My Beautiful Days

"Come on, SHIMMY!" "Keep those arms up - I don't want to see you put them down!" "I want to see pretty hands." "This part is called seduction, I want to see seduction on your face, not exhaustion ... but not too much seduction either!" These are some of the many quotes I have heard over the past month on Monday evenings and Saturday afternoons.  You see, this is the time that I turn our household over to Monte, load up my gym bag and hit the road to go to the gym and take in a belly dancing class. Belly dancing?  Are you serious?!  Yes.  Completely, totally serious.  I was definitely skeptical of it initially, as my sweet friend, Trish , had invited me to join her in the classes.  I had mentioned to her how I am starting to spend more time working out in effort to rid myself of some of this extra baby weight, and she told me that these classes were an excellent workout.  So I decided to give it a try. The first class was a little bit ha...

Pretty much forever ago (and by forever, I mean about two or three months ago) I was browsing the aisles at Costco (which is a very dangerous thing to do without a specific list!) when I came across the most perfect bulletin board.  Why on earth would I get excited about a bulletin board?  I'm glad you asked!  You see, I have a rather narrow wall in my office that I've wanted to have a bulletin board on for awhile so I can use it to hang family pictures and different things of that nature.  So, when I came across this bulletin board and saw that it was very reasonably priced, I became extremely excited!  I bought said object and brought it home, showed it to my wonderful husband and asked for his help in hanging it.  I put it away in the corner of the office to keep it out of our way.  That was a very bad idea.  A month or more passed before I realized it was still not on my wall, so I politely asked my husband to hang it.  Unfortunately, he ...

As my husband and I sit here chatting, I'm realizing that it is now 10:05pm and this is truly the first time today that I have had down time to do as I please.  I just finished ordering our groceries (yes, with a 10-week-old baby and a five-year-old son who must come with me, I choose to grocery shop online!) after figuring our our extensive meal plan for the week.  I must admit that I wish I could contain all of my grocery shopping to online only, but alas with a family of seven people, we go through food much too quickly for me to make a once-a-week online order.  It's not uncommon for me to also stop by the grocery store several times a week amidst picking up my daughter from her after-school activity. Maybe I should rewind a little bit and let you know what a typical day in our house now looks like.  I wake up anywhere between 4:00am and 4:30am when Ethan first wakes for his bottle.  I feed him and do my best to stay awake myself during this time, as he us...

This morning I spent some time in reflection of the blessings that God has given to me.  It is so hard for me to believe that only three years ago I was single and living in the basement of my brother's home.  I was working full time and spending my free time with family and friends.  Only a mere year after that my life took a huge turn when I married my sweet Monte, the most amazing man I have ever met and the love of my life.  On that day, I also was married to the four most wonderful children I could have asked for.  Oh how my life had changed!  Now, fast forward two more years, and we are a family of seven.   Our precious little Ethan has only been in our lives for six weeks, yet it seems completely as if he was in the plans from day one.  God has directed the plans He had for my life, and though they didn't always go exactly as I had wanted them to go, in the end it turned out perfectly.  I can't imagine a Christmas filled with more...

I know that many of you who read my blog are moms.  You've been through the sleepless nights, the cries that won't stop, the endless dirty diapers and the fact that doing anything now takes you three times as long to get done as it would have before you had a baby (i.e. making dinner now has to allow time to pause and comfort my sweet crying baby!).  You also know the endless hours of cuddling, the moments of studying your baby's every feature so intensely that it is forever burned in your mind.  You know the kisses and sweet whispers of love to your baby, you know the lullaby's and the little things that calm your baby better than anybody else knows.  You are the one whose voice your baby recognizes and is instantly calmed by your touch. I never knew that motherhood was going to be this involved.  I will admit to my sheer naivety about becoming a mother to an infant.  My assumption was that there weren't many things in my life that were going to change, ...

While I know many of you are anxiously awaiting more updates on how life is going with our sweet little Ethan at home, I have decided to take the time to blog of an update to help out my brother, Tory.  You see, his sweet little baby girl, Abigail, is entered in the Gerber Photo Contest with the possibility of winning a $25,000 scholarship, which would be an amazing award to win.  Is there any way that you can help out and quickly visit the following link and cast a vote for Abby?  The first time you vote, you will have to verify through an email you receive that you are indeed a person and not a computer, but it literally takes only a couple of minutes - and those couple of minutes are rewarded by seeing this adorable photo of my beautiful niece!  Please visit the following link to vote for her .. and remember that you can go back and vote every day (and we would appreciate it if you did!)!! Click here to vote for Abby! In the meantime, things on the home front...

... but I didn't.  I didn't know at all.  Maybe I was in denial, maybe I was even a little bit scared, but I truly did not know it was contractions that I was experiencing that Saturday afternoon (November 6th).  In fact, I was so confident in the fact that our baby was going to arrive closer to his due date and that nothing had changed within my body that I told my husband he most definitely should go deer hunting with his brother, cousin and uncles for the weekend.  After he confirmed the fact that my mom and step-dad would be coming down to stay with me, he agreed that it would be okay for him to head out.  On Saturday afternoon, when I began to experience a pain I can only compare to menstrual cramps, my mom told me that I needed to call Monte and make him aware of the situation.  I called his cell phone and it rang through to his voicemail, though I didn't leave a message because I knew that he would call back when he saw that I called.  An hour a...

Proud Auntie Tanya here again, with an update... Announcing the arrival of Baby Ethan Bennett!   Born November 7th, 2010 at 3:32pm 6lbs, 12.7oz. * 19.5" long!! :) Kami and baby are both doing great!  Thank you all for your prayers.  Her labor and delivery were both quite fast... especially for her first time, and despite the epidural (which she was VERY thankful for!)  Be sure to send them your love and good wishes ...I know Kami, Monte and the Kids will all enjoy hearing from each of you!  Oh HAPPY DAY!!! :)   Welcome to the World, Baby Ethan!! God is GOOD! <>< Tanya

Hello faithful friends and followers of "My Beautiful Day" ...this is Kami's older (& wiser!) sister, Tanya reporting.  Just thought you might like to know that Kami is officially in labor, and is at the hospital getting ready to deliver her first born.  We are hoping to welcome sweet Baby Ethan Bennett into the world very soon!!  I will keep you posted as I know more.  In the meantime, here are a couple of photos that her great hubby Monte sent me a couple of hours back.  We'll see how long that smile stays on her face during labor!! ;) Please do keep Kami in your prayers.  Pray for a smooth labor and delivery, and that God will give her the strength and stamina to get through this, as she was up most of the night with very little sleep!  When I spoke with her on the phone around noon, she was waiting for her epidural.  I tried to talk her out of it... but she said she wasn't having that conversation with me.  Say WHA...

I have a slight bit of a predicament.  You see, I was going along just fine in this pregnancy (except for the fact that I'm a little bit "owley" according to my loving husband!), not expecting to meet this little guy until my due date, which is November 24.  Then I went to my most recent checkup this past Friday and now I just don't know what to expect!  You see, at this checkup, I found out that our little guy is in fact head-down and ready to go, and evidently I, too, am ready to go as I am dilated to just over 3 cm already!  This is news I absolutely was NOT expecting to receive.  I don't really know why, but I was anticipating hearing that everything is fine and moving along as expected and that I would be having a baby on or near my due date.  To have my doctor tell me that many women are already receiving their epidural when they're at 3 cm shocked me!  He told me that it would be a good idea to get my bag packed and be ready to head out to the h...