Help Layla Enter Pageant!

My daughter is going to entering into her first pageant soon, and we need help to get her there! They are selling raffle tickets to help gain entry they are only $0.50, I'm not sure what all they are raffeling but I am going to find out soon. Anyways if you want to help out donate the amount you want to my paypal (email: mrs_shurden@yahoo.com) and then send me an email with the amount you wish to donate and your name, address, and phone number and if you win I will mail you what ever it is you won. Thank you very much.

Facebook VS the Common MOM

Stop Deleting Mother Support Groups Facebook!

Mothering and breastfeeding support groups have had to be on the defensive for more than 4 years on Facebook and we are tired of it. Since the start of the year I have heard of at least 4 support groups getting deleted and it has put a sour taste in my mouth. To me though, they crossed the line when they deleted my favorite Facebook support group called The Leaky Boob .

Although I'm a mom of three breastfeeding didn't exactly come natural to me nor did I become a pro at it till my third child. The Leaky B@@b helped me get past those hard times with supportive and helpful comments from the host of the support group all the way down to the members in it. It was also a group that felt welcoming when you first join it, welcoming enough that even newcomers jump right into commenting on status's posted to the wall to see if they can help. That is why it came as a complete shock for facebook to have deleted them and then not give any clear cut reason why they did so.

So I started this Facebook Page, (cliche maybe, but a goal yes) to try and raise awareness on the subject and to possibly get facebook's attention. So if you don't mind visitors check it out and if you'd like to lend a hand just click like. Thanks guys!

A Paranormal book fans' Dream

H.P. Mallory has quickly become one of my favorite authors. I got a nook for Christmas from my lovely husband and have been using it non-stop. I bought a book a week and among them I found this diamond in the ruff, Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble quickly got my attention as I fell in love with the characters in it. I couldn't put it down and quickly finished it in nothing less then a days time. Needless to say that once I put it down I wanted more. So I googled her book list and found the second in the series called Toil and Trouble which I finished today, actually I finished it at around 2:45pm this afternoon. I'm starting To Kill a Warlock tonight, and I'm eager to have it captivate my attention like the Jolie Wilkins series did!

I'm writing about this author for two reasons; 1) I really like her books and I want to share them and my enjoyment for them. 2) so that I can get points for a contest she is doing to be a character in her next book. If you are interested in trying to win the contest, (a selfish part of me is saying, "I hope you don't, cause it would be SUPER AWESOME if I was lucky enough to be the one).  But if you are here is the link to see what you can do to enter into it.
http://urbanfantasyauthor.blogspot.com/2010/12/become-character-in-my-next-book-part-2.html

Mother Nature VS. Motherhood

I think its only fair that I start off by saying, I love my children. I also love being a mom, but I will be honest my days have their faults. As a mom I have developed  in what my opinion is a "super power" of being immune to the poo smell, but b/c I am a woman I'm not immune to the monthly mother nature visits. To be honest I think that is one of the best things during pregnancy, that is no PERIOD. OK, so what you may be wondering by now is what on earth am I talking about. Well, let me give you this day thus far.

As I'm dreaming a fabulously fantastic dream, I awake to my oldest son screaming from his room, "MOM DYLAN POOPED ON MY FLOOR." So, I groan and roll out of bed without waking my daughter in the crib next to me and mosey on out of my room. I make a pit stop at the bathroom and grab toilet paper while making the off-handed comment to myself, "i don't even have a dog and i still get to clean poop off the floor." So I open the door and start looking around still blurry eyed from just waking up. I ask my oldest where it is and he directs me in the right direction. Yep, there it was a BIG pile of poo poo and to make matters worse they dragged a pair of my jeans from the bathroom in there. So on top of my jeans right pants leg there is a BIG pile of poo poo, compliments of my 2yr old. So i use the toilet paper to get the majority of it and then dump it all in the toilet. I being still in the sleepy state of mind forgot to flush the toilet before hand and added more toilet paper on top of toilet paper. So the excess TP in the pot from my oldest using the bathroom is now added from my middle child's poo expression, thus when I flush the toilet is stopped up. Great now I get to plunge the toilet with 2 different kinds of poo in it.

Once I take care of the poo problem and hand out the correct punishments for such a problem, it is now time for my potty break. Thankful that I finally get a chance to relieve myself for the first time of the day. (Don't make a face you all know more then likely the first thing you do when you wake up is pee.) Anyways, that is when I discover Mother Nature is paying me a visit. Normally I would have pads or tampons somewhere in the house, but I'm just now starting to get used to having normal monthly periods. Yes, my daughter is pretty much 8 months old and I'm just now getting regular. This is due to the beauty of breastfeeding, it can cause you to go months without one. But back to the fiasco at hand, so I am now a bad rock song and I have no way to guard myself from it. My first idea is to roll up lots of TP then pray my next door neighbor had something, she doesn't. I go back to my apartment completely bummed until i remember my breast pads that I don't have to use anymore (not b/c i stopped breastfeeding but b/c i stopped leaking). As I'm going for a breast pad which doesn't have good coverage my hand passes a  diaper. I kind of stopped and looked with in myself to contemplate this. My thought process is as follows; "omg I can't believe I'm even considering this it would work, omg i would be wearing a diaper till John gets home, its gonna have to work I don't wanna be paranoid." So I go to the bathroom and use the diaper, I just lost a little shred of my dignity.

I hope my day gets better, but at this rate I'm not to sure.

CUTE MOMENT OF THE MORNING: My 2 yr old is sitting on the couch with our cat playing peek-a-boo.

The Crime I witnessed Last night...

As I laid sound asleep in my comfy bed dreaming away, I start to hear what sounds like a silenced handgun shooting out glass from the house behind my apartment. As I lay there lost in dreamland I realize those sounds aren't a figment of my imagination. I become paralyzed with fear. I remember hearing those sounds from TV shows fiction or not, so I know that sound is a sound I would much rather be oblivious to rather than awake and stiff as a board from fear.


I finally get the nerve up to investigate, not sure on whether or not I should. Based on the thought process that what I could possibly see would more than likely be something I could never un-see again. But the concerned citizen in me wanted to check to see if someone was in need of help, even though the coward in me would have rather laid in bed with the phone to my ear speed dialing 911. As I reluctantly force myself to stand up on my bed to peer out of the top left hand corner of my window to the house behind, the site i see is shocking.

The middle window of the house behind me was completely shot out and there appeared to be a larger black man seeming to be struggling with an awkward item. The neighborhood behind me is predominantly black so at first seeing him was not the shocking part. I was just about to lay back down when I see a limp arm and top half of a recently dead man be lifted up by this man. He was just about to toss this dead man out the window as you would throw your putrid trash out in the garbage can when he stopped and started speaking to someone.

This someone then walks into the line of site from my peeking corner and I see he is joined by a female carrying nothing but the decapitated head of a woman. She quickly moves around the man hoisting up the dead body and hops out the window. She looks as if she is heading my way so I panic and I lay back in bed. As I'm about to reach for my phone to dial 911 my window opens. Right about now fear is coursing through my body for my three children and I. My boys are in the room across from mine but my baby girl is in her crib parallel to my bed. I'm praying she just turns around and leaves upon seeing nothing of interest. I sense the woman walk to the shelf by my daughters crib. Still paralyzed by fear I watch as the woman sets the decapitated head on the shelf above my daughter. As she is lowering her hand away from the shelf she notices my sleeping beauty and proceeds to stroke my daughters cheek. Right about the time as my fight or flight kicks in and I'm about to raise up out of bed as quickly as I can to grab whatever I can to beat this woman to death with. She pulls her hand away from my daughter and jerks around cocking her head to the side as if a dog listening for something. I guess her partner is talking to her because she quickly goes out the window as quietly as she came in making sure it is shut exactly the same way it was before she came in.

As my curtains fall back in front of the glass, I breathe a sigh of relief and once I am for sure any vision of whats going on in my room is blocked I jump out of bed. With phone in tow I grab my daughter out of her crib and run with her to the living room. I make her a little bed on the couch and set her down so I can make sure the rest of my house is secure. I run to all the doors and lock them, and I check on my boys. Once I feel safe i sit down on the couch next to my daughter. That is when I remember the window in the bedroom, I slap my forehead and think to myself, "how could you forget that!?!?!?" I run back in to my room and I reach through the curtain to lock the window. As I turn to go back to my daughter curiosity once again grabs me against my better coward judgement and urges me to peer back through my top left most corner to see if for sure we are safe.

As I look to the house behind me all I see is a trail of blood coming out of the window with drag marks where their vehicle was once parked in the back yard. Knowing for sure they were gone allowed for a much needed wave of relief to wash over me. As I quietly began to stroll back into the living room I remembered the head she placed on the shelf above the crib. When I look to my left at the door way my gaze meets the decapitated woman's head and the fear begins to take me again...

That is when I wake up, this time for real... thank God it was all a dream... but now I'm left with the urge to look out my window.

Growing up and eating "S'ghetti"

While I was growing up in a large family of five there was a lot of things that became tradition just because my parents enjoyed seeing us doing something at a certain time in our life. Our first spaghetti experience for example started getting recorded as soon as my parents got a video camera. For them the spaghetti experience was right up there with our first birthday cake experience. When I got older I enjoyed taking time to watch the family videos from the times that I was too young to remember. It was like meeting a new person and gaining knowledge from their past experiences. But, when it came to the taping of my spaghetti experience the only knowledge I gained from it was that I could NOT wait to video my future children's first spaghetti encounter.

By the time I had purchased my first video camera my oldest son had already experienced this, so I ended up doing a memory log of it instead. But for my second child i got the whole 10 minute video on our first home DVD. Well, now came the time for my third child's encounter and I made sure I had the video camera ready to catch her enjoyment of the saucy noodle fun. Watching her do what I did almost 22 years ago gave me a flash back to watching myself in my parents home videos and also a realization that in no time my children will be me. With their video cameras in tow and aimed on their children to make sure they capture those special moments that will forever be timeless.

At this current point in time I am a mom of three (four if you want to count the ol' ball and chain), people ask me all the time, no rather they make the statement to me all the time, "I hope your done having kids." The fact of the matter is, its not their business if I am or am not. This is my life to fill with joy and happiness the way I see fit. So, I really hope I'm not done having kids because I've never, NEVER had anything in my life make me as happy as their lil' smiles when I feel like my world is going to end. My life may be less then perfect and hard at times, but I have my family that makes it all worth while. And although the growing up time for my kids seem to be flying by, it is by far the best time I've ever spent.

AWESOME MOMENT OF THE DAY: While typing this blog, my seven month old took a break from playing to crawl over to me to be picked up. Once in my arms she laid her head on my shoulder and simply said, "mama."

Hypnosis, Yoga, and Kids Galore!

Exactly three days ago I decided to start on a kind of experiment for myself. The experiment you ask? Well to start I began doing Yoga (for aches & pains) and I absolutely fell in love with how refreshed and relaxed it made me feel. Then I decided to add nightly hypnosis, so before I went to bed that night I downloaded three hypnosis mp3 tracks to my phone. (It might seem silly to some to have these tracks, but don't knock it till you try it.) The tracks I downloaded were; "Get Slim," "Get Slim fast," and "Love to Exercise." I put these mp3's on a play list entitled "Hypnosis" and proceeded to put it on repeat, so every night for three nights I start the play list and allow myself to go into a hypnosis slumber. Here are the results from the past three days.
First morning after the first day of yoga and hypnosis I woke up refreshed, relaxed, and ready to attack my day. Without even realizing it till the next day I only ate 3 small meals with NO snacking intermittently and I only drank water. I kept getting unexplainable urges to start working out, and not once when I got upset did I comfort eat.
Second morning, I wake up energized and still without my usual rummage through the kitchen appetite, and excited about doing Yoga. After doing Yoga I got out my resistance bands and did arm reps then 50 sit ups. It felt great and I LOVED feeling the burn from my muscles working out. As I'm working out I say to myself, "Wow, I can't believe I'm actually liking feeling the push and strain on my muscles... AWESOME!!!"
Third morning, I'm pretty tired I didn't get my normal nights rest, I decided I needed a new mattress. But overall I woke up refreshed and ready to meet the day with enthusiasm. I preceded to do a repeat of the past two days and I am now ending it with much relaxation.

Now among all of the fun health, hypnosis, and yoga going on, I still have my three hoodlums to tend to in between it all. Something awe inspiring I noticed while doing the hypnosis and yoga was that it allowed me to have more patience throughout the day with my children. Not only did I have that patience but I had the energy to do more with my children. At one point I actually ended up incorporating my seven month old into my yoga routine because she decided to cut her nap short. It made things a little more difficult but it was awesome to be doing a yoga pose while a smiling baby looked into my eyes. Whenever my nap time workouts ran over in time and my boys woke up then came into the living room while I was doing something like sit ups it was always funny to see my four and two year old attempt to do them with me.

FUNNY MOMENT FROM THE PAST 3 DAYS!- While working out my 4 year old asks me, "Mommy are you working out to make your butt smaller?"

The Unmatched Beauty of the Childs Mind

Today was a good day in my household, after my children being gone for 2 days (with their grandmother so i could go on a cleaning spree). I was filled with joy and excitement to get them back in time for our family Christmas with my father, sister, brother, his wife, and their wonderful son. Upon picking them up I found them excitedly captivated by a Maltese puppy that my mother-in-law had. Whilst commenting on the bonds they formed with the puppy all the way from my eldest to my young 7 month old daughter I realized I would love nothing more then to bring this animal into our chaotic life. That is when my MIL responded with take him, please, take him now! I was all to happy to want to oblige but animals coming into our household is an absolute must discussion with my husband. So when my son's looked at me with pleading eyes i told them they had to talk to daddy. So we loaded up in the car and off we went. As we were going down the road I spotted a 27 inch TV set out for garbage pick up... now seeing this triggers many memories of my mother dumpster diving for tables, rugs, TVs, blinds, really anything you could name... So my knee-jerk reaction was to speed up, but i surprisingly found myself more willing to slow down, inspect the item, and then proceed to load it into the car with the thought... "maybe it works."
When we made it home, kids in tow with a 27inch TV and dreams of a puppy dancing in our heads, we were greeted by my father and sister bearing gifts a plenty and a very tasty lunch. When my brother arrived with his wonderful family we sat down to eat with a good movie in the background and warm conversations to pass the time. Although the whole time we were eating my oldest kept asking, "can we open presents now!" It kept us entertained in a slightly annoying way, but it was a situation you could not help but to make the best of. But when the time came to open presents he was so excited he handed out all the presents while opening his own. The thoroughly enjoyed unwrapping all the gifts with pure looks of interest and curiosity as they were anxiously tearing through the paper to see what goodies lie beneath. Once all the mysterious presents were revealed there was a awesome count of toys from remote control cars to a baby gym, from that to a Nerf gun (BTW OUCH DAD), and then on to gifts for us adults which included a wonderful screen print from my extraordinarily talented brother to very comedic and brightly colored t-shirts from my dad.
Once our family Christmas was over, my son asked for the puppy, and although my husband immediately said no, I later talked him into curiosity and interest over the animal and instead of the stone cold no, i got the answer we'll see, which in my hubby's speak means yes but on a trial basis... i can swing that ;)
SWEETEST MOMENT OF THE DAY: That evening as the kids and I were baking cookies for Christmas, my youngest son was helping me cut out ginger bread men and as he gazed at them he had a light bulb moment and proceeded to point and say, "this ones mommy, this ones daddy, and this ones me dilly" Nothing can warm a heart quicker then that ;)

My happy family...

Today, I got my tooth pulled... today i was filled with pain and sat dwelling in misery. Today my family took care of me... i know we are a happy family. I love my family.

I hate love my teeth....

Growing up, I will have to admit I was never great at remembering to brush every single night. In fact I hated the very idea of what I had to go through with teeth. Its not fun being a kid having your teeth fall out, be pulled out, or in some cases slammed out with the shutting of a door. But alas, as a kid I had great dental hygiene naturally. After all my adult teeth came in I only remember getting 1 to 2 cavities till I turned 16. To revisit my remembering to brush every night comment, once my adult teeth came in I was much better at that.
Dental visits were much dreaded for me after one particular visit when I was a young child. And this is how it went...To my excitement my mother brought me to the dentist, and when we left I had medal bars guarding the roof of my mouth to keep me from sucking my fingers. It was an extremely unpleasant feeling, especially when it came to talking and eating. Well not even a week after this guard was put in place a friend on the school bus one morning gave me my favorite piece of candy, a now and later. I proceeded to chew the candy with much delight until it dislodged the bars and caused a massive tear in my mouth which poured out blood. When my teacher saw me she just about shrieked in terror. She must have thought i was throwing the blood up. At any rate this resulted in another painful trip to the dentist to where the bars were removed.
That particular memory is my driving force in wanting to help my kids maintain healthy teeth and habits. So far, so good in their cases. But now here I am, 22 and miserable at the idea of having to go to the dentist November 2ND to get my first ever tooth surgically removed. This particular tooth is a constant pain to me. It was awesome till a filling I had in it popped out leaving the nerve exposed for a cavity to form in it. So now the tooth is beyond saving and in my opinion its removal is worse as a sign of aging then getting grey hairs. It is giving me nightmares of having false teeth that pop out when I try to smile at my children.
Luckily I finally found a good dentist. She is very sweet and understanding, she really is very supportive of getting the job done so that I can eat pain free. The fact that I like her so much is great because my history with my past dentists have always been uncomfortable. For instance my first dentist was also my preacher at the church we attended. So whenever I had to get a filling I felt like I was committing a sin. My next dentist was a old jerk, and when I was getting a filling from him he didn't wait for the numbing to be complete before he started. So when I jerked in pain he told me to shut up and suck it up. By the time I chose to go to the dentist again, it was about this tooth before the cavity had infected the nerve. He treated me as if I was a lowly peasant and he a mighty King. So I have to say having a nice inviting dentist is a WONDERFUL change. And even though I dread the idea of being toothless I am looking forward to her getting the job done.
My recent visit there was so very pleasant that I chose this clinic as our dental destination and I made my first appointment for my 4 year old there. I hope that this Dentist will make him feel as comfortable as she did me. Because I truly hope he learns to enjoy trips to the dentist, it will make it easier on all of us.

Breastfeeding, YOU CAN DO IT TOO!!!

Now, I could give you all the factual information possibly found on the internet. But I'd rather talk about what I've learned from breastfeeding. Some of the things i have also been told about breastfeeding are interesting too. Let me start off by saying that my first two breastfeeding attempts with my 4 yr old and 23 month old were both fails... i never made it past 8 weeks with either of them. Now that I've given birth to my now 3month old and I'm still breastfeeding and no words can describe how prideful I feel.

Since breastfeeding I have learned patience... wow I have learned major patience. I tell you breastfeeding on the couch (immobile in my case) while my boys do everything in their power to destroy the house within a 20 minute time frame and I with nothing but my voice and a flyswatter to try and stop them makes for a very interesting situation. Thus comes in the lesson of patience, since breastfeeding I have learned to try to come up with some type of activity for my boys before i settle down to breastfeed. This makes both parties happy, my house stays relatively clean and my kids stay relatively entertained.

I have learned the beautiful blessing of the natural bond formed between a mother and her newborn child. My heart swarms with love and joyful thoughts fill my mind as I look into my daughters eyes as she gets everything she needs to grow and survive from my breast-milk. My thoughts lead to those of awe in the fact that my body is able to produce liquid gold well fortified to combat illness. One thing I love that my daughter does while eating is her breaks to coo and smile at me. We have some of our best talks during feeding time.

Now I'm not sure if this is for everyone or if it is just something that has happened for me and my family. But, since breastfeeding I've realized that she is trying to do a lot more, at 14 hours old she started sleeping for 6 hours at a time at night. Also at two weeks she started supporting her head extremely well for her age. She is already bypassing milestones set by her brothers and I am one to beleive all the credit is due to being a breastfed baby.

I love breastfeeding and I don't know why I wasn't able to do it in the past, I know it takes drive and determination now. But if I had known how the love would continue to grow like this in the past I would have made sure to work harder at reaching the 12 month milestone that I am shooting for with her. I tell everyone now that if you can push through the necessary pain of learning how to do it (yourself and your child learning) and make it past 8 weeks then it should become as easy as a cakewalk. Please remember to believe in yourself. Breastfeeding is worth all the pain and frustration because once your lil' one masters their latch and you find the positions most comfortable to you, you won't remember the trials of the past you will only remember the joys of the future!!!

The Craziness of being Home

Yes, it has been quite sometime since my last post... having a baby can make things go a little crazy. Just a little and that is in terms of measurements where a little is an exponentially large amount of crazy. I hate not being more faithful to my blog but hey that's life :)

Since giving birth to a beautiful 6lb 13oz 19inch long bundle of joy 11 weeks have passed. In those 11 weeks she has acquired a weight of 10lbs 10oz and a length of 21 and a half inches long. She is quite the lil' chunk only surviving on breast milk definitely does her body good. While we were at the hospital it was really easy to relax and kind of forget about the havoc wreaked back at our home. We had many visitors at the hospital and seeing people you know when you are confined to a hospital bed with nothing but bad cable to keep you company is always awesome. My father was among one of the visitors to the hospital, he brought my boys and my best friend with him. He seemed really proud to be holding his 3rd(2ND biological) granddaughter. We named her after my recently passed mother, who is and will always be my main source of inspiration for my parenting style. Anyways enough about that let me tell you about the craziness that ensued in the days and weeks following her home arrival.

Once we left the safe easy going surroundings of the hospital, I was eerily ready to get back to the crazy lifestyle I had left. The ride home was long and hot, and let me tell you a car with no a/c in the beginning heat of summer and a newborn riding in the backseat is horrible. Once home though, we were greeted with family and cool a/c inside our quaint 2 bedroom, 1 bath apartment. Its been nice being home and with my family, its definitely taking some adjusting having 3 kids now, but it is a welcome change.

Unorganized Organization

So, here I am THREE days till I am set to be induced to give birth to my first daughter. I have two lovely boys already, the oldest is three and the youngest is 20 months old. Whether they care to acknowledge it or not their world is about to change forever. But, that is a different subject all together and no where near the craziness that I call my current state.


I am not a messy person, and I am not a clutter bug. But, I am definitely not a neat person. Before having kids I had order to my methods of keeping a house clean. Now that I have kids, there is no order just mass chaos to keeping even the living room floor mess free. So of course, I am facing the challenge right now of having a multitude of chores done before Sunday night and having them stay done. The reason I call this a challenge mainly is because I want my house orderly for my friend who is going to be watching my two lovely boys. So that maybe, just maybe it will be easy for her to keep it orderly so that when we come home with new baby, nothing will have to be done very much cleaning wise before visitors come to meet our new little girl.


I have already accomplished shopping for this upcoming event. The fridge and pantry are fully stocked and ready to go with items to keep the boys full and satisfied. There is even enough to give our "kid wrangler" a variety to chose from. I have a schedule typed up for her with general guides of what should and should not be done with the boys. She has kept them before but for never this long, so I'm nervous she is going to be too nice to them. Meaning mainly that she may let them take advantage of her... my boys can be a bit to handle when you aren't stern with them.


So over all, this weekend is going to be a mass organization of my two bedroom one bath apartment, yes it is small for a family of five but we make it work. I'm hoping to say by Sunday night that this was a success... but we shall see.