Eilee Leighton is FOUR MONTHS OLD

Eilee will be FOUR MONTHS OLD on Sunday and I’ve spent the past few days crying about it. I can’t wrap my head around the fact that my littlest baby isn’t a newborn anymore. Hell, I’m struggling to come to terms with the fact that she’s actually here. It was a year ago this week that I found out that I was pregnant with her but it seriously feels like it was yesterday. Eilee Lou is 13 1/2 lbs and 25 1/2 inches long. She can roll in every direction or position that you can imagine and travels freakishly fast if you lay her down. She does a hilarious back crawl where she lays on her back and uses her feet to push her around. She’s currently cutting two teeth and one of them has almost broken through which explains the past month of excessive drooling and hand chewing. Speaking of hands, E is a major finger sucker. It’s the cutest thing in the world. She sleeps 7 hours straight at night and is seriously the calmest baby aside from her big sister, Andlee. She likes to chill in her swing or on the floor under her play gym. Her favorite thing to do is to watch the TV and the fire burning. She enjoys being worn as much as I enjoy wearing her. It’s how 85% of our time awake is spent. She still laughs and smiles constantly. She loves her siblings but she thinks Charlee is the funniest. She does not like cats. She may or may not end up being a cat kicker like her father. She screams any time that a cat gets near her. At this point she’s had a lot of ‘firsts’. She’s rolled, sucked her hands, put things into her mouth, starting cutting teeth, went to the movies, went to her first fair, went to Colorado, went to the pumpkin patch, went shopping, went out to eat, went to church, went swimming (with me holding her of course), went fishing, and this week she saw her first newly killed deer because I shot a 12 point buck with my cross bow. We’ve had lots of firsts and many that weren’t named. She has also found that popping off of my boob makes a funny noise and she thinks that it’s beyond hilarious. It takes me twice as long to nurse her because she ‘plays’ and giggles. I love nursing more and more every day. It becomes so much more interactive as she gets older. I deeply regret that I wasn’t able to nurse my other children as long as I wanted to. It’s by far one of my favorite experiences as a mom. I can understand why moms do extended breastfeeding ha. It’ll be depressing to wean Eilee. We have a beautiful and thriving rainbow baby on our hands. She makes us so proud. Happy 4 months old birthday, sweet girl. We love you. 

Product Review: Jaclyn Hill x Morphe Palette

After 3 tries I finally scored the Jaclyn Hill x Morphe palette. It had sold out so fast in the past that I kept missing it but I’m pumped to have it now. I’ve followed Jaclyn on YouTube since she first started and had very little followers. I have always loved her and her honesty. Fast forward 7 years and she’s filthy rich from YouTube. It’s inspiring how she went from a lower class, insecure girl playing with make up in shitty lighting to a wealthy, confident girl who made a living in the beauty industry doing what she loves. I follow a ton of blogs and YouTube channels. I love reading/watching them and will be posting about all of my favorites tomorrow so stay tuned. I mean, can you really be a heart felt blogger if you don’t enjoy other people’s blogs? Isn’t that the point of blogging? To share your life with others and be apart of theirs as well. It is hypocritical to me to be a blogger but not engage in other blogs. It’s like saying ‘I want everyone to read about my life but I don’t give a shit about what’s going on in theirs.’. Insert an overly exaggerated eye roll right meow....

Anyways back to Jaclyn’s palette, there was a lot of hype going into this product. It took her 3 years to perfect it despite the pressure to ‘just market it and make the money’. She refused to do that because she didn’t want her name on anything that wasn’t absolutely flawless in her professional opinion. Jac attack did not disappoint. The palette is amaze balls! The packaging was so nice. It came in a big box with bubble wrap around the product as well as inside the outer case of the palette. The palette itself is a beautiful white case with metallic silver accents. The pigment is stunning and the texture is SO creamy. I died a little each swatch to be completely honest. It’s priced around $40 and can be bought online at Morphe or Ulta. 

Here are the swatches done myself. Each swatch is ONE pass with the product. Yes girl, the pigment is THAT GOOD. 

Go. Get. You. One. Nowwwwww. And if you are into makeup but haven’t watched Jaclyn’s YouTube channel, do it. Grab some wine and make up after you put your kids to be (if you have kids) and have fun playing. 

Q & A: Cloth Diapering & Nursing in Public

I get a million questions about cloth diapering and breastfeeding in public so I’m going to kill 2 posts with one click. I’m going to answer the questions that always come up on these topics. 

Cloth diapers:

Q- How do I start? It feels overwhelming! 

A- It can absolutely be overwhelming. I remember feeling totally lost when I started researching cloth. There are a lot of different styles and a ton of different brands. Start by buying a few different styles/brands. Get some prefolds, pockets, AIO (all in ones), ect. Try them out to see what you like best. My personal preference is pockets with charcoal bamboo inserts. 

Q- What’s your favorite brand? 

A- I like several brands but my stash mostly consists of BumGenius, Nora’s Nursery, and Alva. I have a hard time spending $30+ for one diaper. I simply don’t do it because some of the cheaper brands work great. 

Q- Is there a big difference in pocket inserts?

A- YES! Yes. Yes. Yes. We had leak issues with microfiber inserts constantly. It was better with bamboo and hemp inserts but what takes the cake for us is charcoal bamboo inserts. I have heavy wetters so we need thick inserts. 

Q- How do you wash them? 

A- I wash them with Tide on a regular heat cycle twice then do 1 rinse cycle with cold. You have to be sure that you don’t use any fabric softener and that your water is not acidic. You can buy testers and water softeners at Walmart or Lowe’s. 

Q- What do you do with poopy diapers? 

A- I spray them off in the sink or wipe them out into the toilet as soon as I put a new diaper on.  With breast milk poo it’s runny and needs sprayed down with fairly strong water pressure. With solid poo it typically can be pealed off with toilet paper or a wipe right into the toilet. Just be sure not to flush the wipe of course. 

Q-What do you do about stains?

A- I wash the stained diapers in a regular cycle, I squirt spray and wash all over them, then I lay them outside in full sun for 30-60 mins. Sun bleaching is the shit. It’s all you’ll ever need to pull out 99% of stains. I check on the diaps after 30 mins. The ones that still look bad I respray and let set longer. 

Q- What do you do with them after your kid is potty trained? 

A- That depends on the person. If you plan to have more babies, keep the diapers. If you’re done having kids, sell them. Cloth diapers hold their value well. You can sell of your stash and make a nice profit or if you aren’t interested with recovering some of your money you can donate them to a mama in need. 

Q- Do you replace your inserts after a certain amount of time? 

A- I replaced mine between Brayden and Bentlee and Eilee. Meaning after the boys were done I donated all of those inserts and bought new ones. I will do the same with Eilee after 6 months to a year then again before our next baby is born. This isn’t necessary. I just do it because I like fresh inserts every so often. 

Q- Does cloth diapering save you money?

A- Yes. Cloth definitely can save a ton of money especially if you’re planning to have multiple children. For me, I have an addiction to them so I buy way more than I need but if you stick to only as many as you need you’re going to save a shit load of money. No pun intended hahaha. 

Q- What do you do when you’re out of the house?

A- I personally do disposables when I’m going to be gone all day because that’s easiest for me but what most do is exactly the same as you do at home. You just put the diapers in a travel sized wet bag. A wet bag is a laundry bag created for wet and dirty diapers. 

Q- How often do you wash your diapers?

A- I wash mine every other day. I pull the inserts out as soon as I take the wet diaper off and rinse it then I put it into a wet bag that gets washed with the diapers every other day. 

Q- Isn’t is gross to you?

A- Shit is shit. You handle shit with disposables exactly like you handle shit with cloth. 

I hope this helped any of you curious about cloth diapering. It sounds confusing when you first start but I promise it gets better. I’m happy to help you in any way that I can. If you’re local I’m even happy to let you borrow some of my stash to try it out before you buy any. 

Breastfeeding in Public:

Q- How did you get over the fear of nursing in public?

A- I hate answering this question because it’s not some great, helpful advice. I simply had this ‘ah ha’ moment when I stopped caring about what others would say or think of me NIP. With my bigs I always went somewhere private to feed or I pumped and bottle fed because I was scared of what society would think. With #4 I literally lost all of that fear in one single moment. I think being a mom for so long just taught me to do me. It gave me a back bone that I didn’t have in certain areas. 

Q- Do you use a cover? 

A- Yes and No. I’m as pro nursing in public as it gets but I’m not anti cover. I don’t think you’re more of a women if you nurse without covering or with your whole tit hanging out just like I don’t think you’re less of a mom if you always nurse in a bathroom stall. Eilee hates to have her face covered up. She kicks and screams. She fights it and me so I personally don’t use a cover often. I do however, use the 2 shirt method and nurse modestly uncovered. 

Q- What’s the 2 shirt method?

A- It’s wearing a tank top under your shirt so that you can modestly lift your outer shirt up and inner shirt down to feed your baby. The inner shirt covers your entire mid section. The outer shirt covers the top of your boobs. All that is exposed is your nipple which is covered by the baby’s head. 

Q- What’s your favorite nursing position?

A- At home is side lying for sure. I am lying on my side and the baby on hers. It’s by far the most comfortable nursing position. It’s also how I dream feed her if she gets hungry at night. In public it’s called the cradle carry. With the arm that’s on the side that I’m nursing on I cradle her so her head is right at my boob and her body cradled with my arm.  

Q- Has any one ever confronted you about nursing in public? If so and it was negative how do you respond?

A- Yes. I get confronted regularly by people to praise me for doing it. It surprised me the first few times. Breastfeeding openly has a rep for being taboo but honestly I get a lot of positive remarks. However, I have gotten a few bad looks and once I did get asked if I could ‘go somewhere else to do that’. It happened a few weeks ago at the Tulsa State Fair. My response was this exactly, “I won’t respond to you the way that I’d like to because that could land me in jail so I’ll simply say this, it is my LEGAL RIGHT to breast feed my baby with or WITHOUT a cover anywhere that I’m authorized to be. If you have a problem you can look away!”. She said that I was being disrespectful and I told her that if she didn’t leave me alone I’d find security. She left. It happened in front of my kids and Brian’s family which upset me more than the actual incident but as much as I breastfeed in public I was prepared for it to happen eventually. 

Q- How do you handle certain family members that are uncomfortable with you nursing in front of them or certain situations when there are a lot of kids around?

A- I am very mindful of those things. I breastfeed in a spare room at my in laws house because I think that it makes my father in law uncomfortable if I don’t. He’s never said that. He’s as sweet as sweet gets. I just know him well enough to know that he’s very modest. If kids are everywhere I honestly don’t do anything different. I nurse so modestly that children would never for a second know what I was doing. 

Q- Do you get crap for posting photos of you breastfeeding on social media?

A- I used to but only from my dad ha. He is super mouthy as it is but he picks on me about it. Says stuff like, “I’m your dad. I don’t want to see that shit.”. He knows by now that I’m going to post it anyways so he doesn’t pick on me anymore about it. He finds other ways to pester me. 

Q- What’s your advice to anyone who wants to be bolder with their journeys but are scared?

A- Be proud of yourself and your journey! Like, seriously breastfeeding is something that should make you so happy that you want to share it with others. I’m not kidding when I say that I get told a lot that my pictures made someone else feel brave enough to share theirs and that it one of the biggest compliments ever to me. I want to see all forms of parenting normalized. No one questions a mother posting a picture bottle feeding. No one should question a picture of a mother breastfeeding. If more women were open about it we’d see breastfeeding normalized in our lifetime. Don’t be scared of the negative. Be prepared for it but not scared of it. 

The Imperfect Mom

As a first time mom we all say at some point ‘I’ll never.....’ We think we know exactly how to parent and have things all thought out. However, as a veteran mom I’ve found myself time and time again eating my own words. I have no shame in admitting my failures. I’m constantly fucking something up as a mom and a wife. Constantlyyyyyy. Moms who have it all together, kudos to you. And when I say kudos to you I mean kudos to you for being a liar. Most of us know that you’re full of shit because there’s no way to have life that together. There’s no way to know how to parent before you’re actually a parent. There’s no way that you’re doing it all right. No. Way. You’ve fucked it all up too at some point, you just don’t admit it. 

The truth is that momming is trial and error. You learn as you go. You make mistakes. You have triumphs. You have Betty Crocker/Stepford house wife moments and you have ‘I’m going to go hide in a corner and cry’ moments. You parent the way that you feel is best and sometimes you realize that what you thought was best, wasn’t. I’m ALL for supporting other mothers in their journey through motherhood but I definitely throw some shady thoughts to moms who are ignorant and obviously full of shit. I can support you being pro circ when I’m not. I can support you being pro vax when I’m not. I can support you giving your kids Mt. Dew when I don’t. I can support you putting your newborn in his or hers nursery all alone when I don’t. I can support you formula feeding and not even trying to breast feed when I don’t agree with it. I could go on and on about what I can support even though I disagree with it but I don’t support fake. I don’t support the moms who act like they have life all together. I see it a lot especially on mom groups. I don’t support them not because I give a shit about their fake life but because some moms do. Some moms look at them and feel like a failure. Some moms strive to be like them but what they’re striving for isn’t realistic because it’s a huge pot of bull shit. Mom wars and self righteous mothers are every where. I find it comical at times to be honest. I eat my popcorn and watch the sanctimonious moms spout their fairytales but that’s because I know better than to get wrapped up in their games. 

Fact: NONE OF US are doing it right to everyone. 

Fact: There’s literally no way to be a perfect mom and wife. 

Fact: Your house is going to be unavoidably messy most of the time. Yes, even those moms with cleaning schedules down to the minute. 

Fact: You’re not going to always have dinner on the table when your husband gets home. 

Fact: Your going to eat your ‘I’ll never do that’ words. 

Fact: You are going to make friends with other moms and grow to realize that authenticity is sadly rare. Women can’t seem to kick their competitive mom nature and it’s a downer because finding more transparent mom friends shouldn’t be that hard. 

Fact: You’ll have people who aren’t even parents telling you how you should parent. 

Fact: You are going to forget to do things and go to bed in tears because life seems so overwhelming even with your schedules and lists. 

Fact: Having 3, 4, 5, 6 plus kids doesn’t automatically make you some kind of super mom. Take it from me, there’s no such thing as a super mom. You do your job. You don’t deserve a trophy. You’re raising your kids like everyone else and it was your choice to have a big family. You might be busier than other moms. That’s inevitable when you birthed a football team but that doesn’t make you special. If anything, I mess up more with each kid because life gets even crazier. I have people stop me when I’m out in public alone with my kids just to make comments like, ‘What a women!’. I’ve said it before on here but that makes me cringe. I’m not any more women than a kid less women. 

Fact: If you find yourself feeling less than adequate as a mother because of another mother you’re doing something wrong alright but it’s not what you think it is. You’re wrong doing is comparing yourself to someone else. 

Don’t fall for the show, y’all. Don’t second guess your mothering skills because of another mom. Don’t get butt hurt if someone disagrees with your choices or the way that you do things. Who fucking cares?! You do you, boo and I’ll do me. We shouldn’t be afraid to ask for advice or to disagree with other moms. I can’t tell you how many times that other moms helped me. Especially my own mom. We shouldn’t be afraid to try and educate other mothers on something that we feel is best because someone is going to disagree and go cry about it. I’ve seriously had women delete and block me of social media for KINDLY and very passively sharing car seat safety with them. Gun shy, much? We live in a world of people dying to be offended and seeking out to take something the wrong way. 

Take life with a grain of salt. Keep a strong back bone and an open mind. My life motto. I can promise you right now that if you disagree with my mothering choices, I’m not offended. I’ll be just fine. 

Safe Sleeping for Infants

I just saw that the FDA deemed sleep nests in safe and it brought up the oh so familiar topic of Safe Sleeping with Infants. Is that even a thing? Seriously, everything is contradicting and rules are always changing. Babies should sleep on their backs so they don’t push their face into the mattress. No, on their bellies so they don’t spit up and choke on it. No, their sides so they won’t choke or suffocate on the mattress. No, on their sides they could roll onto their backs or bellies which is both risky. Sitting elevated is best. No, it’s not because some babies have had restricted air way issues sitting up and stopped breathing. Sleep nests/positioners are safe when not being used in a crib. No, they aren’t safe at all because they are no different than a pillow or crib bumper. Wait, certain brands are supposedly ‘breathable’ but off brands are not although they are marketed to be like the safety tested brands which is deceiving. Pillows, blankets, bumpers, co sleeping, are all big ‘no no’s. Basically there’s no totally safe sleeping arrangement when it comes to babies. Even with breathing monitors like Owlet don’t give us a complete peace of mind because you’re trusting an electronic to potentially save your kids life. What if it fails? What if it doesn’t work? You can’t ever relax as a parent with the endless fears and what ifs. It’s hard to be a mom. It’s hard to know what’s best sometimes. We all do what works for us and what we feel is the safest. I co sleep with Eilee and has since she was a week old. I kicked my husband out of our California king sized bed and got rid of my pillows. I sleep on a tight sheet without a blanket. This works for me because I’m hot natured and the baby just wears footed pajamas. She hates being covered up or swaddled so that’s nice (unless you’re trying to breastfeed in public then it’s a nip slip show ha). I feel like the never ending struggle as a mom is to know that you can do everything the ‘right way’ to someone but it could still fail you. Accidents could still happen. You could learn the hard way that your choice was wrong. I’ve had to learn things that way. I’ve had to learn to forgive myself for messing up after months of beating myself up. We are the hardest on ourselves but there’s no manual to fool proof parenting. Give yourself some grace and move on. Do research and make the choice that feels safest to you even if it’s not what’s easiest. 

Fall is Here & I’m Decorating for Christmas

Fall is officially here! Not that I haven’t had my house decorated for fall since late July but it’s really, actually here. Yesterday the high was upper 50s and you best believe we had a fire going in our fireplace. It’s still going. Fall is my favorite season. The beautiful foliage and mild weather make my heart happy but so do the activities that fall brings. Football, pumpkin patch fun, the homey scents, late evenings with friends on the creek bank, deer season, etc. We are a very outdoorsy family. I enjoy hunting and fishing just as much as my husband. We love spending our nights cooking fish on the creek bank over the fire while we share laughs with friends and watch our kids have a blast playing. Brian spends his evenings at the creek several times a week all year round but I’m not a fan of bugs so I only go down there when it’s cold outside. It’s super nice to have a big group of friends with kids our kids ages. The kids outnumber the adults and that cracks us all up but it’s awesome because it’s the best of both worlds. We can have fun with the adults while our kids have fun with each other. I can’t imagine what city people or people who don’t enjoy being outside do for fun. Like, life must be boring for them. 

But as quick as fall came it’s about to leave decor wise in the Lane house. We got asked to do the towns holiday home tour which is December 1st and as much as I have to do I’m already starting on it. Yesterday I purchased the rest of the decorations that I’ll need for the inside so I’m starting on that today. Yes, in October! I don’t even care what judgement or shade I’ll receive. I can still enjoy fall festivities while my home looks like the North Pole. My Christmas decor is always up in early November anyways. Anyone who knows me knows that I’m an over planner by nature. I’m talking months to years of planning in advance with Christmas shopping being an exception. I do plan what gifts I’ll be buying early but I don’t actually shop for it all early. We not only buy for our kids but also for our 4 parents, 6 sister and brother in laws, 6 nieces and nephews, 3 grand parents, and for our cousins, aunts, and uncles we give them a framed family picture each year. Not to mention the angel tree kids that we adopt each holiday and our precious foster boys. Oh and dirty Santa gifts for the Hudson side and the Noblin side. It’s chaotic so you’d think that I’d over achieve and buy everything early but I don’t. To me buying a few gifts at a time over a period of weeks to months gets way too confusing even being the list making planner that I am. Especially when you’re buying for soooo many people. I buy everything at once pretty much. The only things I buy in advance are personalized gifts that have a lengthy turn around. I do put money back each paycheck all year long just for birthdays and Christmas but when it comes time to actually buy Christmas gifts I literally sit down after bed time one night and spend hours ordering it all online. Usually this is on Black Friday because a lot of stuff is on sale and sites run free shipping deals which is great when you’re buying so much stuff. It’s over fast and I move on with life but even if I did spend a ton of time Christmas shopping who cares? Who cares if you buy gifts months in advance or the day before Christmas? I enjoy shopping for other people. I enjoy it deeply and I don’t believe for a second that buying gifts takes away from the holiday or from time with your family. One of my kids favorite traditions is shopping for our foster boys gifts and angel tree gifts. They love getting things for other kids just like I love getting things for people. You need to re-evaluate life if gifting makes you feel like it takes away from anyone or takes away from the holiday. Giving to others and celebrating Christ’s birth with the ones you love is what Christmas is about! Whether it’s making home made things together and gifting them or gifting your kids an extravagant trip to Disney World. It’s the season for a giving heart and that makes me so happy. I wish that I had the time to cherish each and every moment of purchasing the gifts that we buy but instead I cherish the process of deciding what I get each person. I sit down and write everyone’s names then beside their names I write what I am getting them. I put a lot of love into picking each gift and the kids as well as Brian help me decide so it’s a wonderful family effort. I love it. Now wrapping gifts on the other hand I loath. Ain’t nobody got time for that so this year mama might be bagging it all. That’d be gangster wrapping at it’s finest (I just bought a shirt that says that, Gangster Wrapper, hahaha). 

How or when you prep for Christmas doesn’t matter. What matters is that you don’t let the stress of the holiday take away it’s purpose and joy. Enjoy buying and picking the gifts. Enjoy baking and chatting with your family and friends. Enjoy the traditions. Enjoy the weather. Enjoy the decorations. Enjoy the music and the scents. Enjoy it all and remember how blessed you are.

Why My House is Never Clean

I'm mildly OCD and feel a lot of pressure to keep things done a certain way. I like life to be neat and organized. I can't relax in a mess atmosphere and I'm uneasy if things are left undone. However, in the last 6 years motherhood has taught me that having a clutter free, perfectly organized life AND being a good overly involved mom is impossible. You can either spend your time cleaning and obsessing over things being perfect or you can spend time with your kids and clean when they aren't present. If my kids are home and awake, you can count on my house being messy. We built our home with a upstairs playroom thinking that our downstairs would stay spotless because I mean, how could it get dirty if all of the toys are upstairs. HA boy was I wrong. Blankets, clothes, shoes, homework, lunch boxes, toilet paper, and basically anything else that isn't a toy ends up in my living room. I could sweep my floor 3-5 times a day and I still wouldn't be clean enough. I will never in my life have carpet in a main living area again after seeing how much I sweep up daily. Not just that but having seen what's left under carpet that's been pulled up to be replaced in our old house. We have a $5000 rainbow vacuum and cleaned our carpet regularly. It was still disgusting underneath it. We did carpet in our rooms because they are low traffic areas and carpet was cheaper but honestly carpet is gross and we will be replacing ours with wood flooring when the time comes. My laundry room currently has a counter top covered with folded clothes because I'm lazy and haven't put them away. We have 3 laundry baskets in our home for dirty clothes (the girls bath room, the master bathroom, and the laundry room) and currently only one of them is empty. My dishes aren't done and I have a pot with beans in it from 2 nights ago that I'm considering throwing away rather than washing because I puke easily these days. The county assessor's office stopped by yesterday unannounced and as they were pulling in I had busted an entire bottle of hot pink nail polish on the granite in our kitchen so that was embarrassing. I'm a firm believer that if you have a home that's always perfectly clean and you have kids, you're sacrificing time with your kids. There's simply no way to keep a house spotless when kids are running around. You can't walk behind them cleaning it up and if you do, you aren't spending time with your kids. I've had to put my OCD issues and 'want things to be perfect' attitude aside. If you're current situation is a messy house but happy kids YOU ARE DOING IT RIGHT!!! Don't stress about being perfect. Enjoy the chaos because one day your house will be empty and clean but you'll be depressed and lonely. You'll miss this. Or atleast I know that I will. 

Faith in Humanity

This week the most deadly shooting in modern day US history happened. A monster of a human being opened 10 minutes of fire onto an innocent crowd of people in Las Vegas. We all instantly think things like, 'I can't imagine the fear that they felt! I can't imagine what they saw and thought! I can't imagine the pain of their losses! How could someone do this? Why did he do it? It's a terrifying world that we live in!'. I have thought each of those too but honestly more than anything else I have thought, 'I can't believe how many heroes there were that night! How many normal people stopped to help complete strangers rather than to ran for their lives. How many people sheltered women and children that they didn't even know. How many carried or helped others out during the rain of bullets. How many paramedics and law enforcement officers ran TOWARDS the kill zone as everyone else was running away. Professionals that weren't even working that day but left their families and their cozy safe homes without pause to help. Those LEO ran into gun fire for people that they didn't know. Some of those people who pledge to hate them. People who look down on them or call them racists. People who could care less about the lives of those who swore an oath to protect them. That night, in those moments, in that crowd there were no politics or skin colors. Humanity leaped to help in all forms for all people. Times like these are devastating no doubt but times like these bring out the best in us. From the people who saved lives that night to the people donating blood, money, and supplies to the people bringing drinks and food to those in the blood donation line. The people who sat with deceased bodies until family could get there just so that body wasn't alone. People who drove injured people to the hospital. Medical staff that haven't slept in days so that they can continue to save lives. The police that came to the rescue on October 2nd and the detectives who will for months to come will try and figure out why this happened knowing that they may never get that answer. And people who simply keep everyone involved in their prayers. Humanity has evil people in it but humanity has more shining stars. We can't let the act of one man take away the act of thousands of heroes. 

 

Charlee's 1st Time Showing a Cow

This weekend our 6 year old, Charlee showed her first cow at a livestock show. Showing cattle is something that Brian was raised doing. He went to college on a scholarship for judging and he has shown bulls in open shows even after we were married. We've traveled as close as Tulsa and as far as Minnesota to show. It is something that he's looked the most forward to our children doing. It's his cheerleading to me. We both understand that we are very different in those aspects but we both greatly support each other in those journeys despite it being extremely expensive and time consuming to be doing it all at once. When you have children (especially 3 plus) you commit to being busy the rest of your life. Your kids are all going to be doing different activities at different times. Some will love to play football or to cheer. Some will love 4H and ag. Some will be in band or choir or math club. There's literally hundreds of paths that your kids can take and if our kids are anything like Brian and I they will be apart of all of it which makes parenthood even crazier ha. I cheered, ran track, played basketball and softball, played the flute in band, was in drama club, ect. Brian played football and was the pitcher for the baseball team. He was in ag and 4H. He judged horses and cattle. He showed pigs and goats when he was little but settled into only showing cattle as he grew. Our children have been raised in a barn and have had cows as pets all of their lives. We made a promise to each other that we'd wait until they were 6 to let the show though simply because when you show cattle you're in the show ring with other cows. Cows are obviously big and some cows kick or jump. They aren't all dog gentle like ours are. Our kids can lead ours around by their halter/lead rope at home. They can love all over them and the only thing we have to worry about is the cow stepping on a foot by accident which has happened. All in all we know that our cattle are safe but others may not be so having your young children in the ring with others can be stressful. Brian walked with Charlee because of this. It went perfectly and the crowd was going nuts over 'that cute little girl dragging her cow around'. She was so freaking adorable out there. She won 2nd in her class. All of her grandparents were there and all of her aunts and uncles. She had so much support there to watch her. Our kids always have that with our family and I love it so much. This weekend made me so proud and ready to dive all in with livestock showing. Something that I wasn't raised around. Horses, yes. Cows being pets, no! We have decided to take our show cattle to KC and Denver to show this fall and winter after seeing how well it all went. Next year Andlee will be showing too and the following year all 3 bigs will be showing. We are just starting our adventure and it'll only grow bigger from here. At 9 years old they can do 4H and show in all Junior Shows, if they want to. I'm surprisingly excited to be living the show life. I've said this before but I couldn't wait to be a 'soccer mom' who drove a big SUV, always had coffee in her hands, and had a bunch of kids doing a bunch of different things. That's how I pictured my life all growing up. A fashionable mom running all over the planet with her babies. Matching t-shirts and hats. Stickers on the back of our vehicles. Personalized stuff with our cattle logo on it. That's what I looked forward to and I'm beyond pumped that that's my life now. It's tiring without any doubt but it's absolutely my dream come true.