Cinnamon Toast

A few days ago my friend Jeannette posted about cinnamon toast on her blog, which of course made the just gave birth/nursing mom crave it. Then yesterday my sister-in-law brought grandma's white bread from a local bakery. So...Today I had to make lunch for Serafina and Matteo (first day home alone with all the kids, Sam is at school)...so we decided to make cinnamon toast, using the Pioneer Woman's recipe.

Of course I let the kids help. Matteo mixed the cinnamon and sugar together and Serafina buttered the toast. While it was cooking Serafina and Matteo helped get the their plates ready.

Then it was time to eat...Oh my gosh...yes this is the best cinnamon toast ever. So I decide that I need to spread the word. If you are craving a little cinnamon sin, then go check out the Pioneer Woman's recipe. YUMMY and it is easy to let the kids help!



(to my seven pillar's group...yes I realize the only living food on the plate is the banana!)

Welcome Antonio James

Antonio James Regusci
April 25th 2010
6lbs 6oz, 19inch

Thank you to everyone for all the kind words on face book, etc. It was so much yesterday scrolling through what seemed like hunderds of kind words from our family and friends! Thank you.


We are were so happy to be home by lunch time yesterday and even more excited to sleep in our own bed last night. I forgot how nice it is to sleep with out a baby in your belly!! Now as a new mommy with her baby curled on her chest I have to share my version of AJ's birth:


Labor and Delivery couldn't have been better. (I should say after it was done, there were a few tense moments).

On Sunday we went into the the hospital and my Doc put a little cream on my cervix to help dilation along (it was 9:15). After sitting in bed for a couple hours I was released to walk around so that is what we did. Little contractions started but I was laughing through them so didn't think much of them. My water did break/ start leaking while we were walking outside. We had a great time staging a picture that circled face book. Yes those were my feet.

I ate a little lunch around 12:15pm and then Matt and I decided another walk might get things moving; we were tired of waiting around (it was now 1pm). During that little walk contractions really started to come. I had to stop walking and there was no talking, I did laugh during one when I guy walked by and said "I remember that, my wife was yelling 'baby out, baby out' at that point!"

At 1:30 we were back in the room and I thought I might die the contraction were so hard. I was bouncing on the ball, thinking I have only been in active labor for about 15min, I didn't know how I was going to handle hours of this or how I had done it in the past. I was barely making it through contractions at this point and my nurse came in, took one look at me and instantly wanted to check me.

My mind was all ready selling me on pain meds, if I am freaking out after 30 minutes of hard labor how can I do this? I was crying thinking I was letting myself down, why am i having a such a hard time?!?

Up on the bed I went at 2:00pm the nurse checked and said I am calling the doctor your 8cm!!

I had a fully turn around of attitude...8cm how could that be?! No wonder I was in so much pain I was in transition. That little piece of news made all the difference I buckled down and made it through another set of contrations, doctor showed up, pushing started and after about 15min of pushing AJ was on my chest, screaming bloody murder. Never had one scream, let alone scream bloody murder!! It was now 2:44pm basically an hour and half from what I considered labor starting and about 3 hr from the first contraction! Who would have thought. I sat there for over an hour just holding him, amazed that he was here and so fast. What a blessing from God.




Then the nurse took him and weighted our little guy: 6lbs 6oz. Over a pound lighter then our other babies! 19inch; an inch shorter then the others! How crazy.

Auntie Karlee gave him his first bath. The big kids came a visited after dinner and then we hit the hay.

The next day less they 24hr after having our little man entered the world we were heading home and have been happily recovering here since.

We feel so blessed.

Thanks again to everyone. I do have more pics to share I just after gather them from everyone's camera's. So stay tuned.

End of Week 38

Here I am approaching the end of week 38! How exciting. Doctor said his estimate is that the baby will still be the 6 lb range! We will see. I spent the whole morning contracting and lost my mucus plug (I know gross, to much info) but then I took a nap and everything stopped. So I had Matt snap a picture of my belly in case we make a midnight dash to the hospital. Thought I would share it with the world. ( oh and I am pretty sure Matt will manage to keep everyone informed of any progress via face book so if you are not his friend or you have him hidden you might change that for the next few days!!)

Random Thoughts

Today I considered packing my toiletry portion of my bag for the hospital (considered being the key word). I thought about needing to put in a hair band, hair clip and maybe a couple rubber bands in order to keep my hair out of my face and cute for those post birth pictures. Then I realized that for my first child I had this romantic notion that I would have beautiful glowing pictures of myself and my new infant right after birth...ha was I ever wrong. In all the pictures from the hospital I thought I looked like a fat cow and my hair was all over sticking out, they were anything but beautiful. Oh and of course you are trying to nurse for the first time so half the pictures are indecent to put in any sort of album or public forum.

Let me show you - here is hours after Serafina's births:

Ugh

Then I remember thinking that with Matteo's birth it would be different. I would pack the right hair supplies maybe even braid it when I feel that first contraction. Also I am a pro now with breastfeeding so I will keep covered. These pictures will be the beautiful pictures I have always dreamed about....was I ever wrong, in fact it might have got worst: still a fat cow, hair is even more out of wack and this time lets add the fact that I look stoned!!

Oh my gosh. What was Ithinking did I really believe things would be better?!!?

Oh and this is the only decent picture of me at Matteo's birth, the rest all have... well my chest in them:



So as I began to think about this little guy entering the world and packing all my much needed hair supplies and what not for the beautiful after birth pictures I romanticize, I had to laugh and walk out my bathroom, nothing packed. Because really I know nothing is going to help..I will still have messy hair, and look like I just ran a marathon and haven't slept in days. BUT I will have a precious little baby to hold and love and he will look adorable in every picture so who needs a picture of me anyways!!

I hope you are all really excited to see hospital pictures of AJ's birth now!!! Maybe I will dye my hair blue...then you would be looking at how out of control the style is!

p.s. This is just random thoughts, I hope I don't sound totally conceded I do thing about other important things...honest.

Easter

Finally I have uploaded Easter pictures. We had a great Easter Sunday attending the early service at church where Sam and Serafina sat with us and enjoyed the Easter morning music and celebration. Afterwords we head home to find Trevor and Jen finishing up a yummy brunch and low and behold the Easter Bunny left eggs behind!!

So after hyping them on sugar, we headed over to Matt's families for Easter dinner. And low and behold the Easter bunny delivered eggs there! Needless to say the kids had plenty of fun hunting eggs all day long. All in all it was a great day celebrating Christ with family and friends!

The Kids



Totally random Easter gift - about two weeks earlier we got a flat tire on our original cozy cope car (5yrs old) and Matteo was very sad. The Easter Bunny replaced it.


Oh and did I mention my mom decided to get Kittens Easter weekend...meet Chaos and Tiger:

36 Weeks

This baby is coming ready or not! Luckily between my last pregnancy post and this one I feel slightly more prepared. We have a pack of diapers and the car seat. What more do you need?!? I have yet to pack my bag for the hospital (or preregister) so if we have any sudden dashes off in the next week or just know I will be at the mercy of what others decide to throw in a bag for me!!

Today the doctor took a look at little man. A very in depth one. He wanted to make measure all his little body parts to make sure is growth was on track and that there was plenty of fluid. He said I am measure much smaller then any of my previous pregnancy, which can be normal, but he just wanted to double check. Well his measurements showed that he is growing nicely and proportionate which is awesome! He gave me an estimated weight at he is looking at around 5.5 lbs right now so his estimated birth weight is about 6.5 lbs which is smaller then my others but I am not complaining I hope the estimates are right!!

My next appointment is Thursday April 22nd and at that time he will check me, hopefully that will get labor going?!? We can hope right!! And last but not least the belly pic (don't ask me about the facial expression I am just not a photogenic person).



Also, I have not forgot about Easter I will be posting as soon as I sort through the pictures!

Homeschooling

Part one: The Decision

I (we, although ultimately it had to be my decision) have decide to give homeschooling a go around. This has not been a decision I have entered into lightly, quite the opposite actually. For that reason, I wanted to post my thoughts on this decision for myself and for others.

For the past month and a half I have searched endlessly for the right schooling option (and in the past when we have made changes). This searching has included dragging my husband to multiple school open houses, endless internet searching and chatting with a great homeschooling family. At every school there were piece I loved and pieces I didn’t. I had honestly thought I found the right school with Coastal Christian. It had strong Christian values, a good feel, the school had goals it was working on and the teaching staff seemed on the ball. All the while though my heart was being tugged in a different direction . . . homeschooling.

I would constantly talk about the option of homeschooling when discussing our schooling option with everyone around me. Most people would grin and say something polite about it, but no one was truly supportive of the idea (at least in my mind). So I kept telling myself I couldn’t do it, but my mind and my heart kept coming back to it over and over again. Since Serafina was born, Matt and I have discussed home school and that we believed it would be a great option for our kids. But then life situations changed and we rolled with our ever changing situation and that landed us educating our children outside the home which included private and public education with Sam. None of which have worked out to what we expected. Every time we came to a cross road we discussed homeschooling, but I turned the other direction and went a different way. This time around I tried desperately to get Matt to make the decision on schooling; I knew his first choice was homeschooling and hoped if he made the decision I wouldn’t have to make the choice. I wanted everyone on board and everyone was not on board. Matt kept telling me I had to make the final choice. He would, of course support me 100%, but in the end I would be home day in and day out.

So I continued to fill out application after application for different schools and finally had convinced myself that Coastal Christian was the right school and would please everyone. It was decided, and I would turn in the Coastal Christian application with the non-refundable $600.00.

Then I went to Church. Our pastor was speaking on Genesis 15:6 Abram believed in the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness. To be honest the first part my head was else were (most likely thinking about schools) but then the Pastor went into how we use this verse and my brain turned on. He was discussing the wrong places to find/measure your righteousness, for example you can’t find righteousness in your family or children, or your work. But then he touched momentarily on the way others measure your righteousness apart from Christ. He said we are people pleasers, and we allow others to tell us where we stand: his example was that of a treadmill that other people set for us and we are running on it trying to keep up but eventually we will fall off. I realized then that this was what I was doing. I was allowing other to determine my choices. For the last month I have been running on their treadmills and not stopping and listening to what God has planned for my family or what is in my heart. I believe He (GOD) has put homeschooling in my heart. My husband made a great point in an e-mail to me today that we must take this year as a trail and we may fail but that is fine because my righteousness is not tied to my family or homeschooling success! What a great thought, and it made me happy that our minds were on the same track that the Pastor set them on.

So the day came to turn in the application, and I couldn't. I could not lay down the non-refundable money for spots in a school I was not ready to full except, and that made me realize that I am ready to fully except homeschooling. Not a commitment forever but a commitment for a year. When I made a list of things important to me and my family they all seem to fall inline with homeschooling. Not to mention, now that I have made the commitment to take on this life changing challenge I am filled with relief and excited about the adventure ahead. I haven't given a second thought to the other choices.

Still this is pushing my comfort zones because I normally go with the crowd and I know most people in my life don’t believe I am ready to take on such a challenge or think it is the right choice. These are all people I have always relied on to help guide my decisions and this is probably the first time I will be going against their thoughts. I have to trust in God, my husband, and myself that we are making the correct decision. Over the next year we will discover if this will work or not and can re-evaluate this time next year. I may crash and burn and end up putting them all in school the following year with a big told you so from those around me but at least I can say I gave it my best and not always wonder what if.

Stay tuned for our plans on how we are going to home school: support, curriculum, etc. I am so excited to share all that I have learned and will be learning!