Milk and Cookies!

My little guy turned one last month! As much as I wanted to ignore it, I knew I had to celebrate for no other reason than that I had a really fun theme picked out. Milk and cookies! Who doesn't love that? I searched everywhere for inspiration, or should I say Pinspiration. What did we do before Pinterest? I really wish it had been around before I got married. I digress. I will leave you with pictures of the party and my handsome big boy! Isn't he the cutest?

Mommies on a mission: Week 3

<center> <a href="http://lifeasalake.blogspot.com/2012/07/mommies-on-mission-week-1.html"><img src="http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z7/Abbeylake07/weight-loss_after-baby1.jpg" /></a></center> I suck at this. I want to exercise in the morning, so that I am good about what I eat and do for the rest of the day. But my baby boy has other ideas. He wants to be awake at 5:30-6 most mornings and is still waking up several times a night. Morning is cold and I'm tired.

By the end of the day when the kids are all in bed, I feel defeated by what I ate and didn't do all day. I did achieve my mini-goal of working out once. Kind of. I walked with my mom to get dinner one night.

I am not sure how to get myself motivated. Any suggestions? I'm pretty sure people are tired of reading about my not getting in to shape. I want to be on a mission!! What do you do when you get stuck in a rut?


Months Postpartum: 11.5
Pre-pregnancy weight: 119
Pregnancy weight: 180
Last weeks weight:120
Current weight: 120

Check on Mama Lake's progress!

Fluffy Butt!

I can't believe I haven't blogged about this....back in April 2012, I wrote a post about considering cloth diapering. You can read it here if you would like. Last month, a full nine months after I wrote that post, I began cloth diapering my son. I started building my stash of cloth diapers a couple of months before that but the ones I wanted were not cheap, so I only got a few at a time.

Let me tell you, there is an entire crunchy cloth diapering community out there! The funny thing is, since starting I have found some people use cloth who you would never expect to. I guess that is a little stereotyping on my part. Most mama's are helpful when it comes to questions and advice for newbies, so that's been great because with this new venture comes a whole new language!

I laughed when people said cloth diapers are addicting. I am no longer laughing. I stalk the Cotton Babies webpage for their seconds sales. For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, Cotton Babies makes a brand of diapers called Bum Genious which are the only diapers I have tried and loved so far. A seconds sale is when they sell diapers that are totally fine but may have slight imperfections for deep discounts. I have a ton of these dipes and they are perfect.

It is just going to get worse too because a friend of mine just bought a cloth diaper store. I will SO work for diapers!!

Enough talk, I will leave you with a picture of my baby and his fluffy butt!

Mommies on a Mission Week 2

<center> <a href="http://lifeasalake.blogspot.com/2012/07/mommies-on-mission-week-1.html"><img src="http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z7/Abbeylake07/weight-loss_after-baby1.jpg" /></a></center> Week 2...just a day late! I forgot to list the numbers in detail last week so I will do that at the end of this post. My baby turned 11 months old yesterday. I can't believe how quickly it has gone. The bad news is I am still struggling to find time to exercise. It's cold and everyone has been sick. I don't want to make excuses anymore but I didn't realize how hard it would be to fit in exercise with three kids!

For this week I want to set an easy, obtainable goal. Really easy. So here it is: Work out one time this week. That's it. I know if I can accomplish that, I will be able to go from there.

Next week I will be posting pictures!! Don't forget to check in with Mama Lake and Angela.

                         Months postpartum: 11
                         Prepregnancy weight: 119
                         End of pregnancy weight: 180
                         Last Weeks weight: 120
                         This weeks weight: 120

Mommies on a Mission: Week 1(Part 2!)

<center> <a href="http://lifeasalake.blogspot.com/2012/07/mommies-on-mission-week-1.html"><img src="http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z7/Abbeylake07/weight-loss_after-baby1.jpg" /></a></center>   We are back at it! My friend over at Life As A Lake  encouraged me to start blogging again as well as start Mommies on a Mission back up. It has been awhile since the last time and since then, I have gotten back to my prepregnancy weight. So my new goal is just to tighten and tone! Pre-wedding shape dare I say??

I am using products from a company called It Works to help the process along! I am busier and more tired than ever so I am not going to set any unrealistic workout goals for myself. I'm just going to take it slow and find what works for me. By the end of the year I would really love to be able to do a 5k race though!

The Battle for Homebirth

A couple of days ago, I stumbled upon a blog called A girl named Kevin. Basically, the woman who writes it, Loni, suffered the devastating loss of her daughter Aisley just last month. I obviously don't have all of the details, but what I know from her blog is that she had a homebirth and her daughter was stillborn. The baby's heart tones were steady even while she was in the birth canal. They believe that in the final moments before birth, there was a cord accident. Because this was a homebirth, Loni and her husband have come under attack. So while dealing with their immense grief, they now have to justify the fact that it was NOT their fault that their baby died.

I chose to birth my last two babies with highly trained midwives out of a hospital. I CHOSE. My husband and I CHOSE. Why is it anyone else's business where I, or any other woman, has her baby? Just last week I had to defend my choice of homebirth to the guy who processed my son's social security card. He had a completely negative attitude towards me because of it. Why does it matter to him, a complete stranger, where my baby was born?

Where you choose to labor and birth your baby is an extremely personal choice. One that is the business of the pregnant woman and her partner/baby's father/husband. I had my first child in a hospital and I chose never to do that again. I am not a birth nazi, but I am passionate about birth. I don't care where anyone else births. Well, that isn't entirely true. Pregnant friends close to me know that I will subtly mention how amazing my midwives and my homebirth experience were but I try to stop there!

I know there are women who take control of their labors in a hospital. There are women who don't mind the constant monitoring and mandatory IV and the nurses who tend to ask if you would like an epidural 15 times. Some women feel safer in a hospital. I do not judge this. I know not every hospital is a pit of hell like the one I had my daughter in. There are fabulous doctors and nurses and even midwives that work in hospitals. Just as I'm sure there are midwives that do homebirth that are the exception to the rule as well.

I was fortunate in that I had a supportive husband and family when I chose to birth at home. It is true that not everyone was comfortable with my decision but no one said anything negative to me. A lot of people are unsure about homebirth because they are not educated on it. Most women who chose homebirth end up educating themselves as well as their families and friends on the safety and benefits of it.

Excuse my ramblings. I was up most of the night with a sick baby and all of this on my mind. Please show some love to Loni on her blog if you can. I can't begin to imagine her pain and you can't have too much positive support.

Just for kicks here are some studies on the safety of homebirth:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9271961
http://www.changesurfer.com/Hlth/homebirth.html

In case you are looking for a midwife in the Sacramento area:

http://www.newearthmidwife.com/

Mommies on a Mission: Weeks 8-10

<center> <a href="http://lifeasalake.blogspot.com/2012/07/mommies-on-mission-week-1.html"><img src="http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z7/Abbeylake07/weight-loss_after-baby1.jpg" /></a></center>   I totally slipped the last couple of weeks! I swear its not my fault. Well, not entirely. My husband keeps bringing me home bags of sour gummy worms and he knows they are my weakness! I have been lazy, busy and tired, which is a terible combination. I figured since I was losing the weight slowly without putting in a ton of effort, I was doing just fine. My pre-pregnancy clothes fit me but they would look so much better if I got my butt into gear! I am really going to try this week.   Pre-pregnancy weight: 121 Weight at delivery: 180 Week 7 weight: 124 This weeks weight: 125   Check on Mama Lake's Progress!