It rained today 49/365

Mama's Little Princess 48/365

Christmas of 2002 I worked our local mall. I was 23 years old, Unmarried, had not yet met my husband, and was not thinking about having babies any time soon (though I knew I probably wanted them someday).

I was very much in love with the Disney Store and visited it weekly, if not daily. I've loved Disneyland ever since I can remember and the Disney store was just an extension of that to me. I loved popping in there and seeing the magical things they had to offer.

I also loved, and still do, all things Beauty and the Beast. In those days it was much easier to find merchandise with JUST Beauty and the Beast on it. I'm not a fan of the stuff with ALL the Disney Princesses on it that they have now.

Anyway, that was the year I bought my Belle sweater and wrapped it up for Christmas because no one would buy it for me. I also was very much in love with this baby Belle Dress. I visited it every few days and despaired as the number on the shelf dwindled. I really wanted it but at 40 dollars I just couldn't see why I needed it. Then one day it went on sale. There were three left and it was 50% off!

I bought it.

I carefully packed it away in my hope chest. I took it out a couple times to pine over. Once when I got married, right before we moved to China, and again right after we got pregnant. My mom still teases me about how nervous I was that I might not have a little girl I could dress up in it and then how I was nervous that my little girl wouldn't want to play dress up and wear it.

Well, there was no need for me to be so worried on either count. The other night I opened up my hope chest and showed the dress to my little girl. She was so excited about it that she insisted I take it out of the box right away. She LOVES dressing up and she loves being Mama's Pretty Baby Girl.

She also loves being Daddy's Pretty Princess. William is such an amazing Daddy. It makes my heart melt when I see him adjust Baby Girl's tiara and play dress up with her.

It also makes Baby pretty happy. Look how happy they are together!

After spending a great deal of time in front of the mirror, Baby Girl marched in circles around the house dragging the box the dress came in behind her. She was quite pleased with herself.

I'm so very happy that my Baby Girl likes playing dress up and I'm very much looking forward to years of dressing up together.

Now to plan for Halloween.

Names Needed! 47/365

twins! at 9 pounds each

When I was 13 my mom let me raise a Guide Dog for the blind with Guide Dogs of America.
His name was Dooley. I remember thinking it was kind of a funny name but that's the name he came with. I asked why he was named that and they explained to me that each litter is given a letter. They start at A and go all the way to Z. So every dog born in the same litter of Dooley had a D name. That way you always knew what "class" the dogs where in when you went to dog raising meetings and met other dogs.

My mom does the same thing with her goats. Each "Kidding" year has a letter and since this is my mom's third batch of babies we are on the letter C.

So far we have Cordelia, Cocoa, Charlie, Charlotte, Clara and Clarance.

Today two more baby boys were born. But we are running out of ideas for names.

We need name suggestions for two adorable baby boys that start with the letter C.

baby boy 1

baby boy 2

baby boy 1

baby boy 2



**EDIT** We named them Casey and Corey. 

A birthing adventure 46/365

keeping the babies warm

This has been a very long week. William and I were looking over the blog today and I was kind of surprised to see that all the babies have been born this week. Monday seems likes weeks ago.

We had two more babies born!
It's really fun how every birth has been so different. I hope you're not getting tired of hearing about them because we still have two more pregnant mothers!

Today started out normal enough. Actually it seemed like it was going to be a slow Friday. Baby and I got up about 9 and stayed in our room for a while reading books and sitting on her potty. Actually Baby Girl told me she wanted to sit on her potty this morning and then she went POO!
I am so proud of her. She's only 16 months and she's already telling me when she wants to go. And that folks is Elimination Communication.

Anyway, when we finally emerged from our room William and my mom were no where to be found. I looked for them and then checked on the goats from the back window with the binoculars my mom keeps by the window (for checking on the goats, not the neighbors).

Then baby and I had breakfast together. We shared fried eggs and teased the dog a little with them. About 10:20am Aunt Mae called and we talked for a couple of minutes and then I wandered over to the window to check on the goats with the binoculars again.

It was so interesting to see her eat the placenta

I had noticed the first time I checked that one of the goats, Tahoe, was keeping her self separate from the others and I wanted to make she wasn't having a baby yet. She didn't seem like she was in active labor yet but I wanted to check.

I am so glad I did.


Tahoe wasn't in labor but when I went to scan the other mamas I saw that Lea, who was not showing signs earlier of being in labor, was bloody on her back end and there was something coming out!

I snatched up the baby and ran to our room. I still had no idea where my mom and William were and some one had to get out there. I dressed both me and baby as fast as I could and ran out the to goat pen. It maybe took us 10 minutes to get out there. if that.

By the time we got out there two baby goats were laying on the ground and Lea was looking MUCH thinner. I could tell that the second baby had JUST been born. He was still in the goo and needed to be cleaned up. I wrapped him in a towel and got him in a more dry place and tried to help him nurse. The other baby was already starting to walk a little so I tired to help her nurse.

Lea with her strong and healthy babies

Both the babies were very big, but then their mother had been HUGE. It was really cold  out and I needed to wrap them up to keep them warm. MY poor baby wasn't sure what was going on. She kissed and patted the girl goat for a while but then didn't like that I was holding these new babies instead of her.

Luckily we were only out there about half an hour before William and my mom came home. They had taken the two babies that were born on Wednesday to the vet.

My mom and I stayed with the babies for another couple of hours and William took Bonita in the house to warm up and play. It was a such sweet time of bonding with the new babies and trying to help them nurse. Lea and I have never been good friends before this but I think she was thankful I was there. She give me a few kisses on my nose and forehead to say thank you.

Her babies are strong and healthy weighing 8 1/2  pounds (3.8kilos) and 9 pounds (4kilos). We named them Charlie and Charlotte.

Dear Charlotte

Sweet Charlie

Happy weekend every one. I'm going to take an aspirin and get some sleep. I hope you can too.

Baby Bonita in the goat pen

Thankful Thursday 45/365

I know it's been three months, but I'm still getting used to how easy it is to be able to buy cranberry things in The States.

Cranberry juice is my very favorite, but I also like cranberry sauce, cranberry jello, dried cranberries and whole cranberries. Pretty much I love anything cranberry flavor.

Aunt Mae makes this amazing cranberry jello with nuts and fruit and whole cranberries in it. I love it so much. She brought a dish of it over the other day for my mom and it was almost gone within an hour of her bringing it. It's SO good. I could probably just eat a whole pan of it myself.

On Saturday when we went grocery shopping I passed the juice isle and couldn't pass up the temptation of buying some cranberry juice. There are so many flavors of it! Cran-apple, and cran-grape but I think just the straight cranberry is my favorite.

In China it was really hard to find cranberry stuff. We could find cranberry sauce once a year at the import store but it was expensive and they ran out really fast. Once in a while they did have cranberry juice and I always wanted it but it was so expensive. Almost $10 for one bottle!

Once, for my 30th birthday, William bought me a bottle of cranberry juice and some pop sickle sticks. That was such a great birthday present! I made it last a long time and it was especially good because I was pregnant and really really hot all the time. I used to make cranberry juice pop sickles and eat them at the hottest part of the day. Or just when I wanted a treat.

When I come across a whole isle of cranberry juice at the grocery store it still feels so exciting and indulgent. I'm really happy it's cheaper than $10 though. I still think that cranberry juice is a  good birthday present for me. But maybe I can have two bottles this year. And maybe Aunt Mae's fabulous cranberry jello salad.

I'm also very thankful for these two beauties

2 more babies 44/365

2 days ago my mom's goat Angel gave birth to Cordelia and Cocoa.
Today another goat mama, Ava, went into labor.
This was Ava's first time having babies so the process was a bit slower. She was into labor for a while before she finally had her first baby, a girl. But then she really shocked us by running out of the birthing stall and dropping another baby. Ava was so small as a pregnant goat that up until last week I wasn't even sure she was really pregnant. We thought for sure she only had one baby and we were all very surprised to have her drop a good sized boy.

My mom says that goats are just like people, except with four legs. After helping Ava take care of her babies I think that's a pretty accurate statement.
Like most first time mothers, Ava was kind of freaked out and didn't know what was going on.  I think she was just as shocked to have a second baby as we were.  After we got her calmed down she finally started to warm up to her babies and cleaned them up and nursed them.

My mom is a professional goat midwife and lactation consultant now. She sat outside for 8 hours today helping Ava give birth and then learn how to nurse and care for her babies.

At first we were scared we were going to lose one of the babies because they were so small and Ava was too freaked out to mother them. But after my mom worked her magic we are very happy to have Clara and Clarence join our family.

Meet Clara

Welcome Clarence

My mom even had to "massage" Ava to get her placenta  to come out. Actually it was more like wrestling her . I think my mom is going to need a long hot bath and a massage after all these babies are born. We have 3 more mama goats waiting to give birth. My mom has been going out every 3 hours to make sure every one is safe and warm. I know she's exhausted.

Baby Bonnie is really enjoying all this time out in the goat pen. She really bonding with the goats and comes in smelling like them every day.

Pink Cast 43/365

Yesterday, since we had a new addition to our family, we spent all but a two hour nap in the goat pen. It was really fun watching the baby goats go from slimy little things to soft and fuzzy babies hobbling around. It's amazing how fast goats grow. I think they got taller right before our eyes.

Angel, the mama goat, was kind enough to let us hold her babies once in a while. They are so cute and cuddly, but every time I picked one up or every time one of the baby goats nursed my baby girl would ask to nurse too. At one point I was holding one of the little goats and Bonita walked over and sat almost on top of the baby and then frantically asked to nurse. Poor Baby Girl was a little jealous.

By the end of the day my darling daughter smelled like a goat and she desperately needed a bath. We both took a long bath and I soaped her down twice.

Today Bonita was so warn out from her day outside that she slept most of the day. We also had a lot of special mama and baby cuddle time.

Meanwhile, back in the goat pen, little baby Cocoa's back leg was bending the wrong way and she couldn't walk on it. My mom and William took her to the vet and she came home with a little pink cast on her leg. It's sad that she has to have a cast but she's already walking around a lot better.

She was even able to stand up and nurse today, something she couldn't do yesterday.

Birthing Babies 42/365

 William gets up early.  I do not.  My excuse is that  I still nurse baby much of the night and that doesn't always allow for as much sleep as I might like.

This morning William came into the bed room just in time to see me open my groggy eyes for the first time and announced that Angel was in labor.
"It will be a while still but the babies are coming" he told me and then handed me a cup of coffee.


Thinking in human terms I assumed "in labor" and  "a while" meant that I still had a bit of time. I drank my coffee and checked my email and Facebook and then woke up my Baby Girl to giver her some morning cuddle milk. She was still waking up and nursing when William came bursting in a few minutes later and exclaimed "TWO BABY GOATS!"

"Already?! I thought you said it would be a while?" I couldn't believe how fast they had come.

I got Baby Girl and myself dressed and we went outside as fast as we could. We spent the rest of the morning outside with the goats.
We even ate our breakfast out there and only came in after Baby Girl was tired and ready for her nap.

Meet Coco

Meet Cordelia

 The two baby goats are doing well. The first one born is brown all over and weighs 9 pounds. We are calling her Coco.  The second baby has the most beautiful brown ears and I named her Cordelia. (I'm happy I finally get to name something that.) She weighs about 6 pounds.

My mom is a goat lactation consultant

 Baby Girl had so much fun playing with the goats. She was out there with them for hours giving them kisses and hugging them and patting them. She is such a little farmer baby.

 The other goats were very curious about what was going on. Here's a picture of Bonita telling Bella all about the baby goats. Bella and Bonita get along really well.

So that was our exciting morning. We're waiting now to see who gives birth next. Hopefully I'll actually make it out there to see next time.

Aunt Mae, the girl in the mirror, tacos and marshmallows 41/365

Sundays are usually restful days. Baby likes Sundays because every one gets to play with her instead of go to work. Yesterday Aunt Mae needed some help with her internet so we went over and played with her while my mom worked her magic in the computer. Baby thinks Aunt Mae is a lot of fun and always gives her lots of smiles and laughs.

She even lets Aunt Mae tickle her.


Another thing Baby Girl likes to do is kiss the baby in the mirror. I've been trying to get a picture of it for weeks and yesterday I finally did. Baby Girl thinks the baby in the mirror is very cute. I tend to agree with her...

and here she is giving the mirror baby kisses.

Then she was trying to see behind the mirror. I guess she's looking for the other little girl.

After our visit with Aunt Mae we drove around and my mom showed me the old farms around us. It was such a beautiful day. We enjoyed the sunshine and even drove around with the windows down.

For dinner we had one of my favorite meals of all time. Tacos! I love Taco night. I always have. When we lived in China we used to make tacos for our Chinese friends. It was alot more work then though because we had to make our own tortillas.

Not only can we buy corn tortillas now but we discovered that we love to make the tacos with spicy Tennessee Pride sausage in stead of seasoned beef.

Oh how I love taco night.

Baby likes taco night too!

And for dessert pink marshmallows. For Valentine's day I bought William a coffee mug that I can write love notes on with chalk and heart shaped marshmallows. He seemed to enjoy both of them. Who says boys down like heart shaped things? Especially when you can eat them.

And what better way to end a Sunday than with a lovely cup of hot chocolate.

New Favorite Food 40/365

Baby Girl has a new favorite food. Spaghetti! Gluten Free of course. I'm really glad about this because it's one of my favorite foods too.

And this picture I'm just posting because it's so stinking cute. Doesn't see look like a cute little mouse?!

Happy Weekend every one. I hope yours is as restful and uneventful as ours.

Another warm day 39/365

Today was another warm day and Baby Girl spent most of it outside with her Daddy.  He took her to feed the goats and pet the cats and dogs. She really enjoyed being able to walk around and explore the back hard on her own.

She also discovered her pocket for the first time and really enjoyed putting rocks in it.

Here we are walking down to the mail box.

One of Baby's favorite games to play is to tease the dog with food in her hand and try to get him to chase her.
She is getting so fast!

 Baby Girl's Nana decided it was her job to corrupt our baby and gave her the mixer to lick from the muffins.

Baby Girl was very excited to have her own mixer.

She was also very excited to share with Andy.

When the muffins were all done she even got to eat her own muffin.