Beautiful Ballerinas

Our girls LOVE to dress up...

Molly and Omar's Wedding

It was a privilage to see our good friend, Molly McLellen, and to meet her husband, Omar and photograph their wedding. We also got to meet their precious daugther, Libby! They had their 2nd wedding in Abingdon, VA this weekend (their first was in Los Angeles) on a gorgeous fall day! The day could not have been more beautiful.

Asheville, NC

We stopped in Asheville for a day on our way to Abingdon, VA to photograph Molly and Omar's wedding! What a fun town Asheville is...very unique...very "green"...and LOTS of fun :-)

A quick pic of downtown Asheville. No chain stores or restaurants are allowed in the downtown part of Asheville. Everything is locally owned and operated.

We had a snack at the Green Sage Cafe. It is run by solar energy and all of the wasted food gets composted. They actually give you your coffee/tea in a mug versus a disposable cup! It tastes so much yummier that way too!

More Asheville pictures

There was a lot of fun street entertainment...this guy was very talented!

I'm a doula!

After finishing my doula training workshop through DONA International I am officially a doula now! I'm so excited to be able to help moms and serve them during such a transient time in their lives. I'm working on my certification births currently and I have one client due on October 17th.


What is a doula? (Taken from DONA International)

"The word "doula" comes from the ancient Greek meaning "a woman who serves" and is now used to refer to a trained and experienced professional who provides continuous physical, emotional and informational support to the mother before, during and just after birth; or who provides emotional and practical support during the postpartum period.

Studies have shown that when doulas attend birth, labors are shorter with fewer complications, babies are healthier and they breastfeeding more easily.

A Birth Doula

• Recognizes birth as a key experience the mother will remember all her life
• Understands the physiology of birth and the emotional needs of a woman in labor
• Assists the woman in preparing for and carrying out her plans for birth
• Stays with the woman throughout the labor
• Provides emotional support, physical comfort measures and an objective viewpoint, as well as helping the woman get the information she needs to make informed decision
• Facilitates communication between the laboring woman, her partner and her clinical care providers
• Perceives her role as nurturing and protecting the woman's memory of the birth experience
• Allows the woman's partner to participate at his/her comfort level

A birth doula certified by DONA International is designated by the initials CD(DONA)."

Why should I hire a doula for my birth? (From DONA International)

"Women have complex needs during childbirth and the weeks that follow. In addition to medical care and the love and companionship provided by their partners, women need consistent, continuous reassurance, comfort, encouragement and respect. They need individualized care based on their circumstances and preferences.

DONA International doulas are educated and experienced in childbirth and the postpartum period. We are prepared to provide physical (non-medical), emotional and informational support to women and their partners during labor and birth, as well as to families in the weeks following childbirth. We offer a loving touch, positioning and comfort measures that make childbearing women and families feel nurtured and cared for."

Numerous clinical studies have found that a doula’s presence at birth

• tends to result in shorter labors with fewer complications
• reduces negative feelings about one’s childbirth experience
• reduces the need for pitocin (a labor-inducing drug), forceps or vacuum extraction and cesareans
• reduces the mother’s request for pain medication and/or epidurals

Research shows parents who receive support can:

• Feel more secure and cared for
• Are more successful in adapting to new family dynamics
• Have greater success with breastfeeding
• Have greater self-confidence
• Have less postpartum depression
• Have lower incidence of abuse

I was adviced by the other Charlotte doulas in the area to begin charging between $600-$700 a birth once I am done with my certifcation births. I learned that when the same area doulas charge a similar fee, then potential clients will choose a doula based on her personality and how well they click together versus choosing based on price. This is very important to have someone whom you mesh with and are very comfortable with at your birth. I need two more births before I can apply for certification with DONA. Right now, I am charging $500, but that is on a sliding scale depending on income level.

Check out the website Pete helped put together for me! And, thanks, Peter Guy, for hosting the site!

One Gentle Beginning

Our sponsored child

Let me introduce you to one of our sponsored children through Compassion International. Diana Novita Sari lives in Indonesia. Pete and I started sponsoring Diana when we were sophomores at Virginia Tech and Diana was a very little girl...I believe she was maybe 3 years old.

Now she will be 14 years old in December! She looks so healthy and is going to school and learning about God. We love getting her letters and Kyla and Avery love coloring her pictures and sending them to her. She thanks us for the girls' artwork. She tells us in her letters about what she is learning in school and praises God for how good he is to her. Sometimes she even tells us that she wishes we would write her more! I guess we need to get better at that!

It is such a blessing to be give to a child who has so little compared to the surplus of what we have in America. Even right now with our economy so bad off, I look around and count my many blessings of having all that I really and truly need. Things might be tight for our family right now, but for so many other kids all over the world things are so tight and food and resources are so sparse, that it's a matter between life and death.

I encourage you that if you have never sponsored a child, go to Compassion's website and get involved. It's only $32 a month. Consider sponsoring a child in an AIDS afflicted area in Africa who lost her mom and dad due to AIDS. Or a little toddler in Ethiopia who is crying very hard because he's hungry and there is no food for him to eat because of the looming food crisis. There's children in every country that can truly be given a second chance at life and health if you sign up right now!! And on top of becoming healthy and eating well and receiving health care, they will also get to go to school and learn about God's love!!

Now, how awesome is that!?!

Kyla's First Day of Preschool!

I'm so behind with blogging, it has truely been a whirlwind these past 2 weeks!!
Our newest news is that Kyla started her first year of preschool! She loves it so much. She has made a lot of friends in her class of 4 year olds. The preschool is part of our church, and it is a brand-new, small little school with a total of 18 children. In her class there are 7 children including her best friend, Ella, who lives right behind us in our neighborhood.

This is her first day of preschool. Avery really missed having her big sister around. She didn't know quite what to do!

Woodland Home

I really enjoyed the Lord of the Rings. And, I must admit, I secretly wished I could live in one of those little homes tucked inside the earth...those cute little Woodland homes.

Well, this guy REALLY likes the Lord of the Rings. So much so, that he built his very own low-impact woodland home. It's really amazing what he did!

Wing Haven Botanical Gardens

On Saturday it was a beautiful day, so we went to a small botanical garden near downtown Charlotte. Here's our day in pictures :-)

Look who's really talking!

Surprise! Avery surprises us everyday with new sentences. Ever since she turned 2 years old on July 5th, her vocabulary has exploaded! When I got home from the Philippines I was greeted by a little girl asking me, word for word, "Can I take the baby to Starbucks?". Of which we've only been only maybe twice with Avery. Here are some more of her sentences that I wrote down the other day:

- Pointing to her clip on plastic earrings, "I got my ear pierced. It hurts."
- Walking over to her play kitchen, "I'm gonna make bekast (breakfast) for you."
- Looking outside after a rain storm, "It's not raining anymore."
- "Let me chase the fly, I will use this," holding up a fly swatter.
- Pointing to a picture in a book, "I like to ride that boat."
-Pointing to a used-to-be broken knob on her play kitchen, "Daddy fixed it. Thank you daddy, fixin it."
- Looking at Kyla's bandaid, "Kyla, you got a bandaid? What happened?"
- Playing with her doll, "I'm gonna put baby to sleep. Be right back."

And, my favorite:
Pete was sleeping on the couch. Avery walked up to him and poked him and said, "Don't sleep anymore, please."

Our day yesterday...

It was a very nice, cool day yesterday and the kids enjoyed going to the park and staying outside!
Avery loves to pretend to talk on the cell phone. She has real conversation with nobody (well, I hope nobody! Sorry if she's ever called you by accident!)

Kyla's favorite past time...helping Daddy plant and take care of the flowers!

Midwifery in Davao, Philippines

I have been back from Davao City for exactly one month almost to the day now. Throughout my trip and since I've been home, Pete and I have been seeking the Lord and talking about the next step our family should take in regards of moving or not to Davao City. We wanted to share our thoughts with you.

My first-hand experience of observing and learning at Mercy Maternity Clinic was amazing! While I was in Davao learning from the midwives, the students, and the expectant mothers who walked in to Mercy each day, God really confirmed that He is calling me to be a midwife. I loved every moment I spent at the clinic. Even though I saw some very difficult births, I loved learning everything I could possibly learn and I treasured each moment in my heart. Aside from being a wife and a mother to our two beautiful girls, there is nothing more that I want to do than to be able to serve women in such a special and delicate time in their lives. I feel so blessed having had the opportunity to visit Mercy Maternity and serve while getting to know these amazing Filipina women. Through my visit I had a taste of what it was like to really be serving the poor through an amazing ministry at Mercy Maternity Center. These women, have access to quality prenatal, labor and delivery, and postnatal care which they would normally not have because of their economic level. In addition, the care is personalized and the women are prayed for during each prental visit...God's love abounds through each midwife as she extends her heart and hands to help these women who are with child.

I know some of you who are receiving this letter still have concerns about the possibility of us living in the Philippines. Davao is a very interesting city. It’s incredibly safe (very different from the rest of Mindanao Island and the people have very simple ways of living. It is very much a developing country, yet Davao still has malls, coffee shops, great medical care and doctors. All of my encounters with Filipinos were very positive! Everyone I met was very kind, respectful and helpful. So much so, that overall, I felt more welcomed in Davao than in my own country at times! There are still downfalls, of course. The pollution within the city is really bad. However, the city still gets a lot of ocean air just by its nature of being surrounded by the sea. There are mosquitoes everywhere! I had to wear bug spray almost all the time. Except for the malls and the coffee shops, air conditioning is a rarity in the tropical climate, but I became used to no AC fairly quickly. You really have to go and visit Davao for yourself to really understand what a beautiful, unique, and interesting place it really is!

I must say, that the thought of moving to Davao City for 2.5 years seems nearly impossible. Of course, we all know that with God all things indeed ARE possible, but everything that must happen in order for our family to move there seems like a wall that is before us that is too difficult to climb.

With all of this being said, deep in our hearts we feel like God still wants us in Davao. Every time we think about saying "no," we read something in Scripture, hear a message in church, or just feel a nudging of the Holy Spirit that makes us VERY uncomfortable with "no" for an answer.

So, we are sharing with you, dear friends, and asking you to please pray for us. We know that if the Lord wants our family in Davao, He will continue to open up the doors and meet our needs along the way. Below is a list of everything that will need to work out in order for us to make this move. We are asking you to join us in prayer for these needs to be met in God's perfect time for us to leave.

• We accumulated some debt, after being debt-free in Los Angeles, while moving across the country one year ago. Then Pete’s teaching license did not get recognized in NC until months after he began working. This put an incredible strain on us financially that we are still recovering from. We need to pay our debt before we move as missionaries to Davao. Please pray that the Lord would give us the means to pay it off. Please pray for photography work and tutoring for Pete and for Sarah’s work as a Bradley childbirth teacher and Doula.
• We will need to either sell or rent our home before we move. As we all know, the housing market isn't doing that great. Please pray for wisdom in the steps to take about whether to rent it out or sell.
• Please pray that Avery's eczema will be healed. We are so thankful that her eczema is already 100 times better than what it was 6 months ago! The air is so damp in the Philippines that several girls who are student midwives told me they had eczema in the US and Canada and it has cleared up in Davao City because of the "wet" air. So, I do not believe she would have a hard time in the Philippines...at least no worse than she does here. But it would be nice to have her completely healed if we move there. She also seems to be having less problems with her allergies as she got a hold of a small piece of cheese the other day and had no reaction to it whatsoever! Also, she ate an egg yoke for the first time the other day with no problem.
• We would need to have approximately $15,000 (minimum) before we move to Davao and then once we are there, about $1500 a month.
• I am training to become a Doula. Please pray I will be able to get the training done in an efficient and timely manner so that I may begin attending births soon and using that money to put towards savings and debt.

Happy Birthday, Pete!

We celebrated Pete's 29th birthday on August 11th! Pete slept in while Kyla and I made crepes for breakfast. I was inspired to make crepes after having mango crepes for breakfast in the Philippines with Chad and Naomi. We had mango and banana crepes, and strawberry/blueberry crepes. The girls ate 3 each!

We went on a walk after breakfast and then after the girls woke up from their naps we went to the goat farm.
Thanks to our friends, Matt and Stacey, Pete got a giftcard to Chili's for his birthday present and we had dinner there while the Chili's staff gave Pete a free chocolate milk shake...yummm!

Then, we came back home and Pete went bowling with some friend and sang karaoke!

What a fun, memorable day...and he has even better stories to read on his blog :-)

Yesterday on Pete's 29th birthday, we went to Mahaffey's Farm in South Carolina so the girls could run around and play with some of their baby goats (though, they are not little babies anymore!) and cats and dogs. While we were there, we picked up a gallon of raw goat milk for Avery.

We have been buying their delicious grade A goat milk off and on for some time now, and usually it's about the same price as the goat milk in the stores once you add in the gas it takes to get to the farm. Just recently the prices on the goat's milk in the stores have increased to $3.69 and $3.99 per QUART of goat milk...almost $16 a gallon! Thankfully, Avery is the only one who drinks it, but it's too pricey. Mahaffey's milk is $5 per half gallon, so about $6 cheaper. We calculated it out that it will cost about $3 to $4 in gas to go the extra 13 miles to the farm, so it is slightly cheaper now to get their milk regularly! We are so thrilled about this because Grade A Raw Goat Dairy is by far more healthy for Avery than the ultra-pasturized milk in the stores.

One of the MAIN reasons we're so excited to give Avery raw goat's milk is because raw milk has been shown to help rid your body of allergies over a period of time. I have also researched it's supposed to help with eczema. This is an amazing article on how raw milk cuts children's allergies

Raw milk has an amazing source of nutrients including beneficial bacteria such as lactobacillus acidolphilus, vitamins and enzymes, and the calcium in raw milk is more bioavailable than that which is in pasturized milk, so I've researched.

The pasteurization process, heats the milk to 145 degrees - 150 degrees F and s it there for at least half an hour. Then the temperature is reduced to no more than 55 degrees F, completely changes the structure of the milk proteins (it denatures the proteins) and this is not very healthy. Now, pasturizing milk DOES kill germs and bad bacteria, BUT it also destroys the milk's beneficial bacteria along with many of its nutritious components.

When you pasturize milk, you destroy live enzymes, vitamins, and you destroy beneficial bacteria. If you leave raw milk out it will sour naturally but pasteurized milk will rot. This is because the beneficial bacteria in the raw milk helps to keep decomposing bacteria under control. The pasturized milk does not have any beneficial bacteria left to keep it from rotting, basically.

(www.realmilk.org)

I'm back!

Yipppppeeee! After a long flight and a short visit with friends in Los Angeles, I'm back home in Charlotte with my family. It was such an amazing trip to Davao, but I really missed our girls and Pete a lot.
We have a lot of big decisions to make about whether or not to move to Davao next summer, 2009. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers about this decision!

I will leave you with a few more pictures and keep you updated about what we will be doing!