Happy 4th Birthday, Brettley

4 years ago I woke up early to something very terrifying. I was 33 weeks pregnant and bleeding. 2 hours and 18 minutes after that scary wake up call, a beautiful tiny boy was born. Brettley was 4 lbs and 14 oz. He was tiny and terrifying. It took me forever to work up the courage to even hold him. He was our third boy, but it was like being a first time mother all over again (that really hasn't changed, when I stop and think about it). Our little boy is such a trooper. He spent a few weeks after his birth in the NICU, he spent his first few years with developmental delays and he is still working on his strabismus. And, it has to be said, he survives being the younger brother of Caleb and Ty.

Brettley loves trains, cars and anything boyish. He LOVES to eat. It's incredibly rare to find a food he won't eat, I can only ever think of one off the top of my head. His favourite colour is red. He is still on the short side, but he has a big personality. He has come so far in his 4 years and it is an honour to be his mother.

Personal Progress

So my (short) spiritual thought for this month...I've been thinking a lot about Personal Progress lately. What an amazing program available to the Young Women. I have finished it 3 times within the past 3.5 years (also finished the Honor Bee in there once) and have started it for a fourth time. It is such a HUGE testimony builder for me. I have also had the privilege of helping 3 girls finish the program very early on (2 to 2.5 years). I am absolutely certain that this program was inspired by Heavenly Father and would highly encourage any woman at any stage in her life to do it (or do it over again). I LOVE it!

Sorry this isn't longer. It's Brettley's birthday so I'm busy cooking and baking today, plus we have our annual suite inspection today and I'm also getting all of my last minute stuff done for my trip to Calgary since I'm leaving at 6 tomorrow morning.

Our January 2015

So the first Sunday in January had Brettley leaving nursery and starting Sunbeams in Primary. Caleb left Junior Primary behind and started Senior Primary. Brettley's milestones are slowly starting to become bittersweet for me. That in itself is hard for me, because in the past I've always been a mum who enjoys when their child moves on to new adventures and isn't sad about them leaving anything behind. It feels really weird for me. That day we also went back to  9 am church, which reintroduced the Sunday afternoon naps (yay!).

I also started doing a lot of research about Sensory Processing Disorder. I noticed a few things about Ty (and Caleb as well, if I'm being honest) and thought I'd check into it. They both have quite a few traits from it, so I found a LOT of information about. It has been an amazing learning experience. Also, the BEST book I've found for it so far for our particular circumstance is The Sensory Child Gets Organized (I even linked it for you). I linked it to Indigo because I feel an obligation to support the company that my brother works for (he manages the Indigospirit T.D. Square in Calgary).

My brother's father-in-law was very generous and brought my mum, stepdad and myself to an Oilers game this month. They were playing Chicago and we won and it was great! It was the first came I'd been to since 1997 when they were in the playoffs, so I was really excited to go.



I managed to reinjure my back again and for once it wasn't because I did something I shouldn't have been doing. It was (how to put this lightly...) Caleb related. I ended up having to go for a couple of massages because I was in a lot of pain (I was medicating every 3 hours and still was hurting so bad that I wanted to puke). I'm pretty much better now, but still taking it (relatively) easy.

John decided to introduce me to Gilmore Girls one night when we were looking for something to watch on Netflix. I. AM. HOOKED!

Caleb's class had an in-class field trip about Rocks and Minerals that I helped out with. I got to show the kids actual obsidian, so they were all obsessed with it. (Thank you Minecraft for making rocks and minerals more interesting to young kids)

And then I chopped my hair off again. I had been waffling on it for months. I have thick, naturally wavy hair. And here is why I hate it when people tell me that I'm lucky to have it...It's heavy, so it gives me headaches unless I have it thinned every week or two. It's horribly awkward to grow out. It looks awful when it's anything but short unless I actually DO my hair. I am a VERY low maintenance girl when it comes to my hair. So when I hurt my back again I knew that I wouldn't be able to straighten it again for months and chopped it off. I also got the purple temporary colour I mentioned the last post to occasionally put in my bangs. I'm really glad that I decided to cut it short again.

So, that was pretty much our January. I had to take allergy meds a few times thanks to all of the snow melting and exposing the snow mold (blah). Sorry there aren't more pictures. I really need to get better about taking pictures...Anyway, next week's post will be on Wednesday. Actually, there will be 2 because it's also Brett's birthday that day. But I'll be gone on Thursday, so that's not really an option. Have a good one :)

iRecommend

 It worked out kind of funny that the first month I started doing my blog this way actually has 5 Thursdays instead of 4. On the occasional month where there is a 5th Thursday, I'll be posting things that I recommend.

So here goes...

I loved this stuff for a (very) temporary color in your hair. I put purple in my bangs over the weekend, and I loved it.

I love, love, love these Staedtler pens. I bought both sets with some of my Christmas money. I use them every day and they are awesome. More expensive than most pens, but definitely worth the money.

Beef Barley Soup, which can be found here on my Pinterest. It was a big hit with every member of our family, which doesn't happen very often.

We also really liked this Crockpot Lasagna Soup, another Pinterest find. It's Ty's favourite soup, and he's my super super picky eater.

The boys got some Sands Alive for Christmas. For my kids who have some Sensory Processing tendencies, this stuff is amazing! It doesn't dry out, it doesn't get stuck in carpets, it's organic and non-toxic. All 3 of the boys love it and it is an amazing product for them.

John loves Spotify, especially for work. It has been a great way for him to try out new music and helped us to figure out which music we want to purchase on iTunes. I like it a lot as well :)

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So there are my recommendations for the time being. All things that we really like!

L and What She Means to Me

I'm 2 days late. It's been a really off week in our house. I think the kids got spring fever early this year, no one has been sleeping properly and I was about ready to pull my hair out (so I just cut most of it off instead, ha ha).

So for the 4th Thursday of each month, it will be about something that's been going through my mind recently. I call it the Musings & Soapbox Moments week.

This month I decided to talk about how L is really the best thing that's ever happened to me. So just in case you've been living under a rock or are new to my blog, here's who L is. Just over 11 years ago I found out that I was pregnant. I was not married at the time. Nor was I a member of my church at the time, that happened about 2/3 of the way through my pregnancy. When L was born, I placed her with the people who were meant to be her family. At the time, it was her mom, her dad and her older brother. She now has 2 younger brothers as well. L is the only girl I've given birth to and she holds a very special place in my heart. It's probably a good thing that my husband and I have all boys, it makes her that much more special.

So I realized that it may sound odd to say that she's the best thing that ever happened to me, above my conversion and baptism, my marriage, and my sons. But here's why. I would have had NONE of those things if I hadn't been pregnant with L. It is because I was pregnant with her, that my heart was softened and I was ready to gain a testimony and join the church. Because of joining the church, that is how I met my husband and was able to be blessed with our boys.

I remember a quote from somewhere about Heavenly Father permitting hard/bad things to happen to us because He can see how much good will come out of them. Being pregnant with L was hard. Going through the emotional stress of the pregnancy was super hard. Making the decision to place her was beyond hard. Yet every good thing that I have in my life, I have because I was blessed enough to carry that girl for 9 months and help to bring her into this world. It's why I have always had the peace that I do about making the decision to place her. Because she gave me everything that she was meant to give me, but she was never meant to be mine. But I will be eternally grateful for her, because of all of the amazing things I have in my life that she helped to prepare me for.

There is so much beauty in adoption, and I'm so grateful for everything that my small part in it has given to me.

My 'Crafty' Side

I will be the first to admit that my mum kept all of her crafty talent and shared none of it with me while I was still in utero. I severely lack an imagination (I couldn't even read the first chapter of Harry Potter until I had the visual from the movie) and it took years to be able to draw a straight line with a ruler. However, I decided over Christmas holidays that I need to start being a bit creative just to have an outlet. Being a stay-at-home mum who doesn't drive, I kind of lose my mind in the winter. And summer... Pretty much any time, ha ha. So I bought Caleb's desk from him that he wasn't using for the price of a Skylanders trap (so, about $7). I used a fair chunk of my Christmas money from my parents to buy things for my desk like 2 new pen sets (huzzah for Staedtler pens), highlighters, organizers and so forth. Thus, my creative space was born.

So the 3rd Thursday of the month is about getting to share what I've been working on.

Mondays are set aside for personal writing, which is just that. It's personal.

Tuesdays are for learning about whatever I feel like learning about. Lately it has been Sensory Processing Disorder. There are a lot of traits from it that my kids have, so I have been learning about lots of fun activities to do with them. One that I think all 3 of them are going to enjoy this summer is 'painting' the fence in our back yard with water. We're also going to make them calm down bottles (if you're on Pinterest, I'm sure you've seen them). I've got a whole list, but it would probably just be a lot easier to check it out on Pinterest. There are so many fun activities that just about any kid would like.

Wednesdays are to build up our collection of geeky Christmas ornaments, aka Perler Beads Day. Here are the latest 5 that I've made.



The Batman is for John, Wonder Woman is for me, Green Lantern is for Caleb, Superman is for Ty and The Flash is for Brettley. They also match our geeky Christmas stockings that my mum made for us in 2013. I've also made 1 other ornament each for us, but they made it on the tree last month and are put away now.

Thursdays are my blogging day and, if I'm up to it, doing a decluttering chore. With my back out right now, though, it's not been happening.

Fridays I am finding floor plans for houses that I like on Pinterest and putting them onto graph paper, making a few changes as I see fit. This is actually one of my most favourite things to do. John keeps telling me to become an architect and then he will stay at home with the kids. I keep reminding him that I sucked at high school math and barely scraped a passing grade in Physics 20.

My side project recently has been assembling Busy Bag activities for the boys for church.


This one is part of Brettley's school stuff to help him learn the Alphabet, but it's being transferred to the Busy bag.



Here's part of the Colour Sudoku kit I made. I'm actually pretty excited about this one, since I love Sudoku and am pretty dang decent at it (right Amber?).



From the reactions I got while making this, the kids are probably going to be fighting after this Build a Pizza kit. They all thought it was so awesome.

So that's what I've been up to this past month in my efforts to be a little more creative.

Also, thanks again to Amber for my awesome new blog header :D

Proper Blog Header

I'll be doing my planned post tomorrow, but this deserved its very own post. My amazing friend Amber used her mad photoshop skills to make me a header for my blog after seeing my lamenting on facebook. I was super bummed that I was trying to put more effort into this blog but have ZERO skills when it comes to creating a header, and Amber very kindly volunteered to help me out. So a HUGE HUGE thank you to her. I LOVE it!