Brighton's 2nd Birthday

It's been a very enjoyable week...passing my oral exams, attending Brayla's first dance recital, celebrating Brighton's 2nd birthday, and doing my first giveaway (packages are on their way, girls!). But I just couldn't let the month slip away before sharing a few pix of our little birthday celebration. You can click the collage above to see the pictures MUCH bigger.

I thought I'd go ahead and add my Facebook status from Friday: "Exactly two years ago this minute (8:52am MT), I had the immense pleasure of pushing Brighton Lee Miller into this world in a peaceful home birth. This beautiful over 9lbs. boy has been such a delight to our entire family. We are humbled and continually thankful for his presence! Psalm 127:3." And for anyone who is interested in reading (or re-reading) his birth story, it can be found HERE (it will open in a new window) or Lee's much shorter version of our birth experience is HERE. Also, thanks to my mom (Boomer Baby Bliss) for THIS sweet Sunday Citar!

Giveaway WINNERS!!

First, I wanted to thank everyone for playing along. I was so delighted to see this mentioned all over Facebook, too. You all are amazing...now I just wish I had a whole bunch of these to give out to every one of you!! *IF* you didn't win and you're still interested in seeing this flick, Netflix still has it available for instant view on your computer. If you've never used Netflix before, they usually have a free trial membership for two weeks if you just want to see this one movie.

Okay, onto business. I'm sorry this is so late. All things Google have been acting up, including blogger and picasa. Ugh. So if you can see the images below, maybe things are finally starting to work again.

And the winners are... (via my HBA2C baby's dirty little fingers)



CLARA
and
BECKY
I'll run over and email you both through disqus in case you aren't checking back today. Just send me your mailing address via email (teachertools at gmail dot com) and I'll get these off by the 31st. If I don't hear back by noon on the 31st, I'll draw again.

Thanks again to everyone. This was FUN!!

First Dance Recital

Oh what fun we had last weekend! This year, Brayla started taking dance in November and her very first recital (ever) was this Saturday. All the girls were SO cute and you could sure feel the energy and excitement throughout the show. I thought I'd include a few videos I shot during the production (particularly for all of our family). Our daughter is the tall one (with an enormous hair bun) on the front row.



Tap Dance Portion


Final Bow: She is the last girl on the front row and her hair is now down in a long, thick braid. She got in several bows as you can see. LOL

A "Birth"day Giveaway

This coming weekend is pretty HUGE for the Millers. First, my oral comprehensive exams are this Friday afternoon. Second, this Saturday my daughter has her very first dance recital. And third, I am thrilled to announce that my HBA2C baby's birthday (and my first "birth"day) is this weekend. With all this big stuff happening, I figured it's a great time to do a fun lil' giveaway.

As our punkin is turning two this weekend, in honor of his amazing home birth we're giving away TWO brand new copies of the documentary The Business of Being Born on DVD. If you've already seen this documentary, then maybe you happen to know someone who is planning to have children on down the road. If so, this will make a wonderful gift for any future parents or maybe even a great addition to a library in your area.

I've been away from blogging for a while, so please help me get this party started. You can get more than one entry based on whatever you'd prefer to do, below:

1. Leave a comment to enter the giveaway. If you're registered with Disqus (the comment system, below), then I should be able to contact you easily enough through email when you WIN (if not, you'll need to leave me an email address). Signing up takes less than a minute, so don't let that keep you from entering.
2. For another entry you may advertise this giveaway by blogging it, tweeting it, or by posting a link to this giveaway on Facebook. Just leave me a link to where you announced it and leave an additional comment for each place you advertised it (please do any advertising before Sunday at noon).
3. If you're a follower in my sidebar (or if you decide to become a follower of my blog) and you have entered this giveaway, you'll get an additional THREE entries to this giveaway.

This giveaway ends at 11:59pm CST on Sunday, March 28th (just before midnight). I plan to announce the winner by noon on Monday, March 29th and then ship by Wednesday, March 31st. I pay all shipping to anywhere in the USA or Canada.

If your comments do not show up right away, it's just stuck in moderation while I'm away from the computer. Good luck and thanks for playing along, everyone!

So... You Mean I'm NOT Menopausal?!?! (an ANNOUNCEMENT)

I’ve been coming to grips with the fact that I am getting older...that my body cannot do the beautiful things it did in my younger years…and that perhaps I’m moving into a new phase of life. Honestly, none of these things bother me all that much, except for the fact that I’ve loved being pregnant and raising babies.

I've been gifted with an amazing body –- I’ve had the pleasure of using it to love my husband and to grow and nurture my three babies -- rocking warm bodies to sleep at night and breastfeeding each of them as they snuggled contently in my arms. We do tend to forget just how wonderful this period of life is until it's slipping from our fingers. And it was about six months ago that we learned I was entering into the inevitable transition period. You know the one:

Symptoms of Menopause: breast tenderness, mood swings, tearfulness, irritability, bloating, weight gain, indigestion, gas, nausea, skipped periods, headaches, faintness, fatigue, hot flashes…

It made sense. I’m in my 38th year of life. I knew that one day the enchanted days of youth would wear off and that I’d carry only the memories of these miraculous experiences into my future. But I cried out to my husband about how unfair the finality of menopause was to someone who had adored these precious days. It didn't matter that we weren’t officially planning to have more babies. I wanted the CHOICE to change my mind. So in rebellion, for the last few months I've yelled at inopportune times. I've stomped around my house more than I care to admit. I've even purposefully thrown silverware into the kitchen sink because it made a loud clackety-clank that echoed the metallic-sharp anger in my heart.

When I calmed down, I proclaimed my thankfulness for all three of my beautiful babies and remembered my friends who haven't been nearly as fortunate in their fertility. And I pretty much forgot that I was rarely ovulating and that my cycles were totally unpredictable. I learned how to handle the hot flashes and to calm my mood swings when they hit. But some symptoms were still puzzling. Until...

Symptoms of Pregnancy: breast tenderness, mood swings, tearfulness, irritability, bloating, weight gain, indigestion, gas, nausea, skipped periods, headaches, faintness, fatigue...

There's no way, I thought. But I found one remaining pregnancy test hidden in our downstairs medicine cabinet. I was so confident this was menopause that I barely glanced over my shoulder on the way out the door. Then my heart skipped a beat when I IMMEDIATELY did a double-take.

And, well, I'm SHOCKED and yet completely thrilled to announce that I’m most definitely NOT menopausal. My body just so happens to be growing a new little Miller. How funny (for lack of a better word) that the symptoms of menopause and pregnancy line up so closely!!

There are no words to describe how joy-filled we are about this unexpected child. I think about my last blog post and how I felt sitting before those warm windows, pouring out my heart to the Father. I was feeling a little ashamed of my own silly complaints and it didn’t feel like the right time to pray for myself. In retrospect, I like to imagine Him smiling down in love, listening to my requests, and yet nearly bursting with the secret of this tiny human being he was already tediously knitting together in my womb.

By the way, this is the latest I’ve ever found out I was pregnant. We’re looking forward to an early Fall harvest.

Yet...we're already a family of six in our hearts.

~Shaye

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