At Mothers Breast

Several weeks ago I got some pictures taken for a blogging project called "At Mothers Breast." It is put together by Katrina who blogs at Musings of a Redhead. This is was she says about the project:

Breastfeeding is beautiful, natural, and normal. That is what I set out to capture on this photographic journey. I want to show real moms feeding their babies. I want more people to be exposed to how natural and normal breastfeeding can be. I think that part of why so many moms struggle to breastfeed is that they don't often see other women breastfeeding. We learn from watching. I hope this collection of photographs will inspire more women to nurse their babies and to feel comfortable doing it anywhere. And I hope it will inspire all of us to give more support to breastfeeding moms. They need it!

If you are a breastfeeding mom and would like to be photographed for the project, please contact me at redbeanphoto@gmail.com. You must live within an hour's drive of Salt Lake City or be willing to travel here.

~Katrina Anderson

Here are a few of my favorite pictures.

It was fun to participate in the project and I think the picture turned out great. My pictures are up on the website today. You can see more of them here. 

Scripture study and prayer

Our Bishop offers a different Bishops challenge for every quarter of the year. Once it was 100% home and visiting teaching. This quarter his challenge was to read the entire Book of Mormon before the end of the year. My first thought was to not even try. I don't read regularly so if I just don't accept the challenge I won't have to feel guilty when I don't accomplish the goal. Then it occurred to me how ridiculous this thinking was. If I don't even try, I have already failed. So I decided to accept the challenge and so far I have been doing really well at reading everyday and staying on top of it. My trick is that I can't do any knitting (or other reading) until I have read my scriptures. It is working well for me.

Yesterday I read this scripture:

"For can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee" (1 Nephi 21:15, also Isaiah 49:15)

It brought a smile to my face and hit me pretty strong. There is no way I could forget my sucking child. When you are nursing there is such a strong physical reminder that shouts "Your baby needs to eat. Now!" I get mighty uncomfortable after a few hours away from the kids. The scripture says I might forget, but the Lord will not forget us. He knows us and loves us as a mother knows and loves her child. He knows our needs and does not forget.

Silly kids! Eeva gives me this looks in a lot of pictures. I think it is hilarious.

On a similar spiritual note, Heber has been saying lots of prayer recently. It is pretty cute (accept when he is crying and screaming because someone else said the prayer). For a little while he would forget to address Heavenly Father and would just go straight into saying thank yous. I would have to stop him and remind him that we are talking to God when we pray so we start with his name. This is what he usually says:

How you start mom? You say Dear Heavenly Father. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for our blessings. Thank you for mommy and daddy, thank you for Eeva and daddy, thank you for me and mommy (He will add in anyone else in the room multiple times). Thank you for our food, thank you for our eggs, thank you for our burritos (or whatever else we are eating). Bless daddy at work. Thank you for Jesus Christ. Amen

 It really is a very sweet prayer. I love the simple faith of children. I love the simple lessons my children teach to me. Mothering gives me constant reminders to be patient, be kind, breath, and love one another.

A few other thing that Heber does to make me smile:

• Takes all the pillows and blankets from the bed, arranging them in a circle. He call this is pot and asks me if I want to come in his pot with him.
• He will make up his own words (actually just a sound of some sort). When I ask him what that is he explains it to me using more unknown words and sounds.
• He calls most things that open and close a gate. He likes to make gates out of my arms, blankets, clothes on the floor, and everything else he can think of. 
• When I say "Heber, where are you?" His response is "Here my am"
• He asks me to play with him but not just for a little bit. "Play with me for a real really long time"
• Anytime he is playing make-believe. One of hims favorites is pretending the rug is a lake. He jumps in and says "I splashed you mom. I got your shirt all wet. Now you have to go get a dry shirt on." We also pretend I catch him with my fishing pole and eat him up.
• He likes to give us lectures about things that we should or shouldn't do. He gave me the best lecture the other day about Grandpa's (who he calls Granshin). "Those are Granshin's bees mom and you DON'T TOUCH THEM. Just leave them alone. You just look at them!"
• He will also lecture Eeva saying in a stern voice "Eeva, I said no! Look at my eyes Eeva. Listen to me!"
• He mixes up the words fun and funny. "Let's go the the park. It's so funny"

 I love this boy of mine. He brings me so much joy even through all of the yelling and tantrums (he apparently learned well from me) and mess making. He can be such a stinker sometimes and other times he is so sweet. I am so glad to be his mother.

stuff

I haven't posted here for quite a while but I didn't realize it had been almost a month. I think that the longer I go with out posting, the less ideas I have for posting. I think I would like to do a post at least once a week. As far as blog reading goes, I like shorter posts more often but I seem to struggle with short posts. We will see how it goes.

I have been knitting this dress for little Eeva.

 

Prior to this, the only things I have knit are scares, dishrags, and leggings. So considering all of that, it has gone quite well. I am about half way through. It is far from mistakes but I think I would like to am another one at some point now that I know what I am doing.   I am making it in green with brown booties. I will post pictures when it is finished. It has been so much fun to knit.

We have had the rounds of a stomach bug that I sure was pick up at my cousins wedding 2 weeks ago. Several members of the extended family have all been sick. Heber and I were sick last weekend and Ben was sick early in the week. Eeva came down with it yesterday and it hasn't been fun. Amazingly this is the first time that she has ever been sick. It is such a contrast to Heber who gets sick a lot. I attribute this to vastly different birth experiences but who really knows. Heber got lots of antibiotics through my breast milk (I got an infection from my C-section and was on some pretty mega doses) and I think that really taxed his immune system. 

I came across this website playscapes and my mind has been spinning with idea for creating an outdoor playscape for the kids. I have also found many places I want to visit. They all so like so much fun but here are few of my favorites (click picture to go to website):

 

 

 

 

Anyway, So so many cool places to play. You should go check it out.  

That is all for now. Have a nice weekend. Leave me a comment : )