JAN 2014 Our Growth since September 2013

SINCE September 2012 ..
My 4 month old daughter is now  8 month old little girl! My once little tiny red head is now a crawling baby and getting into everything!
My 3 year old daughter is happy to have her sister to play with, and is amazing me more every day with what she learns. She is a very sassy, very talkative little girl. She loves to sing and dress up:)
My 5 year old son is learning something EVERY day at school! He comes home full of information and LOVES to tell me what happened.
My 12 year old son will be 13 in less than half a year (WOW). A TEENAGER! I'm not sure me and my husband are ready for a teenager. :)
My family now attends an AWESOME church! Spring Creek Baptist Church
The people there are so driven to do God's work and welcome anyone into the congregation with open arms.
We SAID we weren't going home for Christmas break, we were going to spend our first Christmas at our house with our kids. WELL we DID :) Till 10 AM Christmas morning , we decided to go home lol and by 2 PM we were gone :)

NOW how am I adjusting and handling 4 kids. I get asked that every day it seems. Well the answer is ... one day at a time:) Lots of prayers and coffee :)

My Caring Cross Review

The Olivewood Cross
Caring Crosses are individually carved from a single unique piece of beautifully grained olive wood pruned from the olive trees around Bethlehem the birthplace of Jesus. Christians have been carving crosses like this for hundreds of years, originally for pilgrims and more recently tourists visiting the Holy Land. Each craftsman receives a fair price to support their family and Christian community. The Caring Cross is designed to fit comfortably into the palm of your hand as an aid to prayer or meditation. Ideal as your spiritual companion for easing children's fears, comforting worries and stresses of adults and focusing the prayer of the sick and elderly.

I received two caring crossing in the mail and am  very pleased with how quickly they were shipped to me. I believe it was only 2-3 days after the order was placed. Each of my crosses are a little different... which , to me, proves they are each individually carved from a olive tree. Caring Crosses are ideal gifts for cancer patients, graduation, baptism, anyone in need of comfort

Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem and later died on the cross for us.
Consider giving a Olive Wood cross to remind friends and family of the sacrifice he made for us.Crosses can now be purchased on Amazon, Ebay or mycaringcross.com. If you choose to order from the main mycaringcross.com site use the code OCTCROSS and get 10% off for the month of October.

I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.

Noxicare Pain Relief Cream review

Noxicare™ Natural Pain Relief is a breakthrough natural, patented pain relief formula that is a proprietary combination of 7 of the world’s most potent natural pain relievers that quickly and effectively alleviate inflammation, muscle aches and nerve pain —with NO known side effects and without a prescription.
I love the fact that it's odorless and non-greasy. The place I get the most pain is my shoulders/back. Either I sleep wrong or I'm carrying a baby and toddler all day. I was skeptical about using it. After putting the cream on my shoulder/back area, I guess I expected a bengay feeling or icyhot feeling. It went on smooth like lotion and was quite nice. As I sat there I noticed my pain dulled away and left me feeling like I had slept all night and was waking for a new day, no pain.
Noxicare relaxes the muscle and reduces inflammation to alleviate pain, while working to increase blood flow to calm painful nerve endings.
While it worked well, it didn't last long and after a few hours I had to reapply.
http://www.noxicare.com

I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.

Butterfly Bottoms Cloth Diaper Review

http://Www.butterflybottomscloth.com

 Butterfly Bottoms Cloth

I've had the privilege of trying out just about every diaper this lady makes: Love them ALL:)
I've had her newborn diapers, her pocket diapers, her all in one (my favs) and I even have a cover she made (which is the favorite cover I own btw). I started out as a tester for her newborn diaper. Even though I know this woman in real life, I never knew she was so talented or crafty:)
I received the newborn diaper RIGHT before my LO was born .

Here is my LO 3 days old

and she is a little over a month old

 You can see :) Her newborn diapers fit a bit longer than normal newborn diapers because of the rise snap. I <3 them!

In another one of our newborn diapers:)

Don't you just LOVE those prints!
We also had pockets:) I love the double snap on the wings! And the high waist , it helps minimize leaks a LOT!

She fit in the pocket OS
before she was a month old!

More of the pockets we have:)

Then we moved on to her AIO (All in one). These are our absolute favorites. After they are fully prepped they hold a LOT :) They are my go to for taking to church or ANYWHERE because they are the easiest.. no insert . Again the double row of snaps on the tabs make the fit excellent .

my LO at only 2 months in the AIOs

 Here are a few pictures of my lo in the cover we also bought.
We do a LOT of covers and prefolds when we are at home to make laundry easier.
This cover is our go to cover for at night. It holds great and we RARELY have a overnight leak.

We LOVE Butterfly bottoms cloth. 
Visit her site to "build" your own diaper or pick from her selection of ones she has premade.
She also makes zippered wet bags, pail liners, and diaper bags that I haven't tried out ...just yet. :)
But after 4 wonderful months, these are the diapers we reach for the most:)

http://www.butterflybottomscloth.com

I know I know I've been MIA lately
Life's been, KINDA busy:)

So it's my first year doing this but it is

The 2nd Annual “Living and Active” Challenge! 

http://peak313.com/featured/the-2nd-annual-living-and-active-challenge/

 

Here is the description from the link where I signed up:) (all links are not mine..they are from the site)

Here are the challenge basics:

Physical:

Many of you are already in an awesome routine with your workouts, so I want you to keep that up. But for those of you who need a little guidance, I’m here to help!  I will provide a set of workouts you can do from your home (or take to the gym!) All you need are one or two sets of weights, an exercise band (similar to this), and a big exercise ball. These are great basics to build your home gym. They are also fairly cheap! Most of these exercises will be derived from my New Move Mondays, but I also may add a few new routines, too!

CHALLENGE GOAL: Exercise (with your routine or mine) 4 days a week for the 5 weeks we are in it. (25 minutes is minimum time)

Spiritual:

My faith lays the groundwork for everything I do and the upkeep of my body and health is included in that!  So I want to take us through some key principles to get us “living and active” in both our physical and spiritual lives. I’ll provide a small devotional and insight to each principle along with a challenge for us to consider each week. Scripture memorization is also a great discipline, so we will be adding that on too! (I call that our “Soul Food”)

CHALLENGE GOAL: Memorize the new weekly verse/Soul Food (as well as maintaining prior weeks) and do the key challenge.

Accountability:

This all is great, but if we don’t have accountability, then chances are we won’t stick with it. I have a few ways this is going to happen:

- Facebook: Periodically through the week, I will check in with you who are a part of this. This is your chance to check in, ask questions, claim victories, express frustrations etc. so make sure you “like” me on facebook! I also encourage you to create your own facebook accountability groups!

- Twitter: I’ll be doing the same thing on twitter with hashtag #livingandactive.Follow me there!

- Weekly Link-Up: If you are a blogger, this is your chance to write about your journey! Every Monday, I’ll provide a link up for you to write about how you did that past week. You can include healthy recipes, or exercises you like, or the victories and valleys. Set your own goals and measurements. Detail your specific daily diet and what you will be avoiding or adding. This is your place to make it your own! (If you don’t have a blog, you can join us in the comment section, letting us know how you are doing!)

Now, for some of the new things we are adding on this year!:

- Instagrammers: I know there’s a lot of you out there! (You can find me here) I post a lot of pictures of my food during the week on there and will continue to do so. (A few times a week, I’ll post everything that I ate for the day in one picture) I would love for you to join me–it’s great accountability!  Make sure to tag #livingandactive and  #clarepeak313 !

- Before/After Picture: Before some of you flip out, you don’t have to show ANYONE this picture! (You can if you’d like!) This is for you to see the physical changes to your body. So yes–get your sports bra and running shorts on and get in front of a mirror. Snap a shot in the front. Flex your arm. Put your leg out. However many picures you want to take. I don’t want you to do this again until the end of the 5 weeks though! (Feel free to take other measurements on your body and write them down!)

♥♥♥

And just like last year, I have a prize package! (All the goodies still being added up so I’ll share later!) For those of you who are 100% on the scripture memorization and exercising 4/7 days a week during this 5 week period, you’ll get a chance at winning the package! (You must check in here, every week. More on that later)

We officially start next Monday, September 16th, but you have some things to do now!

1.) Grab the button below, add to your blog and link-up a post telling me that you are in! (or just comment below)

2.) Grab a friend, sister, daughter, roommate…whoever…and ask them to join us! (HINT: Headstart to Key Principle #1!)

3.) Take your before picture(s)

4.) Pray through your commitment! I want you to really be successful over these 5 weeks. If this is a bad season in life for you, then maybe this isn’t the time to join as it would leave you more discouraged than encouraged. But if you need a kick in the rear, get focused, dust off those weights or gym membership card and let’s get going!


http://peak313.com/featured/the-2nd-annual-living-and-active-challenge/

 

Life after the third pregnancy.

Jeez okay.. even though Ella is only 7 weeks I've made some huge realizations.. okay so maybe some of these I already figured out with just two kids LOL

Even with one child, women have to juggle relationships, work, domestic chores and motherhood, and hardly anyone would say they've got the balance right. So with three young children, it's even easier to feel you're letting someone down.

We've all heard the "TV before a certain age is bad... kids shouldn't watch tv . You may be tempted to let your toddlers watch TV when you're breastfeeding the baby - so what? Yes, they shouldn't watch too much, but some TV is not bad. My kids right now LOVE Caillou and Team Umizoomi. My almost five year old loves Dinosaur cartoons and Power Rangers (yes he even imitates them).  I don't believe it will cause him to be a bully in school.

The laundry will always be there, but your children won't always be young.  

Unless your supermom (I am NOT) You wont be able to keep a spotless house. My house always has toys all over. I focus on keeping food crumbs up and counters clean. 

Unless you’ve got a nanny, a housekeeper, a driver, and a cook, it’s hard to manage a home and family with a smile on your face. But, it’s worth trying. Because nobody wants a crabby mom. I've been that crabby mom more than I wish to admit.

When you have your third baby, you have a pre-schooler and a toddler both claiming they are the center of the universe. Loudly! You read celebrity magazines at the checkout hoping to be inspired for another name.  When you start considering Wednesday Apple, you realize you are seriously scraping the bottom of the barrel.

The video camera you used for the first two is now ridiculously outdated, and you film footage of the new baby with her older sisters on your Smart Phone to be instantly uploaded to friends and family across the globe.  

 Breast-feeding is still hard, and you still get bleeding nipples and mastitis, but you fast-track through the dramas and just get on with it.  You are able to breast feed or express while peeling a banana for the toddler and changing the batteries in a toy for your pre-schooler.  All at the same time.

When people ask you how you are, you answer honestly. I'm here.  It's life. Life isn’t perfect.  Your kids are driving me crazy. The kids are crazy ..and so am I .  You don't have a clue what is happening in the world, you don’t wear the latest styles (or any style, for that matter) and your car is full of dirt and toys and empty wrappers.

Ryan's oldest is coming to live with us this year and when I tell everyone they always gasp, "4 kids oh my goodness" or "Bless your heart". Going from two to three was a bit overwhelming ,but I'm looking forward to going from 3-4. The kids love Austin and I KNOW him being there will actually make things with them a bit easier:) He's older so he will be a great help:) 

 
 

MIA with a new baby girl

I know that's what I have been the past few months. I've been quite the busy bee ...being in the last trimester of my pregnancy, moving back on post, chasing my two around , and the husband coming home from deployment.  Well Im proud to say we now have a 2 week old baby girl .

Ella Kathleen Smith

picture by Lisa Authier Photography

I didn't start cloth with my dd Emmy till she was around 9 months, and we are doing cloth with Ella now so it's a new experience :) I'll be reviewing some newborn diapers in the next entry.

Miss Ella weighed 7lbs 6oz when she was born and was 20 & 1/2 cm long. She lost down to 7lbs 1 oz before we left the hospital but at 4 days old had gained back to 7lbs and 4 oz. We go back to the dr this morning and I just know she is around 8lbs now as much as she nurses. She sleeps much more than my other kids did and is actually a quite easy baby:) She does love to sleep on mommas chest of course though:) AND she grunts and makes tons of noise in her sleep lol so I'm always checking on her. Adjusting to three kids is  not all that bad and Emmy is not as jealous as we thought she was going to be. :)