Obligatory Christmas Tree Photos

You can't tell but all my kids have christmas church clothes on. White red and black.

 Then we had a battle of wills fight between two family members and one child disappeared from the photo and spun the artificial christmas tree, so you can't see the star.

I wish it could have worked out. The two year old wanted to stand next to the christmas tree, and dad wanted to make mom's dreams come true. Sometimes you run out of time before church to say take a deep breath, and relax. The two year old's shirt has red and black pin stripes. (After church is nap time.)

Goofy face shot, I don't like doing goofy faces but my daughter does.

Baby's First Family

Snowman jammies and christmas tree

Thanksgiving

My sister in law and her family came to visit us for thanksgiving. It was party all the time!

These boys are about a week apart in age I think.

Movie Night

 These babies are much farther apart. Like 7 months.

BFF

Earlier today when Brent and I were hanging out on the couch, I told him he was pretty much my best friend ever, and the best part of him being my best friend is he lives in the same house as me.

Look and live

46 O my son, do not let us be slothful because of the easiness of the way; for so was it with our fathers; for so was it prepared for them, that if they would look they might live; even so it is with us. The way is prepared, and if we will look we may live forever.
Alma 37 is one of my favorite chapters. I thought this verse was a good reminder.

7 Years ago

I was looking at old thanksgiving pictures. In case anyone doubts I was young when I had my first baby. Here is a picture of me and him when he was 3 months shy of two.

Medicated Part 3-- My toddler

Back in May my mom sent me Deliverance essential oil. It seemed to help us get over what ever the heck happened to my big baby to need the nebulizer. But after that honestly I never used it again. I was so frustrated because we all ping ponged back and forth colds non stop, from about February until July. Once I started using essential oil for my depression, I figured might as well bring out the Deliverance again. My big baby and small baby FINALLY got over their colds and other respiratory junk. For the first time in months!

Then I started reading about essential oils, my toddler is a stinky boy. He use to wake up with terrible morning breath, the poor sibling that has to share his room. His older siblings would complain about how stinky he was. I use to wash his blankets multiple times a week because he was so stinky. He always had stinky feet, I washed his shoes regularly. Then like I said I was reading, turns out this same oil he was what he needed. Now I rub the oil mixed with coconut oil on his neck and he doesn't stink in the morning or after naps. A friend pointed out he had post nasal drip, well true, but now its gone.
He was also prone to ear infections, so whenever he messes with his ears I rub it below his ears.
I rub the oil mixed with coconut on the bottom of his feet and he doesn't get stinky feet. I put some of the essential oil in his shoes and the smell went away. His feet were getting so stinky that after ONLY ONE DAY his shoes would reak!  SO SO stinky, it was awful, now he is totally a normal kid!
I love it for him, and he loves it. When he sees me using essential oil he demands to get some on him. He will bring me cotton balls to put oil on and then he will walk around for about 10-20 minutes with his cotton ball enjoying the aroma.
As I continued to read Deliverance is also good for gingivitis. Mr A, does not have gingivitis but he had some intense plaque issues. We did everything we could think of to help him, but he still just had so much plaque. Once or twice I diluted on his tooth brush. The problem is almost completely gone. Although it does taste gross and he doesn't like it in his mouth. Sure he still has an aggressive oral health routine, but before it wasn't getting better, we were just keeping it at bay, and now its so improved. Mind you I put it on his neck multiple times a week, so I figure he is still getting benefits of it in his mouth.
Now, if any of my kids wake up with a hoarse voice or complain of any cold like symptoms the first thing I do is rub deliverance on them. No one was been sick since July, that may sound silly because who gets sick during the summer but we were sick the whole beginning part of the summer, and spring and end of winter. Plus we started back to school with no cold like symptoms, no runny nose, no nothing, and I've known a lot of people who have gotten some nasty viruses the last two months. I rub it on everyone's neck except for the baby I put it on the top of his head.

I originally wrote this a month ago and forgot to post it. Nat got strep a few weeks ago, but no one else got it. And currently Ikey has a running nose, but those are the only sicknesses we've had in months!

Medicated Part 2

I started writing this post right after my first essential oil post, but forget to finish it. This post might be deemed an overshare or #tmi (too much information).

My mom got me using Butterfly Express essential oils. http://butterflyexpress.net/
I started using Baby Me.
I disgruntly also let my mom buy me the ebook of Butterfly Miracles with Essential Oil. I didn't want it because I really wasn't planning to get into essential oils. But I started scanning it for information. Baby Me blend incidentally was the oil my brother was suggesting for my colicy infant. He was right my baby is way happier and less fussy when I rub it on the soles of his feet. Instead of crying himself to sleep he just cuddles down and sleeps.

There are multiple ways you can "wear" Baby Me, I started with my inner ankles. Whenever I get hormonal my inner ankles ache up the wazoo. Depending on how bad my hormones are the ache goes from ache to utter pain. Postpartum depression made the pain very intense. If you have ever looked into reflexology, you may know that inner ankles is the pressure point for reproductive organs.

As I looked into Baby Me oil more turns out my anti-depressant oil was also good for "increase skin elasticity, retard wrinkles, enhance skin tone and remove scaly patches" How did they know? My upper arms this summer totally went like old, dry, old lady skin. The essential oil mixed with coco butter made my skin super nice. There is a fair chance Butterfly Express does not condone cocoa butter as a carrier oil but its one my favorites, I use the unscented kind. Did you cocoa butter adds fragrance to their lotion? I've read the ingredients they do!
Then I realized, "Baby Me is wonderful for skin conditioning and makes an excellent aftershave for sensitive skin" Perfect, I have terribly sensitive skin and shaving my legs can cause me to break out in hives. Now some would take this as a reason to not shave, but I'm much to prissy for such thing. Its really been a great essential oil for my beyond dry skin.

Back in May when my mom sent me essential oil for my sick sick baby, she also sent me some for muscle pain. I didn't use it at the time, but I pulled it out when Baby Me was working as such an effective anti-depressant. Over the summer I was getting wicked headaches that would last for days. OTC painkillers barely touched the pain. They made it possible for me to be functional but just barely and I still was in lots of pain. Turns out unexplained aches and pains is a symptom of depression. I didn't know this until this summer. The essential oil I already had was Deeper. Since OTC headache medicine wasn't working, I started using Deeper on my temples. Within minutes the headache subsided, I used Deeper regularly on my temples and along my cranial ridge for weeks. Luckily I loved the minty smell. I was actually sad when I didn't need anymore because I loved the smell so much. I now use it on my postpartum carpal tunnel.

My children

I've been thinking about it for a few days.

I've always said my oldest is the reason I get out of bed in the morning. Ever since saw his little body on my first ultrasound anytime I've been depressed I've willed myself out of bed to take care of my child.

 I had prenatal depression when I was pregnant with him and stayed in bed for at least three weeks if not more. Ironically enough he is the only baby I didn't get postpartum depression with.

When I get depressed he is still the one I worry the most about.

My daughter, is my miracle baby.  For so many reasons...

As Pinterest says, anytime I need a miracle. I look into my daughter's eyes and realized I've already have one.

My third, he is the baby I always wanted. I waited so long for that baby. He was such an easy happy baby.

 

My fourth, I'm still coming up with that...

                   I keep trying to come up with a phrase.

I think my fourth has taught me contentment.

My fourth baby completes us.

He completes the chaos.

Every night when he screams I tell my husband I don't like him anymore, he says whatever, once you are holding him you always want to kiss him. Last night after his belly was full and he wouldn't go back to sleep he got banished to the living room in a porta-crib. (I didn't want his sister, his roommate to suffer from his crying.) I have no idea how long he cried, I went to sleep in the comfort that he would not cause his sister to cry in exhaustion. I'm pretty sure the reason he wakes up at night is because I kiss him in the middle of the night. I never kissed my other babies in the middle of the night I was convinced it would teach them they wanted to be awake and not asleep. So far it proves correct. But I can't help myself, my postpartum depression is bad enough I have to kiss him when I feel like it so I'm incapable of caring for him, myself, and all the rest of them.

Setting the Record Straight

I still have postpartum depression. It will probably stick around until I wean my baby.
But my life is functional again.
This summer life was not. I barely ate, my children and husband ate a lot of cereal, I'm pretty sure I didn't buy much other than cereal and milk. I yelled a lot and we went to swim lessons. I'm not sure what else happened, screen time, lots of screen time. Oh and we folded laundry and did the dishes. But always late, the dishes always needed to be done before they were. If it wasn't for my oldest helping fold the laundry there is a good chance we would have been naked. Literally THE only chores that go done was dishes, laundry and sometimes cleaning up the toys.
Oh and we swept, I swept after breakfast and the 8 year old swept after dinner. I have a crawling infant and a crumby two year old. It was NECESSARY.
We had lots of screen time did I mention that.
(In September we deep cleaned the house, because we hadn't cleaned since June. Life was dark this summer.)

As you know, I started using aromatherapy.
I also started taking DesBio Hormone Combination  that my sister in law suggested.
And I went back to taking postpartum herbal tea that my mom mixes up for me.

Most days I'm a normal person again, I feel like myself and my older kids don't whisper about mom being super mean. I start to wean myself off so much of it, and I just do the daily essential oils. If I skip a day of essential oils everyone in my house notices.
But even when I keep up on the essential oil something happens, it varies, but something inevitably screws up my hormones, and I sky rocked down again, it takes me a few days to realize that I hate the entire world and then I pick up the last two steps again.

So yes to set the record straight yes I still have postpartum depression. But yes the essential oils have been a life saver. If it wasn't for the essential oils, a family member would have had to move in to take care of my family, because I sure as heck wouldn't be able to. Some days I feel really terrible, but other days I feel like myself again and I wonder where I have been.

Monday was a truly terrible day. Truly. Not coincidentally I got up in church on Sunday and bore my testimony about how in the darkest hours over the summer I realized the spirit had been with me all along because every so often small thoughts came to my mind, that were not my own.
Anyway back to terrible Monday. Monday was terrible, so I added back the tea because I thought I might die otherwise. (Dramatic I know, but some of you that had similar trials understand.) By Wednesday I thought, man where have I been for the last couple of weeks?