saturday summertime in the park.

Photography is a hobby of both Kevin and myself, though Kevin much prefers nature photography, he is fantastic at portraiture photography as well, as for me, just give me people. :)
Saturday Kevin and I had a great time snapping some pics of my brother Scott and his family and some of our family as well. 

 Here's some of the pictures we got of our little family.

We are loving life and truly feel that we're "living the dream ".

HAPPY SUMMER!

"He Lives In You." Me. Us.

I just returned from a Tanner family reunion with my dad’s family.  I LOVE Tanner gatherings.  With my dad being 1 of 13 children our family is So large that big gatherings only happen once every 2 years.  Someone just figured out at this last reunion that there are now 103 or 106 great-grandchildren with 6 on the way!

As usual after a family get-together I was reminded again how family is really the most important thing in life, and how wonderful it is to have people who care deeply about you.  How evident it is to me that such an important social unit is meant to be FOREVER . 

The theme of this year’s reunion was “He Lives In You” from the Broadway version of The Lion King.  The song is a reminder to Simba that his father never really left him, that what he taught and who he was lives on within him, Simba.   

In reference to the theme, we were remembering and celebrating the fantastic person that my Grandpa, William Coats Tanner Jr. was and is.  What a posterity he has left behind! As we shared stories and reminisced about Grandpa I realized just how true that statement was, He really Does live in all of us Tanners, in one way or another we are so much like him.  And his legacy of Choosing who you want to be and especially Choosing to be Happy has had Eternal impact on each of us in my opinion.  

Check out the song:He Lives In You.

With all this in mind I was re-watching Elder Nelson’s talk in the LDS General Conference from April of this year and one part really stood out to me, probably because of my recent train of thought;

"Under God’s great plan of happiness, families can be sealed in temples and be prepared to return to dwell in His holy presence forever. That is eternal life! It fulfills the deepest longings of the human soul—the natural yearning for endless association with beloved members of one’s family."

-Elder Nelson, “Thanks Be To God”, LDS General Conference, April 2012

And I couldn’t help but think that even more than my Grandpa Tanner we ALL have a Heavenly Father who lives in each of us.  Who wants us to know and follow all the council that He has given us to make sure that we become like Him so that we can Live WITH Him forever.

my happy bottle-fed baby.

Bottle "tree" that I LOVE.

The past few weeks have been quite the journey for me and baby Lee.  Finally when he was nine weeks old, (just two weeks ago now) after copious amounts of deliberation, I started feeding Lee bottles.  I thought the struggle with nursing would go away after Lee got bigger and stronger.  The struggle he had at the beginning is very normal for premature babies like him.  Not to say that knowing that made it any easier for me.  We tried EVERYTHING at first.  I spoke with three separate lactation specialists and tried anything and everything they suggested; a syringe, an SNS (or tube feeding) and finally a shield, which is the only thing that worked at all in the end.  The last lactation specialist I saw explained that many babies who are born even a few (in our case four) weeks premature haven’t developed the strength needed to suck as hard as they need to feed well.  She explained that I shouldn’t expect him to be at that level until he had reached his actual due date at the end of May.  

 

Of course sweet Lee’s due date came and went and still, he would not eat without the shield.  It was manageable, especially compared to how he had been before but it still made me feel uptight every feeding and stranded at our house.  The shield made it practically impossible to feed using a cover, that in combination with the fact that Lee generally cried at the beginning and end of every feeding, and always sometimes in-between made it very difficult to feed him outside of our home. 

I thought several times about just “giving up” and trying a bottle but I’d determined before he was ever born that I would absolutely nurse him and the material I read and the nursing class I went to all taught that it was basically ALWAYS possible for ANYONE to nurse a baby if they stuck with it enough.  I studied all the benefits of breast milk vs. formula and since I was going to be a stay-at-home mom, I didn’t see any reason that could possibly deter me from my decision to nurse.  So, even the thought of feeding with a bottle made me have a guilty pit in my stomach. 

Finally one Sunday night, we were over at my brother Scott’s house and Jenna and I were feeding our babies.  Lee was really struggling and crying as usual and Jenna finally said, “you know Michelle, that really isn’t normal.” I told her of my frustration with nursing and how I kept waiting for it to be that special bonding experience that so many talked about.  I told her how I had come to dread every time feedings rolled around, which is frequently with a newborn.  I hadn’t even realized quite how much it had all been weighing on me until I started to talk to her about it.  And Jenna said, “just try a bottle Michelle, there’s nothing wrong with that; you and Lee should both be happy.”  Jenna gave me just the validation I needed and that night, I started feeding Lee bottles and he’s been bottle-fed ever since. 

At first I thought I would continue to use breast milk but after just one night of pumping after every feeding (yes Lee is still waking up ever 3 to 4 hours) I realized that it just wasn’t manageable (for me) to continue on that way.  Lee is basically completely formula fed now and we are both happier than ever.  

 I still feel guilty sometimes but I’ve begun to realize that all my guilt comes from my worries about what Others may think of my decision, not what I feel deep down is best for me and Lee.  So, I’m trying to push away those feelings whenever they come cropping up again. 

Again I’ve had the opportunity to learn to be less quick to judge others’ decisions and circumstances. I’ve learned first-hand that not every baby is cut out for nursing and that it’s OKAY.  Man, someday, I’m going to stop needing to learn things the hard way.  (hopefully)

To any of you who may feel as I have sometimes, with my decision to bottle-feed my baby, that people may be judging you, maybe they are (I did), but they don’t know and it doesn’t matter. No one will ever know exactly what is right for you and your family but You and God. How grateful I am that we have a Heavenly Father, God, who cares so intimately about the happiness of each of us that He’ll bless a struggling first-time mom with peace about bottle feeding as many times as she needs.