Family Pictures

Not much has been going on in our family lately...hence the blog absence. We've had some cute pictures though.






So precious...my 2 sweet boys.

E made my bed for me as a surprise one morning and left this note "I made your bed love e"




The BEST time to be in NYC...the UN General Assembly! Since we live just a few blocks from the UN we get to see it all. Lots of road closures, buses not running, cops/firefighter milling around(not sure what the firemen will do but it sure does look secure), foreign people everywhere, rallies, the President driving by OUR house. What excitement. Every year Cannon captures the drive by on tape. This year L was just as excited as he was....if you look really close you can see a black dot that may or may not be his car. But all the SS guys hang out of the windows of the 57 Lincoln SUV's (not the year 1957 I mean there are actually 57 SUV/cars) to make sure there's nobody suspicious lurking on a street corner. C'mon, this is NYC...there is always someone suspicious lurking on the corner. And all of them hanging out the sides pretty much ensures that the Prez is not in THAT car...so he must be in the ONLY one that doesn't have 5 people hanging out of it) Luckily this all only lasts a week and then we're back to normal. And we can feel safe again knowing that if there is some kind of emergency like say a fire or a mugging that the cops/firefighters will be able to respond. (literally everyone from the NYPD is hanging out in the 10 block radius of the UN. I felt like I was doing something wrong just going to the bank...they all stare and make sure you're legit...or it could be cuz I'm so h* o* t pssss. hot haha) ahem, moving on.



Since my last potty post L took a bit of a break from pottying only going every now and then and then since we were in DC for the summer it totally stopped. When we got back I decided that the only way it would work is if he was pant less all day. So he was and it worked. He had a few accidents, after just a couple weeks he was accident free and now runs to the little potty when he has to go. He is a bit freaked out by his poo and always runs to get us when he goes, urging us to put it in the big potty. Too cute!



So basically L is ALWAYS either all naked or half naked while we're at home, which is very cute, but you do have to get used to the not so pretty angles of a naked toddler : )

Marathon Week

I had a marathon week this week! In the past 8 days I have been to 4 births that have produced 5 babies! 1 hospital, 1 birth center and 2 at home...it was amazing! (and yes the 2 in 1 birth was Rachel's...contact her for more details!)

Women are so incredible! We have the power to create life and then bring it into the world....we are so lucky! I know that labor is hard and it hurts but it is amazing and I can't WAIT to do it again.

I worked with my incredible midwife Valeriana 2x this week...what a neat woman. I have learned so much from her. One of the homebirth's was a VBAC...it was so incredible to see a woman who had a vaginal birth after she was led to believe that her body couldn't give birth to a baby vaginally. So empowering!

I borrowed Orgasmic Birth so stay tuned for my review of it...I am so excited to see it! There will be a segment on it on 20/20 on Oct 24th. It is so nice that something other than negative views are coming out about birth. There was a segment on a show that I had never heard of called The Dr's about homebirth. And what do ya know? The only thing they tell a couple who is weighing their options is that homebirth is bad and scary and that birth is scary and look at all the things that could possibly go wrong why would you want to be at home? AAH!!! I was at the gym watching it and I wanted to start yelling at the screen! I know that everyone has their own opinions and experiences to bring to the table but I think that it is best to be open minded and really research your options for your birth. THROW away the what to expect books and really read good evidence based books. And get a second opinion...just because your Dr tells you one thing does not mean it is the gospel truth. And TRUST you body!

The girl that I helped today switched from the Birthing Center at Roosevelt b/c she did her glucose test and it came back high. She is a nutritionist and started doing her own readings at home and knew that she didn't have diabetes...her midwife just couldn't do anything about it though because of all of the protocols she has to follow, so she was risked out of the birthing center. So instead of succumbing to her fate of induction and scare tactics by an Ob who didn't even know her name, she searched out a homebirth midwife and found Valeriana and guess what? She had a beautiful homebirth.

I think that my favorite part about homebirth(other than the obvious freedom and the peacefullness and the respect of the laboring woman) is the family bonding after. When we leave (usually about 4 hrs after birth) the baby is nursing away and the family is tucked into bed. No separation. Its great.

Phew...I haven't been on my soap box for a while. I guess it was a much needed break for all my readers : )

So I feel like I want to share a few pictures from my own homebirth experience with Levi.

This is kind of in reverse order


About 10 minutes after the birth I got out of the tub to birth the placenta. We were all laughing at how surprised we were that it was a boy!



Elyse was a HUGE helper in the tub. She poured water on my back which felt great!


Me just laboring after my water had broken.



Cannon was supporting me so well while my midwife looked on.

This was such a great experience for us!

Miss Piggy

Breakfast went something like this this morning.

(I made bacon and eggs and Elyse loves bacon...really who doesn't? oh and by the way in case you were wondering it IS nitrate free)

E:MMmmm this bacon is so good. Thanks for making me bacon Can.

C: Don't thank me thank the pig.

E: Thanks for making me bacon Kass.

there you have it...I'm a pig.

1st day celebrations

My cute kiddie started 1st grade! SO I guess I am officially old...boo.

So we are in a new school this year. Its a long story that you can read here

I really didn't think that the school was that bad, but if its in the paper it must be true.

So the first day of school on a new city block was INSANE! Its on a smaller street so its about half the sidewalk space of 57th.... I'm sure all the old crotchety NY'ers will be calling 311 complaining about all the people and the noise. Anywhooo....since there is NO room in the new school we couldn't even take our kid to her new room and meet her new teachers, I have never been anxious about school before, but not seeing her get settled in made me feel unsettled.

So after school we were going to have a little water park celebration. For all of you non NY'ers that means going to play in the sprinkler at the park. Sad but true. Well really not so sad because the kids have so much fun. Well it turned out that the sprinkler was turned off! Bummer. So I was talking to my friend Natalia about colon cleansing and such...in case you don't click on the link Natalia is a die hard Raw foodist/nutritionist/colon cleanser etc. So right before I started talking to her I made a plan with my friend to meet at Buttercup which is SOOO much better than Magnolia and not even in the same sphere as the schookenblechy Crumbs. Anywhoo...in Natalia's world Buttercup would be a no no. Really there is no point to this story other than to say I was too embarrased to tell her that we were going there and had to whisper in E's ear that we would be getting a treat if she could be patient for a few minutes while we talked. Lame right? Why should I care what she thinks? Well I do because I know she's right...but I went on to have the most incredible banana pudding EVER! E ordered her own cupcake...she loves to order stuff and act like an adult : ) I was feeling so generous even L got a cupcake....with a teensy bit of frosting. We can induldge every once in a while especially on the first day of first grade. PS my friend Meredith makes the same cupcakes for many class events...this is our 3rd year with her daughter Ruby in the class!!

Trip around the World

First of all before I get to my worldwind (haha) adventures I want to clear up the previous post. I SWEAR that I didn't write it to get sympathy comments, it was just a sad/funny thing that happened that I wanted to document. So to all those who wrote the sweet comments...thank you they made my week!!! And I swear I wasn't fishing for compliments.

So now onto our trip around the world. Cannon surprised me with a road trip around the world! I was so excited as I have never been around the world before. So to start it off we loaded up the kids and my kid sister and headed out in our sweet ruby red rental.

We had some fun times...

and some sick times too.

I don't know if any of you realize just how many amazing destinations are just a few hours drive away. But I must have really been zonked because I don't really recall the ferry ride across the ocean, I seem to remember feeling a little carsick, but that could have been all the truck stop food we were eating. Who knew they had Popeye's in Europe!

So our first stop was Macedon. Hmm...I'm glad that Cannon has the internet on his phone because when we got there it was a pretty small and rundown town. But google confirmed our suspicions. Macedon was an ancient Greek city which would explain it's general lack of livliness.

Moving right along...next stop Amsterdam. I was really excited to see windmills, but I'm pretty sure they are a myth because all we saw were a bunch of cell phone towers. When we went into the center of town I was a little nervous for the kids to see the "ladies of the night" but was relieved because when we got there it was noon time.

Then we took a short drive to Rome which sort of confused me because I thought that Rome and Greece were closer together than Greece and Amsterdam...but then again I wasn't the navigator extroidinaire...love you Can! Rome was definitely nothing to write home about. The only Italian food we could find all along main street was a Pizza Hut...and let me tell you...it tastes EXACTLY the same there as it does here. Those Italians aren't so great.

Since we were in Rome we figured we'd head to Naples. Wine country...only one problem, we don't drink wine. Drats.

After our beautiful European tour (I don't see what all the fuss is about...everything is so Americanized and not at all expensive) we headed to the Middle East. It wasn't as far as I thought it would be. But when we got there I was a little confused as I looked around. Instead of seeing beautiful people with dark skin and exotic clothes all I saw were a bunch of white people carrying aroung big gulps....where the !@#$ were we?

"Can, where are we?"

"We're in Lebanon"

"Thats what I thought but I don't see a single Lebanese restaurant"

"Why on earth would there be a Lebanese restaurant in PA?"

Pennsylvania? What happened to my worldwind tour? Sigh...a girl can dream can't she? (PS all of these places are really towns in PA and NY)

After all the dissapointment we still had a blast on our trip to upstate NY and PA. We drove up to the Palmyra area and stayed in a cute lake town called Canandaigua where I saw the house of my DREAMS. (much like my trip around the world.)





They have a gorgeous lake and we stayed at a cute little B&B. Well OK it wasn't so much a B&B as it was a dumpy motel with a diner attached to it.

We spent the day in Palmyra seeing all of the church sites. It was so sweet to be in the sacred grove with my little family...and my preteen sister (raging hormones, mega attitude...you get the picture. LOVE you Lil!!) The highlight of the sacred grove was blackberry picking. It was SOOO gorgeous and serene. There was nobody but us and the berries. It made us wonder if Joseph and his siblings ever did the same thing.

Lil and I. Elyse was supposed to get Joseph AND Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ

This is what it looks like.


Nature at its finest. I love the woods and miss them soooo much.

We also stopped in Niagra Falls for the day. Unfortunately we didn't make it to the Canadian side which I remember being WAY better, but I wasn't sure of all of the passport rules but lets face it...why pay more for the same stuff.

Elyse loves finds wildlife wherever we go!



Since Cannon is a doting father he paid $5 !@#$ bucks to let Elyse "feed" the seals at the Niagra aquarium. I wish they would have told us that by feed they really meant toss sardines at blind and gimpy seals...no offense to any of you PETA members but its the truth.

I think if you ask the kids they will tell you that the highlight of their trip was right after Levi was car sick and we stopped at a reptile zoo. (PS when you stop at a grocery store in the middle of nowhere you just have to expect that they won't have any decent natural remedies. I found a homeopathic remedy that soothes upset tummies so I snatched it up without looking at the ingredients. It was too late when I read that it has my top two favorite ingredients methyl and propyl paraben! That stuff is in shampoo's! I will be calling the company to very politely ask why they are putting this junk in a homeopathic remedy, which is for children) (It wouldn't be a post of mine without some kind of rant now would it?)

So in order to get some fresh air we paid the exorbitant price of 10 buks a pop for a teeny tiny reptile zoo. But it turned out to be the MOST fun!

Thats what i thought it looked like too.

Poor little Levi didn't enjoy this too much.

The most fun were the Emu's (isn't this a reptile zoo??)Elyse and Lillian are a little nervous with all of the Emu's weird noises.

Strange looking things. That area to the left of its beak (the black with the white spot in the middle) isn't its eye...its the ear!

You could feed the Emu's for a quarter...what they didn't tell you was that they BITE!! I wish I knew how to post video...poor little Levi got his little sick hand nibbled. Anyway, everyone was shrieking and carrying on. SO.....

Elyse decided that the only thing to do was to shake her bootie at them...you show them Elyse!


We did lots of other stuff including eating "real homecooked" Amish food which was more like real outta the can and slapped on a plate food....but if I mentioned all that then this post would just be way too long ; )

Having 3 people in the past 6 weeks
ask you if you're pregnant: Sad

Crying when you realize why they
thought you were pregnant: Pathetic

Two nine year olds at the pool
telling you that you're "way skinny": Priceless

This really happened to me. The first time I thought it was a fluke...maybe it was the full and flowy summer dress I was wearing, the next time my cheeks were looking fuller...ok I can't explain that one and the third was just plain embarrassing.

But its amazing what a bit of positive reinforcement will do for a gal!

The convo at the pool went something like this with 2 girls named Alexa and Sophia.

A- So tell me about your wedding...who were you're flower girls?
k- I didn't have flower girls I got married in the temple...
A- wow, so you're jewish?
k- no I'm mormon like Sophia here
A-ohhhhhh
k-I had on a beautiful white dress...
A- cool, so do you still have it?
k- yes
a- so you can put it on for special occasions?
k- well, it doesn't fit me anymore
a- why not?
k- well...sometimes after you have 2 kids you get a little chubby and....
a and s emphatically-oh you're not chubby you're way skinny.

I almost cried.

Colorado

Cannon went to CO last week and had a blast with his friend Nick. He was only there for 3 days and was exhausted when he got back.

Mountain biking at Vail....it looks so gorgeous! He wasn't too happy about having to leave his sweet downhill bike at home and rent this crappy one, but he had tons of fun anyway.

Cannon hiked Longs Peak Mtn...it took 12 hours. Sounds insane especially when its at 14,000 feet and NYC is at zero. I am so proud of my guy even though I think that anyone who wants to hike for 12 hours is nutty. But he did it all the while feeling like he was breathing through a straw and only getting a little loopy from the altitude change.

At this point in the hike they were on all fours because it was so steep.

Breathtaking!