Raw Milk!

I get to pick up my first gallon of raw milk this week! I've been on the wait list for 2 months. I'm so excited to make butter & yogurt & cheese! I don't know how long we will keep it up for, I guess it depends how much we like it. I've been buying low temp pasteurized/nonhomogenized organic milk for $7/gallon (did you know almost all organic milk is ultra-pasteurized, thats worse than they do for non-organic! I've heard it called "ultra-dead" lol), but there is almost no cream AND it starts tasting weird 4 days after you open it so we end up throwing part of it out some weeks. the raw milk is $11/gallon (if I didn't have to pay for a delivery charge it would be less than $9)... ugh! it kills me!

speaking of milk...

I was pumping for about 5 weeks for a friend that adopted a baby, I've stopped now because pumping and nursing while trying to get pregnant doesn't help, plus that 4oz bottle was just an amazing day it was usually more like 2 oz max. But this organization is amazing : Human Milk for Human Babies if you have extra breastmilk, you should really consider finding your local group and donating to a mom unable to breastfeed!

Official

Yay! As of today... I know I said on pentecost, but it got moved up and they gave us like 2 weeks notice. typical. So I was confirmed and had my first holy communion :-)

AND get this: the Saint I chose, St. Gianna, I picked her because she sacrificed her life for that of her unborn child (and most saints were nuns and I find it harder to relate to them)... I've been reading her biography: she had homebirths for 3 of her 4 children IN THE '50s "it is good for children to be born at home within the family", she "nursed as long as her milk let her" and "I can't conceive of a mother slapping a child". :-D amazing.

now just some new pictures.

My baby will be 2 in just a little over a month! *tear* she's so big! some of her favorite phrases are "I do" when you ask her if she wants something, "oh no its stuck!", she loves pointing out Jesus "sheshus!". awww she is so precious to me.

New AAP car seat guidelines

Yay! Keep 'em rear-facing to the height and weight limits of the seat or at least 2.

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/42186101/ns/today-today_news/

"One-year-olds are five times less likely to be injured in a crash if they are in a rear-facing car seat than a forward-facing seat, according to a 2007 analysis of five years of U.S. crash data. Put another way, an estimated 1,000 children injured in forward-facing seats over 15 years might not have been hurt if they had been in a car seat facing the back, said Dr. Dennis Durbin, lead author of the recommendations and a pediatric emergency physician at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia."

http://thestir.cafemom.com/baby/117755/aaps_new_car_seat_guidelines

"It was believed that 1 year and 20 pounds was the benchmark for forward facing babies in car seats, despite evidence elsewhere that that was still dangerously early. Now, hopefully, with new guidelines, parents and doctors can get on board and spread the word about the safest practices for children. Here are the details.

New Rear-Facing Recommendation: Parents are to keep children rear-facing until 2 years old, or until they reach the maximum height and weight for the seat as noted in the manual.

Safe Kids agrees. Two years is a goal easily met, considering even some of the lowest cost seats now rear-face until 40 pounds. When your baby outgrows their infant carrier, that is when you buy a convertible seat that rear faces longer, not a forward-facing seat."

Potty & my dream dog!

17 months old

3 weeks old

hehe I just love that newborn picture! I'm really glad we decided to EC... even if it means its made being 100% potty trained harder - since she's been 50% potty trained her whole life, there isn't that excitement about getting a new potty or going in the potty... she's just "meh, old hat" about it. That position she's in in the newborn picture is still her preferred way of pottying.... so I've been bribing with chocolate chips to get her to use her potty seat.

And, since I have nothing to do on the internet anymore - I've been looking up dog breeds for like 2 days straight and found the perfect one for us - we have very limited choices because we need a very light to non-shedding dog and one that is good with small children and doesn't require tons of grooming (no poodles) and is easily trainable/good temperament, and I just like bigger dogs.... enter bergamasco!!

Unfortunately it seems to be a very rare breed, there are only like 5 breeders in the U.S., one of which requires you to go to NY to pick up your pup so they can meet you and another isn't sure if she's even going to have another litter. Just my luck! I don't even want a puppy - at all! I want an adult dog that is already trained and spayed/neutered and already has all his puppy shots, etc, I have no desire for a puppy but seriously, finding an adult of this dog seems impossible (heck, finding a puppy seems impossible). *sigh* how adorable are those dreads?! ;-)

Florida?

There is a chance we could be moving to Florida in JUNE! Mike put in his BOP (base of preference) for Tyndall AFB (along with some other bases, so we could get one of those too but wouldn't be moving as soon or we could stay here for 2 more years) and they have an opening, but another guy he works with also put in for it... so we'll see! They should tell us in the next month. I've never even been to a real beach before! I kind of hope we get it, but I also sort of hope we don't because I like my friends here and I don't know how I feel about humidity anymore. So, I'll really be ok either way, but its kind of exciting to think about living on a beach in a state where you can buy raw milk labeled as pet food ;-) not to mention - SEA LEVEL! I hate high altitude baking! So, if we do get it - that is not even 3 months to move across the country! I'm trying not to obsess, I hate not knowing though!!!

no facebook!

look at all those teeth!

So, I gave up lent for facebook and feel totally cut off from the world now! hahahahaha I wrote gave up lent for facebook!! I don't even want to fix it because it is too hilarious! Anyway, I do spend less time on the computer, because there is nothing to do on here! I really need to make a to do list because I'm not getting anything else done by not being on the internet! http://40daysforlife.com/

Faith and I went to that on Friday. It was really nice and sad at the same time, I just felt sick standing outside of planned parenthood knowing what goes on. :(

I made a slipcover for the kinderpack. pretty cute huh? It took me all of 10 minutes.. I made it out of an old sheet. sorry the picture isn't cropped, I'm too lazy to edit pictures.

Catholic Church

Not 100 in the United States hate the Roman Catholic Church, but millions hate what they mistakenly think the Roman Catholic Church is. -- Bishop Fulton J. Sheen

Yep, thats right folks. We've been going to Catholic Church. GASP! I know. Well, Mike and I were married in the Catholic Church and I was going to convert (though only because I wanted our family to go to church together) back when we first moved here, but Mike had a change of heart which I had been praying for. So we started going to our current, lovely, family integrated church right after that, about 2.5 years ago. We were growing increasingly frustrated with it though since I end up out in the hall for the entire service with Faith running around... so I started looking for a solution, of course there really isn't one, its just hard going to church with a little one. But I started looking into other local churches around here. We wanted something with young families and most of those churches don't have the kind of worship/formality we believe in. And, unless you go to a non-denom, how do you decide which denomination to go to? There are 33,000 (probably more, I don't know how old that number is) different denominations! I was raised Baptist, but who am I to say that those Presbyterian's baptizing infants are wrong when they use the SAME Bible to defend their beliefs too. So, how the heck can anyone decide which one is true when everyone is yelling "SOLA SCRIPTURA!"? I want to go to the Church that preaches the TRUTH! There can only be one truth, unless we're going to say, like some non-Christian worldviews say, that everyone has to find their own truth and my truth is different than yours, etc. So... maybe this sola scriptura thing isn't working out so well. Look at all the division, is that what Jesus intended? Plus, no one believed in using the Bible alone as the sole rule of faith until Martin Luther came along in 16th Century. Did they all get it wrong for 1500 years? Is Sola Scriptura even IN the Bible?! "all doctrine is inspired by God and profitable for reproof....." hmmmm. profitable. but I don't see where it says "the only thing profitable". And speaking of Martin Luther, did you know he wanted to remove a bunch of other books from the NT like James and Romans and Revelations. He even referred to James as the "epistle of straw" (maybe because it says faith without works is dead?;-). He also believed in the perpetual virginity of Mary and in the Real Presence of Christ in the mass (though to a slightly different extent). I was surprised! And there wasn't even an official Canon of Scripture for the New Testament until 300 something AD. 300 years! What did those people do?! Obviously they couldn't rely on the Bible alone to teach them what to believe, they were taught from oral tradition! You know what the Bible says is the pillar and foundation of truth? The church! (1 tim 3:15)

Needless to say Michael was a little more than surprised when I told him I thought we should maybe go to Catholic Church again. He's very on-board though. He was going through a faith-crisis right before this and I could tell he was very relieved when I mentioned it.

Ok, well I'm not going to go into every single theological reason why, but another huge factor was that we already believe in the cultural aspects of Catholicism. We don't have to search for some fringe fundamentalist church to hear that contraception is wrong or that radical feminism is destroying families. They are actively against abortion. children are welcome & encouraged to be in the service with their parents. Many of the prominent breastfeeding, natural mothering, gentle discipline books are written by Catholics (Kippley, Popcak) - heck, LLL was started by 7 Catholic women. Sears' are Catholic too. huge points for Catholicism in my book ;-)

This was the first thing I listened to after I started reconsidering Catholicism - Household of Faith its by two formerly Protestant women. sooo great and its free so you should listen to it!

A great book by a Presbyterian Minister & his wife on their journey converting to the Catholic Church

An awesome defense against every anti-Catholic argument

EWTN audio from The Journey Home - a show interviewing Protestant Pastor's that have converted to the CC

And yes there are Catholics who don't know squat about the Bible or what the Catholic Church teaches... but there are also Protestants who are the same way. The Catholic Church doesn't teach that we are saved by works or that we should worship Mary or that Mary is equal to Jesus or that everyone outside the CC is going to hell, or ... probably most everything you've heard isn't true.

So... there you have it. I used to listen/read tons of anti-Catholic stuff, so don't throw that at me thinking I haven't seen it yet, I know all of the arguments. I even grew up in a Church where the Pastor was an ex-Catholic! I've really been putting off telling people because I'm so afraid of what people will say/think/ask and I'm a total conflict avoider in real life because I'm so so so bad at thinking on my feet. I know a few of you are very anti-Catholic so just be gentle and read some things from a Catholic perspective instead of only anti-Catholic. "There is no meaner, more hateful person on earth than a Christian who suspects you have gotten your theology wrong."

Ok, well... I'm really excited about it! I'll be received into the Catholic Church at Pentecost. I'm in a conversion class full of other adults with protestant backgrounds, its been so encouraging to be able to fellowship and discuss with others in the same boat. We have a reconciliation retreat tomorrow.... yay!!

Please don't hate me. I'm so scared to post this! ahhhhhh :-|