Christmas pictures

Our Christmas letter:)

From the Foster family to yours, we wish you a very Merry Christmas!!!

We pray that as Christmas draws near, you will take the time to reflect on God’s amazing gift of coming in the flesh so many years ago. The king of the universe chose to have a lowly and humble birth in a sheep stall. He came to bring: the grace of God, peace with God, truth, life, freedom to the captives. He brings: hope to the helpless, rest to the weary, and love to the broken heart, grace and forgiveness, mercy and healing and salvation to all who believe in Him. So Rejoice! For unto us a child was born. In the City of David the Savior has come!

It’s been another exciting year! This is the official announcement that we are having our fourth child in May! To answer all your questions: “Yes, we know how this happens. NO, we are not crazy, yes, we did plan it. And, no, I don’t think we are going to have 16 kids.) Anna thinks we are having a boy, because God told her in a dream. John thinks we are having a girl, but he has picked out the boy name of Zachariah, which is the name of John the Baptist’s father in the Bible. We have not found out the sex yet.

The LORD continues to bless us with good health, a great job, joyful spirits, grace and love. He’s taught us a lot about love, communication, honor, and parenting this year. Lorene’s baby carrier business, Frogmama.com has been blessed as well as she sells locally, nationally and internationally. She seems to be a favorite in Japan. I am not sure, but I think Frogmama must translate to hot mama or something exciting in Japanese. Lorene does an awesome job teaching the kids and taking care of them every day. She looks beautiful pregnant and is feeling well.

This has been quite a year of firsts, so here they are:

• John’s first year of official home school. John learned to ride a bike without training wheels (despite his mother’s attempts to keep him on four wheels). The song “Born to be wild” would describe John on a bike.
• John and Anna went to their first symphony and ballet, which created John’s first: “Dad, when is it over? Dad, I’m bored. Can we go home now?”
• Anna got her first dollhouse.
• It was the first and prayerfully the last time Anna loses Dad at the museum amongst thousands of people.
• We had the first visit from my mom, and sisters, Holly and Wendy.
• Lydia had her first steps, words & sentences, and of course first broken arm (she is fearless).
• We took our first family camping trip in our 1977 pop up trailer. Lydia had her first trip to Disneyland.

Once again, we love you all and wish you a Merry Christmas!

John and anna (with some help from dad) made box cars/trains to take to awanas this week here they are trying them out- ( Lydia is in anna's)


This was johns reaction when he saw the new Christmas train to go under the tree:)




a cute video of anna with our Christmas tree

We are busy:) I am feeling much better and am about 18 weeks along now. Wishing everyone a very merry Chrsitmas!!

Life is Busy, Life is Good....

We have been so busy lately it seems...Just having 3 kids and doing the minimum required things keeps me on the go. Lydia my 2yo broke her arm:( She climbed up on a table and fell off:( The cast hasn't bothered her at all.

We also just rescently found out we are expecting our fourth child in may:) Whoo Hoo!! We are all So excited, Just mom is feeling really yucky:( John and anna have picked out names already, not sure if we will use them or not... we'll see...

For those of you who want to keep track with me:)...

An article I wrote for a local magazine

I wrote this article a while back for a local magazine just thought I would share it:)-

Disclainer- Dad if you read this, still love you:)

Green Toys for My Family, Please!

By Lorene Foster

My dad recently came to visit our family from out of state. On the way here he stopped by the store and picked up a toy for my five-year-old son, a large orange plastic tractor-trailer truck carrying a crane on the back. My son was so excited to play with it. Within the hour pieces were falling off. Within the week the toy was totally broken and thrown away. A thoughtful gift that my dad had bought was gone, unrepairable and useless trash.

I was talking later with someone who shared how she had taken boxes of broken toys out of her son’s room to the dump, and her son never noticed. These cheap toys were so quickly broken and disposed of he didn’t care a bit. This got me thinking about the importance of buying quality, lasting products.

I think that in this time of everything’s being disposable, many of us have been careful about recycling our bottles, cans, and newspapers, but we have forgotten about all the other unnecessary “disposable products” that we buy. I am a huge bargain shopper. I am always searching for the best deals and the lowest prices, but I am slowly learning that some good deals are not the best deals in the long run. If my dad had spent a little more up front and bought a wooden truck set, or something of better and lasting quality, my son would still have something to play with, and when he was done we could pass it on to someone else. I notice when I am out at a local thrift store many vintage products that are still in good usable condition because they were well made and made to last; many of my kitchen bowls and containers were made in the 1950s and 1960s.

Many of the things I buy now are handmade and locally made. You can shop at local craft fairs, farmer’s markets, and expos. Look through the local paper and keep your eye open for ads this summer. For example, the large Green Baby Expo is coming to the Chico Fairgrounds on Saturday, June 21. Not only will you be supporting your local businesses and craftsmen, but you will be spending your money on something that will last, keeping it out of the landfill and helping to live in a more Earth-friendly way. This mind-set has taken a little bit to get used to, and maybe I don’t have as much stuff, but I enjoy having the things I do have and I know they will last.

A great added bonus is that most handmade products are much more beautiful than mass-produced things. I have read about the Mongolian people and the homes they live in. I am sure that living conditions are similar to theirs in many areas of the world, but these people live in small yurts and have very few possessions, but what they have is really beautiful. They have an intricately carved and painted door, and if they have a table and chair it is the same, ornately made with love and care. I still have a long way to go, but I am really trying to think and ask myself a couple of questions when making a purchase. Is this going to last? Do I love it? With my family I have applied this to buying cloth diapers, baby carriers, plates, cups, furniture, toys, utensils, cars, shoes, and more. I have a doll bed that my grandfather made for me when I was a child and a quilt that my great-grandmother made. I look forward to giving these things to my children, and I hope they pass them on to their children someday. I try to think of these things and the happiness they bring when I go shopping now.

Lorene Foster is the owner of Frog Mama Baby Carriers

Camping at Patricks Point California

We just returned from a week of camping on the Northern California Coast at Patricks point. We had a great time! The weather was nice and cool.We Found lots of creepy crawley things, starfish, Banana slugs, salamanders and more.

We had lots of fun at the beach and got very dirty! What fun!





The dog had lots of fun too...until she tooka a big drink of the water:)

I wish we lived closer to the ocean I would definatly go more often!
Troy had fun relaxing too:)







John learned to ride a bike without training wheels for the first time and we also kicked off our first year of homeschooling while there. I think with the 6 hours a day of bike riding he did we have our PE requirement met for a while:).


You may notice in this picture that John is fully clothed. And in the water. yes we got to the beach and as I was rolling up the legs on his sisters pants, as I thought it would be way too cold for swimming, but maybe they wouldl ike to wade in the water...He had already gotten in the water and gotten completly soaked.:) Oh well:)

Did I mention it was cool... and raining... but only one day:) being the fashion designer I am I whipped up some beautiful and oh so stylish raincoats, Anna once she had hers on said"mom this is SO cool":)





Maybe I could start selling these lightweight baby carrier rain covers on my site:) Hmmmm....
I know I have been bad about updating this blog- we have a new camera now so hopefully it will be more regular:)

I could never eat organic...

This is an article I just rescently wrote for a local magazine, Thought it would be good to add it here:)

I could never eat organic! Too expensive!

I could never use cloth diapers-yuck!

Why would I wear my baby?

Breastfeed? Well I’ll try…

Me, Green? Ya Right!

Well who would have known a few years and a few kids later I am proud to consider myself green. What is living green? For me, it has to do with eating the best food I can, making the best choices for our family’s health and wellbeing on the budget we have. That is the other “green” we all have to factor in here, these are some things we do to live green on a small budget.

Our family has found ways to eat mostly organic, we shop local farmers markets, and local fruit and vegetable stands- we find out when they have extras or items that are damaged,or bruised that are discounted. We try to always buy organic foods for the “dirty dozen” a list of the top 12 most pesticide contaminated foods: “Beef , Milk., Coffee, Peaches, Apples, Sweet Bell Peppers, Celery, Strawberries, Lettuces ,Grapes, Potatoes, and Tomatoes”

Taken from http://www.thedailygreen.com/healthy-eating/Dirty-Dozen-Foods

I make my own baby food to be green and save some green. You can have variety from a single, whole food item. When making baked sweet potatoes you can puree some, cut some into soft chunks, and leave the rest whole. Because your babyfood is made with whole foods, the leftovers can be made into soups, side dishes and sauces for the rest of the family. Purees can be poured into ice cube trays and frozen. Then stored in freezer bags until needed. Ice cube trays seem to be the perfect serving size for most toddlers.

Another way I have found to be green and save some green is cloth diapers. The diapers of today are much easier than they used to be, snaps and Velcro instead of pins. And so many choices: pocket diapers, all in ones, all in twos, fitteds, covers, wool, fleece, veleur, minky, bamboo, and hemp, oh my!

I have heard the argument that cloth really isn’t “greener” than disposables because of all the extra water needed to wash them. Well consider this:

“18 billion disposable diapers are thrown in landfills each year, taking as many as 500 years to decompose. Disposable diapers make up the third largest source of solid waste in landfills, after newspapers and food and beverage containers--a significant fact, considering they are a single product, used by a limited portion of the population. It takes upwards of 82,000 tons of plastic and 1.3 million tons of wood pulp, or a quarter-million trees, to manufacture the disposable diapers that cover the bottoms of 90 percent of the babies born in the US.

Some will argue that in areas where water is scarce, disposables are the better environmental choice. Washing cloth diapers at home uses 50 to 70 gallons of water every three days--about the same as a toilet-trained child or adult flushing the toilet five to six times a day. A diaper service puts its diapers through an average of 13 water changes, but because of the economies of scale, uses less water and energy per diaper than one laundry load at home.

Ultimately, instead of getting bogged down in each side's scientific data, the most commonsense approach is to use commonsense. Weigh the impact of manufacturing and disposing of 8,000 paper-and-plastic diapers over the average diapering period of a child versus that of a few dozen cotton diapers, and decide for yourself which is better for the environment.” http://www.mothering.com/articles/new_baby/diapers/joy-of-cloth.html

One way I save some green is most of the cloth diapers I have, I have purchased used, my favorite site is www.diaperswappers.com and there are many others. Then when I am done with a size I can resell them and earn back 75-80% or more of what I originally paid.

Another way I am green is wearing my babies. For me it started as just being a practical way to have a happy baby and also get things done. It is much more convient then lugging around a bulky infant car seat or stroller. And the green factor in it – Think about how much plastic and materials (most made overseas) go into making one of the large strollers- then picture a cloth baby carrier, enough said.

The more I have read about it, the more I am convinced that wearing or holding your baby as much as possible for at least the first 9 months after birth is crucial to the baby’s healthy physical, emotional, and social development. Search on the internet for the benefits of babywearing and there are pages and pages of wonderful articles I love wearing my baby and so many people kept coming up to me and commenting about how happy my baby was and how comfortable the carriers looked and asking where could they buy one, I decided to start selling them and last February Frogmama baby carriers (www.frogmama.com) was born.

I feel one of the most important ways I am green is breastfeeding. With my first child I was going to breastfeed for 6 months. Around 8 months I decided that was long enough and was shocked when I began researching how expensive formula was, but I felt to “have my body back” was worth it. So I called my mother for support with my abrupt weaning plan. When I made my case and asked for support, I was surprised to hear her say “you will not stop breastfeeding, and you will not switch to formula- do you know how expensive it is?, God made this milk for your baby, that is what is best, just stick it out, there isn’t much longer to go” “But mom, you don’t understand,” “No I do understand, keep going!” Reluctantly I continued breastfeeding, and I was so glad I did. Beyond just being much less expensive, as my son got older he did nurse less giving me more of my body back, and as he grew more independent it was nice to still have that one on one cuddle time,. My third child is now 15 months and we have no plans to stop breastfeeding any time soon. So my green tip on breastfeeding-“ Don’t give up! Stick with it” You will be glad you did.

I wasn’t always green, and I have found the biggest help is meeting up with others who are green and making it work and getting their tips and advice. A great way to do this is to hang out at your local farmers market and see who you can chat with. Or look for local green events. There is a one coming up, the Green Baby Expo in Chico, June 28, a great place to meet other parents and people living green and making it work. So hey never say never, maybe one day you will be green too.

By Lorene Foster

Owner of Frogmama baby Carriers www.frogmama.com

Mom of 3 green babies and wife to a great green man

Green smoothie challenge:)

So I just found a couple WONDERFUL blogs, both by the same mama.
http://walkslowlylivewildly.com/
and
http://happyfoody.wordpress.com/2008/02/13/the-happy-foody-green-smoothie-challenge/

The first one is so just where I am right now. Really has gotten me thinking about a lot of simplifying I need to do. The other one has reminded me how much better I feel when I am eating more raw. There is a green smoothie challenge that just started today to make a green smoothie for breakfast everyday. I had this morning a smoothie with Banannas, strawberries, spinich and water. It was actually pretty good:) The Challenge runs for the next 30 days and all the details are on the happyfoody site:)
I also went for a long walk on the river trail this morning with John my son. So far so good:)

Our Kids Love Trains

We hope you enjoy seeing this small clip from our 2007 family video.
Our son loves trains and we all go along for the ride. Children are truly a
gift from God! Enjoy!!!

The Star of Bethleham

We watched this new movie on TV and were so impressed by it that we just bought the dvd. It is AMAZING! With new computer technology they are able to see what the stars looked like on all different dates in history. This dvd centers on what the sky looked like on the first Christmas and the day of the cross. Well worth the $20 to buy the movie!
the site is http://www.bethlehemstar.net/

Welcome to the Frogblog!

Ok this is brand new- and I don't plan on updating it every day, I just wanted to have a place to put things I come across that I find intresting or helpful. feel free to email me with suggestions or leave a comment.