint you wanted the back rub
- Many grunts and funny noises came out of you while you slept. We wondered if you where part sheep.
- You had your first Visitors.

Mommy sleeping with Genesis on the couch.

Week 4
- Aunty Jackie Changed your bum!
- You really live up to your old nick name bubbles, you wouldn't let go of your burps.
- We started dressing you, things started to chill off
- You got the wiggles, waving and kicking your feet when we put you on the ground

Wiggles!

Bloggers Block

He came! Bubbles no more, and now Genesis. I figure a pretty darn good reason for not blogging for a month.

July 13 2011 1:30 am, 7 lbs 2 oz, 53 cm

New mommy hood has really put a damper on my writing. It's very hard for me to even think about wording and what to write. I've been putting some stuff in point form so not everything gets lost in my still forgetful mind. I want to keep track of this stuff so I can have recorded for him when he's older.

I'm loving new mommy hood and very grateful for my sister Jackie who has been a helper since Genesis was born. (details on that to come in its own blog post once my block goes away.) In my sisters words, "Why are you so cute baby! Stop it!" fits a daily dose of what I've had with a few fussy moments. I never thought I'd laugh while Genesis crys, but it's too cute. More to come on those too.

Stay tuned for the posts they will come, probably in a big o wave of reading joy.

Facebook Pet Peeves

Yup, we all have them. So I figured I'd do quick list of mine, most of these have to do with some of the newer things I've been seeing on Facebook. So no, I'm not going to comment on how dumb the "Poke" button is.

10. Spelling.

Now, I do understand that yes, some words do in fact are tricky in the delightful world of English. However, and I do mean this, if your using a good browser (like Firefox or Chrome anyone still using Exploder needs to update.) it comes with a BLOODY SPELL CHECK. Not even just that, you have the power of Google that will even try and figure out what you're trying to say. So if you are trying to spell 'finally' and end up ' finley"  with there is something really wrong.

9. TMI Status/photo's ect

You all know the one. Usually hinting at some sort of sexual innuendo or maybe it's just something you never ever wanted to read. Such as, pigs making a messy messy poop, or someone motor-boating some chick, or even the 'Come and get some action lover' status, or some one talking about the nasty hang over they have while messing some **** up or finally some ones bare nekked butt letting it all let lose and pretty much mooning everyone that's friends with them. Sadly you can never unsee anything, but you can try to forget. Not like this one is newer or anything, I just really wanted to comment.

8. This is not Twitter, stop putting status up like it is.

I hate Twitter, the concept, the fact it encourages that evil lazy text messaging typing (ie: Im 2 cool 4 u peeps lolz), that and you need to learn the Twitter language. I have my own Trippy speak, I don't need Twitter speak. I don't need to know every single time someone pisses you off, your hockey team scored during that 20 minutes of game time, or even if your taking a poop. Status, once in a while, not every 5 minutes or even seconds apart from each other. If your that lonely get a dog and tell it those things.

7. Blah and Blah are now friends because of Blah event.

This is really new. If you have an event on Facebook, two people you know say they are attending aren't friends on Facebook but have known each other for a long long time. These two people decide to add each other to their Facebook accounts. Suddenly it's because of the event.  Auto assuming. The new auto correct.

6. You don't talk to this person, Auto hide their stuff!

This one was kinda rude. Since I do enjoy some fan stuff and stalking peoples Facebook pages. (It's what it's for right?) So once I actually fixed the settings so that it stopped it. I was kinda blown away by how much crap actually ended up on my news feed. Few more adjustments and I'm not getting updates every hour from some of the "liked" Fan pages. Happily creeps on peoples Facebook pages with much greater ease.

5. 94% of people won't repost this, so post this as your status, even if it's just for an hour to help raise awareness about cancer/sick/pedo's/life issue here.

Really? Why don't you go donate money towards to whatever it is and challenge people to do that instead of just useless status that does nothing for them. Heck, informative Youtube videos's are better then these.

4. Spam

Seriously, do people just not have the will power to not click something that looks like some chick is exposing a breast? Or something that says, OMG 14 year old gets walked in on by her father!!! Just don't, report it as spam and carry on with your day. Don't know how? Here. The black circle is where you'll find that hidden X, click it and the drop down box of magic reporting will appear.

3. I just put up status for the comments/ Good night Facebook!

This is just as bad as people putting up photo's for the likes. Which adds to the growing population that would fall in to the category of the joke, If Facebook closed today there would be millions of kids running around with photo's screaming DO YOU LIKE THIS?!?! DO YOU!?! If you need this much re affirming for everything you post... It may be time to look at why your on Facebook. If your on there to feel popular, I assure you, you don't have that many real friends. You probably have 5 or maybe 10 not 300 or even 2000. I have 300 friends listed on my own profile, I don't know all of them that well. I enjoy the posts that many of them put up, or just to give a quick check to see what's going on in their lives.

Goodnight Facebook! Good-morning Facebook! Lets get one thing straight, you are not actually saying goodnight to Facebook which in fact is a matter of Code in a digital world. In fact, you are trying to say goodnight to every single one of your 300 "friends" who just might happen to be on, even if you haven't sent anything to them in a month. Do you really need to say good night to Facebook? No no you don't.  

2. Questions. IE So and so asked this question.

If you really want to know my answer, send me a message and ask. You don't need a special poll to ask the world.

1. I hate Facebook, But yet I'm still on it....

This one.. self explanatory.

Pregnancy. The Woman's frontier: Part 3

Well, the time has flown and I'm technically carrying around a full term Bubbles. Means he could come ANY time now. Lets take a moment and look at the change I've undergone the past 37 weeks.

8 Weekish
Bust 34
Waist 26
Hips 33
Weight 120 lbs

37 Weeks
Bust 38
Waist 43
Hips 39.5
Weight 161 lbs

Wow huh?

I originally didn't think my face changed a lot until I saw this comparison! You can really see some of that water retention going on. Which has been really entertaining to me since I've never really been poofy before. A lot of this has happened in the past few weeks. My wedding rings don't fit so well, my early maternity clothing doesn't fit so well, some of my flip flops don't fit so well.. the ones that are a little more supportive then just regular plain ones.

I've finally had the joy's of getting those bending over issues. Nothing like keeping feet shoulder width apart and squatting to try and get at the dishwasher soap. Also more getting stuck when trying to get out of bed after enjoying a quick snuggle up in a pile of blankets. Soft squishy things are thine enemy when you get to your third trimester even though they feel SO nice.

Walking has become more of a challenge, well, more like walking for extended periods of time. For example, I went shopping with a good friend of mine. We shopped Chinook Mall for 4 hours. Lots of walking, great deals and a great time. However the total time I was up and about was more closer to 6 hours if you add in the walking to the train station, walking to the mall, walking back to the train station, walking back home. I was a very tired preggo. So, as punishment my body put me to sleep.. for 18 hours. I think I woke up twice for 30 minutes, just enough to go pee and maybe eat something before I passed out again. Either way lesson was learned, so when I went with another friend to do something very similar I was prepared with a knowledge of my limit and was far more awake the following day!

Also, road trips. Traveling in a car for 2 hours while 36 weeks preggy.. not so fun. Maybe it was just the seats in the car but something didn't agree with me while we drove. Back pains and I got restless.. just not a lot of fun. Being able to move around apparently helps keep me quiet comfortable. Other wise things just start not liking me.

I have the line... I like to call it my dissection line. Mainly because it's prefect along my midsection for some alien to cut open. In reality, I know it's Linea Nigra, fancy boring name for the change in your skin pigmentation along your abdominal muscles as they stretch and slightly separate to accommodate Bubbles as he gets bigger. It's actually a fair bit darker then what the photo shows. Also, the photo shows I still got no stretch marks on my tummy! However, it turns out because my hips changed so much, that's where the stretch marks are. Not just on my hips, they've found their way down the backs of my thighs, to the inside of my thigh and even a few on one of my calves. They kinda remind me of long freckles... Good thing I don't sport short shorts anymore.

The sleeping. Oh the sleeping. I didn't sleep for a bit in 8 hour chunks. I typically slept for 2-5 hours, then I was awake for the same amount or less. I called it my prep for Bubbles when he was out. Getting trained for what very easily could be what my life could be like in a few short weeks. I'm expecting less sleep to be honest, but if I get more. Bonus. I also have to give another shout out for my Snoogle. Seriously that thing is awesome. It helps my sleep a lot. However there are still a few moments where it doesn't help. If I lay one one side or the other too long, sometimes I'll get pains from my body shifting around due to my new weight. Mostly one side is typically my hip and the other my ribs. Another thing that likes to keep me up is the occasional heart burn. Minor issue though in comparison to what I've heard. Buckets and buckets of Tums? Not for this girl. Thankfully, one or two at night and I'm typically good to go after half an hour or so.

Movements! No more are the little pokes. In fact, the smaller the movement, the less likely I am to actually feel it. I see more movements now then I feel them. The whole tummy moves now. I can feel him shift around in there adjusting his shoulders, arms, legs, feet and I see it too. Sadly I haven't seen any individual fingers or toes like I really wanted to. There is still time, I might just get lucky.

I've learned a lot over the past few months, over this entire pregnancy actually. I kinda feel like I've been in school since April. Learning about all the things my body is going to do, the things that are going to happen in Labor. I've empowered with a lot of knowledge about my choices for a natural birth, and even a medicated birth. I still have more to learn, review and maybe even share with fellow mothers. The best choice I've made so far was to get a Doula. I haven't even gone into the labor stages of my pregnancy and she's been an amazing help to me. I don't think I want to do a birth with out a Doula, even if I do get in with some Midwives. They are just so warm and helpful. Even my short meet with my back up Doula was great. You can feel the support they want to give you. If your tight on cash, there are options for you. There are newer Doula's just waiting to help you out. I went with Krystal at http://www.ninemonthsdoula.com even though she's in the Lethbrigde area, I'm thankful for her help and I know she'll be a greater help once labor kicks into full gear for me and my husband. (Even your partner needs some help especially for new parents!) If your thinking about getting a Doula, or not even considering it. I'm telling you right now, just do it. You won't regret it, even if your planing to just have the baby via C-section, they can be more help then you even thought.

Since I'm going for an all natural birth, I'll touch shortly on how I plan on dealing with the pain of childbirth. Mostly I'm going for a mind over body tricks. One of which includes taking the pain out of childbirth. I'm not going to go as far as my online prenatal class went by calling them birthing embraces..(That's when I was reminded of a certain conversation with a sister in law about some "Love drugs" that your body makes). More like Birthing pressures, since I've actually felt a few "pressures." The other is keeping myself as relaxed as possible. This means not freaking out and letting the outside world influences about the pains of childbirth. This has meant a lot of smiling and nodding at pregnancy horror stories. Don't get me wrong, I know they happen. To me it's more of a these things happen sometimes. That's why we have Obstetrics. I'm not that person, and each birth is different. It helps to  just remind myself my body was built for this, if a woman in a coma can do with out some one screaming push at her, I'm pretty sure I can too. It's helped to see births with things like the cord being wrapped around the babies neck, being breach and still being delivered vaginally. I know what an actual cord problem is from all the reading I've done, and a rough idea what the care provider choices are. So I have no reason to panic when I hear the cord is around his neck. Keeping relax and not getting all panicked is actually suppose to be key things with keeping Pain out of childbirth. It makes sense. If you are all tense more of your body is going to hurt. Example. Hold your hand in tight tight fist, do that for 10 seconds each for a minute. Now try and tense your entire body and that same fist for 10 seconds, now try to relax just your fist. Do that for a minute. Makes things interesting ya? I thought so too.

Well I went on about that for more then I wanted. I could talk about that a lot, and I'll let you know how well I deal with my birthing pressures and how I found keeping relaxed during the whole thing or if I even manage it. That's for another blog, which I'll do after Bubbles isn't Bubbles anymore and is whatever the name Mike and I have picked for him.

Garden of Earthly Delights!

It's so sunny and wonderful out it's been amazing. A few weeks ago now I cleared out my balcony of all the dead plants, some of which have just been sitting there for 8 years... okay most of them if not all, of the pots I set up in my first attempt at having a little place of greenery out there. They all died out there horribly when I started to ignore them due to my life starting to make some interesting turns and not fun twists. ( Taking care of plants is one way to tell how well you'll do in a relationship. It's a responsibly thing, apparently I sucked 8 years ago.)

So, because of that I forced myself not to go by or in garden center's because I didn't have enough time to take care of them ( I was busy chasing other things *cough cough*). However, cleaning out those dead ones left me with empty pots. Here I am growing and nurturing a baby on my inside and here are these sad empty pots with nothing inside....

So I filled them up! This is one of 7 pots of plants I now have. Pretty little flowers and I bought some full sun ones in my attempt to get part sun ones. So I was worried about how they would turn out. God smiled, and they are doing just fine for now.

I'm pretty sure this was the smallest, saddest little cherry tomato plant Mike could find. Look it the tiny widdle leaves! So this is Mikes's addition to the little garden, and he's leaving it to me take care of it. So I am, and it's doing pretty darn well. It's got some more leaves and as you can tell (kinda) it's not so sad. Which makes me happy mainly because it was one of those full sun plants.  Eventually I'll need a bigger pot for him, I think. I'm a very novice tomato plant person. I'll probably ask my mom or maybe one of my more tomato savoy friends may leave a comment? If anything I'll read on Google too. More information the better. Education is a good thing. I'm excited to see if I can actually make it grow some tomato's. It'd be the first plant that I've grown that would make food since like gr 5 when they give you that bean to grow. ( I killed that one too)

So since I was taking pictures, the little photographer inside also came out with the little old lady gardener that came out a few weeks ago. So I played with my camera, something I haven't done in a while. It was enjoyable figuring out what did what. I was taking a photography course at SAIT for digital graphic design, and only got to the first photography course. I still learned a lot and I'll probably just do it as a hobby.

Of course my main subject just happened to be Yellow. An African Daisy that finally bloomed for me!

Isn't it cute!

It just makes me wanna smile. It's so bright and happy!

I just love the texture in this one. Complete with little specs of pollen!

One of the other flowers that bloomed. This one didn't have it's own pot so I didn't spend nearly as much time on it, but this is my background on my computer now. I'll update this one as my little plants grow and get more flowers. As you can see there are more coming!

Bubble Shower, May 23 2011

Baby shower! I can not express enough on what a wonderful time I had. It was delightful seeing so many friends and family together to celebrate Bubbles. Even if he's not here yet for another month and a bit. Which, by the way, still feels like I should have months to go. My first pregnancy seems to have pretty much flown by. I do kinda of wish it wasn't so fast, I've loved being pregnant so far. It's the coolest thing I've experienced, complete with all of the weird and strange things my body has done. I feel bad for those that don't enjoy it or just complain about everything that goes on with their bodies. I always feel kinda weird when all someone does is talk about how horrible it is, and I'm sitting here loving everything they are complaining about. ( Heart burn is not fun, I will agree to that. ) Though they all agree the end result is worth all the fuss. I'll do it again sometime, hopefully all my pregnancies go as well as this one has. I'm thinking 2 years later when Bubbles is probalbly walking about grabbing things of shelves.. or even climbing them...

The shower was suppose to be an outdoor event, however it showered outside. So it became an indoor event. My mom and sisters went about decorating the inside with stuffed bunnies. Also on of my mom's orchids went a little insane on producing a lot of flowers just in time. She told me it did that just for the shower. Like it knew. Mom always finds away to make something a little more special. She's gun ho like that. The inside windows of my mothers house is normally a jungle in it's self. She's a bit of a green thumb and loves flowers. Wouldn't have her any other way.

Also, it was a pot luck! Which I think worked out great, left over veggie and fruit trays for the win. The really amazing thing is that my mom's kitchen is actually big enough to let like 5 or 6 people run about and set up their contributions. It's a big wonderful Kitchen, even if it doesn't have any flooring yet. I can't wait for the house to be done, I think it will be excellent for entertaining and more when it's done. Anyways, I'm thankful that the pot luck snack idea was a great hit. Less time needed to have one person set up all the food the better.

What would a shower for Bubbles be with out bubbles? Yup, we had bubbles with little blue rattles. Didn't blow any since we where inside but still pretty cute party favor. I'm sure there will be lots of fun with those later and hopefully not sit around and collect dust. I'm beginning to think like my husband, "useful" things instead of something that will collect dust. We also had some pretty fun games. In which my sisters jumped right in on. The Diaper Pin game. Very simple and yet far to much fun. Basically everyone in attendance gets a Diaper pin on arrival and if they get caught saying the word "Baby" whoever catches them loses their pin to that person. The person that manages to collect the most pins wins. I failed horribly. The moment we started reading baby shower cards I was pretty much done. I tried to be sneaky and just say the boy part however, I reversed it and ended up spitting out the Baby part of the phrase. Later, Mike and I got new pins because people left and sure enough, 5 minutes later we were both pin less. Guess it just wasn't meant to be.

The other game we played was a bottle drinking game. Participants ( All men there were picked on to do this, Gill's idea not mine. My sisters jumped in on this one too. ) where each given a 4 ounce bottle of juice. At the "go" they raced and whoever finished theirs first, won. The bottles had slow flow nipples for added challenge. I think a lot of people where surprised at how hard this actually was. I know Mike was, we have video proof of his comments. My sister Andrea has it on her Facebook, it's pretty funny. Mike's dad won that one. Most people only had a ounce fished by the time he was finished. The trick? Bite the very end of the nipple to make the hole bigger. He said all of his kids did it, nothing like the trick of an experienced dad/grandpa. I'm sure Bubbles will figure it out too.

We had singing! Gill's mom brought her guitar and played for us. She made Gill sing with her, which is never too hard to do since Gill loves to sing. They managed to make me cry. Mainly because memory lane was triggered and it all came out. Gill's mom moved to Newfoundland years ago, the last time I saw her was at Gill's Birthday party before I got married. Now I know that wasn't that long ago, but to be fair there was no guitar playing then, just karaoke. My wonderful and kind sister decided to take a snap shot of me crying. (She took 99% of the pictures that are in this blog, yay facebook!) I stayed pretty red faced after that. Nothing like the sniffles to make pictures oh so much more interesting. We did action songs ( one of which had rocking movements, became pee inducing ) and danced. I discovered that Bubbles is kinda bouncy in there so I hugged the belly to keep it from moving so much.

SIS (Singing Induced Sniffles) while Mike checks up on work stuff.

Now for some random pictures of the day!
 

 

Apparently I like the right side of people. Who knew?

Baby Bubbles first haul! He and his parents thank you!

Now I'm going to touch on some of the gifts we got. We got quite a bit of stuff and I'm very thankful for it! Because of it, we are pretty much ready for Bubbles whenever he decides to come. ( Only missing the car seat to take him home in, since the hospital won't let us leave without one. ) I was also impressed with how much Bunny stuff people managed to find. I know when I was looking I could hardly find a lot of baby boy bunny stuff. ( Most of it was pink... Bunnies are unisex come on! ) We even got a pattern for a soft book ( A Fabric book ) that my mom could make. I'm also debating cutting the pages out and framing them, but I'm unsure. Maybe Bubbles could just drool all over it.

Speaking of books! Bubbles now has a mini library of books. I got tons of books when I was a kid, it's only fair that he does to. We got Little critter books, Dr Seuss books, Spot's adventures, books with art by Eric Carle (The guy who arted hungry caterpillar) and many more. Personally, I love the idea of children's books. Even if I'm not a avid book reader. Despite this when ever I'm with a group of children I typically end up reading to them. So I'm well prepared!

Bubbles place of sleeping for the first 3 months of life.

Another gift I'm very thankful for is this home made Cradle that was made by Uncle Larry. ( He's not really my Uncle.. but I can't help but call him that, just like it's Aunty Gwen. ) A shower gift from the Ness family, who I've known since before I was born. Tiffany and my parents where friends when both Aunty Gwen and my mom where pregnant. This, I'm sure, will be used for more then just Bubbles, which is why I'm thankful it comes a part! Otherwise I think storing it could be a great big pain in the butt.

The biggest gift we got was from my mother. I'd post of a picture of it but it's not ready as of yet. My mom got us the crib for bubbles. The reason it's not quite ready is that it came from an unfinished furniture store. So, my mother has been busy adding the finish to the crib. Once it's done I will certainly post a picture of it. It's very beautiful from what I've seen and it came with pieces to become a double bed. I can't wait to get everything set up in his little room. However, I can wait on getting woken up at 3 am.

Oh! Also, packaging. Oh my gosh the packaging on some of the gifts. I just about went crazy trying to snip off some of those tiger tails!( The plastic thing that keeps things on the packaging often found on socks. Yes, I worked in retail far too long. ) Some of the towels (Disney you may be awesome but like 10 of them on a towel? Really? ) it was quite the challenge getting them out of there. Eventually you get the hang of snipping out little tiny tiger tails, it doesn't make it any less annoying. I can't imagine trying to do that with other small kids around trying to get your attention. I suspect they are put in bed and asleep while mom and/or dad open up packaging of baby stuff.

I'm sure we will be getting more things from people, new or hand me downs from other little boys. All of it helps and all of it we are thankful for. I'm so thankful for all we've gotten so far and I can't wait to have people over to meet Bubbles when he does finally come. ( Not all at once, planing on spacing it out for over a week or two. ) I know I'm excited about finally meeting him, or her if that 2% does in fact happen. (She'll have lots of blues and greens to wear!) Bubbles is already flipped and in position to make the exit into the world that is eagerly waiting to embrace him.

Cake Pops!

This is probably going to be the first of many other food related blog posts of mine, mostly those little things you discover when your trying out a new recipe. This one comes from another blog, An American Cupcake in London. If you love sweets and especially cupcakes this is a wonderful blog to follow.

Now I tried the Oreo Cake Pops that can be found on that blog. Let me tell you, they are so yummy. Displayed above are the end results of what I achieved for the ones I made for Easter dinner at my mothers pot luck. Forgive the display, as it turns out, had to improvised Cake pop holders. This worked pretty well. I have mentally noted that I do need some sort of holder if I'm going to keep making these wonderful treats.

Crumbled Yellow Cake Mix

Cake pops, have really easy instructions. Make a cake, let it cool, crumble it, slowly add in icing of choice (Oreo Icing for these ones), Freeze for a bit, stuff in stick, freeze over night, then dip in melted chocolate and decorate right after dipping. Then you can greatly enjoy your yummy treat on a stick.

Now for the things you should probably know that aren't really covered in the instructions. When you add the icing, really add it small bit by small bit at a time. If you rush it, you risk adding too much icing which causes issues with it sticking to your stick. the very first time I just added half the tub of icing and as a result, as my cake pops where getting dipped I needed to spoon the melted chocolate on time because I found my sticks turning inside the pop. Made life more complicated. My second attempt went over better plus the Cake pop's where not as sugary.

Home made sticks

Sticks. Now, as the blog says you should buy actual lollypop sticks. I don't know if it was the fact that I'm in Canada, or what it was but I could not find lollypop sticks in my area. So for my first attempt I made some. Now, it may not have been the best idea but it worked. These where made out of kabob sticks. I cut off the pointy stabby end and cut them in half. Now I found that it wasn't the easiest task and I wouldn't recommend it unless you have no other choice. Mainly because I found that the ends that where cut off seemed to want to split apart, thus risking little bits of stick in you cake pops. Also these are a lot thinner then your typical lolly pop stick and if you make the mistake of making the cake bit too big of a ball the stick will punch right on through. So my second go, I used Popsicle sticks. Worked AMAZING. Made dipping worlds easier and where pretty darn easy to hold on to. Could be a great thing if you have little kids trying to munch on them.

Now another little discovery I made my second go at making these. Deep freeze 'em. I mean it. The first time I used my fridge freezer, which apparently isn't kept quite cold enough. When I stuck them in the deep freeze over night I had a much easier time finishing them then when I froze them in the fridge freezer overnight. Also, while dipping them and if you have a rather warm place (my apartment is rather warm..), keep them some where cool (Like in the fridge freezer or maybe even the fridge it's self, or if your deep freeze is close just leave some there) so that the chocolate sets faster. The main reason for this is if you don't have a holder for them, you can set them on their side or if you do have a holder you don't end up with dripping pops. Trust me, it's not a lot of fun having one dipped and then realizing you can't set it down yet with out thoroughly ruining your cake pop you just decorated.

Size is a key thing too. When making the little balls, I use a heaping teaspoon and a bit. This is because the first time I made it I used a ice cream scoop, over filled. This made really big cake pops. Still awesome and tasty but they where kinda heavy on the sticks. (Another addition to the sticks busting through the cake pop.) Bigger is not always better. If you want to try and make really big cake pops, I suggest a very fat stick.

Food colouring in white chocolate
makes for fun pops.

When you first make them, I suggest using milk chocolate for dipping. Mainly because it seems to melt the best in the microwave. ( Chipits in the bowl, 30 seconds mix and repeat until it's no longer solid. Good to go for dipping.) White Chocolate, while fun to add colour to the cake pop, doesn't seem to melt as well in the microwave. There may be some secret to melting white chocolate that I have yet to figure out or found. If you know this trick, please let me know. My white chocolate cake pops always come out thicker and fatter then my milk chocolate ones. Even if they are prettier to look at.

Also make sure you decorate right after dipping, other wise whatever your sprinkling on them won't stick, at all.

Hope this was insightful. Feel free to comment about your own Cake pop making adventures below!