Before You Were Born

"Before you were conceived I wanted you. Before you were born I loved you. Before you were here an hour I would give my life for you This is the miracle of life."

~ Maureen Hawkins

 

I love this quote, it is one of my favorites because it is so true. 

 

Whether you are expecting your first or your fourth, you can create an incredible bond with your baby, simply by intent. 

Take a moment each day to connect with your baby. Talk to your baby about how you are feeling, and the excitement you are feeling. Picture your baby (preferably in a head down, facing your back position...this is the best position for baby to be born in)

Take the time to create that bond. Sitting in quiet meditation, ask your baby what s/he needs. Being in-tune with your baby is one of the best ways to make sure you providing them with what they need. This bond will carry over into the birth process. You will be so connected that you will instinctively know the best positions to be in to birth your baby easily. 

Daily mother/child meditations are so peaceful and wonderful. During my first pregnancy, I found it to be some of the most relaxing times to just sit and BE with my baby. 

With my second, it had the added bonus of being some of the best quiet time I had all day. But I loved that I was able to really connect to the beautiful child I was growing within me. 

This week, spend a moment to either connect with a child, or connect with yourself. The benefits of such self connection will undoubtedly increase your awareness of your purpose for being here. 

Next Week: Is it Selfish or Self Interested?

Sunday!

Well Charisse is off in Hawaii, so I (Melissa) am writing her post.  Sorry you have to keep hearing from me.  In church today we were talking about having faith and having enough faith to say "but if not..."

I have a really hard time with this.  Right now trying to figure out my plan for life and my future not going according my plan.  So my goal for the next little while is to have enough courage and faith to say "but if not.."  Going to the Lord in prayer and saying here is my plan, but if not...then I'll be okay with it going your way.  Because how often do we get frustrated that life didn't go according to our plans, then it turns out way better when we let it go according to the Lord's plans.

Just a thought.  Happy Sunday!

Field Trip Friday:

First off, sorry about last week. I just spaced it...I'm blaming it on pregnancy.

OK, now let's talk field trips. As summer is coming to an end you can still find a few of the local theaters who offer a $1 kids movie once a week. This is a great field trip if your kids like to go to the movie and especially if it's a movie they love! It's also nice and cool inside the theater...great way to beat the heat. I haven't been but I also hear that some theaters offer a popcorn deal too.

My recommendation is to call or look online at the local theaters and see what you can find out.

Enjoy!

Good Deal Websites

For today's post I thought I would talk about a few websites where you go find great deals on a variety of different things from vacation deals to ice cream deals!

The first one is Living Social
This site has a deal including items such as gym passes, jewelry classes, window cleaning, children's products. You name it they usually have a deal for it. I have purchased deals for a night's stay, a year pass to the Aquarium, a day pass to the children's museum and of course treats like frozen yogurt and snow cones.

You need to be careful with deal sites not to over spend so my philosophy is if it i something I would purchase anyway and pay full price I should buy the voucher and save 1/2 the money! Ok and sometimes I do splurge.

Second one is more local it is called  Go Deal Go
This is a more localized deal site. Right now they just have deals in Davis County but are working on Salt Lake and Weber Counties. These deals are usually just one deal a day. They have things like places to eat or oil changes.

You can register on both sites to receive daily email updates with the newest deals. Once again just remember don't buy something just because it is a deal! If you need it or would purchase it anyway at 1/2 price then yes you are saving money!

More deals site info to come.

New Website and a Quickie Workout

First, to the workout -- my favorite part of the day.  A workout that I LOVE that you can do anywhere is AMRAP.  As many reps as possible.  I love this because you choose the amount of time and the number of reps.  I usually do this with three different exercises.  It can be done whether you have weights or not (aka good for vacations!).  So here are a few ideas I have come up with:

AMRAP for 12 minutes

10 burpees

20 overhead press (need weights)

30 lunges

without weights you could do:

AMRAP for 10 minutes (however long you want)

10 burpees (because these are so good for you!)

20 pushups

30 jump squats

Give it a try with whatever movements you are feeling that day.  Try mixing it up with different movements for different muscle groups.

Now, to this cool website that Angela showed me.  Its called Run Keeper (link to it here).  You can put in the races that you are signed up for. You can also see what races your friends are signed up for, so you can run races together!  So much more fun that way!  Anyway, give it a gander, it's pretty cool.

Thought for today:  Do you like running races by yourself or with friends/family?

I like running with my family!

Homemade Freezer Jam

I have been making lots of jam lately as my raspberries and peaches are coming on like crazy. So last week I decided to try something a little different and I made raspberry peach freezer jam. Wow it is delicious. Here is the recipe.

3 1/3 cups of prepared fruit (crushed)- I used about 1 1/2 cups raspberries and the rest peaches
1 1/3 c sugar
4 TBSP of Ball Instant Pectin

Prepare fruit (wash, peel, cut) depending on the fruit you are using. Set aside. In a separate bowl combine the pectin and the sugar, stir well. Then mix the fruit in with the sugar and stir vigorously for 3 minutes. Put in containers and let stand for thirty minutes. You can store in fridge if you will be using right away or place in the freezer for longer term storage.

So easy and so tasty!

Ten Minute Cinderella Cure

So, one of my friends has this incredible blog, Cinderella Duty She is so cute. One day she posted a challange, the Ten Minute Challenge. The Goal was to see how much you could clean up in 10 minutes.

Well, I have little kids running around, and it seemed that after I spent an hour cleaning, in ten minutes they could destroy it all again. (kids are amazing and quick like that) So I figured, if they could destroy it in ten minutes, why couldn't I clean it in ten minutes.
So, on the days that I am not deep cleaning a specific room, I will give it a ten minute cure. Cinderella worked all day, but I refuse too.

Here is my Living room before pictures. (I did not make it messy, this is how it was, I promise)

I set the timer for 10 minutes....

To make my point, I STOPPED at ten minutes and took the picture. It took just another 2 minutes to finalize everything. I did this with each of the main rooms in the house (kitchen, living room, bathroom) in all it took me 33 minutes (because I added in the hall) and my house looked great!
Now, this is not a deep clean, so I still have one room I deep clean on each day of the week. This really helps so that I don't spend all day cleaning, or spend all day thinking I should be cleaning.

We are moms, our time with out little ones is so precious. We have the pleasure of spending our days building forts, fighting dragons, and coloring outside the lines. BUT, we can also have a clean house in the process.

Hope you are having a great start to your week. I am off to help an amazing couple birth their third baby. I love what I do when I am not at home being a mom.

NEXT WEEK: Bonding With Baby, Before s/he is Born.