Gardens, and plants, and potting, oh my!

This year, I got to do something I've never done before: plant flowers in my yard. Growing up, my mom had a rock garden that wrapped around our house and she always had plants in that, but they were mostly bushes and perennials so we never had a chance to replant them. 

Outside our back door, in the driveway there is a triangle of dirt that we turned into a flowerbed. We didn't know what to plant, being complete green thumbs, but we decided to start with some gladiolus. We put the gladiolus around the perimeter of the flowerbed, with our bird bath, bird feeder and my antique milk in the middle. We later added portulaca for some color inside of the perimeter, as well. You can see the progress below.

 When I was picking bulbs, I didn't quite know what I was looking for so I decided to just grab a variety pack of bulbs from my local Walmart. We ended up with mostly yellow plants, but had a pretty variety of pinks, salmons, reds, maroon, black, and white as well. 

 Our next order of business was on the sides of our door. We had two large areas to fill, and were strapped for cash. Looking for ways to get tat filled in, my mom brought up the tiger lilies on first street. A long time ago, someone threw out tiger lilies into a ditch on first street. They are in a ditch to a cornfield, and have taken over most of the wild grass around them. Justin and I took his car and a shovel and filled our entire trunk three times to fill in our desired area. 

 Justin's grandma, Joey, has a large garden in her back yard and a flower bed that goes around the front of her house. She loves having us go over there and dig up some of hers to bring home. She actually gave us a few orange lilies that are mixed in with all the tiger lilies that we transplanted. Among the flowers she gave us were these moon flowers. The bloom was wet in the picture below, so sorry for the low quality, but you can see in the larger picture that they are done blooming and have seed pods, now. 

 She also gave me two mum plants, the first one (bottom two photos) is bloomed in a light lavender/pink color. The second plant (the top photo) is now starting to get plum colored blooms. 

 Now that it is fall, I decided to dig up my outside annuals (my portulaca) and bring them inside, as well. Kiannah had a blast getting to dig in the garden!

 This year for Easter, we let Kiannah pick out an Easter Lily as well. We took the dead plant off the bulb and replanted the bulb (with a pansy) and her lily now has two sprouts coming up off of it, too!!

When we moved into the trailer last summer, I bought a couple house plants. While one died right away, the other was doing alright in the house. It wasn't thriving beautifully, but it was alive (which is a plus for me). That is until our indoor cats started trying to claw it. This spring, after planting outside I moved this plant outside and it turned bright pink! You can see when I fist took it outside (bottom), when I brought it back inside a few weeks ago (left), and now how the pink is fading and it's turning green again (top). 

Justin's grandma has given us many, many bulbs in the last few weeks as well. Hopefully next spring, I will be able to update with what plants we have and keep a diary of progress. 

Until next time, 
Britni

What's In Your Child's Closet?

The ever growing children's closet: Every parent's worst nightmare. What is worse than having to go through hundreds and hundreds of outfits? Then, what do you do with them after that? Do you keep everything in case you have another one later? Only keep special outfits?

My five year old finally is at a steady spot where she generally stays in the same size for about a year. I'm still trying to get her baby clothes all gone through and gone. The mountains of clothes just seem to get bigger and bigger and there is nothing you can do to slow it down. I recently spent three full days going through all of Kiannah's baby clothes to pick what we wanted to keep (which didn't end up being very much at all), washing everything, and putting everything we didn't want organized by size in groups for a garage sale. One thing about garage sales though, is trying to figure out how much to charge for everything. Then you have to advertise. You have to get people to come to your garage sale or you're not going to sell anything, anyways. We tried to have a garage sale about two weeks ago. Yes, I said tried. The town we live in has somewhere between probably 400-500 people. No stores, no gas stations, and 15 miles from the next town with anything in it. Once a year, we have "town wide garage sales," so Justin and I decided that would be the best for getting people. We literally did not have a single customer. Hours of washing, sorting, pinning, pricing, setting up, and all for nothing. We ended up with less money than we started with because we ended up going to the other peoples' garage sales. So now, unless an online exchange page will do us any good, we are stuck donating all those clothes. Sure, it's not the worst thing that could happen, but it would have been nice to get a little something back for all of them.

Thankfully, I have a little bit of a heads up with how to handle this for Maddox. With Kiannah, I put her "special outfits" in a hat box in her closet. Her outfit she wore home from the hospital, for her first Christmas, some of the ones that were our favorite to see her in, they all belong in there. Knowing that, I can already start sorting Maddi's as she outgrows them. She just recently moved up into 0-3 so I already have a box started for her with her special newborn clothes. What did I do with the rest? Put them in a too small pile. I may try to sell them, but if nothing else I can donate them to someone I know who has a little girl, or to my Goodwill store. 

I've always had an opinion about how many clothes I see people buying when they are pregnant, too. NO ONE needs an entire closet of newborn clothes, I promise. Maddox had about fifteen newborn outfits and she barely even wore all of them before she grew out of them. We didn't have a baby shower with her, because we already had so much of what we needed from when we had Kiannah, so our friends and family that decided to get her a gift mostly got clothes. Honestly, we have so many 0-3 clothes, I feel like I'm going to have to do multiple costume changes a day just so she has a chance to try them on. 

Enough about volume though, lets talk style. I, for one, have never been big on brands. We always went to Goodwill, so if I did get brand name clothes, that is 99% of the time where I got them (this is still true.) I am the same with my children. Walmart clothes are just as good as designer clothes. They may not be the "in" thing but they have a great variety. I never could understand why people would spend crazy money on designer clothes and specific brands for children, children who will grow out of said clothes in a year, max. 

AND THE SHOES. Ugh. WHY. Why do people spend upwards of $50 on Jordan shoes for a newborn? I don't even buy my tennis shoes for $50. I suppose if you have a disposable income, or plenty of spending money it isn't an issue. 

Now I'm just on a full blown rant. Speaking of unnecessary, the onesies. They are seriously coming out with some inappropriate ones, like such:

Granted, I have seen some pretty hilarious onesies. However, when you are advertising that you and your significant other had sex in order to have this baby (congratulations for having a way out of having "the talk," by the way) that the child's parent is incarcerated, or profanity, I don't feel like your judgment is intact. Your child isn't here so you can make fun of it with the clothes you put on it. You wouldn't dress yourself like this, so PLEASE don't dress your baby/small child like this. 

This so concludes my rant over clothes, for now anyways. If you've made it this far, thanks for not quitting on me. 😜

A Bit of Expansion

"KEEP WALKING."

"But I'm tired, my contractions are already every three to five minutes and getting stronger, and I'm tired."

"Keep going!" 

My younger sister was trying to encourage me to not give up because she was bound determined to meet her newest niece or nephew. 

"Mom, call and see if they think I can come in."

So as I continued power walking around my mom's kitchen table and her island, she called the hospital for me. (Yes, I was 22 and I made my mom call for me. ☺) My doctor called back shortly afterwards, being as how it was a Sunday. He told me to come on in and we would see where we were at. 

The previous Friday:

"I really hope he will tell me we are dilated, or bulging, or strip my membranes."

"Me too, I'm so excited to meet the baby."

My doctor walks into the exam room with a woman, who politely introduces herself as another doctor. 

"I have some bad news," says my doctor.

I hate when he says that. He knows me well and knows I'm not good with change. He delivered me when I was born, and delivered my older daughter. He has been my doctor my whole life, so if anyone knows me in the medical field, it's him. 

"As you know I am going out of town next Wednesday and you are due this coming Sunday. I planned on inducing you Monday if you haven't gone on your own yet, but the hospital won't allow me to. Even though according to your period your due date should be July 16, according to your ultrasound you should be due July 30. They won't let me induce you until closer to your due date. That being said, there is a chance I may not be around when you go into labor. If that is the case, I wanted you to meet the doctor who would be delivering you."

This is a nightmare! What is going on?! We had a plan! My doctor moved his vacation thinking if at all necessary to induce I would already be delivered by the time he went on his vacation! Now you're telling me that because of an ultrasound saying my due date is off, I may not get the doctor I've had my entire life, but some stranger who I met for ten minutes during my 40 week check? How would your OB supervisor feel if that happened to her? What if my period was right and the ultrasound was off? Wouldn't it be just as dangerous -if not more- to hold my baby in longer than it needed to be in there to begin with?! 

The tears started streaming down my face. I was furious, hurt, and holding it in wouldn't have helped a bit. He gave me a few minutes to collect myself, and then we continued with the appointment. I was only one centimeter dilated and maybe half way effaced. No water bulging. No signs indicating I would be going into labor sooner than later. I left the office with my heart crushed. 

We got into the hospital around three in the afternoon and they took us to the labor room.

"We are going to have to get a urine sample and get you changed into a gown. If you present a significant change in your cervix as compared to how it was Friday, we will have reason to admit you."

I got changed, gave the sample and walked over to the hospital bed to hold Justin's hand.

"Hopefully this is it. Hopefully we won't get sent home."

"Hopefully," he replied. 

My doctor came in shortly after to check me. I was dilated to three now, and almost the quarters of the way effaced with steady increasingly painful contractions. 

"Looks like we are going to admit you, I knew if I scared you enough the baby would come out before I left," he joked. 

The next couple hours were us walking around the hospital trying to keep things going, laying in bed to get checked, and lots of paperwork for my nurses and I. I got my epidural around eight at night and about ten they said I wasn't progressing efficiently. They had me get up on my hands and knees and stick my butt straight up in the air. My family was getting tired and most of them came in around 10:30 to let me know they would be back the next morning. Justin and I had agreed that my mother and his mother (if she were here from Arizona) would be allowed in the labor room, but seeing as how our bundle waited until his mom went back to Arizona, we had discussed letting my best friend Taylar stay in her place. (Taylar has been my best friend for eight years and was supposed to be in the room when I had Kiannah, but the school wouldn't let her leave for the birth.) 

Ten till eleven they had me roll back onto my back to check me and told me it was time. I was feeling pretty good, all numbed up, no pain. As they were setting up, I asked for the mirror, and oh my gosh I am so happy I did. I pushed about six to eight times. I got to watch my second beautiful daughter come into this world. 

Maddox Emmersyn. Seven pounds, eleven ounces. Nineteen and three quarter inches. Perfection, again. 

Once again, I wish I could say her name has some extravagent meaning, but honestly Maddox was the only name Justin and I could agree on. Originally, boy or girl, we were going to name the baby Maddox. Then Justin decided that he didn't care for it as a boy name and we agreed on Lynnox for a boy. I picked Emmersyn. I love the name. I don't have a good reason for it, but I do, and I wanted to keep the middle initial an "E".

The Joys of Becoming a Mom

It was the first day of first semester finals. I had been sleeping upstairs on the couch because my bed was way too soft and hurt my back with the enormous bulge of a very-close-to-due baby.

My mom came out of her room and walked by the living room. On her way out to the garage for her morning cigarette I hear, "6:15, Brit, time to wake up!"

I wipe the sleep from my eyes and sit up. Did I just pee? I have never peed myself. No. That's what I spent all day yesterday bouncing on the exercise ball trying to do. My water broke. Of course, instead of doing the normal thing and going to the bathroom, I ran to the garage.

"Mom, you're not going to work today!"

"And, why not?"

"GUSH!"

I turned and ran for the bathroom.

My little sister came from her room to see what all the excitement was about to realize she was going to be an aunt for the first time today.

I could hear my mom on the phone with the hospital in the kitchen telling them my membranes had ruptured and shortly we would be making the short 15-mile trip into the hospital. (The same hospital I worked at, but in dietary.)

I remember I kept telling her we needed to go, we needed to go, and she kept telling me we had plenty of time. I had never done this before, I didn't know what to expect. All I knew was Friday at my appointment he had said I was dilated to three centimeters and my water was bulging. Obviously now, Monday, my water was broken so there had to be more progress, right?

We headed into the hospital while I was writing my contractions down for timing.

Upon arrival, we got checked in. I went into the labor room and got into my gown, got all my cords hooked up, got my first dose of pain meds, and got comfy. I had to text my best friends and let them know why I wouldn't be waddling down the hallways that morning. Then in came Tim, and let me tell you Tim is a Godsend. He gave me my epidural and that was the last of the pain I had. Thank goodness, because hearing the sound of the episiotomy was enough I don't think I could have handled feeling it, too.

My labor really isn't very exciting, I apologize. I wish I could say we had a lot going on, but really in truth I laid in the hospital bed texting friends and family and watching movies on TV. Around three in the afternoon they came in to check me again, and said it was time to push. Then, at 3:22 in the afternoon, my beautiful, perfect little girl was born. Seven pounds, three ounces. Twenty inches long. Gorgeous.

Kiannah Elsamarie.

I wish I could say that I did all this extensive research into her name and had all these beautiful deep meanings behind why I picked it, but the honest truth is I just thought the name was pretty. I had a list of around five girl names and five boy names (I wanted to be surprised when my little love was born.) I honestly was planning on Shiloh for a girl, but I let her father choose off my list, and Kiannah was the name that was chosen. 

The Elsamarie is after my grandmother, although we didn't find out until Kia was around two years old that we had spelled her name wrong. My grandma always signs "Helga E," to the point to where she didn't even remember how to spell her name when asked. As it turns out, it was supposed to be Elsemarie. 

That little girl came into my life, flipped it upside down, and changed me for the better. I went from being a sixteen year old sophomore in high school, to a mother. I now had a little life that completely depended on me for every bit of her existence. I had a new purpose. 

A Brief History

I feel that before I dive into my rants and opinions I should inform those of you whom do not know me about myself and my family. That being said, here goes:

I am in a relationship with a guitar-playing, Xbox-loving, long-haired, crazy man named Justin. I've known him all his life, though we just a few years back realized we had feelings for each other. Mutually, at least. I can say I had a crush on him before that, and if you ask he will say the same thing (unless he is just trying to make me feel better about myself). He drives me absolutely crazy and keeps me on my toes, and I love him more than I ever knew I could. Whatever souls are made of, his and mine are the same.

Our eldest daughter is Kiannah Elsamarie. She is five years old and is a kindergartner this year. She is involved in our church via Wednesday Worship Experience (WWE), Vacation Bible School (VBS), and Story Time Library. Her favorite things to do are to go to the park, practice reading, and play with her cousin, Hunter. She loves her room and her things to be in order and have things precisely the way she wants them. 

Our new arrival is Maddox Emmersyn. She is two months old. Her current pass-times involve naps, peek-a-boo, copying mommy's facial expressions, and nursing.

Justin works for a modular home construction company and I am a stay at home mom (former CNA).
We live in a Nebraska town so small that there are no stores, no gas stations, and no restaurants. Just a post office, fire department, and a "memorial hall" with a couple baseball fields.

I suppose I should go a little deeper into myself, as this blog will be following myself and my family, along with my views and opinions.

I am a mother of two beautiful girls. I got pregnant with Kiannah when I was a sophomore in high school. She was born in the middle of my junior year, which led me to do online classes for the full second semester and for my senior year to only do half days in order to still be allowed to walk with my class at graduation. After graduation, though I was accepted into a community college nearby, and Wayne State College, I opted to take the CNA class. I was working in the dietary department of the hospital and they offered to pay for my classes if I agreed to work there as a Nurse Aide. I ended up working there for almost two years as an aide. I then went to a retirement home to be an aide and worked there just shy of two years before deciding to stay home with Kiannah for the last few months before she started school. I am a volunteer fire fighter. You could say I'm more of a volunteer responder, because I mostly just do fire fighter rehab and/or take vitals. I've been a full member of the department for four years but was a cadet for four years prior to that. My hobbies include photography, crafts, collecting antique keys and bottles, and spending time with my family.

Hopefully this has given you some insight as to who I am, and I look forward to my next post!