A Feast to Ourselves...
We are going to have the opportunity to spend Thanksgiving Day with Ryan's family this year.  However, neither my Mom nor Ryan's are terribly into turkey, so turkey often doesn't happen at family holidays.  Therefore, we bought the smallest one we could find to have at home.  And, to make the occasion even more grand, we were able to find some folks to come share it with us.So yesterday I made a rice and quinoa stuffing, wild mushroom soup, and a chocolate truffle pie to go with the turkey, mashed potatoes, and asparagus I'm making today.And we woke up sick this morning.  So, we're not having company, and we're going to be eating turkey for ages!&nb

Not Yet, Little Man!
We've had a rather busy couple of weeks.  Mercy and I spent a good part of last week at my Mom's with my sister, her son and husband, and, of course, my mom.  We came home to Ryan on Saturday, and on Sunday afternoon I realized that our refrigerator was nearly empty.  We needed to go grocery shopping.I picked Ryan up from school on Monday evening so that we could all go to Winco together.  With Mercy so freshly potty trained it is so much easier with both of us.  She inevitably has to go (or at least check out the bathroom), and that is a hassle with a cart full of groceries, a diaper bag, and her to shuffle.  Last week I think Mercy

An Addendum...
After yesterday's post I feel that I need to add an addendum.  I know some wonderful people, and even have a couple of friends, who have home births or who refuse any sort of medication when in the hospital.  And I'm so glad that their bodies are able to accommodate their desires in that department!  I count myself blessed in that I have never thought of the delivery issue as a big deal, until hard decisions needed to be made regarding the deliveries of our children.  At which point I was shocked at the number of extremely strong opinions I got on the subject.  I had never realized that people were so passionate about such a thing--particularly when they didn'

Deliver This!
When I was pregnant with Mercy, I struggled with how to proceed in planning her delivery.  We live in a community in which home-birth is a big deal.  However, I knew that given some conditions that I struggle with, that would be a bad idea.  In fact, one of them (which is of a nature you simply don't blog about) can interfere with childbirth so heavily that many doctors who are familiar with it won't even attempt a natural delivery.  I was conflicted.  A large part of me simply wanted to go straight to the c-section.  I knew how much pain I had been in as a result of this condition in the past and couldn't imagine what delivering a baby would do.  Ho

Encouraged by the Little Things
Thank you for all of the kind responses to the last post.  Mercy now seems to be working on getting her eye teeth in, which means that more than ever my house is cluttered since we've been losing 2-4 hours of sleep a night with her.  Not to mention the high maintenance days those nights lead to on Mercy's parts.However, one small thing that does leave me encouraged is the frequency with which Mercy pretends to clean.  If she can't find a sponge she'll use a wipe to clean anything she can.  Then she'll proceed to put things into the washing machine.  It reminds me that she obviously sees these things happening!