Naptime ended a few minutes earlier than usual, so my plan is foiled. The blog will have to wait again. Quickly though, here are the highlights of 2010:

We found out we were pregnant and welcomed baby #2 to our family. Introducing “Brother,” as RG quickly named him!

Ministry is booming and husband is busy as ever. I have stepped down from volunteering, but I’m still “The Youth Pastor’s Wife,” so I’ll always be there, behind the scenes, hearing all the exciting stories late at night after youth group ends of God at work in young lives. Love it.

Read some fantastic books, most recently The Babycatcher by Peggy Vincent and The Birth Partner by Penny Simkin.

Knitted precious little, but loved the seconds knitting a Baby Surprise Jacket and matching hat for Brother. He was too big for it at birth, guess I expected him to be a peanut like RG. He isn’t.

ok ok, the “mommy” cries are getting more frequent and insistent. To be continued. Hopefully before 2012.

Mommydom

8-month-old RG is a crawling, jabbering bundle of energy with crazy, reddish hair from who knows where! On a given day you’ll find me trying to outrun her as she chases me around the kitchen trying to cling to my legs. At that point I usually offer her a distraction (a bowl full of yogurt container lids) and we’re good for a few minutes. She occasionally has stranger anxiety, but for the most part she’s a very friendly, social, smiley girl to everyone she meets. She waves to anyone and anything. (Daddy, the dogs, the piano…) No complaints here, God is both challenging  and blessing me constantly with the gift of this little peanut.

We use cloth diapers, and once we run out of wipes, I’m going to try cloth wipes again. Prefolds with pull-on wool covers at night and alternating wool & PUL covers during the day. More on that later; I won’t bore you with the details if you don’t care to hear about poo management!

RG eats some solid foods, but she hasn’t been very interested in anything until recently. We’re trying a ‘baby-led weaning’ approach of skipping purees (mostly because she didn’t want them) and going right into offering finger foods for her to try and feed herself. Occasionally I will put something in her mouth from a spoon, but only if she seems interested. Usually she will wrestle the spoon out of my hand to feed herself anyway. I still nurse her 8+ times a day and once or twice at night, so I’d guess that 99% of her nutrition comes from that.

The Youth Pastor

Chris is gearing up for the fall with our church’s youth & children’s ministries! This will be our 4th full school year at ACC and Chris has been a busy bee this past month with prepping and planning, and I know he’s ready to be spending more time with the kids. We take summer vacation from youth group for the majority of June, all of July and August to make time for summer trips, to give the volunteers a break, and to allow Chris some time to recharge and dream about the next year. It’s been nice having him home for dinner more, but like him, I’m excited to start having youth group again! I help out with Senior High youth group (Oasis) on Tuesday nights, and love hanging out with the High School girls whenever I get a chance. I recently started playing on the Worship Team again after an 8 month hiatus (can you guess why?), so most Wednesday nights I’ll have practice. Then there’s my Bible study Monday night and Middle School Youth Group (Pit Stop) for Chris on Thursdays, and our schedule’s full! We’re going to have to be intentional about making time for us on the weekends, both with Rachel and without (we’ve got lots of willing babysitters!)
We celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary in May – I can’t it’s been so long since our first summer of marriage that we spent living at camp in a tiny one-room apartment! Lots has changed, but we’re loving the ride and trying to just ‘go with it’.

All the other stuff…

Music: I’m teaching piano lessons at two different programs and at home a couple of days each week, and more students keep popping out of the woodwork. I currently have 14 students, mostly beginners, and I’m learning quickly that I love teaching, but have a ton to learn myself! Ugh, and every time I tell a student they need to “practice that more at home” I think to myself “you hypocrite, you need to practice more before you tell anyone else to!” My goal is to play through and get a working knowledge of book 1 of JS Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier and Beethoven’s Sonatas Nos. 1-15 this school year. I’ve played several pieces from each book in the past, but it’s been a long time… I’m ashamed of how much of my repertoire I’ve let slip away from lack of review. I also want to compile a listening list of famous recordings to listen to – maybe one per week. If I don’t plan it, it won’t happen!

Knitting: is at a stand-still because it’s not sock/mitten/scarf/shawl/sweater wearing weather. I know, I know, you’re supposed to work on those projects before the snow flies, but it’s hard to be motivated when the A/C is still kicking in! Chris needs a pair of socks and a scarf, RG needs mittens, a hat, and a pair of longies, and I want all of the above plus some household items. More on that list later.

Latest Time-eaters: I’m dabbling in selling some stuff on eBay and Half.com – old textbooks, old electronics (saving up for an iPhone!), lia sophia jewelry I’m never going to wear (oh yeah, I’m not selling anymore), and Stampin’ Up stuff for my mother-in-law.

I’m still the main budget/money manager in our family, and as everyone knows, that can be a time-eater! We’re using Pear Budget right now, and I highly recommend it if you are looking for a simple, clean-feeling system.

Obviously, we all gotta eat, so I’m constantly trolling the mommy blogs for healthy, yet tasty recipes and ways that I can cut our food bill by making things from scratch. Today we’re having Slow Cooker Green Chicken Chili with Kale to use up some of the greens from our CSA vegetable box.

On the horizon: I’m planning on attending training to become a Bradley-method Birth Educator/Doula in the end of October. Attending our Bradley-classes was one of the most important things we did as a couple to prepare for the birth of RG, and I am now a certified birth junkie. I want to help other couples learn all they can about the merits of a natural (not just vaginal, but healthy, meds-free, emotionally/mentally prepared birth, wherever you might choose to give birth!)

Ok, the ankle-biters (RG and the dogs) are begging for attention, time for an abrupt ending!

Things that have changed or need to be addressed in detail in the future:

I am now a proud mommy to Rachel Grace, my now 3-month-old daughter! She was born on Christmas Eve after a whirlwind 6-hour labor I know, a true whirlwind labor would be about 60 minutes, but considering that I was expecting labor to last 24 hours or more, 6 hours was fast. and intense. More about that later.

Since I’m a mommy, I’m now a WAHM, teaching piano lessons one day a week, babysitting my dear friend’s toddler G one day a week, and being mommy/wife/homemaker 24/7.

So I don’t want to fill one post with too much jumbled thoughts. I just wanted to say…

Hello again, blog, I’ve missed you. =)

Right now I’m at about 10 weeks – hopefully only about 2-3 weeks of morning sickness left. Well, that’s all I wanted to say for now. Hopefully I’ll be more consistent in the future.

OH – little “johnny appleseed” as we’ve dubbed the baby for now – is due on December 16, 2008 – close to Jesus, Daddy Chris, and Uncle Nick’s bdays!

I must say that this blog cracks me up. Especially today’s post: # 87 Outdoor Performance Clothes because it so totally fits Chris and me! But see, we wear the stuff because it’s all we own after living at camp for four summers! You gotta have the gear to make it there! Now we have more than our fair share of North Face, Columbia, Patagonia, Mountain Hardware, etc. but you gotta have a shared hobby, and collecting gear is one of ours! We’re so granola, we crack ourselves up. Chris did work at Moosejaw for quite a while though, so most of my gear came from there – never mind that I hardly ever get out to camp, climb, hike, or anything that my gear was meant for. We do use our Thermarests a lot though for when friends sleep over or when we go on youth trips. Anyway, I’m just going to highlight a few of my personal possessions that I’m the proud ashamed owner of: Shoes

• My Keen Newports
  
• My Birkenstock Floridas…
  
  …and my Arizonas
  
  (yes, I have two pairs of birkenstocks. I can’t think of any good excuse, explanation, so I’m just going to leave it alone and blush…)
• My Teva Mush flip-flops
  
• I also have cheap Target clogs, which I’m going to keep wearing until they fall apart even more than they already have. But someday I’ll own Birkenstock clogs… someday… I’ll have these:
  

Now I think I’ll go send write a letter to my Compassion child to ease my conscience.
p.s. I’m poking fun at myself and those who often slip into thinking that one good deed cancels out self indulgence. Laugh at yourself, people! Human nature is so funny (and sad)!

I started a blog for my family a few weeks ago, and I must say how impressed I am with how the fam has adopted the blog as their own! If you’re interested in finding out more about the family I came from, you can check out our blog at:

http://chricowski.wordpress.com

” Chricowski” is a made-up word that reflects our different last names combined into one – since we’re all related, even though we have different last names, yeah, get it?

Anyway -

mamapama is, of course, my mama named Pam – single, stay-at-home mom who is about to change the world! The sky’s the limit!

tad[pole] is Jessie, my 14 year old sister. She’s taller than me, weighs less than me, and basically is everything I wanted to be when I was 14!

gmaudie is our grandmother and my Mom’s ex-mother-in-law/adopted mother ex- means nothing to us!

ezekiel2611 is gmaudie’s hubby, and when he’s not taking great care of gmaudie, he makes delicious home-baked bread, writes humorous poems and other satire, and is heavily involved in their church.

and last but not least, mattomatic, my 20 year old brother (how on earth did you get to be 20?? You’ll always be 11 and annoying in my mind ) matt’s a rising star – his first love is drums, followed by anything to do with music. he’s also a full-time student at a CC near his home.

There’s also Andrew, Caleb, Brad, and my husband Chris who have yet to jump on the blogging-bandwagon, but until that time, there are plenty of our random posts to enjoy so far!

Oh yeah, and we will often mention Toby, Leah, and Jamie – the family dogs. But I don’t think they’ll be doing any blogging anytime soon.

I just had my starter party on Feb. 23, and then this last Saturday and Sunday I did two parties on my own! Didn’t do too badly in sales either! I’ve never thought of myself as a salesperson, but this jewelry sells itself, and I think my commitment to being honest and fair will really pay off. Anyway, I’m starting with my modest goal of earning a down-payment for the car and maybe earning at least half of a vacay fund. And I’ll have to curb my strong urges to spend any profits on more jewelry, because seriously girls, this stuff is like chocolate – who can resist it? Especially when it’s dangled in front of your face with tons of sugary messages like “Customer Save Plans” and “Hostess Bonuses”! *drool*

I never even used to like jewelry, what’s wrong with me?????

www.liasophia.com

It is such an extremely thick, hot sock. As soon as I stick my hand or foot inside of it I feel like I’m going to erupt into a fit of sweating. Not quite the dainty little stocking I pictured! Oh well, it’ll make a great snowboarding sock!

Here’s an inside-out shot – I have to say I’m very proud of my first attempt at colorwork! It’s kind of uneven in places, but the puckering isn’t too bad at all!

It comes up to my knee when on, and the top is a little loose, but I’ll just add a little elastic thread to fix that problem. I’m still in love with the pattern of x’s and o’s. I’m a sucker for awesomely mathematical/logical geometric patterns.

As soon as I finish both I’ll make my hubby take a cute little photo session of me in my toasty knee-highs!

Making these socks is the first step towards fulfilling my dream of having a set of “knit woolens” like the American Girl Kirsten had. Ever since I was a little tot I’ve loved Kirsten’s Swedish patterned hat, cardigan, mittens and stockings, and now I can make them for myself! You’re never too old for the American Girls! Kirsten was always my favorite. Too bad I don’t have a drop of Swedish in my blood. Nada.

So, carry on, and expect more later (probably this afternoon).