Annual Camping Trip: Year 3!

My friends and I feel pretty official about calling our camping trips "annual" now...it's our 3rd year this year, and each year seems to just get better and better! A bunch of us couples get together, bring lots of food, games, books- all relaxing material- and just have a good time. I think one of my favorite things to do when camping is sitting around the campfire talking about randomness :)


Also, each year seems to have some sort of big lifestyle change for Adam and I...let me explain:

About the time this picture had taken place, I was pregnant with Ellie! Got pregnant ON THIS trip! Ha ha! Gotta love tents :)
The next year we went, we had this little bundle of joy to take with us! She was SO good...oh remembering the easy days where she didn't want to get down to touch and explore EVERYTHING! This year should be interesting :)
This is just a super cute picture of Adam and Ellie..My favorite one I took on that trip :) Adorable baby, handsome lumberjack husband...doesn't get better than that!

And now to this years trip; I am pregnant with another little Porter and my baby is turning into a little girl- Oh how the years go by so fast! I can't wait to post pictures of this years trip. We always have a blast. The guys usually choose one day to go have a "man day" and they go hike until their feet feel like falling off. The girls stay back and play games pretty much the whole time- although this year I have a feeling I'm gonna be chasing Ellie around!

Wonder what next years will look like.........:)

Love,

Pink : 13 & Almost 16

Me: 13 weeks Pregnant- Finally popped out a little!-Wearing PINK :)
Ellie: Almost 16 Months-Such a BIG girl!- also wearing PINK :)

Me:

This is technically the last week of my first trimester! WOO HOO! Morning sickness is starting to ease up a bit....A BIT! But hey, it's better than nothin' right?! As the days pass, I'm getting more and more excited :) I'm so happy to be pregnant during the Arizona winter. It'll be so nice! I'm a "wear flip-flops all year round" kinda girl, so the weather in the winter is perfect for that! Still having some pretty intense hormone changes- if you don't believe me, just ask Adam! Poor guy. I seriously do feel really for him! We are going to be adding a little addition onto our condo for a tiny nursery. That'll be a fun post! I can't wait until we get it all finished.

Ellie:

Oh my sweet, strong-willed, stubborn, FUNNY, precious girl. She is so much to handle but also SO much to LOVE! Her personality has really been coming through in the past months, and it's such a joy to watch :) She can do all sorts of signs; monkey, ball, more, elephant, train, airplane, apple, flower, all done....there are a few more, but I can't name them at the moment. She is talking lots more these days too....her all time FAVORITE word and object is Ball. Her and ball are pretty tight. She spots them everywhere we go. She also loves to tell us "bye bye" as she is leaving a room, and gets excited to go to bed just to say" night night". So sweet. She aslo says "no" for everything. No means yes, and yes means yes. It pretty much all means yes. The only time we know she doesn't want something is when she gets mad and yells at us! And man o man is she a climber! Freaks her poor mom and dad out, but she is incredibly coordinated, so we try not to worry as much- in a split second she is on the dining room table, laughing, being so proud of herself- it's too cute! We are OVERJOYED to be her parents. It's not so much fun when she's throwing tantrums, or screaming because she's angry, but you take the good with the bad and love it all :)

Love,

K

Ellie Grace Face

Doing what she does best- balancing & climbing

Trying on Dada's shoes...how CUTE is that?!

Trying out her new chalkboard for the first time!

Upset about me putting the hood on her! How could I resist though? Come on.

Watching her show on the couch & eatin' some mac n' cheese

We went to a place in Gilbert called Joe's Farm, and it was SO cool...got a nice summer shot of Ellie there :)

Swinging at the park!

Post-swimming at Granma & Grandpa Bartine's (that makes my parent's sound SO old!)

Love,

AP vs. BW

I'm doing it. I'm tackling it. I'm addressing it.

Attachment Parenting vs. Baby Wise (or any scheduling book for that matter)

These 2 things have kept coming up in my thoughts/conversations lately. And honestly, I feel like I'm over it. Well, not OVER it, because I wouldn't be writing about it, but I'm just really frustrated about it.

It seems like between most moms, there is a battle (or rather, a competition) for how we raise our children. Can I hear a hollar or an Amen?!

I remember when I was pregnant with Ellie, my best friend had just read baby wise and had implemented it with her daughter and I thought it was wonderful! She had such a great baby....so content, really happy, seemed very well rested, and to top it off, my friend seemed well rested and happy too! That looked like a GREAT combo to me.

But I will never forget when my midwife came over to set up things for my homebirth (about 4 weeks before my due date), she saw baby wise sitting on my end table. She asked if I was planning on doing that, which I responded "yes"- the conversation following that just about tore me to shreds. She had the BEST of intentions- don't get me wrong! She has had 10 kids for goodness sakes...she has been around the block and I totally respect her- which was why it was so hard for me to hear. But the jist of what I heard was that I was going to create mistrust with my baby if I let her cry herself to sleep. And I was showing her that her needs coudn't be met- a sort of abandonment feeling. She encouraged the attachment parenting method by Dr. Sears. More of an on-demand way of doing things. You are prompted by your baby's needs and wants, you anticipate cries before they happen, constantly carry them around with you to encourage closeness and create a strong bond. ALL OF IT DID SOUND SO GREAT, don't get me wrong. But I had experienced first hand, what my best friend had going on, and that way seemed just as gentle to me. Content baby, content momma.

Since that conversation, I have thought about these things a lot. Of course I would NEVER want to deprive my sweet baby of attention & affection, nor would I want them to feel abandoned! But in my heart, I do feel a certain balance that I feel like needs to be met. Just as a baby needs love, affection, attention, all of those things- a mom needs sleep & rest!

I am NOT one of those people who forms an opinion without looking at all of the options. That is something that really irritates me. Like when people say that Baby Wise is the devil, and have never even cracked open the book to take a look for themselves! So, I went out and bought the 800 page Baby Book by Dr. Sears, and spend FOREVER reading and reading. Again it sounded great. And there were some things that I definitely wanted to implement with Ellie to promote that bond and closeness.

The first few months, I stuck with baby wise, and seriously, Ellie was THE HAPPIEST BABY I had EVER encoutered. She was on a 3 hr schedule, really NEVER cried, fell right asleep, and was such a go with the flow baby. It was so wonderful. As she got older, she had a harder time falling asleep, and so I started nursing her to sleep. At this stage in life, THIS worked wonderfully. She loved it & so did I. A few months passed, and she started taking AT LEAST an hour to fall asleep while nursing or rocking...she was so irritable. Adam and I decided that it was time to let her cry it out a little. We knew she was so tired, and it wasn't good for her to not take naps...she wasn't a happy baby when she wasn't sleeping! Babies NEED sleep. So, we tried it for 1 day. She cried 16 minutes her first nap. Then it was 5-10 minutes at the most, for the rest of her naps. About 2 days later, I would sing to her, tell her how much I loved her, cuddle her & kiss her, then lay her down and she was OUT! She does it the same way to this day and has an incredibly hard time if there is ever a circumstance where I HAVE to hold her to go down for a nap...like if I forget the pack n' play at a friends house or something. This is what she loves now. She takes 2 really good (at leat 2 hr naps) a day, and wakes up so content and happy.

All of this to say, does it make me the devil that I don't attachment parent to the T? Am I depriving my daughter of love somehow? I was reading a blog not long ago (and not on just this one but others have done it too), and it said something to the effect of - " All of you attachment parents, tell me what you think about....." and I thought, well, I'm not an "attachment parent" so, can I not respond? Is my mothering somehow not good enough to give you a response of worth? I also don't consider myself a "Baby Wise" mom. I consider myself a "do-what-your-insticts- and-logical-thought-tell-you-to-do" kind of mom. Or an "Ask-the-Lord-to-give-you-wisdom" kind of mom and I know he'll be faithful to answer! Just like I'm not the same everyday, my baby isn't the same everyday. We are constantly changing and needing new things.

Another blog friend (Sarah) put on her blog about how she was going to try letting her baby cry-it-out, and that as far as she was concerned, the attachment parents could burn her at the stake! I thought that was hilarious! But it really made me think about how much of an issue this is, and how insecure it can make you feel as a mom.

I know it may seem like I'm downing Attachment Parenting-please hear my heart, I'm not. I think it's wonderful. But I also feel it's a bit of a cult if you are an AP parent. And same goes for BabyWise. I say Love & Accept people. LOVE & ACCEPT. God made EVERY single baby different, and every baby is will require different things. So, lets not make it out to be a my style vs. your style kinda thing. I think that we should give up the competition, and trust that each mom really does generally know what the BEST is for her baby.

There it is. I addressed it. What have you guys encountered with this issue? Anything? Ever feel inadequate with your parenting skills because of competition? I'd love to know that I'm not alone in this!!!

Glory Baby

This morning I looked at my blog & something made me SO sick. I didn't even realize I did it, but once I did, it was like a train hit me.

On my little sidebar there, I put on the countdown that we were waiting for Porter Baby #2. I felt like I had completely discounted my other precious baby that I never got to meet. Just because that one didn't live as long as this one has, doesn't mean that it wasn't a part of us, and wasn't truly our 2nd baby. We refer to him/her as little sibling and still talk about them often.

I'm crying as I write this because it's just crazy how so long can go by, and then suddenly the pain of your loss hits. So many what ifs. I'm not quite sure what to do about the sidebar counter. I'm still going to think about it. But I wanted to acknowledge it. Acknowledge our Little Sibling that we loved SO much and only knew for a few weeks. This song brings a lot of encouragement to me when I think of him/her....

Sunday Sermons

What's so good about the Gospel???

That is the sermon series that our church will be working through for a while. We are going through the book and Romans, and I'm SO excited about it. It's been a long time since I have actually applied what I am learning on Sunday to my everyday life- sad, huh? Totally embarrassed to admit that! Sorry Pastor Bob.

The truth is, the sermons are always (did I say always??) yep, always good. Really challenging. But my lazy butt has been too lazy to apply God's word to my life. So, today I decided to take action. I laid on my bed after church, and said a prayer something like this- " Hey God, ya it's me. Better late than never right??" Short and simple but very exciting. I think He liked it too :)

This week we talked about how the Gospel transforms us. We learned about Paul, and how he went from a position of authority & power, livin' the high life in Rome, and gave it up to be a bond-servant to Christ. Pretty powerful stuff. Paul is definitely the man. I mean, he wrote some of my favorite books in the bible, and was an apostle for goodness sakes. Byt the way, can you name all 12 apostles?? Off the top of your head? Some friends and I were watching Sister Act this weekend and that was a question on there at the beginning of the movie to the students- we racked our brain and could only name 9! Lame!----ok, whoa! Total sidetrack!----- ANYWAYS, it helped to remind me of when God transformed my life from a sinner to someone who was forgiven and redeemed. Changed me from someone who deserved death to someone who was given the grace of eternal life. I rememeber the day that I believed and how I was just sobbing with indescribable joy...a memory I will never forget-- my life was forever changed that day.

But it occurred to me today, that this "transformation" that we speak of is really not a one time event- it's a constant transformation. God continually doing His work in us, and reminding us of the sacrfice that he made through the Gospel.

The question burning on my mind today- and one that I will focus on this week until next Sunday when I learn something new is: " What does it look like to live a transformed life???"

Some thoughts I had for myself were:

• Work a little each day this week on being more joyful & positive
• STAY IN MY WORD! READ MY STINKIN' BIBLE!
• Thank God for the transformation in my life often
• Try to have my conversations be focused more around Christ

Now, that is a weak list I know, but it's a start. Let the transformation begin! Wondering what passage we went over today? Should you feel the need, crack your bible open to Romans 1:1-7.

Love,

Cravings

This last Saturday, I told Adam I was going to take a nap. I laid down in bed and was feeling pretty bad...I COULD NOT fall asleep for the life of me! THEN, I had a sudden urge to eat Top Ramen (Chicken Flavor). I tried to just tell myself that I didn't need it and to just go to bed....I tried that for like 20 minutes! Once I gave in to the craving, I got up, went to Basha's and got me some Top Ramen or RAYMEN- however you say it....how do you guys say it anyways? I say ra(short a)men. Funny part is, I always feel so ghetto when buying that kind of stuff. It didn't help that I was in my PJ pants and a big t-sirt, no make-up on, and my hair thrown up! Ewww! I was trying to be in and out of there as quick as possible! Ha ha! A part of me wanted to go back later all done up and buy some fruit & veggies or something :)

All that to say....... totally hit the spot.