What is your stance?

Recently I have found time (I say this cautiously) to focus a bit more time on myself.  My kiddos are now 4.5, 3.5 and 1 years old, and I am trying to commit to my health in order to be a positive influence on them.

I started with teaching a sports skills class to kids 3-11, which my two oldest attend.  I wanted to remind myself that I am athletic and work with kids, which has always been a passion of mine throughout life.  This was going pretty well, until my kids decided they did not like mommy paying attention to other kids, and my ideal situation of showing them being athletic is fun turned into tantrums and now they stay in the gym's child center while I spend time with other people's kiddos (honestly a bit more rewarding most nights).

Then it seemed that a vast majority of my friends started selling products to help with the health concerns of young (I still like to think I am young) mom's.  From wraps that get rid of stretch marks to drinks that give you all the vitamins you need, it all has seemed like things I can do for me in this new "reclaim time for myself" era.  Truthfully speaking, I have fully embraced a lot of it lately.  As I type I am wrapped in an "It Works!" wrap to help my post baby tummy!  I am also on the Shape ReClaimed drops and diet (11 more days to go for phase 1! and down 16 lbs)... All of this adding to my feeling that I am doing things to help my health and keep me around longer for my kiddos...and then Facebook brings up a post on Jade Beall's photography of UN-Photoshopped women... 

Which truly gets to my heart for a reason I am not even able to explain.  Honestly, there is something I love about my stretch marks, and after looking at the picture below, I want one with my kids (probably with a bra on though, and not sure how to incorporate our youngest who is adopted...but, that will probably be a post in of itself!).

What our bodies make room for to bring our amazing kiddos into this world is definitely something to be proud of.  So now my internal struggle is...how much do I really want to undo it.  The pounds I can definitely loose, my health is something I still need to move into a priority position now that I have time to think, but do I really want to erase all signs of my body producing amazing little people...I may just be nostalgic tonight, but I am leaning toward no.  (Again, this said with an "It Works!" wrap on my belly right now).

I am curious to see what fellow mommas think on the matter.  Let me know your internal gut instincts on the matter.   Feel free to comment or email me directly at the5cosbys@gmail.com

xoxo,
Andi

Road trips...WAY different as a parent!

Work related travel is a regular occurrence in our household, and one night we were going over our calendars and realized we both had to be in Kansas City around the same time.  Excellent!  We could bring the kids with us and split who was working and who had the kids- genius!...so we thought.

Our kiddos are currently 4, 3 and 9 months old and we haven't taken a road trip with them since July...not too long ago, it is only November, right?!?!?  We neglected to realize that our son has become potty trained since our last road trip...this realization did not come to us until we were in way too deep to back out...for newer parents, just keep reading and you will never fail to think of this when you are at this stage!

Having three kids, we think we have this parenting thing down, but every time we get a little too confident there is a natural consequence that knocks us right back into our place of not knowing anything at all.  This trip was one of those natural consequences...

We worked it out so my husband had afternoon meetings on a Friday and I had meetings on Monday and Tuesday.  Then lucky for us, my husband got scheduled into a two day conference in Springfield, MO which we could hit on the way back on Wednesday and Thursday.  Great plan, right???

Um, no!  We started the drive Friday morning around 9 and had to stop at least 20 times for potty breaks!  My poor husband had a 1pm meeting and we were against the clock.  Every time we stopped we announced to the car that it was a potty break and everyone had to try...this was not as effective as hoped.  Without doubt five to ten minutes down the road after everyone "tried" we would hear a desperate plea from the back that they had to "GOOOO!"

Thankfully, my husband is a genius/liar and his meeting actually started at 1:30, because we pulled up to our destination at exactly 1:29.  

During my finest parenting moment during this trip, I agreed that my husband could go meet a co-worker on Monday morning before my meetings that afternoon.  He took the car and dropped us off at Panera while he went to stop into the office.  I was smart and arranged for friends to come see the kiddos at Panera and take up some of this time.  I picked a Panera by the hotel that had a courtyard behind it for the kids to run around and Panera always has great kid food. Every Panera (St. Louis Bread Co.) I have been to in St. Louis has been incredibly family friendly, but for some reason this one was not so accommodating.  I realized within 10 minutes of getting there that my youngest had a stinky diaper...went to the bathroom and not only did the restaurant not have a changing table, my wipes were in the van my husband took to his meeting...sad news!  Thinking quickly I wet some paper towels and went to the back of the restaurant to a booth with my travel changing pad and took care of business. 

Luckily it was soon after that my first friend arrived, and we took the kiddos to the courtyard to run around.  All was great, we were catching up and then my 3 year old announced he had an accident...it was not just any accident, but the smelly kind, which he has NEVER done, but why not on a family road trip.  I was already well aware of the bathroom situation, so I was able to gather the supplies available and take care of the situation rather quickly.  You would think this is where it ends, but no, I went back to the courtyard to find my other friend had arrived and she said the baby just didn't smell right.  Of course she didn't...back to the bathroom I went.  Now it was full on lunch time and the restaurant was filled, so I ended up cleaning the baby in the sink holding her up by one leg and really questioning what would happen in DFS walked in the door. 

Hanging out with the kids together was a wonderful experience, but my poor husband also had a unique experience alone with the kiddos.  We pre-bought tickets to Lego Land for him and the three kiddos for the afternoon after my Panera adventure.  Of COURSE he also had a bathroom experience.  He brought the three kids into the Lego Land bathroom (which did have a changing table!, but he also left the wipes in the van) and he started dealing with our youngest first...he turned around to find our two oldest "sharing" the potty and our son peeing behind our daughter in the same toilet.  This lead to a LOT of laughter and also a LOT of clean up and outfit changes.

Moral of the story...don't get too confident and always have wipes!

Oh the diapers!

   

Cloth diapering adventure- major cost savings!

We invested in cloth diapers before our first, Annabelle, was born and they have been a MAJOR cost savings through all 3 kiddos.  At first we were sold on the natural cotton and no chlorine and it did not seem like much of a cost savings since we had to spend around $250 to make the initial investment.  Looking back though, 3 kids later, we have had many more benefits than keeping chemicals off our babies bottoms! (which to many, including us, was a great reason in and of itself)

We invested in Bum Genius diapers which are made in our home town of St. Louis, MO, but they are available easily online too.  We looked at many brands and we picked Bum Genius because of their growth adjust-ability, dry protection and ease of washing at home.

Our next step in decision making, which has TOTALLY paid off, was how to store and clean our diapers.  We went with the Diaper Decor diaper pail which works with reusable pail liners (we like planet wise) as well as any garbage bag.  Planet wise also has great wet bags for on the go cloth diapering!

 

You also have to think about wipes.  You want wipes you can wash so you can just dump everything from the wet bag into the washer and not mess with separating anything.  We went with the Prince Lionheart wipe warmer and wipes, which have held up great over the past 4 years!

It is important to not put anything on your babies bottom that will build up a water barrier on your diapers, so traditional diaper creams are a no go.  Instead using natural remedies without zinc oxide work great for baby and the cloth diapers.  We use mother love diaper ointment, but there are many options out there.
 
You do have to buy ever fresh pillows for the bottom of the warmer to keep everything wet and sanitized while warm too, but I bought a few packs and I am still going through them and am on kiddo number 3.

So, that is pretty much the set up!  Now for the LOADS of fun ;)  It is very important which detergent you use.  You never want to use regular detergent on your cloth diapers.  They actually take very little detergent to keep them clean.  Here is a list of detergents that work really well with cloth diapers. My advice is to wash them at least every three days.  Rinse them on warm, then wash with detergent on hot and then do another hot rinse.  The inserts can go in the dryer (you do not need softener sheets) and you can line dry the covers, pail liners and wet bags.

If your diapers begin to smell not so fresh or start to leak here are easy instructions of how to strip them.

And that's the basics of cloth diapering.  There are many more things you learn from trial and error and honestly every kiddo has been a bit different, but overall we have saved lots with our investment and we sleep better knowing chemicals are not on our babies bottoms.

Our Adoption Story

We had always talked about adoption as an option of growing our family, and after two rough pregnancies it was our natural choice.  We started the process first with just searches on the differences between domestic and international adoption.  We decided on domestic adoption and began calling around to different types of agencies: religious agencies, small local non-profit agencies and large mulit-state agencies.  We ended up choosing American Adoptions, but there are lots of amazing agencies out there to help in the adoption journey.

We went to an informational seminar in August of 2013.  The info session was lead by an adoption specialist and there was a couple at the front of the room at a "panelist" table who had recently adopted a baby boy.  They shared their story and answered questions which was amazing to hear directly from them how the process went.  

They explained how they found the agency, what they had to do to complete their profile and become active and what their interactions were with the birth parents before and after their son was born.

After we left the seminar we both knew we were ready to start on our journey for baby number 3.  Our first step was filling out the application with our basic information, then requesting a home study by a local social worker.  Our social worker was amazing and we now truly view her as a friend.  There was nothing intimidating about the home study, just basic questions about our intentions, our childhood, our parenting styles and a quick look around our home to ensure it was safe.  I did joke with Matt about how they might take our first 2 kids if we failed, but in reality it wasn't stressful or invasive at all.

Our next step was creating our adoption profile for birth mothers to learn a little more about us.  We submitted photos and a video profile as well.  Here is how it turned out -

The process of creating our profile while still being parents to our first two kiddos took us a bit of time, so we finished everything by November of 2013.  After we submitted everything we got an enthusiastic call from the agency that we were ACTIVE for our profile to be shown to birth mothers on our way to work and no joke at 4pm we got a call that we had been chosen. I was called first and they asked if they could conference in Matt because they wanted to discuss a possible match.  Of course I said to call him, and we all talked through why the birth mom was interested in us, her medical history and what we would need to do to take the next steps toward adopting our baby girl.

We did not have much contact with the agency or birth mom after that first "match" day, so we floundered a bit on whether we should get her room ready and make travel plans.  Eventually we did connect and were informed that we could be in the state she was born for 7-16 days until the judge decided everything was settled between the birth state and Missouri. 

We lucked out and only had to wait two days after Julia was discharged from the hospital to return home!   From what we hear this is super lucky and we count our blessings that we got to unite our family as soon as we did.  The pictures of us meeting our moms, Annabelle and Patrick at the airport say the rest :)

So I bought 10 pounds of carrots...

Yes, 10 pounds of carrots!

My husband looked at me like I had 2 heads when he opened the fridge.  What is my plan for so many carrots you ask?  Good question!

About two years ago my doctor recommended that I buy Joel Fuhrman's Eat to Live book to help with stabilizing my hormones and shedding the baby weight from Patrick.  To use the plan for weight loss recommended in the book it starts out with cutting out all meat, which was definitely the hardest part for this steak loving chica.  My doc explained that eating meat brings more hormones into the equation and for someone who is struggling with metabolic issues that is just more stress on your system.  It starts you out with a 7 day meal guide with recipes and honestly I lost 11 pounds that first week eating these veggie focused meals, and within 6 weeks I had lost 18.  Here is a crash course diagram of his recommendations-



So fast forward 2 years and I am now trying to bring the veggies back into my life...which lead me to buying 10 pounds of carrots.  I used 4 pounds of them to make baby food for Baby J, Annabelle (my veggie lover) probably ate a pound herself and the other half I used to make the most amazing veggie soup ever!  Here's the recipe-

Ingredients:
1/2 cup dried split peas
1/2 cup dried adzuki or cannellini beans
4 cups water
6-10 medium zucchini
5 pounds large organic carrots, freshly juiced (5-6 cups juice; see note)*
2 bunches celery, freshly juiced (2 cups juice; see note)*
2 tablespoons Dr. Fuhrman's VegiZest (or other no-salt seasoning blend, adjusted to taste)
1 teaspoon Mrs. Dash no-salt seasoning
4 medium onions, chopped
3 leek stalks, cut lengthwise and cleaned carefully, then coarsely chopped
2 bunches kale, collard greens or other greens, tough stems and center ribs removed and leaves chopped
1 cup raw cashews
2 1/2 cups chopped fresh mushrooms (shiitake, cremini and/o white)

Instructions:
Place the beans and water in a very large pot over low heat. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer. Add the zucchini whole to the pot. Add the carrot juice, celery juice, VegiZest and Mrs. Dash.
Put the onions, leeks and kale in a blender and blend with a little bit of the soup liquid. Pour this mixture into the soup pot.
Remove the softened zucchini with tongs and blend them in the blender with the cashews until creamy. Pour this mixture back into the soup pot. Add the mushrooms and continue to simmer the beans until soft, about 2 hours total cooking time.

An awesome recipe I used to make baby food for Julia with Apples and Carrots is-

1/4 apple
2 carrots
2 tablespoons water

Peel, core and chop apple.  Cut carrots in half lengthwise, then in half.  Put apple, carrots and water in a pot and cook until they soften.  Allow to cool slightly, then puree in a blender or mash with a fork.  Add apple juice, breast milk or formula if needed to achieve desired consistency.

Is my point of this post really about carrots, nope.  I have realized that way too often we loose focus on our health.  Between working, cleaning, laundry, dishes and sleep...I find myself forgetting about things that work for...well...2 years.  Enjoy the soup!

THE Birthday Party

We have talked about doing a joint birthday party since Patrick was born 13 months after Annabelle, but the 1st birthday milestone and the "special" birthday we threw for both of them at 2, stopped us from the party combo until this year...  

All in all I think it was a success.  Minus the hot 95 degree day and us being in a park.  We decided to do a park party because all of the other birthday parties have been at our home and we thought this would be an easier venue for clean up.  We did not take into account that we would have to pack EVERYTHING to make it function like a party from home.  The park is great, one of our local faves, and we rented a small section next to the playground that has a grill and six picnic tables.

We have been hooked on ordering our invites from Etsy.com and printing the digital files that we buy for $15.  Here is this year's invite with pictures of Annabelle and Patrick at the park.

We kept it simple and served typical BBQ fare.  We even pre-cooked the burgers at our house and then just warmed the up on the grill which worked out pretty well.  I did get a few ideas from pinterest to make the food set up a little more fun.

We put up a pinata, put out a parachute and enlisted Matt's sister Megan to paint faces (all supplies ordered through Amazon Smile Prime- my best go to!).  Throw in the kids besties and voila!  Party in the park and two birthdays celebrated well!  Smeared cake on faces and lots of hugs makes this momma smile!

The Bold Questions- Our Amazing Kiddos

This picture just makes me smile.  These are our three kiddos.  Annabelle just turned 4, Patrick will be 3 next month and Julia turned 5 months yesterday.  Since we became parents it has amazed me what people will openly ask you. 

Annabelle is a honeymoon baby and was born 3.5 weeks early...and no joke we had someone ask us while she was in NICU (and I hadn't even seen her yet) and in front of my parents and Matt's grandparents "Why didn't you just tell everyone you were pregnant at the wedding?".  My hormonal protective momma bear self wanted to whip out a calendar and explain gestation on the spot, but thankful I married someone much more level headed who escorted the guest out of the room.  And little did I know this was just the beginning of bold questions I would get asked as a parent.

We refer to Patrick as our miracle baby whenever anyone asks us how close in age our first two kids are, which happens often because most people question if they are twins. 

He truly defied all odds (which is totally his personality) and entered our lives in a time of chaos.  I remember vividly when I found out I was pregnant with Patch.  I had just run a half marathon two weeks prior with friends and had a wonderful wine filled weekend in San Antonio celebrating.  Two days before we had celebrated Annabelle's baptism and had family in town celebrating...notice a theme of celebration ;)  I had a 5 month old I was over the moon about and was finally starting to feel back to my old self.  Matt and I had just moved into a foreclosure we were starting to renovate and our work schedules were crazy.  I mentioned to Matt on a trip to the grocery store the day our family left town after the baptism that I was noticing I was not producing as much breast milk for Annabelle.  Since her NICU stint I had been a pumping momma, so I knew exactly how much was in supply.  I said, really as a joke, "you don't think we could be pregnant?".  His instant response, "well, get a test and we'll find out."  He was serious and nonchalant...it gave me a feeling he knew something I didn't.  I was on birth control, breast feeding and we were very busy tired new parents, I really did not think this was a possibility.  So much so, that I took the test the next morning after Matt left for work and when I knew his mom was on her way over to watch Annabelle for the day.  I had three big meetings that morning and if I had any clue that I would get the result I did, I would have picked a better time to find out.  You already know what the outcome was...after a frantic call to Matt (who was again nonchalant...I swear he already knew!), letting his mom in while trying to keep my composure and rushing back upstairs to schedule an appointment that morning with my OB...I came to find out not only was I expecting again, I was at the end of my first trimester.  On the sonogram screen where I expected to see a thumb smudge resembling nothing human like we saw with Annabelle, there was a kicking, arm waving little man.  My AMAZING OB comforted me as I spilled out all I had done the past three months that I would have never done if I had any clue I was expecting.  A few weeks later we would get our first trimester screening result that he had a 1 in 200 chance of having Down Syndrome, which then led us to further testing that narrowed it down to being a 1 in 3 chance.  The remainder of his pregnancy was spent at the doctors office ever 4 days for stress tests and ultrasounds, and on bed rest after 26 weeks.  I can not tell you how many prayers were sent up for this little guy.  We knew we loved him no matter what and he was obviously meant to be here.  It wasn't until he was born that it was ruled out that he did not have Down Syndrome or a heart defect.  He is such a beautiful blessing. 

While going through his pregnancy which was trying in so many ways, again the questions amazed me.  "Did you know how close in age they will be?," "Didn't you just get back from maternity leave?,"  "Why do you keep getting more testing done if you are going to keep him?"  Oh and the list goes on, it is so comical to us now, and really even then.  

With the arrival of our newest bundle of joy, we have been even more amazed at questions people will use to inquire about why our baby doesn't look like us.  We decided to adopt for many reasons, the easiest explanation for "why now?" is we always wanted three or four kids and after Patrick it was not possible for us to have them the old fashion way. Adoption was something we had talked about while we were dating and both felt was a beautiful way to add to our family and help a child who needed forever parents.  It will take a whole other post to describe how Julia became our daughter, but here are two of those amazingly bold questions that have come our way from complete strangers at the park and during her newborn photography session.  "Are you babysitting?," "Did your first two come out that dark?."  On almost a daily basis we get the "Does she look like Daddy?," "What is her nationality?"...again all from complete strangers...that is what really gets me.  Apparently, inquisitive minds want to know.  I am a pretty open book and would love to share our story of how Julia entered our lives to anyone who wants to know more about adoption, but these questions when I am in 100% complete Momma mode trying to corral my three blessings catch me off guard every time. 

What bold questions have people asked you about your kids or parenting?  I would love to hear!