Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day!

First of all, let me tell you: This was my first Mother's Day (as a mother!) and I have never appreciated all the hard work my mother(s) have put in over the years as much as I do this year!

That being said, I never understood the depth of joy to be found in motherhood, either! :)

On this Mother's Day, my husband outdid himself. My request was not to cook any food on Sunday, and since we usually have frozen pizza for Sunday lunch I was thinking..."How 'bout you stick it in the oven and wash the pan for me?" But Jonathan and I were thinking on very different levels.

Sunday morning we woke up to the fantastic aroma of barbecued beef in the crock pot! He still won't tell me his recipe, but it was amazing. He also cooked up some homemade french fries to go along with it. YUM.

At church, all the kids gathered around their mother and passed a mic around, telling us what they appreciated about their moms. I think the general consensus was that we're all glad our mothers never poisoned us with their food. ;) I'm pretty sure Ethan cooed a 'Happy Mother's Day' to me too. :D

After church and lunch, we hopped on our four-wheeler (yippee!) and made a quick drive down to Tanalian River to enjoy the lovely weather.

Of course we also called home later to wish our own fantastic mothers a very happy day as well. :)

To end the day, Jonathan submitted himself to a (rather cheesy) chick flick of my choice. :)

I'm pretty sure he can't top this day for my birthday...but since it will be a workday anyway, this fantabulous day counts toward that too. *wink*

We had a marvelous weekend last...well, weekend and boy, was it well-timed. Summertime busy-ness has been gearing up for a while now and this week it definitely seems to be in full swing. 

While Jonathan is working such long days, and I am home waiting for the baby to wake up (he sleeps a lot!) it can be easy to focus on all the time we don't get to spend together, but we've already learned that that is not a good option. Instead, God has been teaching us to value every little moment we do get to spend together. 

Jonathan gets an hour lunch break and we do a lot of talking business (finances and plans) during that time so that when he gets off of work, we can just relax together. I often go and visit him at the hangar, so he can see Ethan while he's awake and smiley. Those five or ten minutes we snag together help me especially when I'm feeling stir-crazy or stressed. 

God is really using life in Port Alsworth to teach us how to value relationships and small blessings, instead of the availability of things.

Back to our marvelous weekend! Sunshine has been abundant in Port Alsworth these past few weeks and oh - how we have enjoyed it! On Saturday Jonathan helped me clean out the flower bed and fixed the four-wheeler we bought from a friend a few weeks ago. We now have transportation around town, which is a ginormous blessing! Walking everywhere is only a novelty for so long. ;)

We are doubly grateful for all the sunshine lately since our dryer decided to go psycho on us and start shredding our clothes. I am immensely grateful that it didn't decide to do this in the dead of winter and that God has provided a clothesline and sunlight to dry our clothes for us. There isn't anything much better than the smell of line-dried clothes. :) We should also have a working dryer pretty soon, things just take longer by default out here.

Ethan is growing like a weed and I can't believe he is already 12 weeks old!

Two days old and ten weeks old. :)

He's just starting to be big enough to try out his jumper....and he hasn't decided what he thinks about it quite yet. :)

He knows what he thinks of his daddy though...he's the greatest! 

Cloth Diaper Review

I didn't always intend to do cloth diapers with my babies. Growing up, I watched my mom slosh poopy  diapers around in the toilet and thought "yuck! I never want to do that!"

Quite honestly, if any of the things that did happen last year hadn't happened, I doubt I would be using cloth now. But, I did marry a man who isn't afraid to do harder things if they're better, we did move to bush Alaska, and I have toughened up considerably since we moved.

So, we decided to go the cloth diaper-route. There are a lot more options now than there were during my mom's child-rearing years and it took a lot of research (read: consulting with my next-door neighbor who uses cloth and has already done all the research)  to decide on one method. In the end, I decided to go with the exact same system my wonderful neighbor uses - pre-folds with diaper-covers! In particular, Cloth-eez pre-folds with Thirsties diaper-covers.

I chose this system because 1) It's similar to the one my mother used and is therefore, somewhat familiar 2) it seemed to be the most economical and 3) it is pretty simple to use and clean.

Basically, every time I change his diaper I toss the dirty diaper in my handy diaper pail (with a washable bag insert) and grab a clean one. Unless he's wet/pooped on the diaper-cover, then can I reuse it, fold the diaper over his bottom and snap the cover in place. Super-easy! Plus, the covers are adjustable, so they grow with him!

When it's time to wash the diapers (about every third day for me) I toss them in the washer, prewash them to get the poopy off, then add some bleach and detergent to the wash cycle and let it go! When the rinse cycle is done, I can throw them in the dryer and they'll come out fluffy and white, ready to go to work saving me money.

What I love about my cloth diapers:

~I hear a "ka-ching!" every time I change him. One more free diaper change!

~I can use them for any more babies that may come in the future (More ka-chings!).

~They're tons easier to use than I expected. Seriously, it's hardly any more difficult than disposables.

~They smell good when they come fresh out of the dryer.

~They make the best burp cloths!

~The trash guys don't have to deal with our kid's dirty, smelly diapers (Living out in the bush, all of our trash gets burned…yeah, gross!)

~I don't have to worry about running out of diapers while living out here with no accessible stores (that's a biggie for me).

What I don't love about my cloth diapers:

~They don't last as long as disposables. If I don't stay on top of keeping him in fresh diapers, he'll wet or poop out. As long as I don't forget to change him at every feeding, or when I notice him pooping, we're usually good. But we put him in disposables at night, and those definitely last longer.

~Hand washing the covers. They're machine-washable and I suppose I could throw them in with our clothes, since I only have six and they don't make up an entire load by themselves, but something about that thought just doesn't sit well… Besides, I'm coming up with a pretty good system for hand washing now. :) (Update: I only have to hand wash them when he poops because the elastic parts stain. If you don't mind stained elastic, it's really not a problem.)

~Using them when we go out. We do keep disposables in the house for emergencies and for nights. But it's terribly tempting to put him in disposables when we leave the house so I don't have to worry about him pooping out or forgetting to wash his diapers when we get home. (Speaking of which…I think there's still one in the diaper bag as we speak!)

Really, that's all I have to complain about, and when I consider all the benefits, those complaints seem even more insignificant.

Cloth obviously isn't for everyone, and it's not about being tougher or more "green" (though there is something to be said for that). Motherhood is difficult and it's really about what circumstances God has put you in, and what works best in those circumstances.

Check out these websites and resources for more help:

Amazon diaper-sprayer search  - (for when they start eating solids and you need to rinse off dirty diapers before washing them.)

Green Mountain Diapers.com

Different Kinds of Cloth Diapers

Cloth Diaper Reviews

Video Tutorial on How to Use Prefolds

More on How to Use Prefolds

FAQ on Cloth Diapers

Feel free to comment and ask me more!

One Month (Already!?)

Ethan is one-month old!

It feels cliché to say it, but I can't help marveling at how fast he is changing and growing - They really do grow up so fast!

The picture on the left was taken just one week before the second one!

One month of parenting - what do we have to show for it?

We have some red eyes. We have some adorable pictures. We have a new appreciation for everyone who has done this before (!).

So what is our first impression of parenthood?

It's easier and harder than it looks. Harder in ways we didn't expect, but easier in other ways because we are just so in love with our precious little boy.

For example: sitting up with a screaming baby until 3AM is harder than I imagined, because I never imagined what being sleep-deprived for weeks beforehand feels like. But when he finally falls asleep smiling in my spit-up stained arms, I feel ready to do it all over again.

We have been blessed beyond measure by all of our friends and family - sending gifts, cards, bringing meals, praying and rejoicing with us! Thank you all so much for your loving support.

Love, Jenna

Introducing...

I am very excited to introduce to you our very own

Ethan Mark!

Today is his actual due date but an ultrasound showed that little Ethan wasn't doing as well in the womb as we would have liked, so labor was induced on the 11th and he was born 17 hours later, perfectly healthy at 6 lbs, 4 oz and 19 1/2 ".

Today we are finally home again, ready to ease back into a daily routine with the help of my mom and sister.

Jonathan and I are both completely in love with our son and are soaking up all the snuggle-time we can get. 

I'm sure all the parents out there will remember how overwhelming it feels to bring a newborn home for the first time, and bringing such a tiny, helpless person out to rural Alaska only amplifies that feeling. 

Being a mother is a constant reminder that I am just as dependent on God as my son is on me and 

that that is exactly where I want to be.

Looking forward to sharing our adventures in parenthood with you! :)

Firsts and Lasts

Last weekend was kind of a big milestone in my mind. For one, it was our last weekend at home just the two of us. (Technically, Baby Wright was right there with us but we're not counting that yet. ;) For two, it was the first time I've flown with Jonathan since we were dating!

It was a gorgeous day out even with the looming fog.

 Tanalian peeking out through the fog as we come in to land.

One year has certainly brought a lot of firsts and lasts for us. It can be an overwhelming feeling sometimes (especially for a hormonal, overtired pregnant woman), navigating all of these changes, but it is also an enormously exciting time as we wait to watch God turn the next page, knowing that our story is being written by a Master.

"Being manifested that you are a letter of Christ...written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of human hearts. 

And such confidence we have through Christ, toward God.

Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God, 

Who also made us adequate as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit, for the letter kills, but the Spirit brings life."

2 Corinthians 3:3-6

It's Time!

(No, no…I'm not in labor yet. But it's finally sinking in that any day between now and a month from now, we will at last be able to meet our precious little boy!)

Yesterday, Jonathan and I caught our flight into Anchorage and settled into the room we will be calling home for the next few weeks.

It felt a little strange leaving our little blue house knowing that the next time I walk through that door I'll be holding our baby in my arms; there will be a tiny person to sleep in that gigantic crib and those little socks will be covering bitty feet.

I can't wait.

A lot of friends have been curious about how this moving-into-Anchorage works, as in, where will you stay? and where will Jonathan work?

We're staying at the Hickle House - something like a hotel that the hospital owns and keeps for longer-term patients and their families. It's a wonderful solution for us; the Hickle House is steps away from the hospital and my doctor's office is right across the street. It even has a community kitchen that we can use to cook our meals.

Jonathan will be working for Lake Clark Air here in town, doing any maintenance that comes in and working as ground crew in his spare time. It is such a blessing to be with a company that not only understands the unique situations that arise from living in remote Alaska, but is also willing to help us work through them!