Silly Saturday

Silly Saturday Blog Link

Pieternella from Homestead Emporium has been trying to have a giveaway contest all summer long and has had very few participants.  I have been meaning to post and just keep procrastinating....now to my credit I had baby #5 in June, three weeks of family visiting, some new major health set backs and now trying to gear up for homeschooling as soccer season starts.  This also begins the busiest time of year for our business along with (hopefully) a bountiful harvest on the farm.

Pieternella is trying to do something very good-she wants us all to realize that we are beautiful just the way we are-and that we need to love ourselves as we are right now.  She blogged a few months ago about how one of her daughters confronted her that they were not going to have any pictures of her because she wouldn't let the kids take her picture....been there and done that.

I posted pictures of myself on facebook this past spring that actually took a lot of courage to post.  They were maternity pictures that I had taken with baby number 4, Anna.  I had them taken because I absolutely loved my sister's maternity pictures, but also because I wanted to record the very special time of being pregnant.  I didn't allow my first husband to take my pictures when I was pregnant with my first two children because I didn't want to record how fat I was then.  Now 30-40 lbs and three pregnancies later I would give up almost anything to be that skinny again, except maybe the ice cream, chocolate and my pepsi.:)  Then becoming widowed at such a young age and realizing that I may never be married again nor have anymore children gave me a wake-up call about how incredibly special the pregnancy time of life is.  Looking back at that four years of my life I also saw how few pictures there were of me for my kids to have because I was the primary one taking all the pictures (they were just babies/toddlers/little kids.)  My sister also had her maternity pictures taken while I was widowed.  After Jason and I married we experienced secondary infertility issues on my part-we went 16 months without conceiving a child.  (I had even had surgery seven months before we got married to hopefully fix my known infertility problems.)  We got pregnant with Katie, but she came 18 days early-five days before we had my maternity pictures photography appointment.  Thankfully we got pregnant with Anna without actively trying and I managed to have these pictures taken:

Now when Jason and I went to have the pictures taken I knew that in order to get the look I wanted in the pictures I had to "act" like a model....I had to allow myself to feel beautiful and not be thinking about how fat I was-nor could I allow myself to feel self-conscious or ugly.  I had to "fake it" in front of the camera and thus "made" happiness and love communicate from the pictures.  I wanted my children to see from the pictures how loved they were/are from the very beginning of their lives.  I was self-conscious about posting them on facebook, but since I was stuck on bedrest and knew I wouldn't be getting any pictures of myself pregnant with Libby I wanted to share the happiness and beautifulness of my fifth pregnant by posting pictures of my fourth one.  Now we have found out that we may not be able to have anymore children and I am devastated beyond words.  Therefore I haven't forced myself to blog.  I have lots of family pictures from the visits and a birthday to blog about from this past month, but I have been hiding away on the farm as I try to come to grips with the unexpected changes to my life plan once again.

I want all my kids to love themselves and thus I must teach them by loving myself-right now in this very minute.  Not when I hopefully finally get permission to work out again or when I lose 5 or 40 lbs, but right now at the end of a long day of beginning to flip rooms around in our house.  So, in the spirit of Silly Saturday here I am celebrating moving our bedroom into our former office and the "new to me" dressers we bought off of Craigslist.  I used my cell phone because I had just a few moments to work on this without any family seeing what I was up to. 

"Hi everyone!"

Here I am just being plain me:

Here I am being silly on Saturday!

This is the look I give my kids when I want them to do something, but I want them to laugh when they are pouting about having to do whatever chore it is they have been assigned to complete-it usually makes them laugh and go, "What?" all innocent like...then normally they will go off and complete the chore.  (It even works on my niece Victoria when she is visiting, but then again I think my brother-in-law may do something similar.)

That's it for this week!  I am falling asleep typing this.  Have a great week!  Make sure you check out Pieternella's blog, website and etsy shop-she sells the most comfortable menstrual cloths I have ever bought.  All the styles are great, but the bamboo velour is so soft and comfy....plus her dye jobs/fabric patterns are so pretty to look at!

Linking up with Homestead Emporium giveaway right here.

Check back September 1st for my first giveaway-Jason and I have something big planned in honor of our 5th wedding anniversary and our fourth year on the farm!

Wishing all of you the sweetness of loving yourself right now,

Stephanie