Daddy gets busy, Mommy gets busy!

This month will be quite exciting with Joel and Ryan being quite busy and the Hollidays expecting their 2nd child - a little boy!

Baby Led Weaning

I have done things quite differently with Luther (vitamins and the Brewer diet during pregnancy, homebirth, cloth diapers, and selectively vaccinating) and beginning solid foods is no exception.  We are going to try out Baby Led weaning and see how it goes.  The premise of Baby Led Weaning is to allow the baby to explore solid foods at his own pace, instead of spoon feeding him.  Luther has an excellent grasp for this age but it still isn't good enough to be fully feeding himself.  He has just started waking up earlier, and he has been grabbing our food for a couple months now;) So.. I know he's hungry for 'real food.' Hopefully that will be motivating as we throw 'real food' in front of him and give him no help at all. I am excited to try this but not 100% all in.. example... if he starts to wake up in the middle of the night, we might be all done with the Baby Led Weaning and just rely on good old fashioned spoon feeding.  Here's a glimpse of what we are working with...





VEDO Video/Vlog Every Day in October

In contrast with the Baby Led Weaning, this is something I will stick with.... hopefully;) I am going to attempt to post a video on my youtube channel every day in October.  The topics will vary from motherhood, product reviews, attempting to live a Godly life, and healthy eating.  Oh and I'm sure there will be some videos of just the kids thrown in there a few times to keep things interesting.  Tune in each day, or subscribe to get an email with the video!

Life with 3 boys officially begins!

Luther at 4 months old

I say 'officially' because the past few months really didn't count because Joel was home so much to help with all the boys.

Low Milk + Husband out of town = need help!
The past few weeks have been a good 'warm up' for the school year officially beginning and me being 'on my own' with 3 little boys.  Joel has been gone much more often with local speaking engagements, meetings and a good amount of prep work for the beginning of the season.  A couple of weeks ago I got pretty sick and had a fever for a couple of days.  Then I had a bad sinus infection.  The combination of both of those made my milk supply drop very quickly and honestly, it took me a while to notice! I've never had this problem before and more commonly struggle with the opposite problem of oversupply and plugged ducts.  Because I wasn't as familiar with it, it snuck up on me, and I didn't even notice my supply had dropped until it was very very very low! Fortunately I was able to call on Papa Groskopf who came for 3 days to help with the boys so I could concentrate on nursing and pumping frequently.  I took a few supplements to help but interestingly, I had more success with brewer's yeast than fenugreek & mother's milk tea. After 2 full weeks, my supply finally returned to normal. Man.. that was not fun!

3 months into cloth diapering Vlog



The Columbus Zoo, Kings Island and Glenwood Gardens
We've had some awesome Zoo trips lately.  One included a momentous occasion for Judah.  When asked what his favorite part of the zoo trip was he replied, "Turtle" which is a huge breakthrough.  Usually from age 1-2 he would reply "zoo" or "trip." But he actually answered the question! wow. Here's what he was talking about -



in Cincinnati we visited the Glenwood gardens, which was really great for the kids.  Very creative, and excellent for learning.  Judah had a blast getting wet and watching the trains...



We also had our annual Kings Island trip which was a blast.  This year Joel was more fearful than last year and Judah was a bit tired so he wasn't as crazy as I expected him to be, but it was exhausting fun nonetheless!



Judah turns 2!
Judah turned two on September 19th.  He has been such a joy to watch as he has been turning into a toddler.  His latest obsessions are buckles, cars and trains, planes, and dirt.  We went to Macaroni Grill and brought a cake, that was about the extent of our birthday celebration.



We had a small party for Judah in Cincinnati as well...