Birth is supposed to be scary, gross, and nasty right? Well, that is what society tells us and that is why so many people feel that way. However there are plenty of women AND men who appreciate the joy and beauty of the miracle of childbirth. Amy at amyfinerthings just had her 4th baby 3 days ago and is celebrating labor day by hosting a labor day link up where those of us birth junkies (as my friend Hannah calls it) get to share and read stories about birth!

Some of you have read the story about how my little baby girl came into the world 6 months ago.

However, many of you are maybe newer readers and never heard about the birth center delivery with my first baby.

Both times I had a photographer at my birth. I know this may sound weird especially if you are considering the first sentence of this post, but being a photographer myself it felt totally natural to have the experience documented through the art of photography. Both babies had songs that I felt like the Lord had given me before I even knew their gender. I coordinated the photos of my pregnancy and birth to these songs and both of videos can be seen at the links posted above. I cherish these videos and look forward to doing one with each of my children.

I would encourage you to check out the labor day link ups if you are into that sort of thing. It's actually a very timely post for me because it was on labor day 3 years ago that I went into the family birth services wondering if this was it and that was the night I became a mom.

This week I've been writing about changing with the times. My mom was holding an imaginary phone call with my toddler once. At the end of the conversation she says bye and she took her outstretched thumb and pinky and hung up the imaginary receiver. My son however said BYE and pushed a button on his imaginary phone. It was intriguing to see the difference between someone born in 1959 and 2007. My son may never “hang up” a phone in the literal sense because these days we just push end call. Times change.

I like what Oh Amanda had to say about blogs vs. magazines. We get information so much quicker online than if it were in print. I read The Huffington Post Complete Guide to Blogging and Chapter 7, "How The Blogoshpere Is Remaking The Media" discusses a similar comparison between blogging and newspapers. Blogging is the new magazine, newspaper, baby book, cook book, journal (should I keep going?)

Speaking of blogging here are a few links I’ve stumbled upon recently.

First of all I started Twitter as a part of this whole changing with the times theme. Twitter and Tweeting may sound really cute, but don't let the name fool you, Twitter is a beast. Here are a couple articles written by Musings of a House Wife that I am hoping will help me tackle the beast, Twitter For Dummies and, 7 Ways to be Worth Following on Twitter

I also have been following From Texas To Ethiopia who has been waiting 2 years to get a baby girl from Africa and finally has custody and is back at home with her now! Here is the post about their first meeting.

Last but not least I LOVED this post that my friend Mama The Reader did about the feminist mother.

Check out more great links at It's Come 2 This, Saturday Stumbles.

It's another part of our society today that feels like a scene from of the Jetsons. Video chats are becoming a standard form of communication especially over long distances. For some people it's just a cool computer feature, but as someone who has loved ones all over the country it's so much more. It has brought my family together when we wouldn't have been able to be otherwise. When I found out we were pregnant with our first child we planned a video conference for my dad's birthday. Then we surprised my dad with a special "birthday rap" which at the end revealed that they were going to be grandparents! My brother and sister in Atlanta were in one frame, the rest of my family in Kentucky was in another and of course we were in Dallas, but everyone got to hear the news together and we got to see their reactions. It was a moment I will never forget.

Since my family is in Kentucky sometimes the kids and I will travel and skype with J while we are away.

MySpace was the first social network I had ever heard of. I remember the day a friend of mine was doing his best to explain what it was and talk my husband and I into signing up. I was reluctant. At first I wouldn't even post my own photo because I was chicken, so naturally I used a photo of a chicken for my profile pic. Granted I worked on a farm at the time so this was a chicken I knew personally. Pretty quickly the whole form of communication picked and everyone was doing it. I had hundreds of "friends" and was pretty obsessed. Then all my friends started getting into Facebook. Once again I was reluctant. Why would I want to start up on a new site when this one has done a perfectly sufficient job at taking over my life. Eventually it only made sense to switch over to where my friends and family were and still are. I personally don't know many twitterers, but it seems to be the bloggy thing to do. I am not really ready to fully submerse myself into tweeting, but I did start an account yesterday and started following some of my favorite worship artist and this morning I posted my first tweet. I wanted to talk about how when I went to sleep last night I had the bed to myself and by the morning I was sharing it with my entire family of four. Of course it that was too many characters so I had to rewrite it.
The way I see it I have nothing to loose, it's like a nose ring (you can always take it out if you decide you don't like it). If nothing else I can get some great deals by following and tweeting about some of my favorite places. Who knows I may turn into a full blown tweety bird, and just about the time I finally get into it everyone will switch over to flutter.

This my latest adventure. Check out Alicia's Homemaking for other Try New Adventure Thursday posts!

This week I am talking about changing with the times. Photoshop for example is a buzz word that has gone from a specific professional photo editing software to being a word synonymous with retouching photos. Ten years ago we all knew that magazines were airbrushed, but that was about the extent of it, this practice rarely entered into the family photo album. Today however it is a total different story. I am not just coming at this from a photographers stand point I hear moms talk about it all the time. The joys of stretching a photo to look thinner or using the clone stamp to remove your kids pizza stains, all miraculously done from your own home computer. But when does is stop?

These photos were edited for the purpose of this illustration. If you looked at the photos posted on my Facebook or here on this blog you will see the latter. When I downloaded both of these photos (at separate times) I was tempted to touch up the photos, but I didn't. I want to remember the way things were not what I deem ideal in my mind.

Let me just say before I sound hypocritical that I do color correction, brightness, and things like that. Or for a professional print I am certainly not opposed to removing a bug bite or pimple. If I am sending out copies of a photo shoot I did of my son and he had a snotty nose I might adjust it because I want them to see him as he normally looks, not the temporary distraction due to a simple cold. On the other hand sometimes my kids do have colds and when the future generation looks back at their family ancestry they will say "yep, they had colds too" or maybe they say "Look great great grandma Natalie always had something stuck in her teeth. What a hoot!" For the most part I think they will just notice that we looked like we loved each other and that we had a lot of fun. That means bug bites, chocolate smudges, scratches, snotty noses and all, but hopefully not all at once.

When I was in High School or even college age I felt like in some ways I was the standard for trends. Not that I was all that cool, but I just went with the flow and didn't even think about what made our culture tick. Now it's like a conscious effort just to find out what the band wagon is and decide whether or not I want to get on it.