gorgeous jewelry and an amazing giveaway

Check out Etsy! This jewelry is adorable and she is giving a piece away. Just go to her blog at http://rhbdesigns.blogspot.com/ and leave a comment.

Check out her shop at www.rhbdesigns.etsy.com!

Enter this AMAZING contest!

Win the Essential Babywearing Stash from Along for the Ride (one Beco Butterfly, one Hotsling baby pouch, one BabyHawk Mei Tai, one Zolowear Ring Sling, and one Gypsy Mama Wrap)

The semester is over!

It has been a ridiculously long time since I updated, but the past month has been crazy! Between family activities, tying up the semester, and working things have been busy, busy, busy in the Janssen house. Jerry and I are both finished with the Spring semester as of today. We have approximately 2 weeks and then summer classes begin. Yippee! I am taking 2 classes this summer and 2 this fall and then I am finished with my nursing pre-requisites. Now I just sit and wait for my name to come up on the notorious waitlist. Jerry has a few more semesters left, but will be done soon as well.

April brought 2 major events in our house. Elliot was baptized on April 20th and Julian turned 2 on April 23rd! I will post pictures of both events in the morning because I am just too tired to take the time to do it now. Why I am not already sleeping is beyond me. We had a weekend of partying on April 19th and 20th. We went out to eat on Saturday night accompanied by many friends and family and enjoyed each other and some Thomas cake! Sunday we had service at 10:30 am with Elliot's baptism and then lunch at our house followed. Elliot looked gorgeous in her baptismal gown!

I have been busy with Pampered Chef shows having done a few in May already. I have another next week with one more following the week after and that will round out my month. I have several booked for June as well. June is sure to be busy with classes, shows, and my Babywearing Conference in Chicago! I am so excited. It is just a little over a month away and is sure to be a blast. I can't wait to utilize my newfound knowledge to help other mamas and babies! We also bought a Knights Action Park season pass so there will be many afternoons spent there this summer. I'll have a solarveil sling borrowed from my good friend Carrie which will be perfect. I'll pop Elliot in there and be able to chase Julian around hands free. I can even take it in the water! Carrie and her family along with some others from my moms group have passes as well so it is sure to be a fun summer!

I am helping Carrie out this summer with the babywearing group. As far as I know I will be doing the meetings May through August. I need to post on our message board and get some dates set for this summer. Busy, busy, busy! Though I am very excited to be doing this. I have some ideas for the meetings that I am looking forward to. The conference will really help us out with content as well as hopefully reaching out to some new members.

I almost forgot! Julian said, "I love you," for the first time today. I almost cried, seriously. I tell him I love him constantly always hoping he'll say it back. The kid chatters constantly, you'd think he would say it by now! I was coming down the stairs and being his typical lazy bum self he turns to me as usual, raises his arms above his head and says, "Tarry me mommy, tarry." I pick him up and say, "You lazy bum," which he promptly repeats. That is followed by, "I love you," which he repeated back to me as well! I ran downstairs carrying him and said, "Tell daddy, tell daddy!" He said it to Jerry and now won't say it again. What a goof!!!

Doula certification

I decided last night that it was time to start actually working on my doula certification instead of just talking about wanting to. So I did some searching around online and found a woman who does doula training workshops out of her home in St. Louis. Her website is http://www.birthnbabies.info/. She does a workshop in the spring and the fall each year. The one for spring is going on this weekend, so the next one is in October. Part of the DONA (http://www.dona.org/) certification requires some reading so I headed over to Amazon and purchased The Doula Book and Pregnancy, Childbirth, and the Newborn: The Complete Guide. I can't wait for them to arrive so I can start reading. Realistically I probably won't get to read them until the semester is over, but when that comes I will dig in excitedly!

I was looking at my calendar this morning and I have become quite the busy bee as of late. I have 3 Pampered Chef shows in April, 5 in May, 2 in June and 1 in July so far. I am also participating in the March for Babies and the Y-Me Mother's Day Walk. Yikes! Throw in Chemistry, A & P II, and Comm with 2 children under 2 for good measure and you have one tired, but happy mama.

I leave you with an adorable picture of Julian playing Steph's piano for good measure (as I hear something crashing from the kitchen counter, can't imagine who is in there can you?).

Babywearing

I registered for the Babywearing Conference today and just finished booking my train. I talked to Abby earlier this evening and made arrangements to stay at her and Matt's apartment! I am so very excited! On June 25, Elliot and I will be riding the train up to Chicago to attend the 2nd Annual Babywearing Conference. I'll be volunteering as a Workshop Assistant on Wednesday and then at Registration on Thursday all with a baby strapped to my back, haha. We'll be there until Saturday and will be learning lots of things ranging from how to run a babywearing group to how to wear a newborn to finding the perfect carrier and helping others to meet their needs. I simply can not wait. This all goes hand in hand with my passion to help mamas and babies. God gave me the obstacles I went through with the pregnancies and births of my children for a reason and in the past year or so I have finally listened to him and began pursuing that vision that has turned into me working on my RN, doula certification, and someday becoming a midwife.

Babywearing has been such an important part of our lives as parents. We started out with a Snugli with Julian because I did not know of any other options. When he was around 3 months old, after poking around on the internet, I discovered the world of babywearing. There are endless benefits of babywearing for babies and so many other options out there beside the Snuglis and Baby Bjorns we are most familiar with.

Here are some reasons to wear your baby from the conference website, http://www.babywearingconference.com/.

1. More comfortable for your arms and back than carrying.
2. Gives you the freedom to go places and get things done.
3. Multi-task—care for several children more easily.
4. Gives babies the closeness and motion they love.
5. Other caregivers can easily comfort and bond with baby.
6. Wearing baby fosters trust and attachment.
7. Helps you bond with foster or adopted children.
8. Feed on the go — even breastfeed hands free.
9. Research shows that carried babies cry less.
10.Babies are less likely to be bored, and can learn more when they are up higher.
11.Share your personal space to protect your baby from unwanted touches from strangers and from germs during cold and flu season.
And many more!

pictures

Daddy and Elliot, aren't they adorable? She is such a little lady already. I love, love, love that she has so much hair that I can put ridiculously cute bows in it. Cutie patooties, hands down.
Julian was "helping" me to give Elliot her first taste of food. At 5 months old she was starting to show some interest in our food so I gave her a little taste of some pureed carrots. She realized that solid food was not all it's cracked up to be and we've agreed to wait until 6 months and try again.
Big Brother and Little Sister in coordinating diaper covers, hehe, watching Sesame Street.