My Recet Random Recommendations

I have reached a point in my life again where I have opinions about things and recommendations.  So here they are. . . the things that matter to me right now and thus what I have been researching and studying and making decisions about.

Books that help broach and explain difficult topics:

1) Wonderfully Made!  Babies: A Catholic Perspective on How and Why God Makes Babies

This is a wonderful book for an initial understanding of what Chris West so eloquently calls "the one-flesh-union."  It is beautifully written and easy to read (aka short with lots of pictures).  I sit down and read it to my kiddos when they are "of age" (which I feel is my discretion and changes depending on the child).

2) The Ultimate Girls' Body Book

This is a great book for your daughter to read independently and then come to you to clarify any questions she might have.  It covers almost everything I can think of from growing breasts to tattoos and although the authors are not Catholic, they are VERY CHRISTIAN and it shows in their great presentation of the body as being VERY GOOD.  They are also doctors so that adds some credibility to their advice and suggestions.

3) The Ultimate Boys' Body Book

I have a confession here. . . although this book is currently in possession, I have not read it yet.  But I read the one for girls and was incredibly impressed.  I am hoping to buzz through this one soon and pass it on to my oldest son.

4) Good Pictures Bad Pictures

This book covers pornography.  It is written so you can sit down and read it with your child.  It has a great message and plan of approach for the topic.  And I would venture to say this is an important topic to cover BEFORE your children stumble on it themselves and get all confused and other issues potentially develop.  If you are worried about "exposing them" to this too soon, I would not worry about this book doing that.  It is informative and precise, but not explicit.  I think it does a great job of conveying what the concern is and how to avoid it.

5) All Things Girl

This book does a great job of addressing topics for girls in a positive way.  It includes references to the catechism.  It emphasizes many girls' attraction and concern for fashion and social topics - addressing that these are common for women and girls to be concerned about, but then to encourage taking things a bit further - to be Christ to your friends, to focus on prayer, not get caught up in social details, etc.

Bras - for nursing or just regular wear

I am still on this restorative exercise kick.  And part of it deals with the clothing you wear as obviously you need to wear clothing that allows your body to move as it should.  In any case, to be blunt, Katy (my restorative exercise guru) says that your hanging bits are basically meant to hang!  This includes women's hanging bits.  And man has this been a game changer for me.  I kept trying to find the PERFECT bra - that was supportive but not oppressive.  I have since concluded it does not exist.  And instead I have found that bras with LESS support are working much better for me!!  I slowly cut down on my bra-wearing, often going without in the evenings and then lighter support during the day.  Now I still wear a bra basically all day, but it is simply an organic cotton slip-on and it is bliss - pure bliss :)

I buy from a company called "Decent Exposures" and they are awesome.   You order exactly what you want (each bra is custom made) and then if you have any problems, they adjust it for free within the first 60 days and then for a small fee, they will even adjust it after that - up to creating an entirely new bra for you!  (such as if you needed a bigger cup size)  They are so friendly and helpful.  I ordered my first bra, had it adjusted, liked it, and decided to order two more.  Since it was fairly close to the first order they went ahead and gave me a discount for buying three at a time!

The only downside is that since each bra is custom made, it takes a bit for your order to be processed (like several weeks to a month) but I feel it is worth the wait to get exactly what I want.

You CAN get nursing flaps on these, but honestly since they are simply pull-on bras, I just slip down to nurse, easy peasy - no cups to flip, no clasps to find, no boobs hanging out half of Mass because I could not get properly readjusted.  These are the most awesome bras ever.

7 Quick Takes - Random life

1) This is how Rebekah spent a good part of our first official day of school: doing her and her sister's hair!

Later she decided she wanted to look like Julius Caesar:

2) Miriam has insisted on wearing/carrying this backpack around the house - everywhere.

I have no idea where she got this idea.  None of the other kids have backpacks right now.  We are not going anywhere that she might need a backpack.  She has been doing this for about a week now.  I will be curious to see how long it lasts.

3) Rebekah got some new shoes.

She bought them with her own money (they are on sale right now - 50% off!!).  They are Kigo brand (I have two pairs of the same kind - different style and color).  I think they suit her well.

4) We now have rock behind our garage.

Since we own two giant vehicles that we are unable to actually put IN our garage, we would normally park them beside or behind the garage on the grass or dirt at the edge of the alley.  Well, the alley was recently redone as the city replaced the gas lines, so we decided now was a great time to go ahead and rock around the garage.  We are most pleased and parking is so much better.

5) Jacob is now SEVEN-YEARS-OLD!!

Time flies.  In any case, I was lazy for the actual day of his birthday (we had a party with extended family a few days earlier) so he got "birthday cookies" complete with candles.  Great-Mom-of-the-year award here.

6) The National Right to Life is doing a campaign right now called "Can't put a price on Life."

Here is the picture I submitted for them to use.

7) I made it to the Sacrament of Reconciliation today.

All I can say is that NEVER gets old!!  Praise God for forgiveness!

Starting the School Year 2015-2016

Here the kids are after daily Mass this morning, ready to get into the school routine.

(And the kids were actually really well-behaved at church today!  Praise God!!  :)

Without further ado, here is our line-up for this year.

Miriam refused to leave Rebekah's side.  We had to bribe her out of the picture for the next shot.

Silly Miriam again!  She wanted to be in ALL the pictures :)

Pfew, getting these pictures was tough!  Big thanks to Rebekah for helping find the blocks we needed and wrangling the little ones.  Here is to a great school year of loving and learning and learning to love and loving to learn.  God bless us all!

7 Quick Takes - end of summer

1) Zipporah climbed all the way up the stairs today.

She might only be crawling and cruising, but today she decided not only to try the stairs, but go from the basement all the way up to the kitchen.

2) I adapted the chains on the rings for Zipporah.

When I first showed her that the rings were now low enough for her to grab, she thought it was the coolest thing EVER - big smiles.  Then later I tried to help her get to them again (a bit of a challenge as she is still only cruising, not walking on her own) so I could have one of the kids take a picture, well she was not-quite-as-pleased or cooperative.  I will have to try for a better picture next time.  In any case, I can hardly wait until she is swinging on them with abandon.

3) My mom took most of my kiddos for an overnight.

I was able to get a lot of tasks completed for our upcoming school year (mostly cleaning/organizing/etc), but it seems like the more I do, the more there is to do!!  Oh well, school is starting, ready or not!  And a big thanks to my Mom for being so helpful!!  I seriously won the mom lottery with her.  

4) The official start date for our virtual school is next Wednesday, August 19th.

However, we got our books last week and noticed that our lesson lists (on the website) were active on Monday, so most of the kids did at least a few lessons and have basically "started" school already.

5) Paul is in Kindergarten this year.

Paul is VERY precocious.  Honestly he is so smart and articulate and SO READY for school.  I figured he is going to be so easy to teach!  However, after one day of school with him, I am now harboring a little fear for our school year.  ALL DAY LONG he was CONSTANTLY asking me, "Can I do school work now?"  And I was CONSTANTLY answering "You ARE doing school work!!"  or  "You just did three lessons, take a breath!!"  If he keeps this up he will be done with Kindergarten by October.

6) I have an excess of school material and it is stressing me out!

This is such a nerdy problem, but here it is.  Our online school orders new books for each kid each year and there is no way to just order the consumable parts.  So even though Jacob did Kindergarten last year and I have all of his hardback teacher-manuals on my shelf, along with his hardback literature book and all his other soft-cover books (kept in excellent condition), and all of his math manipulatives (of which they send A TON), they sent me all of those things AGAIN - BRAND NEW.  The waste just kills me.  I am trying to resale some of the manipulatives and some of the regular story books, but the teacher manuals. . . how many trees?  I would donate them, but to who?  I'm not even sure how much they are worth without the rest of the curriculum, which is online.  And the worst part is that this is likely going to happen AGAIN and AGAIN - practically every year as my children follow each other in grades.

7) Gordie fixed my camera, kind-of.

So I bought this camera second-hand on our local swap meet.  It was a great deal and it is a nice camera.  (And I was even planning to download the manual so I could figure out how to make it do what I want - go me, right?)  Anyhow, it worked fine for a while (maybe a month) - I took pictures, I uploaded them on my computer, I charged the battery and took more pictures, etc. and then one day, I charged the battery, put it in, and it would not turn on!  I was so distraught and felt terrible for wasting money on something second-hand.  I did not even want to ask Gordie to look at it because I was so ashamed for being taken advantage of (as I have often been in the past - there is QUITE the list of stories, let me tell you).  Anyhow, I happened to be standing by it while talking to Gordie the other day and I randomly picked it up and there was  lull in the conversation, so I sadly told him the story.  He looked at it, took the battery out, put it back in, then took it out and put it back in THE OTHER WAY (why would they make it so you could put the battery in either way?!?!) and turned it on.  My hero.