20 tips to guarantee a great relationship with your kids

First off I would like to say hi! How are you doing? I know I have been MIA from blogging for like two and a half months but I swear its for good reason! The first reason is being Mom is more demanding than I initially thought, and also when it's not demanding well why on earth would I want to be away from that gorgeous face!

And second I was busy finishing my degree, that's right I am now an educated adult ! Boom! Job offers should be rolling in any day now right? School actually really sucked, I mean I had finals and papers due on Mother's Day how rude was that? My first Mother's Day and I was hunched over a computer! Ah well it was worth it to be done with school. Anyways for Mother's Day my mama sent me an awesome gift! She sent me a journal and inside she had written 20 tips to making sure I had an awesome relationship with my kids. I must say as a product of these teachings they really work. I love my mom, she has always been my best friend and I think that right there is proof that her guidelines work.

1. First and foremost talk to them about God and teach them how to pray.
2. Always listen to your kids..." Really Listen" and talk to them like real people.
3. Tell them you love them every day, kiss them everyday, and hug them every day. Never ever,ever,ever let them not hug you back. ( when I was growing up my mom would literally not let us go until we hugged her, and the one armed hug didn't fly) * This ensures they never get to old for hugs.
4. Treat them with respect, remember they are just like you.
5. Trust them. If they make a mistake, give them an opportunity to redeem themselves.
6. Make hot chocolate for them in the middle of the night.
7. If you make a mistake (which you will,) admit it.
8. Have donuts for dinner everyone in a while. ( I always thought this was the greatest dinner when I was a kid!)
9. Believe and encourage their dreams, no matter how crazy they may be. Support them! ( True story: my brother has always dreamt of drifting professionally,crazy right?, and my mom has always cheered him on, also this is what he actually does now. Well he is getting there.)
10. Always remember how lucky you are to hear their noise, see their mess, and correct their mistakes. What if you couldn't because they weren't there anymore? ( My mom also used this on us when we would complain about each other, it was so annoying because then I would feel guilty about being upset about one of my sisters taking my clothes or my brother being loud, but she is right)
11. Drink virginmargaritas with them and dance on the table.
12. Play in the rain and make mud pies.
13. Run around the playground and play tag. ( I always loved that my mom never just sat on the bench and watched us play but would join in)
14. Remember the best way to lead them in life is through example.
15. Sing at the top of your lungs with them.
16. Give them experiences more than material things.
17. Let them believe in Santa, the tooth fairy, and the Easter bunny for as long as they can.
18. Play dress up or get on the floor and race cars.
19. Dance around the house as you clean with them.
20. Always, always remember that just like when they are little and you stood under the tree to catch them in case they fell when they climb; in life you should always be there ready to catch them if they fall.

Well there you have it. Take this information and raise great kids. Love them, be their best friend and remember they are people too, just like you were at that age. I hope you all have a lovely weekend! Enjoy the holiday, stuff your bellies with Bar-B-Que and beer ( or wine, whatever hits your fancy)

Cheers!!!!

So you want to make your own...

...mud scrub.

The other day I noticed that I was running low on my salt scrub that my Dad got me from BathJunkie and I have taken this opprotunity to make my own scrub :) I searched through several post on Pinterst and found thismud scrub. I was super excited to try it out!!!

I tweeked the recipe a bit but here is how I made mine.

1/4 c sugar

1/4 c coffee ( I have a jar off Starbucks coffee that we never drink because it is gross. so glad I found a way to use it because it was just gathering dust.)

Some Olive Oil, I didn't actually measure it out, I just kind of drizzled a little into the jar.

a few drop of peppermint oil

I mixed it all up in a jar and tada it was done.

I actually made it like five minutes before my shower on a whim.

My husband looked at me like I was a little crazy at first. THEN he tried it and well he loves it too.

It makes your skin so soft and smooth and if it does what it is supposed to it will make my skin radiant. :)

Alright well good night folks!

So you want to make your own...

...yogurt.

Well I will try and explain the directions as best as I can.

I never really ate yogurt when I was a kid. In fact I only really started eating it towards the end of my pregnancy. I just craved it! With a little granola and I was set. Now yogurt is not terribly expensive but I decided I wanted to make my own because I would get milk from WIC and it would expire before I drank it and I knew if it was yogurt it would disappear quickly. So I found a recipe that worked for me.

Alright now get your supplies together. Go ahead I will wait... Also turn on your oven to 350.

• Supplies:
• Milk ( however much you want)
• Pot
• Thermometer
• A scoop of yogurt ( yes you need yogurt to make yogurt, or you can buy the live cultures but I never have used them so you are on your own there)
• Something to stir with
• Some coffee filters ( optional)
• And a strainer ( optional)

Ok what you want to do first is boil your milk. A lot of places on the web say to use a double boiler thing but I don't have one so I skipped it. Be careful not to burn the milk. Heat it up slowly to 180 degrees. If you burned milk to the bottom of the pan don't freak out. I do it all the time. Just make sure not to scrape the bottom of the pan when you stir. Which you should be doing every once in a while.

Once the milk reaches 180 degrees turn the stove off. Now for this next bit you can do it two ways. One you can fill the sink with ice and water and stick the pot of hot milk in it. Cool it down to 120 degrees. OR you could just wait for it to cool on its own. Now that the milk has cooled you mix in your dollop of yogurt. I usually like to mix a cup of the warm milk with the yogurt first and then toss it in the big pot.

OH and make sure that the starter yogurt you are using has live cultures in it. Alright so everything should be ready to put in the oven. Put the lid on your pot and stick it in the oven and turn it off. Now you wait. I usually do this at night and leave it in the oven while I sleep. Then in the morning TADA you have yogurt :)

You can stop here OR OR OR you could strain the yogurt and make it Greek :) Which is what I love to do. A lot of people use cheese cloth to strain, but again I do not have any so I use the useless coffee filters I have. Why I own them, I do not know for my fair coffee is brewed by thy mighty Keurig. Anyways....

So you get your coffee filters and line up your strainer.

Then you pour the yogurt in and once again you wait. While waiting put the straining yogurt in the fridge so it cools k.

After a couple of hours your yogurt should be ready. :)

Enjoy.

This here is my favorite way to eat yogurt:

Fresh blueberries, yogurt, honey, and granola. :) with a side of hard boiled eggs.

The Cherrys are going Green

Alright so I know my postings have been pretty sparse lately but I am sure you can understand why. Little Miss Cherry keeps us very busy and I hardly have enough time to write a full post. Once I wrote a How to make your own yogurt complete post with pictures and everything on my phone, this little one knocked it out of my hand and the entire thing deleted. So I am going to rewrite it next time I make yogurt. Anyways I have so many ideas about things I want to write. Some about the baby, some about marriage, others about food, and crafty things, but for now I settled on the topic of going green (mostly because I have had baby focused post for the last million and we need something different thrown in.) 

Now I have always been the tree hugger of my family. I love the planet and I want to help save  it. Also being green really helps save the green. The hubs and I have taken a few steps recently to really move forward on our mini green movement. 

One of the very first decisions we made baby wise after finding out we were pregnant was to use cloth diapers instead of disposables. So far we are one month in and we love it. They are so easy to use and we don't have to worry about making a midnight trip to the shoppette for diapers. We used disposables for the first month because she was just to tiny to fit in her cloth diapers we had bought and I hated them. I hated making so much trash. I hated that we went through them so fast and I hated having to spend so much money on them. 

Just a few from our stash :)

Alright so after the cloth diapers I was like what else can we do to reduce our foot print on little old Earth. I wanted to use cloth wipes. Mr. Cherry put his foot down with a very firm no. He thinks he will get the gross stuff on him because they are to small. I on the other hand use them every now and then. They are just more convenient when you are using cloth diapers. The wipes led me to thinking about our paper towel use. Paper towels... what a waste. I mean people didn't always have paper towels, they used real kitchen towels and real napkins, so why couldn't I? So I did my research and I found  Unpaper Towels. They are thin like paper towels and absorbent enough to dry your hands, clean the counter, wipe your face, and whatever else you use paper towels for. 

These are the ones I ordered: 

Image from Unpaper Towels shop

To go with our new "unpaper towels" I wanted a chemical free cleaner. So I ventured back into the internet and found that vinegar was used as a cleaner. You could even soak some orange peels in the vinegar to make it smell better. So I decided to try it out. 

Soaking in that citrus smell!

After a few days it was ready to be used!

This didn't work out for us. It cleaned great but the vinegar smell was to strong and the hubs didn't like it. I was a little bummed because I didn't know what else we could use that was not chemical filled. And then over the long weekend for Presidents day, I was laying in bed and another solution came to me. Why not use alcohol. Not the stuff you buy for a couple bucks in the pharmacy section of Wally World. I am talking Vodka, not the expensive stuff thought ( you wanna save that for drinking ;) ) So I mixed a solution that would work for us. 

• 1 cup of vodka
• 2 cups of water
• 25-30 drops of essential oils for smell :) 
• I used 15 drops of Lavender and 15 of Peppermint ( it smells wonderful and cleans great too!) 

This solution can be used for so many things too! Cleaning the counters, windows, sink, jewelry, and you can even sprtiz it on some stinky fabric and it will take care of the smell. 

Alright well those are the things we have changed for now. We are looking into a few other ways to green up our lives and I will let you know when that happens. 

Cluster Feedings

Oh joy...

You know I thought the hard part about breast feeding was the getting started, but no I was wrong. That was fairly easy. Nursing has not really been a problem, I mean at seven weeks old my monkey has gained four pounds and four inches since birth. She is so chunky. She had been eating every two to three hours, which was great.

And then it changed.

She has been doing fine during the day, but once five o'clock hit nonstop feedings begin. Our little miss eats for 15-20 minutes stops and is fine then about 20 minutes will pass and she is wanting to eat again. She does this until just before midnight.

My boobs are sore, I have a headache, and I totally understand why many women switch to formula after the first six weeks. Because breast feeding is hard. I want to give up.

But I won't. I read that this was normal and it will soon pass. I just have to suck it up. Besides I heard that breast feeding helps you loose weight and I need all the help I can get.

Alright well I just wanted to vent a bit. Have a lovely day.

Life as I know it...

It's two in the morning, my baby girl just fell asleep after fussing for hours. I am so tired and I was so frustrated but then, then I looked at her laying in my lap. Sleeping soundly, a smile running across her face every now and then and that is when my frustration melted away. I felt less tired and all I want to do now is look at her. Soak her in and try to store every detail of her cute pudgy face in my memory. She is only six weeks old but she is so different already. She has more character, more life and if it is possible she gets more and more beautiful everyday. I know this wont last and in a flash she will be starting school, then graduating and before I know it she will be where I am now, looking at her new baby. So I am savoring this moment with her. Ok I was savoring the moment but it is way passed my bedtime and I am going to try and put this little one in her bed.

The day that changed our lives

After months of being pregnant, reading all the books and articles on birth, and preparing your hospital bag, your house, and your life you think you are ready. You think that when it is time for that baby to come you will know exactly what to do and do it all calmly and with ease, at least I thought that. Boy was I wrong.

It all started the week before Christmas. I was at that point of my pregnancy where I really just wanted it to be over. I wanted to be comfortable, I wanted my little girl. At this weeks appointment the doctor told me I was 1cm dilated and 25% effaced. I was excited! Then he said it could stay like that for weeks before anything happened (thanks for popping my ballon of excitement) or I could have her tomorrow (oh look there it floats again!) The doctor suggested I have my membranes stripped to help reduce the need for an induction later, so I went for it. That was by far the most uncomfortable thing I had encountered, at least at that time it was. That was Tuesday.

The rest of the week passed without excitement. I had random contractions here and there that felt no worse than minor cramps. Everyday I walked into physical therapy and everyone would give me the "you're still pregnant" look or say things like " man you look like you are ready to go." I kindly nodded along wishing they would stop reminding me how uncomfortable I looked and felt. On Friday night I went to sleep around 11:30-12:00, thinking nothing was going to happen. I hadn't felt any contractions at all that day just some pain in my hip joints, the same as any other night.

At 2 o'clock in the morning on Saturday I woke up thinking I peed the bed. I was pretty annoyed about this because I hadn't even been dreaming of water or anything. Then I moved and had no control over the liquid I felt coming out. I nudged my husband and told him "hey, hey, I think my water just broke." Immediately he gets up grabs me a towel and starts getting dressed, completely calm. I on the other hand I'm frozen. Sitting there trying to make sense of the words that just came out of my mouth. "It's happening! It's really happening!" " holy crap I'm about to be a parent" " OMG!" " what do I do now" are just a few of the thoughts that were buzzing around my head, it is safe to say I was freaking out. I started hyperventilating. Keith came over gave me my clothes and assured me everything was going to be okay. I couldn't comprehend how he was staying so calm, it was actually annoying me that he was Mr. CalmAndPrepared and I was over here having a panic attack.

Some how I managed to get dressed and called my Mom to let her know what was going on. I called the hospital to let them know that we would be there soon and you know what they said, wait. That's right they wanted me to hold off and call them back in an hour. This was nothing like on TV. Usually when someone's water breaks on TV they rush to the hospital. Why on earth did they want me to wait!!! I couldn't believe it. By the time we finished getting ready to go an hour had passed and I called the hospital again. You know what they said!!! Wait!!! What?! Wait again, really? What about what they do on TV? They told me to head on over around five , take a shower and eat something small. So we head back inside ( I had called them from the car.) Keith made me a pb&j and we sat and waited. Those two hours took forever.

By 5:30 we were sitting in a room waiting for the nurse to make sure my water had broken. They told me a lot of women think that their water breaks and it is usually nothing. And I was thinking really! I know it's broken you don't have to do a test! Sure enough as soon as she got a look down there, before doing this q tip like test she confirmed my water had broken. I wanted to say I told ya so, but I knew she was just doing her job. So they admitted us and took us to our room. This room was awesome. It was huge! It had all the equipment needed to deliver the baby, check her, wash her and all that jazz so that we did not have to be separated.

Waiting for the nurse to do the initial exam. 

Just before they hooked me up to the monitors. 

When I was settled into my bed, monitors strapped to my belly and arm, IV in the wrist, and freshly checked I was 5 cm dilated and 98% effaced. The waiting began again. Thanks to technology and the hospital wifi I was able to Skype my family in Florida. So my Mom, sisters and Tubbs waited with us.

Talking to my family on Skype!

Do y'all watch FRIENDS? Well when Rachel is having her baby she meets this women that is also having a baby. Rachel tries to scare her about contractions and how bad they hurt because the lady said her's were not bad at all and she makes this weird noise every time she has one. Well I felt like that lady. My contractions were there but they just felt like small cramps. They made my decision to do this without an epidural seem like a sane idea. At 9:30 the doctor came in and told me my contractions had become irregular and there was to much time in between them. He told me if my water hadn't broke he wouldn't worry about it but it had, and my baby needed to come out soon. So here came the shot of Pitocin. This is when the pain started. My contractions felt like cramps x a billion and set on fire. By 11 o'clock the pain was excruciating. I had wanted to do this without any pain killers but the Pitocin had turned my contractions into the Hulk. So I asked for the drugs. The nurse gave me a shot of fentanyl. Oh sweet fentanyl. I still could feel the pain but it was distant. I was on a cloud floating above my body. That feeling was short lived though, I knew it wouldn't last long. They had warned me it would only last 30 minutes. As soon as the 30 minutes passed the pain came back. I was ready for it though. Before I was so exhausted and I couldn't take it, but I had rested and was ready to finish the job.

This is where things really get started. About 15 minutes after the medicine wore off the pain had reached an all time high and I knew it was time to push. Keith went to get the doctors and then came back and fixed my computer so my family could watch and cheer me along on Skype. Once the pushing started things are a little blurry. I know it went fast with only 8-10 pushes and lasted about 20 minutes. I remember them asking if I wanted to touch her head. I thought that was weird and passed on it. They kept telling me she was so close to being here and I just needed to push a little more. I was so exhausted and tired I didn't understand why they couldn't just pull her out, I mean they said she was right there. I am pretty sure I asked them too. That is when our nurse said if they could do that then it wouldn't be called labour. It hurt so badly. I didn't yell at Keith and blame him or anything but I kept telling him how much it hurt. He responded with "I know baby, I know it hurts." And he didn't know. In a break between pushes I said " No, no you don't know." My logic for saying his was he would never have this feeling and couldn't possibly know how it hurt. I said this in such a small exhausted voice that he laughs about it now.

I finally gave the last push and out she came. Immediately the pain stopped as well. I mean things stung a bit but it was nothing like it had been before. When I first saw my baby girl, the first thing I said was " She doesn't have eyebrows!" But she was the most beautiful thing in the world. I mean at least I thought so, but when I look back at pictures of when they first gave her to me she is a little scary looking. Don'tcha think?

Ah she is beautiful ( you have to look past all the gunk.)

In all this crazy chaos, our wonderful nurse grabbed our camera and started clicking away. I am so thankful for him because if he had not picked up that camera we would not have photos of Little Miss Cherry's first moments of life.

Getting our first good look at our baby girl.

Once things settled and I had my baby girl on my chest I turned to my computer to show her to my family. I had thought it was just my Mom, Tubbs and the girls but there was my brother, my dad, and step mom too. It was amazing. My brother was on Skype with my sister and she had turned her computer toward the screen I was on so my family in Texas could "be there" with me as well, seriously technology is such a blessing some times.

Showing her off to the family

My little darling was born on 12-22-12 at 12:21pm. I kept saying that Santa came early and delivered her to us but then I thought why does he get the credit. I did all the work and it was hard! I am really proud of myself for delivering her without pain meds because while I was pushing I kept thinking I couldn't do it. I really wanted to stop because of the pain but you can't really do that.

My little family.

Cutting the umbilical cord (for the second time.)

My tiny baby, at 6lbs 10oz. I was scared she we would be a 10 pounder.

First bath.

Holding his baby girl for the first time. 

Aw look at how beautiful she is now that she is all cleaned up!

Fun fact: The doctor told me that six out of ten women that come in say they are going to do it without the epidural and only one of those six actually follow through with it :)

I can't believe a month has passed since this life changing event. She has grown so much since then, it amazes me everyday how much she just keeps changing. She is only a month old but I already miss my tiny newborn that couldn't fit into her clothes because it was to big, now things are to small.