Baby Caedmon!

Caedmon Duane Ring
November 13, 2010
8 lbs. 15 oz.
21 1/2 inches long

We welcomed baby Caedmon Duane into our family yesterday. He came quickly and unassisted at home! The 13th was a lucky day for us all.
Birth story to come (of course).

What Do You Do When You're Due Date Do Come And Go?

When I was pregnant with Owen, I planned to leave work at 38 weeks. When that time came, I kept extending my stay because I didn't want to go home and sit and wait for a baby who might be quite some time in coming. On my due date (40 weeks), I led a tour of home schooled students at James Madison's Montpelier through the grounds and the landmark forest. Yup, I led a hike on Owen's due date! One mama asked me when I was due, and I was proud to say, "Today!" So too, I had a busy due date day while gestating this little one. Here's my did list:

• Make sure you have updated photos of your impressively large belly. Who knows how much bigger you'll get, but you want it documented.
• 
• Play with kid #1 being sure to get down on the floor and do what he wants to do and to enjoy him all by himself.
• 
• Do the laundry. You don't want it piled up when the big day arrives - possibly next week, but who knows.
  
• Go to the grocery store - twice - since you neglected to get an important ingredient the first time.
  
• Send husband on a third trip (for big jugs of water that you couldn't get by yourself).
  
• Go to regular your yoga class and do a glorious hour of stretching and squatting. Did the teacher plan this just for you???
• Prepare items for evening pot luck. Let kid #1 lick the spoon from the cookies.
• Attend evening pot luck.
• Watch 1 1/2 episodes of Season 1 of Angel.
• Enjoy being pregnant just a little while longer and look forward to meeting your baby very soon. It can't be all that far off now.
  

Walnut Flax Seed Cookies (GFCF and vegan)

Alison made these for us last year, and I have been meaning to post the recipe. They are GFCF and vegan and VERY yummy! She also made some with some other ingredient that wasn't GFCF, but I can't remember what it was - maybe a bit of flour. Whatever it was, I don't miss it in these.
Enjoy!

Walnut Flax Seed Cookies
3 c. walnuts
1/3 c. flax meal
1 t. salt
2 t. vanilla
1/2 c. maple syrup
Grind walnuts finely in blender. Stir with remaining ingredients. Drop ~1 t. cookies onto greased baking sheet. Bake 10-15 minutes at 350F.

Sweater: done!

I finished the sweater I was making for Owen. It's my first sweater ever. He picked out the wool - the same one he picked for his cousin Nathan's baby blanket last winter. I really like how it turned out and am pleased that it is done before Baby's arrival. One more thing done on my Christmas list.

Happy Halloween

Last Monday, Owen and I went out to the farms to get food. While we were out that way, we used his free pass for the Strasburg Rail Road that he got from the library during the summer reading program. (This was the only useful coupon among the free McDonald's ice creams and such.) He had fun riding in the turn of the century coach car.

We also finally got our pumpkins. He'd been asking for over a month, and I'd been holding him off so we'd have ones that were still good for Halloween.
He and Abram carved them Wednesday night while I was out.

I think they did a great job!

Yes, this photo was taken on the toilet.

In Lancaster, "they" decide when to celebrate Halloween. Last year, "they" decreed that Halloween should be celebrated on Friday, October 30. This year, "they" sent down a edict that we could all celebrate on Friday, October 29. I guess almost 50% of trick-or-treat nights end up on Friday - maybe more???.
So, we celebrated Halloween a couple of nights early by going a visitin' during trick-or-treat time. Owen's knight costume had already had a test run a couple of weeks ago, but this time he did wear the chainmail shirt under his tabard. He's been loving the decorations that the neighbors have:

Again this year, we did not collect treats. Two neighbors actually came to our door to try to give treats, and one left them even after we declined. Owen thinks we can share them with someone who eats candy. He enjoyed walking around the neighborhood close to the college and visiting some friends to see their costumes and show off his own.

Birthing Again

I'm looking forward to birthing this baby. Owen's birth was an intense and wonderful experience, and I am wondering what this coming birth will be like - what it will teach me. Abram and I recently took a (Birthing From Within) Birthing Again class with a local doula and CBE, Kerry Clements. She prepared a wonderful day of birth preparation activities for us, and I am really glad that we had the time to spend together psychologically preparing for this new baby's entrance into the world.
Pamela England's Birthing From Within book and childbirth preparation classes focus on the psychological aspects of birth and help parents prepare mentally for the challenges, joys, disappointments, and fears of birth. We did a lot of birth art activities, and we were both pleased with the experience of focusing on our expectations, feelings, and concerns through drawing.
England uses the labyrinth as a birth metaphor, and after learning how to draw a labyrinth, we taught Owen to make one big enough for us all to walk through - what a great use of the local ball field

and the sand pit at Gifford Pinchot Stake Park.

The recent belly painting was inspired during that class, and I have been trying to really savor these last few weeks of pregnancy -
hiking with Abram and Owen,

sitting on my bum watching

them fish,

doing yoga, and enjoying the sometimes cooler weather while looking forward to birthing again.

Nesting

I've been nesting.
I canned/froze 45 quarts of tomatoes over 2 weekends in September. That may sound like a lot, and it while it was a ton of work, that's less than a quart a week for the year.

I've also been "feeding the freezer" for the last month or so. I try to make double batches of things for dinner and freeze the extra. Now, my freezer is FULL of part of a beef, whole baking chickens, stock, and ready to thaw and eat meals for when I am too busy sitting on my bum nursing to cook dinner.
I have completed most of my Christmas shopping and making.
Yesterday, Owen and I did potato stamping (with a turnip that wasn't getting any love in the fridge :o)) to make lots of bags for quick and easy Christmas wrapping. This was a good rainy day project!


I finished a couple of baby quilts recently - one for a Christmas present for another new baby

and one very similar one for our new baby.

The second one has the back that I made back in June.

My current project is a sweater for Owen. It's knit from the bottom up, and I'm on the yoke, so I'm making good progress toward finishing it before Christmas - so long as I complete it before the baby arrives. I'm thinking a month is plenty of time to finish that sweater!