June 2012 FHE Billion Graves

We had a joint Family Home Evening (FHE) activity with two other families where we used smartphones to take pictures of tombstones at the local cemetery for Billiongraves.com. This is a great genealogy activity that younger kids can participate in also. It went pretty well and was a fun experience. I have taken my kids to cemeteries several times to take photos since then. We may not do more than 15 minutes of photos, but it is service. :)

There was a stone table and benches that we used for treats.

Watermelon and popsicles and a quick lesson first.

Here is my friends' 7 year old taking pictures with her moms' phone.

Princess helped some and explored more.

Baby just followed me around mostly. He is such a cute little shadow.

Visiting friends

Last week we went to Arkansas to visit a dear friend of mine who has 3 boys. It's hysterical to us that we now have 6 kids between us because I think in our minds we aren't much different from when we met in college.

But we do. Have 3 kids each. Wow. That's a lot.

Luckily only 4 of them are mobile so far. Phew!

While we love to see one another, this wasn't just a "hey, we're coming to visit" type of visit. This was a helping kind of visit. Her baby is just a week older than mine.

She's been having some nursing problems since she got mastitis last month. She hasn't been able to get her milk supply back up and that sweet baby had lost a little bit of weight. She's been having a hard time. Her doctor wasn't helpful with her nursing problems. Neither was the baby nutritionist. Sweet baby boy rejected the formula option too. He refused it. She'd been pumping 4+ times a day in addition to feeding him as much as she could and starting cereal. He would only suckle when there was milk though and wasn't getting enough it seemed. How could I help? I wondered. I thought of something and offered and she thought it was a great idea. Up we went to visit.

She & I nursed each others babies. My sweet munchkin helped increase her milk supply with her excellent suckling abilities and her sweet baby boy got more than enough milk from my bountiful bosoms.
With just 2 days of switching babies her milk supply on the affected side had increased to normal again and she was again feeling confidence in her nursing abilities. Happy babies and happy mommies rejoiced. We had a great visit and lots of fun as well. It was a good trip.

Dog training class with kids

Today was a nice relaxing day at home. We had yummy blueberries in our oatmeal for breakfast and watched the blueberry episode of Good Eats, making plans for what to cook for Dad's return tomorrow. Blueberry buckle, blueberry pie, blueberry train cake...so many options, so much fun!

Monday evenings are usually when I take Sarge to training class and the kids stay home and play with Dad. But with no Dad and no sitter, they came to class with me today! The class is later in the evening and Trainboy was quite tired afterward and immediately fell asleep when we got back in the truck. Class went pretty well, Sarge is in the advanced class at Petsmart. We are working on distance and distractions in class and I brought 2 excellent distractions (my boys!) for all the dogs with me tonight! The teacher/trainer is awesome and worked with the boys to include them as helpful distractions as we practiced our commands with the dogs in various situations. It was rather hectic and I'm glad that they don't usually come with me because it was a lot harder to focus on working with Sarge when my kids were running everywhere, but the trainer pointed out Sarge needed to learn around the kids anyway since they are his "distractions" at home. (Oops, I've been working with him only away from the kids!)

At the end of this series of classes, Sarge & I will take the tests for the Canine Good Citizen and Therapy Dog certificates. Dog training classes have been super helpful to me with Sarge, who is a loving, wonderfully sweet dog with lots of energy. I found that I couldn't learn everything I needed to about training a dog from the books I got at the library when we first got Sarge and I'm so glad he came with the "free" beginner training class from his previous owners because I don't think I ever would have gone to a class otherwise because I like to be independent and capable of doing things on my own. He was a big handful when we got him and being able to talk to the trainer every week and get advice and help as I learned to handle my dog has been awesome. I recommend it to everyone!

Anyway, the therapy dog certificate will mean Sarge is capable of going to hospitals and nursing homes for service and I think having a purpose in his life beyond being a family pet will be good for him. I also think it will be a great way to give service with the kids. Can you see us? 2 young boys, a mom & a dog visiting nursing homes to bring cheer to older folks? That's my dream.