Family photos and Elias at 21 months...

As Christmas gifts we took pictures to give to family. Now that I have given them away I can share the photos on here. I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!

The GIANT elf...

On spirit day Todd was voted by the kids to dress up like an elf for the day. I found this quite humorous and thought some of you might enjoy seeing the pictures as well. :)

Thieves Essential Oil

I wanted to share a new find I recieved as a gift at my last Holistic Mom's group and love it! It is Thieves Essential oil from young living. The Oil of Thieves helps to boost the immune system and fights off colds and flu, while killing airborne bacteria that promotes the spread of illness.

Here is an excerpt from 100essential oils.com ...

* Use Four Thieves Oil if you have a cold or flu, or want to avoid viruses this flu season.
* Highly effective in combating phlegm, pneumonia and bronchitis

This oil was developed according to the legend about 4 thieves in 15th century England who used a blend of clove, cinnamon, eucalyptus, lemon and rosemary, as well as other protective aromatics to guard their health while robbing plague victims. These men did not get sick! The oils were studied and the combination was proven to work wonders.

Here is also a link to the booklet about Thieves from Young Living. Young living is where you should buy the oil if you are interested as it is the best quality.

I have personally made a natural hand sanitizer with thieves for when we are out and about which I love as I can at times be a germ a phobe! I am also putting it on my sons feet and the back of his neck when he will be around other kiddo's where germs could be spread. Knock on wood, but he has been around some sick kiddos the last few weeks and has continued to remain healthy. One day a few weeks ago he started to get a cold and after an extra 2 doses of Vitamin C it was gone. This was the first time that his immunune system was strong enough to fight it off so quick and easy. It made me proud! :) Anyway, we have a few months of the cold and flu season left, but I am interested to see how he pulls through with some of the new things I am trying. My hope is that if he gets anything it will be short lived and easy to fight off--The way our a good immune systems is meant to be. I will keep you updated good or bad. I just want to be a resource of what is helpful.

The top 3 things I have found to be helpful are: Thieves as described above, Vitamin C daily and upping if coming down with something, and probiotics.

Haircut and updates...

Last week I took Elias to get his haircut at cookie cutters to finish my attempt at cutting it. It was a lot of fun and he loved it. He got to sit in a firetruck and watch Elmo. They also had a slide they he loved playing on and got to take a balloon home that entertained him for the afternoon. Even though it was a lot of fun hopefully he won't need another haircut anytime soon.

Elias has been doing many new and fun things recently. He does many things now that we are not specifically teaching him, but he is watching us do. It is so funny to see. We are also now entering the "be careful what you say and do in front of him" because it could later be done in public good or bad. I realize since I stay home with him if he ever did anything not so nice I would just have to shrug and say he must have learned that at church or from the grandparents. :) He has started saying "oh No" and I now realize I say that a lot. He is also saying "please" which is nice to hear instead of whining. He also loves to say "again" when he is wrestling with daddy. He picked up chapstick the other day and tried to put it on and took a rag and tried to scrub the carpet with it. He also loves to pray while we eat, somoetimes 3 or 4 times. It is so cute! He also continues to LOVE choo choos right now and is really enjoying the one around our tree. He has also started liking Elmo or Melmo. Another new thing is that over the last month he just walks into his class at church and never notices or cares when Todd or I leave him with grandparents. It is nice to know that he is getting past seperation anxiety and is also enjoying his time away from us. We are very blessed to have his grandparents closeby and thier willing hearts to watch him for us (or spend time with him.) We are really taking advantage of dates and nights out together as we know it will not be as easy when the next babe comes. Elias also enjoyed time with his little buddy Evan this past weekend when my college friend Ashley and her husband Drew came to visit. It is much harder to take pictures these days though as the kids are very busy, so only one.

Baby Gertrude seems to be doing well and right on track with growth. We had my official 20 week ultrasound with my OB. We were very glad to have them confirm that it is a girl! I have no doubts now after two different people have told us that. It is always neat to hear their heartbeats and see them on the ultrasound. Gertrude is also very active, which I am not sure is a good thing. ;) But I love being able to feel her move all of the time. I am feeling great and cannot believe I am 21 weeks. Time is flying. We feel so blessed to be having another child join our family in a few months. Todd is going to start working on Elias' big boy room over his Christmas break. It is going to be train themed of course. Having another one on the way is making our first little baby Elias seem so big.







Here is Gertrudes face. I thought I should add a picture so the only one so far is not just her girl parts. :)

Green Gift Giving Ideas

Since the holiday is fast approaching I wanted to share a few green gift ideas that are also economical. (Some of these are from my Holistic Mom's meeting last night).

-Rather then more "stuff" offer a certificate of your making for your time or service.
Ideas of service:
Make one dinner a week for a month that you deliver
Offer baby-sitting time
Offer a monthly lunch date with an elderly relative or friend
Offer free lessons in a sport in which you excel
Weed a friend’s garden
Offer your talents, such as photography, financial planing, or hairstyling
Offer yourself as a willing cheerful worker for a day
Put together a photo album

-Give a gift certificate to a concert, store, resturaunt, etc.

-There are thousands of ways to give small but meaningful donations in someone's name, supporting just about any cause you can think of.

-Gifts that you make. You don't have to have loads of artistic talent, monely or time to make wonderful, thoughtful homeade gifts. Finding the right idea is the hard part, but there is one out there for every person on your list. Try to recycle items and materials you already have and or use sustainable materials to craft your gifts.

A few suggestions of homeade gifts:
Create a set of spice mixes or personalized flavored coffees, put together a family photo album, make your own cookbook of favorite recipies, a set of homeade art supplies like fingerpaing and clay, soaps, and lotions.

-If you don't feel crafty or short on time support local artisians and free trade with your purchases.

-Give a plant or tree

-There are also Green Ideas for Toy Giving. Here is a great sites for fun and unique gift ideas.

18 toys you can make at home

May we have a greener Christmas this year! :)

Holistic Mom's Network Group in Fishers

Today I want to share with you about the Holistic Mom's Network that I am a member of in Fishers, IN. If you are wondering what it means to live holistically and green then this is a great place to connect and learn. I joined last year and it has been a huge blessing to my life. It has been a GREAT resource and learning tool on my holistic journey. It has also been great to get into the community and of course have fun evenings away with other like minded moms.

I want to take this time to help create national awareness about this group and share the importance of living a holistic and green lifestyle. As you know I am very passionate about how important this is for us and our families, so I am very excited to join the leadership team this year. Even if you don't live in Indy I want to share it with all of you as it is in many cities nationally. I encourage you to click on the link above. You can learn more about the organization and find a community near you. For the Fishers group we meet once a month on the 2nd Tuesday. We have great speakers come in each month to teach us about various topics related to holistic and green living. I have learned so much from the wonderful speakers who many times are local doctors, nutritionists, and others that are highly specialized in certain areas. Another great tool is the national and local e-mail loops. If I am ever looking for a natural rememdy, organic products, vaccine info, health issues, recipies, etc. I turn to this site for recomendations. It is wonderful!!

I also want to put in a plug for the meeting that is going to be held this Tuesday, December 9th at the Fishers Library. It is going to be a wonderful meeting and I encourage all of my friends in the area to consider coming for a night away. Just let me know if you are interested! Here are the details....

Please join us for the 2nd annual HMN Holiday Party. We don't know if snow will make this a "white" holiday season, but you can make sure yours is "green"!

Come relax with us over Trader's Point eggnog and delicious treats, while we share green gift ideas. Since it is better to give than receive, HMN wants to send you home with a gift. Everyone in attendance will go home having made an essential oil all-purpose cleaner to freshen up your house for the holidays. HMN Members will also receive an extra bottle of essential oil Thieves mixture to fight off those unwanted colds.

I look forward to seeing some of you there!! :)

Thanksgiving Weekend

We had a great Thanksgiving with both of our families. On Thursday we went to Todd's parents and then on Friday we had the Redden side of the family over to our house. Although I must note that I didn't enjoy being woke up at 6:30a to the fire alarm and the oven smoking while Todd was out shopping on Black Friday. Nonetheless the turkey and everything Todd made was wonderful! We also enjoyed having Hillary and Cole in town and spending time with them for a few days. Then on Friday night and Saturday our house was transformed into Christmas decor. Here are some pictures from the weekend.

Also, yesterday I decided that Elias needed a haircut so I attempted to do it myself. Let's just say that we are headed to cookie cutters tomorrow to have them finish. :) I guess until I learn how it is better left in the hands of those that do. I will post pictures later...


Elias practicing taking care of a baby. Sometimes it goes well and other times... lets just say he needs more practice. :)

Todd wrestling with the boys

Todd tickling Cole

coloring with Grandpa

the boys pushing the lawnmowers around.

Hillary and I have the same due and here we are at 19 weeks! :)

Elias loved the beads!

Elias checking out the lights on the tree. He also enjoyed throwing some of the ornaments as he thought they were balls....

Another fun thing that happened this week was that we walked into the guest bedroom and realized that Elias had taken a pen and scribbled on the comforter. No idea when and how this happened, but it looks as if he had fun. For some reason you can't really see the ink in the picture, but here he is by his masterpiece.