SunshineMama

Yup, they've had an overhaul! :)

I was wondering if anyone would notice the new picture in my sidebar. I figured, just for fun, I would change it up and then see if anyone said anything. Looks like a few of you DID notice. :)

Yes, the dreadies DID get quite the overhaul this past Saturday.

The hubby has been saying that he's wanted to see what they look like blonde.....he thought it would be fun to have a blonde wife. I figured it was an easier fix to dye my hair than to have him go looking for a new wife. *wink* Besides, I'm always up for an adventure. It's only hair. It seemed like it would be fun and my little blondie of a daughter now thinks we're twins. She was pretty excited that we were going to have the same color hair.

I'm still debating on if I want to go over the tips and turn them even more blonde. I think I'm digging the contrast too much to go that far.

I haven't dyed my hair in ages. The last time I did it was probably over 7 years ago. Before my daughter was born. It's been a while. Obviously, the last time I dyed my hair, it was straight and brushable. Everything was dyed evenly. The interesting thing with dyeing dreads is that the outside of the dreads got the dye, but not the insides. There's probably some sort of way to get all the way in there (well, as much as one possibly could considering that they're pretty knotted up and tight), but I just focused on getting the outsides of the dreads. Because of that, and also because this was my first time bleaching out dreads), my dreads didn't get FULLY coated....though I tried as much as I could. The insides of the dreads show through so there's this really cool swirly effect of colors going on. Some of the original brown color shows through and there's a nice contrast between the old brown and the new blonde.

I was a little shocked by how bright my roots came out, especially since they show up the most in the front. They seemed to have toned down just a little since I did them on Saturday and the color has really grown on me. Deciding on which light you look at it in, it either looks bright or it has a reddish tint to it.

When I'm at home, I tend to wear it down....to let them move around and be free. There's a lot of loosies and fly-aways, but I love them.

I was just counting my dreads this morning because someone asked how many I had. 19 total. In my last post, I said I had 21. I either miscounted, counted the two that I combined in the back or somewhere, they got assimilated by another dread. No biggie.....the 19 I have are happy and so am I.

When I'm out, I wear them with two of the dreads in the front pulled back and secured with a little clip in the back. It keeps them out of my face and makes them look not so chaotic....though I DO love the chaotic look.

Well, it's off to bed for me.

Have a lovely evening!

-Erika

An update on my dreadies...

So many of you have asked how my dreads are coming along. It's hard to believe that it's been a little over 14 months since they were first started.

The first post I created about my dreads can be found here ----> I have some new babies

Wow.....it's amazing how far they've come in that time. It's also amazing how much I've learned along the way and how much I love what they've become.

You can check out a couple more posts here:

• They're growing up...
• They're still growing...
• Another update...

I started out with about 65-70 VERY thin dreads, but over time, they've been combined, separated and combined again.

My sister recently did some maintenance on them and now I'm down to 21 dreads, but I LOVE how they're coming along. Many of my dreads wanted to eat other so we combined many of them. They're thicker like this and they wanted to be that way.

I haven't done much maintenance with them over the past 14 months. My sister and I did some maintenance on them back in October of last year.....just a month after my mom started them. The only other time I really messed with them was when they were at 6 months old (in March) and I combined and "felted" a few of them. You can check out the scrapbook page I did on them here ---> Dreadful Journey Scrapbook page

Right before we left for our trip to Florida (last month), I had my sister do some MUCH needed maintenance on them and that's when we cut and ripped apart some of the big mats of hair that were starting to each other up, and combined other dreads together. That's when we ended up with 21 dreads total.
These pictures were taken just yesterday.....after they'd been freshly washed and had been wrapped up in a towel for about and hour and a half (I like to keep them wrapped up to soak up all the water.

It's hard to believe that it's been 14 months since a brush has touched my hair. It's extremely liberating not to have to worry about conditioner, thinking about how to wear my hair, all the hair that would fall out every time I took a brush or comb to it (now any time I lose hairs - and we all lose MANY hairs each day - it all just dreads up and makes me hair even thicker), making sure it looks perfect, etc. I get up in the morning and my hair is already done because I don't have to do anything to it.

It gets washed regularly because the cleaner it is, the tighter it gets. Some of the beads that were put in my hair a long time ago have dreaded themselves in permanently. I love those beads. They've become good friends. I find myself playing with the dread with the 5 beads on it constantly. Loops come and go, they've shrunken over the past 14 months as they've gotten tighter and they've turned into something that I never would have envisioned for me to have when I first started.

When I first started this journey, I envisioned them looking SO different from what they look like now. I started out wanting LOTS of really thin dreads. I found, though, that my hair just didn't want to do that. I have fine, thin hair and it wanted to lock up and have thicker dreads. Over time, I have become a big lover of thicker dreads. Sure, I've seen people with MUCH thicker dreads than I have, but these have thickened up so much that when I pull my hair back now, my pony tail of dreads is 3 times thicker than the pony tail I used to have when my hair was straight and un-dreaded.

I can't ever see myself going back to straight and un-dreaded hair. This just seems the way my hair SHOULD be. My hair WANTS to be like this.

Having dreads has been a journey for me and it's been an adventurous one.....watching them grow, watching them change, watching them morph, taking part in their change. It's also been a personal journey as I have learned that sometimes, sadly, people DO judge the outward appearance, people DO make assumptions based on a hair style (which I find SO shallow and sad) and people ask the weirdest questions about my hair and, which I have had some rude ones come across, most of them are legitimate because they really DO want to know the answers. I've also found that, in general, many people are uneducated when it comes to the history, the care, the process of creating and the hygiene that many "dread heads" practice. It's been a good way to explain that yes, we do wash our hair. And we wash it regularly. No, we don't have bugs growing in them. No, you don't have to completely shave your head when you decide you don't want them anymore. No, I don't use cow dung on the ends, burn the ends or have mold growing inside of them. My favorite question of all is if I've changed my religion to Rastafarian. That always makes me giggle inside. I just tell people that I didn't realize that a thing as simple as hair could change your religion for you......and then I just ask what religion they changed to when they dyed their hair or what religion it would make them if they permed their hair. ;) All in good fun, though. :)

I love my hair, even though it's a messy look most of the time.....I can sometimes tame the fly-aways and I can even make them look sophisticated for church. I didn't envision being the messy dread-head type, but it's what I've become because that's what my hair wanted to be. I'm okay with that. I love it now.  Who woulda thunk it?

Even though my hair doesn't dictate my religion, it HAS made me a stronger person inside. I truly shook off any inhibitions that were hanging around the day I put them in. I had always thought of myself as a confident and independent person before hand.....having dreads have made me even more so. It's hard to explain, but hopefully you understand what I'm getting at.

I love this quote......make it a personal challenge and goal. I have for myself.

"The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself."

- Anna Quindlen

Hiking in the Adirondacks

One of Davy's favorite things to do is go hiking. It doesn't matter what season it is, he loves to be up on the mountains.

Before we got married, I loved to hike, as well. Over the years, though, I've had two kids and have become very out of shape. I've also picked up some unclaimed weight that others have left behind and claimed it as my own. It's been a while since I've hiked a BIG mountain. I've done some small ones here and there, but I've stayed away from the bigger ones and let Davy hike those on his own.

Recently, I started going to Weight Watchers so that I could finally get a hold of my self-control (or lack of it.....or to get some self-control....any of those would work). I need to lose some serious weight....but I also wanted to do something that had a bigger goal attached to it. Something that would work well with the goal of losing weight. Something that would help it.

I found my goal when we went hiking on Labor Day.

Davy was originally going to go hiking by himself, but then thought it would be fun to spend the holiday as a family. He picked out a mountain that he thought we could all handle. Now......the kids can handle a heck of a lot more than I can. They're both wiry, lean and fast. They're also young. ;) Yes, yes, I know you can hike a mountain well into your upper years. In fact, we met a 70 year old man hiking down the mountain that put me WAY to shame!

Davy picked out Cascade Mountain in the high peaks region of the Adirondacks. Cascade is 4098 feet above sea level, and it's almost 2000 feet of elevation gain. It's a 4.4 mile round trip of hiking and is considered the easiest hike of the High Peaks.

We took our time and paced ourselves....though I know that Davy was just chomping at the bit to get to the top. He's actually hiked this peak a couple times before.

When you get to the top, you end up sitting on a bald summit and get a full 360 degree view of the surround High Peaks region. Absolutely breathtaking and gorgeous.

The top was super windy, so the kids and I were a little leery of standing on the top.  After a while, though, Girly ventured up to the peak with Davy.

While we were hiking to the peak, a guy was coming down with a shirt on that had a patch on it that said, "ADK 46." I asked Davy about this and he said it's a club for people that hike the 46 High Peaks of New York. Cascade is the 36th highest of the peaks.

When I got to the top of the mountain, I realized that this was what my new goal would be. It worked well with losing the weight that I want to lose. It's a healthy goal and it's attainable. And talk about a beautiful goal.....hiking the most beautiful peaks in the Adirondack Park of New York.

I figured that if I was going to nail a 4098 foot mountain and it was one of the 46 High Peaks, I might as well start right then and there. Since the kids went up with us, I'm going to include them, as well. So, I'll be sending in our letters to start off with our goal of being an Adirondack 46-R. (You can check out their website here: ADK 46-R). Davy has already hiked quite a few of the 46, but has never se nt in his log letters, so we're ALL going to start now.

On Tuesday, I put in another 2.6 miles of walking and my goal is to continue with walking long distances a few times a week. We're planning on doing another hike this next weekend to help build up my endurance. My goal is to nail all of the 46 High Peaks in the next 5 years....by the time I hit 35 years old.

It sure was nice to go for my weigh in this past week at Weight Watchers and find out that I had lost 2.6 pounds. That was a nice and pleasant surprise for all my hard work this past week.

Have a great week!

Dream BIG!

-Erika

Weekend Jaunt....

Today, we took a little bit of a jaunt around the corner and down the road from where we live. I love living here. Around every corner is nature's playground.

Not far from where we live is a great train trestle....it's still in use and below it is a fantastic cascading waterfall. It's not too fast, not too cold and not too deep. It's a perfect spot to take the kids on a hot summer day.

I've actually been over the road bridge (which you can't see in this picture, but it's behind the trees behind the trestle) many times for walks and driving to the lake, but I've never been down to the creek. David likes to take the kids down here on a regular basis since it's close by and easy to get to. He had promised the kids that he would take them down there today. I hadn't planned on going down, but my daughter was quite insistent. I couldn't say no, so I gave myself a little bit of a mental boost and packed my water shoes, camera and sketch book and headed out with the family.

I never took the sketchbook out because I had such a great time traipsing through the water to get to the falls (we had to take a path down the hill and through the woods to be able to get to the creek, then head up the creek to the falls) and sitting down and watching my husband and kids play in the water.

Usually, Zach is all about the bugs. Lately, when he's at the water, it's all about the fish. His bug nets double as fish nets now. It's amazing how skilled he is at not only catching bugs with one fell swoop of his net, but also fish! He's amazing!

I love this picture of him in his mud boots. He usually wears sandals when he's outside, but his sandals finally gave up the ghost and took their resting place in the dumpster. They lasted him through last year and this year and, after being held together by strong medical tape to get even more life out of them, they finally bit the dust. I had held off buying him a new pair this year because they seemed to be doing alright. I underestimated this little guy. He wore them hard and by the time they fell apart for good, the stores around here were getting rid of their sandals on clearance to make room for fall and winter footwear. And doesn't it just figure? The only sandals that were left were too small for him. Girly ended up with a pair instead, but I don't think those will make it to next year for her. Good thing they were only $4 for the pair!

Anyway.........the funniest thing about these mud boots is that Zach will go in the water WAY past the top of the boots. One of the reasons he wore the boots was because they have good traction on the bottom and the creek can be a little slippery in places, especially on submerged rocks. Whenever Zach got out of the water, you could hear the water sloshing around in his boots. He walked back up the trail and down the road, all the way back to our house with his boots full of water and didn't think anything of it. I had thought about suggesting to him to empty them out, but it was too cute, so I didn't say a thing.

The first picture in this post is looking up at the trestle from the bottom of the waterfall.

This picture to the left here is looking down the creek from the bottom of the waterfall. It was such a beautiful day today......and the way the light fell on the trees and the creek was a bit magical.  I kept expecting to see fairies flitting about in the woods and above the creek.

We DID see a muskrat hop out of the creek and run up the falls, though. Not quite the same as seeing a fairy, but the kids had never seen one outside of a page in a book, so that was pretty cool for them.

This creek is actually submerged in the spring time by the melting snows. Its also grows twice the size in width and goes far beyond, to the right, from what yo u see in the picture. We haven't had a lot of rain lately, so the water level is really low right now. There's still a bit of a pool at the bottom of the falls, though, which is perfect for netting fish (Davy and Zach caught quite a few and they were actually pretty big....I was thinking they'd be minnow size, but they were about 3 or 4 inches long each!). Davy even stood in the pool really still for a while and the fish were nibbling on his toes. They didn't seem to be afraid of anyone. Except after they were caught, examined and then put back in the water.....they wanted to get away pretty quick.

The falls are a great place to sit and cool off. They're also a great place for a little Girly to splash her Dad. God forbid if you splash her back....but Davy is really great about it and humors her. I love to sit off to the side and hear her giggle as she gets him all wet. And I love to listen to him humor her and put up a silly, fake fuss when she splashes him. It's definitely some of the best theatrics ever!

I didn't realize what I was missing out on when they went on these little jaunts. I'll definitely have to go again sometime soon. Maybe I'll even take the kids myself this week during the day. Zach is done with his 6 weeks of summer school as of this past Friday. They'll be wanting something to do and this week is supposed to be a warm one. It'll be a good place to take a picnic lunch and cool off.

And now it's outside for me......I'm going out in the backyard to see if I can see any of the Perseid meteors. This is supposed to be the best night for them, but I fear the sky is starting to cloud up a bit. I saw some heat lightning earlier and the weather channel is calling for isolated thunder storms here tonight, so there might not be much to see. Here's to hoping.

Oh, I've recently updated Zach's list of "places he's traveled" through the Postcard project that's been going on since the end of November. (Look at the sidebar, to the right of this post) Click here to see that original post ----> Help Zach see the world!

Thank you to everyone that have sent postcards, little gifts (those were totally unexpected by so appreciated!) and well wishes to him! It's been a great project and he has 7 photo albums full of postcards from all over the US and the world! We enjoy every one of them that comes in!
Have a wonderful week everyone!
-Erika

We took off for the weekend......

One of the best things about living in New England is that a great camping trip is never far away.

This past weekend, we took off across Lake Champlain and into the Adirondack Mountains of New York. We found a really great campground along the Ausable River.

Now, if you know us well enough, you know that we're not big fans of camping in RV parks or over-run campgrounds. When we want to get away, we want to get away from EVERYTHING.

Last month, we went to a fantastic state park in New York and LOVED the campsite we stayed in. We had to pack up a canoe with all of our stuff, then paddle a mile and a half across the pond to our campsite. There was NO ONE ELSE around. Just the way we wanted it.

This past weekend, we wanted to go to the same state park and campsite, but it was already booked. I searched online for another campground in the nearby vicinity and found one that had a "wilderness camping area." It look intriguing so we booked a couple nights there.

It wasn't AS "wilderness" as we would have liked, but it's definitely one of the better campgrounds we've stayed at. We had a little bit more room to ourselves in the "wilderness area" and the river was right below our camp site. There was a bit of a steep bank to climb down, but it was worth it. The kids got to go swimming, Zach got to catch fish and frogs in his net, Girly got to go exploring, I got to sit on the river bank and read my magazines (I even went for a dip in the river the first night because it was SO hot and humid out) and Davy took his kayak out for a long paddle. Girly really enjoyed swimming across the river with her life jacket on.....almost a month ago, she found out that we weren't kidding when we told her that her life jacket would help her float. Now she has no qualms about swimming in deep water if she has her life jacket on.

Zach is always happy to just be outside and catch whatever moves. The river has lots of fish in it, and the small ones were gathered near the shore. Perfect for Zach. He caught SO many of them! He was putting them in water bottles, keeping them for a while to watch them and then releasing them back into the river.

We stayed for 2 nights, roasted marshmallows over the fire, let the kids play in the pool (here they had this BIG river to play in but they wanted to try the pool out), took part in a campground-wide hayride and then let the kids partake in a treasure hunt.

I realized how much we've become like my parents.....driving around and taking in the scenery, while the kids were in the back asking when we were going to go back to the campground. How well I remember doing that as a kid. Those weekend drives seemed to take SO long. I wanted to be out of the car and playing outside. The kids handled it well, though.

My daughter is quite the ham and is very rarely ladylike or clean when she eats. I made a batch of banana chocolate chip muffins before we left for our camping trip (because I didn't want to waste the already over-ripe bananas). I figured they would be a good snack to take along and my kids LOVE them. It is SO hard to keep this child clean, but how can you be mad an adorable face like this?

On our way home yesterday, we took a side trip to something we've heard about but have never seen: Ausable Chasm.

What a beautiful sight! We weren't able to go onto the vast network of trails and explore too much, but just going over the bridge and peering down into the chasm and looking at Rainbow Falls was an amazing sight! The trails take you into the chasm for about 4 miles of hiking. We didn't plan on the cost (which is a little high, in my opinion...it would have cost us $48 to get in as a family) and we didn't plan on the time to take a 4 mile hike, but eventually, I would like to go back, simply because I hear that it's absolutely gorgeous and you don't quite get the full effect unless you've seen it all!

Here is a shot of Rainbow Falls, which can be seen when standing on the Route 9 bridge over the river. The bridge itself is also very pretty to look at.

I hope you're all enjoying your summer just as much as we are.

-Erika

Hair today, gone tomorrow.....or something like that

I realize it's been a long time since I've posted here. I'm going to try to keep up with this blog better. I promise. :)

Recently, the hubby got himself a hair cut:

My Davy grew his hair out for me. I loved that long hair. He started growing it out back at the end of last spring. OH, how I loved that hair. Here's a little bit of a time line......

From August

From September when we went to "Seven Moons" with my parents in RI. (It's a restaurant that serves dishes from 7 different asian countries)

The next two are from October when we were in Norway.

During the winter, we trimmed some here and there because he didn't want it on the back of his neck anymore.

Here's a pic from May (just last month):

And here's a picture the day after the above picture was taken:

And here's one of the back of my head from the same day....we hiked up Mt. Philo that day.

Snowman-Angel

(click on pictures for a larger view)

Shortly after the big snowfall that we got on Valentine's Day, my daughter (who is always called Girly around the house) wanted to go outside and be a snowman-angel. Lately, she's been in a very creative mood. She's always had the creative gene.....but she's really tapped into it as of late. A couple weeks ago, she told my husband that when she grows up, she wants to be a mom and an artist, just like me. :) Awwwww....that made my heart melt.

She's been telling us that she can make anything we want. All we have to do is tell her what we want and she'll make it.

She made herself a mask after the snowfall. It was the face of a snowman. It was the most adorable thing....she drew on the carrot nose, the coal mouth and even put on rosy cheeks and eyelashes.

She wanted to be a snowman-angel in the worst way, though. I was trying to think of where she would come up with something like that, but the more I've thought about it over the past couple of weeks, I realized that she probably came up with it from making snow angels in the snow.

She wanted wings. She brought me some construction paper and I cut out some blue wings and taped them to the back of her jacket. She was ecstatic! She was hopping and leaping through the snow, pretending to fly.

There are days when she does things that make me smile and feel all warm and fuzzy inside. There are days when I realize afresh that I'm raising a miniature (but more potent) version of myself.....and that is scary sometimes. I'm just glad that most of the memories that I'm storing away are the warm and fuzzy ones.

Once Upon a Time.....

Once upon a time, an extreme Daddy made an extreme snowboard ramp in the yard. This was so that he could practice his snowboarding jumps.

One day, the Daddy’s extreme little girl-child decided to climb up the ramp.

 

The girl-child got all the way to the top of the ramp and was quite shocked, but also pleased, with herself.

The girl-child thought she could fly if she spread her wings and took a leap of faith.

The girl-child flew…..at least for a little while.

The girl-child landed in the snow, but she still had a smile on her face.

The girl-child realized that you don’t always fly the first time. After all…..wings don’t completely stretch the first time. You need to keep stretching and keep trying until you succeed.

…….may this girl-child keep trying, keep stretching, keep taking those leaps of faith until she flies straight and true. Just like her daddy and mommy wish for her.

Whoa! Look what we got yesterday!

So, we ended up getting 34 inches here yesterday. Davy went out this morning to start shoveling yet again. Here’s a picture of the “cattle shoot” that he carved out off our deck so that we could get to the driveway. Not that it really mattered because our van was buried up to the windows and there was really no place to go.

The kids thought this was pretty special. I think we need to live somewhere warmer. ;)

This is looking out towards the road (that’s the neighbor’s place across the street…to the left of the neighbor’s house, you can see the Adirondack mountains in New York) . We usually park our van up close to where I was standing when I took the picture, but Davy couldn’t get it any farther up the drive from where it is in the pic. The drifts on the left hand side of the van went up to the window. You can barely see the top of our unit neighbor’s car next to her set of stairs in front of her apartment. To the right of the top of our van, you can just barely see the top of the neighbor’s car across the street.

Here’s a close up picture of the neighbor across the street. He’s shoveling himself out. His vehicles were pretty much buried.

The south wall of our house is on the right of this picture. The back wall that you see belongs to the back wall of the utility room out front. The wall on the left is the back wall of our neighbor’s unit. The wind pushed a ton of snow into this little cubby hole between the units. The problem with this is that there are heating vents sticking out from our units back here that need to be kept clear. The lady in one of the front units lost her heat last night because she didn’t keep her vent clear and the furnace blew out. Davy had to go a few times to clear the snow out, which was about 11 feet high, so that our vents didn’t clog up (it could also cause carbon monoxide poisoning if they’re blocked up). He sunk through a couple 6 foot high spots and was afraid he couldn’t get out.

The nice thing about all this snow on that side of the house is that our house has been keeping VERY warm. The first floor is always so cold on that side of the house because the foundation has a lot of cracks in it on that side. It lets so much cold air in under the floor boards. With all that snow around the foundation, the house has been keeping the heat in SO well.

Here you can just barely see the top of our fencing around the garden in our backyard. The trampoline frame was under snow last night, but the wind pushed some of the snow off of it and you could see a little of it this morning. If you look to the left of the neighbor’s big camper, you can see what looks like a black line coming out of the grill of the camper and across the snow. That’s actually the top rim of his above-ground pool. Well…..since it’s under snow, does that no longer make it “above ground”???

Last night, we got a knock on the door at around 10:30 pm. I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth and Davy came in and said, “Did you hear a knock on the door?” I told him I didn’t hear anything, but then we both heard some loud knocking. Davy ran downstairs and opened the door and my youngest brother and his two roommates were at the door. My brother and his roomie had gone up north to pick up the roomie's girlfriend from work and on their way home, they realized they’d never be able to get on the back roads to get home. They could only drive down the major road that we live on (well, not really major in most other places…..it’s just a 2 lane road, but it’s a state road, so it’s kept up really well in storms), so they came here. My brother had to bust through 4 foot drifts just to get to our door. The stayed here for the night on the couch and the floor. I made chocolate chip pancakes for everyone for breakfast.

Speaking of wanting to be somewhere warmer…..Survivor is on tonight. Looking at all the beautiful Fiji scenery will make me feel like I’ve gone on vacation somewhere tropical….at least for an hour. ;)
For any of you that are jealous of our snow and wish they could have some of it, you are welcome to come up at any time, grab a shovel and take it away. I promise to make you a nice hot cup of chai.

cheers!

My best and most favorite Valentine's gift EVER!

We’re snowed in today. We’ve gotten about 30 inches or MORE of snow since this morning. It’s still falling. It will STILL be falling tomorrow. The winds have been high….there’s drifts going up the side of the house and the van. Our neighbor’s car is completely covered. We can just BARELY see the posts from the garden fence sticking up out of the snow.

My mom reminded me of a snow storm like this 8 years ago on the same day. Well, it wasn’t QUITE this intense, but it was storm and it happened on Valentine’s Day 8 years ago. I remember VERY well what I was doing that day.

Eight years ago, my husband I decided that we would take our last date night out before our first child arrived. We wanted one last date as just the two of us before the little one came. Valentine’s Day was a Sunday, so it was perfect since he didn’t have to work that day. And our due date was February 23rd, so we figured we’d have plenty of time to get out for that last date.

Well, the day before Valentine’s Day, we knew something was happening. We also knew that we wouldn’t be going out for that last date on Valentine’s Day.

My water broke on the 13th and things held off until the evening. The snow started falling during the day and it got heavier as the night went on. We were living with my parents at the time…..we had just moved up from PA to Vermont and they let us stay with them for 13 months. (It was only supposed to be 4 months…..but you know how that is.)

We waited for the midwife to show up as the contractions got stronger. My mom thought for sure that she was going to have to deliver our baby….and she had only been on the OTHER side of birth….the giving end. Not the receiving end.

Our midwife finally pulled into the driveway about 3 am. It took her about an hour and a half to drive what should normally have taken only 35 minutes. She had to come down off the mountains and through the back roads to get to our house.

The candles in our room were lit and I was anxious to have it all be over and to have a baby in my arms. I was tired and falling asleep in between contractions. My mom and my husband were my anchors, but I know my mom was praying that she didn‘t have to deliver that baby on her own. My dad and my brothers took off downstairs to play video games and watch movies. They didn’t want to be near any part of the birthing process. I was okay with that. ;)

The midwife’s assistant pulled in just 5 minutes before I gave birth. She had gone off the road in a snow drift and she had also been pulled over by the police for driving a bit too fast in dangerous weather conditions.

At 3:43 am on Valentine’s day of 1999, our little Zachariah Judah entered the world, in my old bedroom at my parents‘ house. He was the best Valentine’s gift I’ve ever been given. I was more than happy to have him 9 days early, but I was especially happy that he was a Valentine’s baby. I was glad to forfeit the dinner date and hold our first child in our arms on Valentine’s Day. What a special and precious gift.

My dad cooked a very early breakfast for all of us that morning. The midwives were hungry and I was starving. He went into town later in the day and brought home a beautiful card and a single rose for me.

Ever since that Valentine's day, I've sent my midwife a handmade Valentine's card with an updated picture of Zach and a thank you for being there to help bring my Zachy-boy into our world.

Eight years later and we’re in the middle of a snowstorm again. But there’s no labor pains. Just a happy and healthy eight year old with a brilliant mind. And he’s all ours. It’s kinda funny how we haven’t really celebrated Valentine’s day for the last 8 years. Once Zach was born, it was his day. All his. Davy and I don’t give cards to each other on this day. We celebrate it all as Zach’s day. The way we look at it, Valentine’s Day just happens to fall on HIS day. :)