Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Easter Follow-up


We had a joyous Easter celebrating Christ's resurrection and the blessing of family. We went to church and then came home and prepared lunch. I made lamb, asparagus, fingerling potatoes, salad, peas and biscuits. It was a meal made with love for my husband since I don't like lamb or asparagus. Everything turned out well, except the lamb took an hour longer to cook then it was supposed to, so lunch was rather late. We spent the rest of the day just hanging out. It was a very rainy day, so I didn't get to do much of a photo shoot of the girls in their dresses. Maybe we'll have to go to the park all dressed up on the next sunny day. We hope you all had a happy Easter too!

Saturday, March 22, 2008

Here Comes Easter

It's been a busy, but mostly fun week. I love doing traditional things with my kids, even though I don't always feel like I'm very good at it. I am not the most patient person in the world, especially when the whining starts and small children don't listen when I tell them to sit in their seats. (note: I included a picture of our permanently dyed table after Katrina dumped the container of red coloring.) It was nice to do something fun amongst the busyness. I've always loved the colors and patterns of dyed eggs. I tried baking the Easter bread that my Grandma always used to make us. I think it came out pretty well. It brought back lots of good memories. Then today we had a get-together with people from church which included an Easter egg hunt. It was fun watching Emily look for the eggs. (Katrina was too scared by the loud motorcycles from the neighbors to do much hunting.) Emily spent the rest of the day re-hiding the eggs and making Katrina find them. It was nice to watch Emily get into the Easter story told to the kids at the get-together. She excitedly shouted "He was risen" at the right point in the story. It's good to know she doesn't just think it's all about candy. Tomorrow my in-laws will come over for lunch after church. Let's hope the food comes out well!

Easter Parade at Preschool
 
Dying Eggs







Dyed Table
  

Italian Easter Bread Dolls



 Easter Egg Hunt





Monday, March 17, 2008

Oregon Coast Aquarium

This weekend we went to the aquarium with our friends Mike and Becky to celebrate their baby Connor's first birthday. Despite the crazy weather (rain, sun, hail) it was lots of fun. I think Connor enjoyed himself, even though he probably didn't realize he was the cause of all of it. It was so fun to see him attack his cake. Thanks guys for a fun day! Of course I can't resist the opportunity to post pictures of the girls. I'll throw in some random sea creatures so I don't seem obsessed. ;)









Saturday, March 15, 2008

Birth

One cool thing about living in a college town like Corvallis is the academic opportunities that pop up. I admit I haven't really taken advantage of them up until now, but on Wednesday I got the chance to. There is a cultural anthropologist at OSU who wanted to study more about the birth process and so she became a midwife. On Wednesday she held a screening of The Business of Being Born proceeded by a panel discussion. It was pretty interesting. The movie makes you think about the whole way we do birth in the US. I have thought about it before, since I worked as a labor and delivery nurse for two years and have given birth twice, but I wasn't aware of some of the statistics they quote in the movie. I thought overall that it was a good movie, although somewhat biased towards home birth. It did help cement my opinions toward birth and the birth process which have been slowly forming over the past ten years. If you're interested, here it goes.

I think women sell themselves short and don't give themselves enough credit. I have heard so many people jump to the epidural option without even considering that they might be tough enough to handle it. I think each birth is a unique case and should be treated as such, and labor has so many facets and circumstances that affect it. I don't think getting an epidural is a bad thing, and I am more comfortable with the idea of a hospital birth, but I think home birth has something to be said for it too. It's a complicated subject. Even though women talk about it all the time, most of the time it's just a sharing of horror stories instead of encouraging each other to gain knowledge and stand up for what we want. When I was a labor and delivery nurse I was often frustrated by all the paperwork and tasks I had to do. I felt it took time away from my patients. At the same time, most women want their labor to be as quick and pain free as possible and hospitals try to facilitate this, not necessarily to the patient's benefit. Also a lot of women have an idealized image of what their birth experience should be and are very upset when/if they don't get it. This makes it a very highly litigated area in the medical field which I think effects the nurse's care. If you are constantly afraid of being sued, you focus a lot on paperwork and procedures instead of the person. I don't have any easy answers, but the strongest feeling I came away from the movie with was, we need more education. Education for doctors, nurses, women, spouses, everyone involved in the process. At least it's a place to start. I recommend this movie to anyone who will be involved in the birth process in some way during their lives, at least as a starting point. It does have a few graphic c-section scenes, and their are lots of boobs, so be forewarned. :)

Monday, March 10, 2008

Visiting the Ducks

Today we met up with Christoph at work, had lunch together and fed the ducks. I've been asked to post some belly pictures, (or as Hollywood would say, pics of the bump) so I took advantage of the pretty outdoors and had Christoph snap some shots. Despite her look of distrust, Katrina had a ball with the ducks. She was so funny yelling, "Come here ducky, come here." She would throw the bread and say "Catch, you're welcome." Emily was like a little machine gun firing off pieces of bread like little bullets. It was cute to see both my girls unconsciously following in my footsteps and trying to make sure all the ducks got a little, instead of just throwing indiscriminately. I love getting out of the house for a little while to sit outside.







Me in all my largeness