Happy Birthday to my little man

I've never shared my youngests birth story here before and since it is his birthday today I would like to share it. So here we go.

I woke up on Friday, May 30, 2008 at 7:08 a.m. and immediately started feeling contractions. I sat down at the computer and started timing them. Surprisingly they were all at 3 minutes apart. There were a couple that were 5 minutes apart and then they were back to 3 minutes and 2 minutes apart. I was in denial for the first half hour, okay more like an hour that this could be real labor.  I had woken up that morning with the intention of getting all my last minute stuff done before the babies arrival. But he had other plans. My friend Gena finally convinced me that I should call my midwife and this was more then likely real labor.

I contacted my Christy, my midwife around 8:00 and she was like your not in labor are you? I laughed and said actually I believe I am. So she said okay I will drop my kids off and grab my stuff and be on my way. She was coming from Whittier which is an hour and a half away so she rushed to get here. As soon as I hung up with her I called my husband and told him I think that he needed to come home. So he also left right then. I then called my mom and told her I needed her here to help me so she went and got my sister from school and came over. I took a shower to help me through the contractions and brought the kids in with me since it was just us at home. By the time my mom got here it was 9:10 a.m. I was bent over the side of my bed breathing through the contractions and the kids were still playing in the shower. My sister helped me with the kids and my friend Laura offered to called my mom and give her a list of things to buy for the birth. So she left and it was just me, the kids and my sister. My sister made them breakfast and kept them busy which I am very grateful for that.

By the time my mom got back which was around 9:45-10:00 it was a mad rush. They lined the bed with a shower curtain and lots of towels and then put one on the floor also in case I wanted to move. I "quickly" got onto the bed, on all fours with a pillow under my arms.  My husband walked in a couple minutes later. I was so happy he was finally home. He came over and held my hand the whole time. I told my mom I feel like I need to push because I was having pressure in my lower butt area. She then picked up the phone and immediately called Laura and was like what do I do!!!! She said it might help to put pressure on the sides of my hips, HOLY CRAP that did not help. Steve was like uh yeah no she does not like that.I have bad hips so I assume it's from that.

About 5 minutes later my midwife Christy came running in. She quickly got gloves, grabbed her jar of olive oil, rubbed it on me and said okay whenever your ready Shana. I always told myself I would NEVER be a screamer, but man oh man did I scream. Christy told me that the screaming doesn't help because it makes me tighten which pushes the baby back in (For all of you pregos out there, remember that bit of information for when you're in labor).

Soooooo I tried my hardest to grunt/breath instead of screaming. I think I did pretty well, at least they told me I was. Finally after about 3-4 pushes the head was out. Christy said hello to the baby and giggled and said she always loves this part because it's their first look at the new world. Everyone there was saying someone take a picture. My sister Tia (who was 17 at the time) was the only one right there with a camera but she was very hesitant so I said in my nicest during labor voice "Just take the fucking picture Tia". Everyone got a good laugh out of that one. Two more pushes and we had a baby at 10:31 a.m.! He was 8 lbs. 8 oz. and 21 1/4 inches long and just absolutely beautiful. My oldest was the who announced that it was a boy :) I was so excited and I KNEW it was a boy! Steve was in shock. He was totally convinced we were going to have a girl. 

It was an absolutely amazing birth experience. I enjoyed doing it all natural, being in my home, my own element. It was very comfortable and no one was telling me what to do or how to do it. It was all up to me. Example, when Christy said okay I'm ready Steve asked does she push now and her reply was "whenever Shana feels the need to. She is in control here, it's her body and she will know what to do when the time is right". I loved her look on birth. In a hospital it's the Dr who delivers your baby but that's not how she see's it. It's the mother who delivered the baby, the Dr, midwife, whoever is there to assist but the mom did all the work. Midwifes rock!

So that was how our beautiful bouncing, wild, crazy, full of energy, very curious, happy baby boy was born!

Happy third Birthday to my little man. I loved you as soon as I found out I was pregnant and that love has grown each and every day. You are by far my most challenging child but I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world. I can't wait to watch you continue to grow. You are my baby, today, tomorrow and forever <3

Best pork roast recipe ever

If you have a pork roast sitting in the fridge and have no idea what to do with it then you have come to the right place. I bought a six pack of pork loins at Costco & then realized I've never cooked this before & and I don't even know how to let alone have a recipe for it. So naturally I searched online. My one stop place to go to for recipes is Allrecipes. While browsing I came across this simple recipe. And when i say simple I mean four ingredients kind of simple. My kind of recipe! It took all of five minutes to prepare and then I put it in the fridge to marinate for a few hours. I told you, simple. 

And since I love sharing recipes I had to post it for my readers. 

Balsamic Roasted Pork Loin

2 lb. boneless pork loin

1/2 cup olive oil

1/2 cup balsamic vinegar 

2 tbsp. steak rub

Directions

Mix the vinegar, olive oil and seasonings in a small bowl. 

Place the pork loin in a ziploc bag and pour the marinade over. 

Marinate in the fridge for at least two hours. 

You can marinate it over night also. 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Place pork in a glass baking dish along with the marinade.

Bake for approximately one hour or until your pork loin is 165 degrees (internal temperature).

Bast your pork loin while it's cooking every 20 minutes. 

Let the roast rest for ten minutes. Slice and serve.

Now I have had pork loin before but I have never had one with such flavor. While taking my first bite I was instantly in love with this meal and new it was a keeper. I did make a change because I do not have steak rub in my house so I used roasted garlic chicken rub. I have since made this dish three times and the last two times I put my little spin on it. Instead of using chicken or steak rub I created my own rub.

Rub

1/2 tbsp onion powder

1/2 tbsp garlic powder

1/2 tbsp cayenne pepper

1/2 tbsp freshly ground black pepper

It's a basic rub but I personally like the little bit of bite that the cayenne peppers adds to it.  You can find the original recipe from Allrecipes.com here.

Wordless Wednesday-Did anyone else see this?

I walked out to go get the mail on Sunday and for some reason that I am not sure of, I looked up at the sun. My mouth dropped to the floor and I ran back inside to get my little point and shoot camera. Probably not a big deal to most but I just thought it looked amazing so I had to get some pictures of the sun. There was a complete ring around it. I've seen partial rings before but never a complete one and one so pronounced.

If you would like to link up your Wordless Wednesday picture head on over to these blogs:

Resourceful Mommy

Live and Love out loud

5 Minutes for Mom

What is your preferred DSLR camera

I am personally a Nikon girl. I've mentioned before that even though I have used a Canon I am standing firm with my love for my Nikon.  The Nikon is a little heavier then a Canon but the speed at which the Nikon shoots with literally no wait in between snapping photos outweighs (pun intended) any other "issues" for me. Once again I am back to a non op camera, my husband thinks it's the memory card but I am thinking there might be an issue with the camera itself since this is memory card number five since I have had the camera. I am currently drooling keeping my eye on the Nikon D7000 and hey why not shoot for the stars, I'm also loving the Nikon D300s. But I am not picky, I'll take either of them LOL

   

www.skinnyscoop.com

Jumping on the wine bandwagon

I wasn't a wine drinker until recently. Well actually it all started a few years ago when I came across a sweet wine called Moscato Bianco by Robert Mondavi. All it took was one sip and I was in love. The sad thing about finding a wine you love is when you run out of it and go to buy another bottle only to find out your new love has been discontinued and that you will never again be able to taste it's perfection. I searched high and low holding onto hope that maybe some random place will have a bunch in stock that they bought before it was discontinued. That hope was squashed after a year of searching. But luckily I have found a few replacements that satisfy my quench for a late night relaxer that I can enjoy while reading a book.

I am not a wine aficionado so those that are may view this as an abomination for even doing this but hey, I am channeling my inner Jewel from Cougar Town and calling this beauty of a glass my "Big Bob".  Yes I drink my white wine in a red wine glass, and no it doesn't matter to me that it is not it's intended use. Say hello to Big Bob, my red wine glass that I gladly pour white wine into, because hello it holds more then a white wine glass does! Last night I enjoyed a glass, or two with some friends and they brought over Chardonnay. Not normally what I drink but I have to say I was pleasantly surprised and might be making a switch.

Sorry it's such a bad picture. My camera died so this was taken with my phone. Here is another picture so you can see exactly how this glass looks.

Red Wine Glasses


To see this glass and other beautiful glassware like this one take a peek at Wine Enthusiasts site, they have a huge selection and at a great price. 

*I was provided two wine glasses from Wine Enthusiast for review. As always opinions are 100% mine.* 

Our Long Beach Aquarium of the Pacific visit

On Thursday my sons school went on their big end of the year field trip. This year it was at the Long Beach Aquarium of the Pacific. If you have never been and live in the area I highly recommend the aquarium for a family trip. While the trip can be a little pricey it's still cheaper then going to a theme park and this is educational. You can purchase discounted tickets online here. 

I've never been on a field trip before, last year when my son was in school we ended up missing his field trip due to a family emergency so this was all new to me. I loved every second of it. I had four kids in my group and it was cute to see the totally different personalities but they all had one thing in common. Excitement. They were all beyond excited to see every single thing they could while we were there which was a lot.

Long Beach Aquarium of the Pacific

"Home to more than 11,000 ocean animals, representing nearly 500 species, the Aquarium celebrates the planet’s largest and most diverse body of water: the Pacific Ocean. Featuring 19 major habitats and 32 focus exhibits, the Aquarium of the Pacific is a world-class aquarium, exploring the waters of Southern California and Baja, the Northern Pacific, and the Tropical Pacific."-http://www.aquariumofpacific.org/exhibits/

With so much to see five hours wasn't nearly enough time to take it all in but I think we managed to go through most of the exhibits that were open, even if we did walk/run right through some. It was still an amazing trip.

And now onto the pictures. I took over 200 pictures and since I can't post them all here (that would just be a little overkill) I will share a few of my favorites.

*You are welcome to use my photos as long as you note that they belong to me. Please be respectful. Thank you.*

Wordless Wednesday-View of the Valley

This is a view of the valley I haven't been able to take a picture of before. If you look up pictures of my area it's typically a shot over looking the entire valley over by the aqua duct. While it is a nice view it's popular so I was glad to capture a different perspective.

You can link up your Wordless/Wordful Wednesday post over at

Resourceful Mommy

Mama Dweeb

Live and Love...out loud

Dagmar's Momsense

Mom Start

5Minutes4Mom

iHeart Faces photo challenge-May Flowers

April showers bring May flowers. And what better way to enjoy those rainy days when you can't go outside then by looking forward to all the beautiful blooming flowers to come next month.

This weeks theme for iHeart Faces is May Flowers and I just so happened to take a bunch of pictures the other week of all the beautiful flowers that are now blooming.

Here is my submission:

If you would like to participate head on over to iHeart Faces and link up!

Pirates is almost here

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides is scheduled to be released in the theaters on May 20th. With less then a week to go Disney has released a special little activity pack for all Pirate fans out there. The  pack includes things lots of fun things like coloring pages, face masks, door hangers and more.







To download the activity kit please click here.

My kids aren't the biggest fans of the movies but they are still quite young so that's understandable. I am a huge fan which I've stated before and my kids do say they like Pirates and will sit down to watch it with me but they aren't really into it. So I will either be going by myself next week or with a friend. Either way I am excited to see some old characters like Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) and some new like Angelica (Penelope Cruz).

I am not perfect

Despite popular belief I am not perfect (come on, go ahead, laugh, you know you want to. I am). In fact I am far from perfect. This is not a whoa is me post. This is a recognizing my faults and idiosyncrasies that make me me.

So here we go.

-I am a procrastinator

-I bite my cuticles

-I pick my nails

-I grind my teeth in my sleep

-I bite my lips and cheeks when I am nervous

-I am an emotional eater

-I have my clean laundry basket filled and over flowing with clean clothes to fold

-I have clothes in the dryer that need to be folded

-I let dishes pile in my sink

-My house needs to be vacuumed

-The kids trashed their room and it hasn't been cleaned up yet

-I have a habit of turning my phone on vibrate and missing all my calls

-I do not like to leave voicemails

-I love sweets, and carbs, and well all food

-In fact I may or may not have a package of oreos hiding in my pantry.

-I hide stuff from myself so I forget I have it that way I don't eat it all in one sitting

-I am terrified of death

-I come from mixed religions

-I pray but I am not Christian nor am I Jewish, I find religion fascinating just haven't decided which side of the fence I am on

-I give great advice but don't practice what I preach

-I have lost a lot of my patience

-I give up too easily (I am getting better at that though)

-I get so sucked into a book that everything around me kind of fades off, not always a bad thing but being a stay at home mom it's not best to read during the day

-I don't take care of myself as far as making regular checkups. That goes hand in hand with the procrastination but that is also something I am working on

-I am a walking stress ball

-I stress over the small things

-I have a semi webbed toe but I was not born with it

-One of my small toe nails grows a new nail every few years ever since I cut the tip of my toe off when I was younger

-I have a lazy eye but I might be the only one who notices it and only in pictures

-I don't particularly care for my smile

-I have eczema (it sucks when the weather changes)

-I have allergies

-I haven't been able to breath out of my left nostril for two years now

-I have a temper

-I wish I didn't have a temper, I never used to and it drives me nuts that I do now

-I cry at certain songs, Israel Kamakawiwo'ole-Somewhere Over the Rainbow gets me in tears every time I hear it

There you have it. This is me. I am comfortable with myself. Everyone has things the don't like about themselves but I am done looking down at myself because I am not perfect. Because you know what, no one is perfect. That's the wonderful thing about being human. No one is ever perfect and we all have things we don't like or would like to change. All of the things I listed off a part of what makes me me and you know what....I love me!

Wordless Wednesday-My first born

I can't get over how much my "little" man has grown. I could swear that he was just born and in reality it was seven years ago. How has that time flown by so incredibly fast? 

He is not the biggest camera fan which means getting pictures of him are few and far between so I usually try to sneak in a few when he isn't paying attention. I love these shots of him. He is concentrating so hard on what he is doing and had no clue I was taking pictures of him. 

 

My baby boy is growing up :::sniff:::sniff:::

I miss my Nikon

I am a Nikon girl all the way so missing my camera is an understatement (corrupted card number four has got me halting use right now) but while enjoying the weather outside at my parents yesterday I grabbed my Dads camera from the house and started shooting and I am quite surprised I am saying this but WOW I might prefer the Cannon over a Nikon for close up nature photography. The biggest issue I have with Cannon DSLR cameras is the speed of taking photographs. It is slow at best. Not sure if it's just the memory card but my sisters camera (same model as my Dads) is also slow. So for capturing pictures of running children it's not the best, but as I was squatting in the garden and on my hands and knees taking pictures of the flowers and lady bugs it was awesome. Case and point:

Of course I am biased but I think they came out pretty darn awesome. No editing was done of these pictures so for coming straight of the camera I am really pleased. Now I am not saying my Nikon is nothing short of awesome because it is, I've had it for going on six years now and it has become a part of me. I have it with me at all times and I take a million pictures of every thing and nothing. Using the Cannon has helped me get over my pity party in not having a working camera but I am a Nikon girl at heart and don't see a Cannon in my future, unless I somehow won and awesome giveaway but seeing as I rarely enter giveaways I doubt that would happen LOL.

And just so I have an even number of pictures of here because I am slightly odd and don't like odd numbers, here is one more. See all those tiny little aphids, nasty little things!