Jainna Lydia - 3 months

Jainna at 3 months ... featuring her cousin Tyler Whipple!

Book PRE-view: "Starved Stuff"

I went to a Blogging Conference this last weekend. They had many classes pertaining to improving my blog (familyscratchcooking.blogspot.com, still a work in progress) and I learned many things! But I was surprised to see myself learning a lot about myself in my personal life as well. The opening Keynote Speaker for the second day was a relationship counselor, Matt Townsend, who spoke to us about developing a great relationship with our blog readers. But I was really drawn to the comments and examples he gave about husband and wife relationships - many things hit home for me. I bought his book as soon as the class ended.

The book is called "Starved Stuff: Feeding the 7 Basic Needs of Healthy Relationships" and I am very excited to read it! I read the first chapter this morning and passed it over to Brian and asked him to read it. We plan to read it together, yet separate, one chapter at a time.

The first chapter was about the three types of LOVE: Yearning Love, Earning Love, and Enduring Love. VERY INTERESTING STUFF! The first type of love (like when we are dating and falling in love for the first time) is the chemical stage of love - its all about the hormones! It has high chemicals, but low clarity (reality). He compares Yearning Love to a space shuttle launch where massive amounts of chemicals (fuel) are used in order to get the rocket in the air. Once the shuttle is in the air it transitions to the long journey. Similarly, our Yearning Love loses it's initial boost, and we must give way to the next deeper stage of love, Earning Love.

Earning Love is where each partner must earn the love he or she desires. There is much work involved. It's where the majority of couples spend most of their long-term relationship. The Earning Love stage has low-chemicals, but high clarity. It's a hard transition, and many people confuse it for "falling out of love"


The final stage is the Enduring Stage. It's the type of love (i.e. grandma and grandpa) where you are content with each other and committed to the end. Chemicals are no longer the source of your love, and the clarity is crystal clear. You literally CHOOSE to be with each other. It's the goal of the entire book - helping people reach that Enduring Love.

Doesn't that sound AWESOME?!? and thats only the first chapter! The rest of the book is about recognizing problems that arise during the Earning stage and how to solve them in order to reach the Enduring stage.

I'll let you know when I finish the book and about other highlights I enjoyed. If you decide to get the book, I'd love to hear what you learned from it! TTYL!!!

my virgin attempt at PhotoShop

are you impressed? LOL don't be too impressed, its from a template and I only added the text. But I had fun doing it and will attempt to do more. Here is the header I made for my food blog.

my girls inspired me!

It's something I've been thinking about doing for several months, but never had the guts to do it. Well, now that part of my "guts" have literally been removed (had my gallbladder out yesterday) I decided now is the time! I'm going off candy for one year! I have an intense addiction to candy - particularly chocolate. Peanut Butter M&M's are my biggest weakness. But I must admit, the Lifesaver Jelly Beans at Easter were DELISH! In addition to candy, I am also going to get rid of all obvious high-sugar desserts: cookies, cake, pie, and dare I say . . . ice cream!

So it looks like sugar free jello (with a possible splurge of whip cream) is in my future for treat time. Any other low-fat/sugar free ideas are appreciated :) I hope I dont go crazy in the meantime! Wish me luck!

Jainna Lydia Kirkby

Family Scratch blog

I've started a new blog about cooking and incorporate healthy eating for a family of 8. I'm going to be updating it 2 or 3 times a week and adding recipes on a regular basis. Please pass it along to your friends and feel free to make comments and suggestions.

http://familyscratch.blogspot.com/

Little Miss Jainna, part 1

Born Saturday, February 20, 2010

After 2 weeks of false labor warnings, our 6th child (5th daughter) came to our family in a quick rush. I want to tell her story, but I can't seem to find the time to sit down and write it all out at once, so for now I will give a brief update and later hopefully find the time to give more details as to how she came to us.

First of all, we have finally settled on Jainna as her first name. The middle name is still undecided, but at least we can stop calling her "that baby with no name". Second, she is still in the care of the wonderful hospital staff at American Fork Hospital. Although its hard to not have her at home with us, we know it's where she needs to be.

She was 5 weeks early, and therefore is not ready for some of the daily demands life puts on her. She initially had trouble breathing properly on her own, but that was under control within the first 12 hours. The next main hurdle was (and remains to be) her eating ability. She is so sleepy and does not have the energy to wake up to eat. Also, she does not have the internal instinct most babies have to suckle and nurse. These are all typical responses that "near term" 35 week babies have problems with. It's nothing to panic about, just something that time and patients will bring her success.

At this point, I am allowed to attempt to feed her twice a day. So I go in every morning for her 10:30 feeding and then again in the evening for the 7:30 feeding. We have had no success in getting her to nurse at this point, but she could turn that corner at any time.

At a later time I will share more about her delivery, but for now all I will say is she came FAST (meaning about 25 minutes from arriving at hospital to actual birth time). Apparently one of the side effects of such a fast delivery, is that her eyes are bruised - it looks like someone punched her in both eyes. I'm not sure how long the redness and swelling will last, but I cant wait for that to be remedied.

She was on an IV to give her fluids, but now they have removed that and now is on a feeding tube instead. A "feeding tube" sounds more intimidating than it really is - its a teeny tiny tube in her nose that leads to her stomach to give her food directly. It doesnt get in her way, and she is not bothered by it at all. I'm glad the IV is out because that WAS in her way and she seemed constantly bothered by it (or perhaps im just thinking of how I would feel to have that in my hand all the time - no thanks).

She did have slightly elevated levels of jaundice so the put the "bili lights" in her bed for one day. But she conquered that event quickly and is back to normal lighting.

One of the hardest parts is that the other kids have not had a chance to hold her or even get a good look at her. They are so anxious to have her home with us - as well are Brian and I. We took the kids school pictures and taped them to her bed.

I think she will be at least another week before she even starts to be interested in eating, and another week to get her up to speed with proper nursing amounts. But that is just my guess - any and all prayers are appreciated.

More to come later, until then enjoy these pictures and video (if it will work).

Love, Liz