October tomorrow?!

The last couple weeks have been super busy! And now today is the last day of September already!

Yesterday we did The Color Run in Portland!  That was an experience!  We decided to take the kids with us, they were free and hopefully they would see that fitness/being healthy= fun!  We jogged some, but walked most of it because of the kids. Pictures will follow eventually, but possibly not until my yearly slideshow! (Yikes!)

I'm not even sure what to say!  The next few weeks will be busy as well!  Next weekend we will celebrate Avery's 3rd birthday! :*(  (I should probably get on that!) The following weekend we have a birthday party to go to, and then the weekend after that we are moving!  Where?  We don't know yet!  We've been inquiring about some rentals, but we are needing a month to month rental and most places are 6 mo or 1 year leases.  SO, that makes things complicating.
On the house front, we've met with a few builders and we are feeling like building might not be whats in store for us. For one thing, the lot we are looking at, we could potentially get cheap, but since we'd need to put a daylight basement in, it would be a more expensive build, so that would cancel out the cheap cost of the lot, which would make the price too high for us most likely!  The last builder we spoke with, we talked to at the lot as well as at our house, and he was very thorough and honest about what kinds of expenses a build on that lot would entail.  We haven't 100% ruled it out yet, but our goals have shifted towards looking at already built houses now..... and finding ourselves a place to rent in the meantime!
I'd like to just say, this is very hard for me.  I HATE change for one thing, and knowing i'm leaving the comfort of my own home for good to go to a rental (that we don't even know where yet) for a house that we don't even know when we'll find....it scares me. I like the familiarity of our life. I like the routine of our life. I don't do well with spontaneity, and flying by the seat or your pants, or unplanned things, and that's kind-of how this feels to me. I'm anticipating a lot more migraines this month, a lot of sleepless nights, and a lot more heart palpitations!

On a lighter note, my baby girl will be 3 in a week! How is that possible!?  She requested a Strawberry Shortcake cake, and I make all my kids birthday cakes.  And even though they don't look very good most of the time- after all  i'm a mom, not a professional cake decorator and I've never had cake decorating classes- I make them with a special ingredient that no bakeries can make them with- Love!  So I found a Strawberry Shortcake cake to make Avery, and I ordered the topper, and the rest doesn't look too terribly difficult.  I thought about attempting to make my own marshmallow fondant since it apparently tastes a heck of a lot better than the premade Wilton stuff. We'll see.  I don't know if I will have the time to do that. We haven't even talked about what we are doing for her birthday yet!  AAHH!  I feel so behind!

So here's a picture of the cake:
The cake itself and the stripes will be easy.... the flowers.... i'm not sure. I'll have to research!  But she will LOVE it!  And she gets to keep the set on top to play with afterwards.

I was noticing the other day how much Strawberry Shortcake had a makeover since when I was a kid!

Kindergarten

My little man started kindergarten today!  Hard to believe where the time has gone.  I was worried that he was going to have a hard time with it, given his recent history with separation, but he had no problems at all! Hopefully this continues!

I, on the other hand, could not hold it together and I was balling before we left the house.  It all started when I got up and showered, and I told myself I had to be strong, I didn't want to add any stress to him because I figured he'd be having a hard time, the last thing he needed was to see me getting all worked up.  I was fine in the shower, until thoughts of him as a little guy over the years started popping up in my head.
Then a few minutes before it was time to go, he wanted cuddle time with mommy, so we were on the couch cuddling, and then Avery and daddy went upstairs to brush teeth, and more memories started rushing to me, and I lost it right there.  Oy.

Then I was fine at school, I had a lump the size of Texas in my throat when we said goodbye to him, but I was keeping it together, and then Derek asked me how I was doing and again I teared up.

I'm eager to go and pick him up.  His class is about 30 minutes shorter than his preschool class-time was, so its only 2.5 hours, which is ridiculous, however, his class is relatively small, Derek counted 20. I'm just not sure how they are going to learn anything in that amount of time.  We may have to do a little "homeschooling" on the side.
I'm not even sure how i'm going to get grocery shopping done in that time.

Avery is happy about the situation.  She gets my full attention again without any Jadon intruptions, so she's totally happy about it!  The first thing she wanted to do when we got home was play with her doll house together.

Sold

We got an offer on our house! It was for a bit lower than our asking price, but its a solid offer, and its enough for us, and neither Derek nor I, nor our agent feel that we should counter offer at all.  We'd be crazy if we thought that someone would make an offer on our house for the original price unless there was competition.
So, we accepted the offer!

So, pending an inspection and an appraisal, we will have to be out of our house by Oct. 25th.  Yikes! We are worried about both of those.  I'm worried about the inspection.  Apparently they will spend 4 hours inspecting every square inch of your house, and some even mark off things as petty as "a light switch plate is crooked." What if there has been something seriously wrong with the house all along that we've had no idea about????  Or one thing that really scares me is mold!  Seems like there is so much potential for mold to grow in a house, in ANY house.....

Anyways.  Derek's really worried about the appraisal.  If the appraisal comes back lower than the asking price, then the deal's off, and the house is off the market until  ???  That would be horrifying, that would mean we'd be here for a very long time.

Adding to the stress, we've got like 6 or 7 builders that we will be "interviewing," and trying to coordinate times to do this, and the meetings will be lengthy as there is a lot to discuss.  Most of them appear to only have times during the week to meet, meaning we cant do the meetings on the weekends, which would have been ideal.

On top of that, we'll have to move most of our stuff to storage if everything goes well with the appraisal and inspection, and find a temporary place to live. Derek's work is picking up, and Jadon starts kindergarten next week.
I had planned to enroll each of the kids in one extracurricular activity this session, but will now be holding off until things settle down!  Too much crazy busyness for this family!!!  We like our calmness!!
But, I guess we asked for this!  And we have to go through this if we want to move.

Week off

Derek always takes this week off of work every summer.  Why this week?  Because its our anniversary week, that's why! :)
Tomorrow will be our 9th anniversary!

Saturday Jadon had his last counseling session! However, we are supposed to start preparing him for kindergarten by separating him from me frequently, so Gramma's, we will be calling upon you both for some babysitting in the next couple weeks!
Today we are going school shopping!  I already got Jadon's clothes for school, but this will be a trip for supplies, backpack, and shoes. And new shoes for Avery.... who says she wants pink shoes.

Monday we went to Enchanted Forest.  Had lots of fun, spent most of the day there, got the kids bracelets so they could ride the kiddie rides unlimited, and that they did! We were very proud of Jadon, who overcame his fear of going on 3 different rides, including the log ride, the roller coaster, and the frog hopper that had scared him in the past, and all by his choice, he went on them all!  The frog hopper he went on several times again with Avery, the log ride he had fun on I think, and now they take your picture coming down so we bought our picture (pretty amusing!) and the roller coaster will probably not be gone on again and cant blame him for that!  The roller coaster is pretty rickety, jerky.  No seat belts, I was his seat belt, and I hit my head on the side of the cage thing several times.  Its so jerky its not even fun.... it would be a lot more fun if it weren't jerking you all over the place.

Also this week we are working on teaching Avery to potty in the potty and wear underwear.  We went to the store and she got to pick out a pack of underwear.... she picked out Tinkerbell ones.  She LOVES wearing them, but suddenly she hates going to the bathroom in the potty.  We are pretty sure that its a power issue.... She likes to do things on HER terms. She doesn't like being told when to go to the bathroom, she wants to be able to pick and choose when she wants to go, and whether that's in a diaper or her underwear or the toilet.  So now when we tell her she needs to go sit on the potty she throws a huge fit. Which is funny, because 3 days ago, before we started  training, she had no problems going!  Also, like her brother was, she's scared to poop in the potty.  So she's holding it. Oy.

And, on the home-front, we were concerned with the few showings we've had, and since this is our first home sale we don't know whats "normal" so we asked our realtor and she is not concerned, and said every house is different, and gave us examples of many houses she's got listed right now that have had few showings and just sold, or some that have sold after just one showing, some that have sold after 1 month, etc, etc, etc. We just put our fliers in our front yard, and already those have been emptied and we printed more off.  We've seen a lot of  "drive-by's", and I know our house is in tip top shape, its nice and clean, and we just need to wait for the right people. God's teaching us patience, and i'm certainly getting the message! And i'm okay with it!
I don't know if I ever mentioned our plan?  We are leaning towards building a new house once we sell ours.  We've got a potential lot picked out. We can't buy it until we sell this though, so again, patience...... and we will know that if its still there and available when our house gets sold, then its ours, and if not, then it wasn't meant to be and God has other plans for us.
Being proactive though, we did meet with the seller of the property, and found out lots of useful information! He was really nice, answered all our questions, concerns, etc.  Our realtor set the appointment up for us and went for moral support.
We've been looking online at house plans. Figuring out what we want, what we don't want. Derek and I each made a list of 10 different things we want structurally in a new house, for example: big kitchen, dual vanity sinks in master bath, separate master suite from other bedrooms, etc.
Now I go to bed every night dreaming about our "new" home, and wake up every morning dreaming about it.  Instead of fretting about selling our house, I have dreams to focus on instead :)

Pinterest

Ya gotta love Pinterest!  EVERY time I get on it, I get sucked in!!!!!!!!  Its so horribly addicting!  But it can be addicting in a good way or a bad way, depending on how you use it!  I have found a lot of recipes and great ideas that I've used on it.... like the things i hang the kids artwork on in the stairway....inspired by pinterest.  And my menu board.... also pinterest inspired!  Tonight for dinner we are having some roasted red potatoes that are looking mighty tasty that I got the recipe from pinterest.
But, I've also seen people who use it for pointless reasons..... I wont name names! ;) But dont worry, I dont think anyone who reads here is guilty of this.  I know only intelligent people read my blog ;)

Anyways, just a quick post because I just saw a quote on Pinterest that I thought was really great, and a great reminder and motivator!  This summer has been really tough being motivated to work out, not sure why! I always feel good after I go and once i'm there, but just going is hard.  I know its so important though for my health, and I have totally seen the benefits of regular exercise.  In sept. it will be a year since I started going to toning class with my mother-in-law. Last sept or oct i had written in my journal my weight, and I was surprised to see that it was around 8 pounds more than what I currently weigh! I guess I didn't realize i'd lost more weight.
I haven't lost any weight in the last several months, i'm pretty stuck at this weight, but really i'm not concerned with losing anymore.  I'm totally happy where i'm at!  I've far exceeded my goal weight, and i've tossed all the clothes that I once wore that I had kept when I was heavier in hopes of one day wearing again, except they ended up being much too big.
Someday maybe i'll feel brave enough to announce my current weight and my old weight.... right now, not even my husband knows.  I'm still sensitive about it, and now looking back at my old weight, I gasp at what it was. Thank God i'm tall, otherwise I would have looked like quite a cow!

Anyways, here's the quote I saw on Pinterest.... hope it helps to motivate you all too!

"The pain of being overweight is far worse than the pain of working out."

So true!

The Open House

Yesterday was the realtors open house, and it went well!  14 realtors came and all of them had nothing but positive comments to say about the house, but there were a few negative comments regarding the neighborhood in the fact that there are a lot of rentals here, and there's been a few foreclosures and there's a short sale down the street.  They thought that the house was priced appropriately, but that with the neighborhood having so many rentals and the foreclosures/short sale, it might drive the price down some.
So, overall, it was good and bad news I guess.  Pretty much what we were expecting to hear, so it wasn't a surprise at all.
We may have to consider lowering our price a tad if we haven't had any interest in a month.  Which is fine, we have a small amount of wiggle room, but its still disappointing. (Thanks a lot neighborhood!!!!!!!)

My motivation is the kids.  They desperately need outdoor space that they can call their "own".... they need a place to dig and run, and have a swing set.  They both LOVE the outdoors, and while yes we do have a park 100 feet away, its not always possible or practical for me to drop everything and go to the park whenever they want to play outside.  Sometimes i'm in the middle of making dinner and they want to go play, its nice to just send them outside to play in the backyard.  As it is right now, they have no where to dig or run because of cat poop or the space is too small.  Sometimes in the evenings we go in the front yard as a family and they love that because there's a tiny bit more more room and we throw the Frisbee or play catch.

Anyways, its only been a week and a half!  Feels like its been at least a month and a half though!  Phew!

Next week Derek and I will celebrate our 9th wedding anniversary!  9 years already!  Where has the time gone!? I sure do love him :)

1 Week

The house has been on the market for 1 week tomorrow evening.  So if you've been wondering where i've been, i've been keeping the house spotless, and trying to occupy the kids and spend more time with them since the last month has been spent on nothing but house preparations.  The poor kids have been bored stiff, and it was beginning to show in their attitudes in a BIG way!  They missed their parents and were becoming bored and stir crazy.

Anyways, so we had 2 showings so far.  Less than we thought, but I think we were both preparing for a massive herd of showings.  The first showing was a couple, and they thought the house was lovely, but they were looking for a bigger back yard.  Cant blame them!  So are we! ;)
Today we had the second showing which was apparently investors looking for a rental property who liked the house but are more interested in a single story.

So, we continue to wait for the right people. This week our realtor will be having an open house for other realtors to come and look at the house.  She does this rather than have open houses for potential buyers since in all her many years of selling houses, having open houses for buyers rarely sold houses, and it was usually the neighbors who wanted to snoop. Instead, she has an open house for other realtors, and has drawings for giftcards to draw them in, and food, so then the realtors can go to their clients and say "hey, I have a house to show you that I think you're really going to like!"
So, i'm hoping this will bring in more showings!  We've had really really positive comments by the previous realtors.

So,  i'll leave you with that!  I hope that really really really quickly I can post in the title "SOLD!"

Almost Ready!

The house is almost ready!  Basically it just needs a good head to toe cleaning, and then it will be ready to list! We are more than ready! The last few weeks have been tiring, stressful, exhausting.... Safety Town in the middle of it all did not help OUR timeline, but that's okay because we're going by God's timeline.

Now that its just about done, we're getting really excited. I have a good feeling that we're going to sell quick.  Except now i'll be totally disappointed if we don't.

Last weekend we looked at several houses again, without the kids. A few that we'd already looked at (WITH the kids) that we wanted to revisit and look at better without them, and a new one that was just listed.  The ones we'd already looked at were scratched off our list of potentials.  The new listing was an older house.  It was in good shape for being older, had good bones.  But the kitchen and bathrooms needed immediate work.  And it did smell a bit like cigarette smoke. Other than those things, it was well cared for on the inside. Just needed updating.  Outside it had power lines from the house and the surrounding houses meet up in the backyard, which was an eyesore, and one was quite low and almost touchable from the back deck.  I was not comfortable with that.

Really, there is not much at all out there that meets our criteria.  And even if we were being a bit picky, we are wanting this to be the last house we buy, so we have a right to be picky.

So, now we are looking into building a house!!  And this is most likely the route we will go.  This way we will be able to customize a house plan how we want it to fit our needs/wants, and find a lot that is more what we are looking for. We are QUITE excited! :):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):)
More to come on that soon!


Next time I post, mostly likely will be when the house is on the market! Wahoo!

Safety Town

Jadon finished Safety Town this week, phew!  While i'm really glad he got to do it and experience it, i'm also really glad its over!  It was a very hectic 2 weeks, between trying to get the house ready, and since Safety Town was right in the middle of the day in Corvallis, most of my day was spent focused on it.... either driving to/from it, or blowing time in Corvallis while waiting for Jadon to be done.  It was tough on Avery too.  I think she was sick of riding in the car, sick of sitting in shopping carts, all this time focused on Jadon or the house.  We did go to the park a couple times, and one day I let her get a little toy at TJ Maxx. 

Yesterday was his graduation ceremony.  Jadon said friday morning "Today i'm congraduating!"

Let me just say, i'm going to have a tough time at kindergarten graduation because I was having a hard time keeping it together for this!  I'm pathetic!

So things he learned about at Safety Town: Fire safety, water safety, traffic safety, park safety, pedestrian safety, officer friendly, stranger danger, poison safety, train safety, seatbelt safety, etc.  He got to do crafts, watch videos, drive pedal cars, take a school bus ride to the firestation, go to the park to learn about park safety, talk to the police men and firemen.  He got to meet new kids and make new friends.  He had to learn his full name, his address, and his phone number.  He learned how to dial 911.  Each group of 6-7 kids had 2 teen volunteers helping.  

Even though Jadon is already Mr. Safety Conscious, this was really good for him.  

Below i've included some pictures and a couple videos.

Jadon standing with part of his group. He is next to the girl in red.

Each group had a color, Jadon's group was yellow, and each group had a building in the little "town".  Jadon's building was the school.

Accepting his certificate ;)

Showing us how the pedal cars work. Avery has been dying to ride one since day 1. 

A partial shot of "Safety Town"

 The kids all sharing a song they learned about seatbelts... i cant tell at all what they are saying.  Jadon said it goes like this:  "click your seat belt, click your seatbelt, put it on, put it on. Please dont ride without it, please dont ride without it. Sing this song, sing this song."

Phew!!!

I do realize its been over 2 weeks since my last post, and I actually have very good excuses this time!

Well last week Jadon started Safety Town at the Boys and Girls Club.  He's loving that, and it continues through this week.  I'll be glad when its done because its right in the middle of the day, and its in Corvallis, so its a lot of driving, and a lot of killing time while he's doing that.

But the biggest reason i've been away, most of you already know already. We're putting our house on the market! We've been trying to quickly get everything squared away with the house that needs to be done, so we can get it on the market ASAP. We've set a deadline for ourselves: the end of this week. We rented a storage unit, are moving out half of our stuff.  We're getting a few minor repairs done. Our agent is paying to have a new entryway light installed to match the rest of our lighting, we just had to buy the light, which I bought last week, and it will be installed on Thursday!

To say we've been busy the last 2 weeks is an understatement.

We've looked at several homes.  We're planning on staying in the area, but we're looking for a bit bigger, and a bit bigger yard.  Here's our wish list:

- around 1800-2000 sq feet (we are currently just under 1400)
- Bigger kitchen
- A 4th bedroom, or den, spare room... anything that can be used as an office/craft room.
- .25+ acres... but nothing bigger than probably an acre at the very most.

Other than that, things that would be nice to have, but aren't a deal breaker are:
- single story
- laundry room
- pantry
- additional room for playing (playroom)
- 1 LESS toilet (currently, 3 toilets is a lot to clean, i wouldn't mind having just 2)

Derek and I have very different views of how this will all go.  He seems to feel like the house will sell really quickly, and we'll find another place very quickly.  He's also the optimist.  I'm the pessimist, and I have horrible thoughts of the house being on the market for years, never selling, or we get an offer and the inspection comes through with major hidden problems that we had no idea about, or we sell the house, but then end up having to rent another house for years because we cant find another house we like........... yes, i've been doing a lot of fretting.
One way Derek and I are so different- he's a glass half full kind of guy, and i'm unfortunately a glass half empty kind of gal. Sometimes I think he's got his head in the clouds too much, and I think sometimes he thinks i've got my head stuck in a garbage can like Oscar the Grouch. He's always telling me to stop worrying and thinking so negatively and i'm always telling him to be realistic.. we never listen to each other. ;)
I hope and pray that it turns out the way Derek thinks it will, but I'm preparing for it to turn out the way I think it will.

So anyways, if you know of anyone who's looking for a house with an easy to manage yard, an open floor plan, nearly 1400 sq feet, 3 bedrooms, 2.5 baths, well maintained, dearly loved, a great first home or even a rental property, in North Albany, send them this way! Tell your friends friends friends! Not sure yet on a price, but we'll know by next week!

It finally happened

We had a visit from the Tooth Fairy last night!  After 2 months, one of Jadon's loose teeth finally came out while we were eating dinner.

How did it happen?  Well, its been hanging by a thread for days, but he's been too afraid to pull it or let us even touch it.  Last night during dinner, we had Friday night pizza, and he was trying to tear a bite of pizza off of his piece, and it pulled it to wear it was just dangling there, literally.  Scared him to death.  He began sobbing, wouldn't even let us look at it, let alone touch it.  It finally fell out from his tongue and fingers, and fell out to his lap and under his seat.  Thankfully, there was no blood!

He didn't want to look at it, and he just cried.  I had to go sit on the couch and cuddle with him for a few minutes until he calmed down, about 5 minutes, and then he started to get a bit excited, and he was ready to look at the tooth.  And since then, all we've heard about is his tooth, and how proud he is of himself. 

He has another loose tooth that we need to get out of there.  I don't remember if I've told you or not, but he has "shark teeth."  This is where the adult teeth started growing up behind his baby teeth before the baby teeth were lost.  This happened on both of his two bottom front teeth.  I had called his pediatric dentist and they said its very common and not to worry about it, but just have him wiggle his teeth a lot so that the teeth will come out. Since we've always taught him to keep his fingers out of his mouth, eyes and nose, we've had to really harp on him to wiggle that that one tooth.  The tooth he just lost was much looser than the other, so now we need to really focus on the other one since it was the first one to get a shark tooth. Hopefully this wont happen with any of his other teeth, i'd like for the rest of his teeth to just come out normally..... but, seems like nothing with Jadon's teeth ever happens normally.  Remember, he never got one of his baby teeth in the first place?  Not too uncommon says the dentist, but what IS uncommon is that he has a grownup tooth waiting in place.  Usually when a baby tooth is absent, so also is an adult tooth.  So this is a GOOD thing. 

Bottom line though, i'm so proud of him.  I know he is always so scared of new things, things he's unsure of the outcome of, and this is just another stepping stone.  He survived his first lost tooth... WE survived his first lost tooth.  Now, hopefully Avery wasn't too traumatized by watching it all unfold that she will be scared when she looses her first tooth!

So, I have lots of pictures of the "big event!"

 You can really see the "shark tooth" in this picture, and the tiny red spot where the baby tooth was... like I said, it was barely hanging on!

 The silly sister.

 Here he is before bed with the tooth fairy pillow I made for him.  As soon as I found out his tooth was loose, I knew I wanted to make him a pillow, so I searched the internet for just what I was looking for.  Most of them were shaped like teeth, which were cute, but I wanted something a little different.  After all, I think the Tooth Fairy likes variety. ;)  I came across 2 monster pillows that I liked, and combined the two.  (Jen, one of the 2 that I came across was actually the same one you had tagged me on pinterest so clearly we had the same idea!)
I used fleece fabric, and it was really easy.  I had plenty of fabric, because I downsized the pattern so that it wasn't so big, so I made a second one that's a tad different for Avery.  Jadon picked this pillow because he has a set of alien pj's and the alien has the same antennae on his head.  We left a note for the Tooth Fairy to leave the tooth so that I can keep it, and Jadon left a note for the Tooth Fairy- "Hi Tooth Fairy From Jadon"
He was afraid he was going to sleep on his tooth however, so he didnt want the pillow on his bed, so instead he put it on his bookshelf which is by his bedroom door.... that made things easier for the Tooth Fairy. ;)

The Tooth Fairy left him 2 quarters and 2 new STAR WARS tooth brushes!  His newest obsession.  He's never seen Star Wars, but he got a Lego Star Wars sticker book at Costco, and now he thinks Star Wars is the coolest. I told him maybe if he can hurry up and get that other tooth out that maybe the Tooth Fairy will bring him a new tooth paste to go with his new brushes.  

By the way, I have heard that the Tooth Fairy these days is quite generous, and leaves kids $5's, $10's, even $20's.... and I've heard that kids are EXPECTING these amounts now.  Totally ridiculous.  I told Jadon that I think the Tooth Fairy only gives tooth brushes for the first tooth. 

Good weekend

We had a good weekend :)  Its been a long time coming, havent actually had a really good one for a long long time. 

It all started (for me) on friday, when I organized the bathroom cabinet!!!  Wahoo!!!  I cant tell you the feeling of opening a cabinet that is well organized, streamlined, cleaned, neat, etc.  Its a nice feeling :)  So, that started me off on a good foot!

Saturday morning I went to my first pedicure with my mommy.  Yes, i'm a disgrace to women everywhere that i'm 32 and never had a pedicure in my life!  It was nice!  Relaxing, getting a massage on my feet and lower legs, and on my back from the chair, getting my feet all prettied up, chatting with my mom, and I picked a polish color that I loved!  So much that I bought it. And when I got home, Avery wanted her toenails and fingernails painted right away.  I have a feeling for her 3rd birthday i'll be taking her for a pedicure too, she will LOVE that!

Saturday continued with gorgeous weather, in the low 80's i believe, and a gentle breeze.  We made a trip to the store, and to Home Depot, then Jadon was begging begging begging to go out for dinner. So, we grabbed Arbys to take home.  Apparently a medium sized drink is now actually a large size, and this is true for a medium fry as well.  Too much food. 

While we were at the store we bought one of those games where you have 2 hand paddles with the velcro on them, and the ball that sticks to the velcro.  So after dinner we went outside to play that.  Jadon really likes it! 

Sunday, Fathers day, the grocery store down the road does an annual carshow and theres also helicopter rides.  The helicopter flies right over our house.  Jadon was sooooooooooo excited all morning long about the helicopter.  He was begging us all day to ride it. 
So after lunch we walked over to the carshow.  Jadon was surprisingly really interested in all the old cars. Avery was only interested in the ones that were painted pink or purple, her favorite colors.  Jadon got told by one of the car owners not to lean on the car when he was looking inside it.  Poor child, he was being very very good at barely touching the cars in the first place, a very well behaved kid. He was barely leaning on this car, so he was almost in tears when the guy barked at him.  There was a sign on one of the cars that said something along the lines of "a mans car is like his woman- you can look, but dont touch."  Oh. Brother.  I think thats taking it a little far, but whatever.

So the helicopter was the highlight of the show, taking off in the field right by the cars, so of course we had to go watch it take off and land a few times.  Jadon, still begging to ride it.  Usually its pretty ridiculously priced to ride those things, but it was only $25 per person, which I thought was not too bad, even though it was only like a 5-10 minute ride.  Since none of us has ever been in a heli, and the kids have never flown before, and they were letting Avery fly for free, we decided to go for it.  Unfortunately there was an hour or so wait ahead of us, and they had just left to go get gas.

I was nervous. You know me, I get nervous about things. And helicopters both scare the poo-poo out of me and excite me.  So, my little heart was ticking away. Jadon and I sat in back, and Avery sat on Derek's lap in front.  It was a breezy day, so it was choppy.  I swear, it felt like a rollercoaster ride to me, my stomach was constantly flip flopping.  I cant help but squeal when i'm on rides, it just comes out.  Yes, i'm the weenie who screams on the log ride at Enchanted Forest.
Lets just say, the pilot was rather amused that I was hollering.  He was cracking up in the front.  And Derek thought it was hilarious that the pilot was laughing, so he was laughing too.  I was holding Jadons hand in the back because when we first lifted off, Jadon said "I'm really scared!!!" (he denys that now, by the way), but by the end of the ride, I think I was gripping his hand more for my sake than his.

It was quite an experience, thats for sure!  It pretty much felt how I thought it would.  Would I do it again?  I dont know... maybe yes.  It was one of those things that was both exhilarating and frightening at the same time.... so I dont know if i would go again.  Jadon hasnt stopped talking about it since. 

We finished off the day with Dereks favorite dinner- baked spaghetti.

And the best part- when we were climbing into bed, Derek said it was probably the best fathers day he's had so far. :)  So that was nice to hear. 

Summer!

It cant possibly have been 10 days since I last posted?  Wow!  Well, the last 2 weeks really flew by!

Well, lets see, where do I start?  Well, I came down with an unpleasant cold that I have no idea where I got from.  Had a low grade fever, body aches, sore throat for a week, and a cough that I still have a little.  Knowing that Jadon only had a week and a half left of school, I really did not want to pass it on to him and have him miss the last days of school, so I tried really really hard not to share my germs.  But, colds are very hard not to share, especially when you live in the same house. 

He was the first to come down with it a week later. Fortunately he never had the fever or aches that I had, and even though he was snotty and coughing, I sent him to school anyways.

Avery and Derek came down with the cold a few days after Jadon.  Avery's is mostly just snot. And Derek seems to have fared the worst of all.  He's also had a lowgrade fever, like me.  He's been totally wiped out, ears totally plugged and hurting.  He stayed home from work a couple of days, went back today but said his head is pounding and his ear is plugged again.  Poor guy. :(

I'm glad my cold is mostly gone and I have my energy back again!

So Jadon's last day of school was on Wednesday, and it was a very bittersweet time.  The teacher does testing with each of the kids at the beginning and again at the end of the year to see about kindergarten readiness.  We met with her on the previous friday to discuss Jadon's results.  He was mostly ready at the beginning of the year, and by the end of the year there was no question about his readiness.  His class was a smart class, said his teacher.  Out of I think 15 kids, 9 of them were ready for reading.  So at the beginning of 2012 they started working on reading, which is when we Jadon mentioned his reading group at school. So he can read things like "Ben can run."
One thing she mentioned is how good Jadon is at sounding out words, and we've noticed this too.  He totally blows me away.  He sounded out the word "Pear" a couple weeks ago.  Thats a hard one with the "ea" in the middle.  And the other day I had a Glad Cling Wrap box on the counter, and he came up and read it and asked why it said Glad.  He's always asking what words say, and we tell him to sound them out, and even big words he has no hesitation trying to tackle them.

Anyways, after his last day, the preschool class traditionally goes to the park afterwards to play and exchange numbers/emails for summer playdates and stuff.  So we went and did this.  Derek could not go since he was stuck at home sick, so he was a little bummed.  Sadly, only one of the kids in his class will be attending the same kindergarten school with Jadon, and I didnt even find out if it will be in the a.m. or p.m. class. Most of the rest of the kids are zoned for another school.  Most of them will be back in the same class again in middle school, so it will be fun to see how they have grown and changed. 

Baby Book

Jadon has just 4 days left of his preschool days, and I can hardly believe its here already!  It really seems like just yesterday we were standing outside in the front yard in front of the house taking his picture before heading off to his very first day of preschool, with me sobbing in the front seat of the car before we even pulled out of the driveway!  That was almost 2 years ago!  In just a few months my baby boy will be heading off to kindergarten every morning.  Then the next year, he will be in school all day in 1st grade, and Avery will go to preschool two mornings a week, and i'll be home alone, and it will be eerily quiet, i'm not sure how i'm going to handle that. It will surely be a bigger transition for mommy than for anyone else i'm afraid!

When Jadon was a baby, I had a baby book for him that I never really liked 100%, but couldnt find one that I fully liked. At some point when I was pregnant with Avery, I decided I was going to make hers scrapbook style, since I couldnt find any that I was happy with.  None of them had everything that I was looking for, or they had things that I felt were irrelevant and just took up space and were left empty.  Plus, i'm a sentimental sap and I saved EVERYTHING from my pregnancies, particularly with Avery, so I needed something that I could have alot of extra space in.  Nothing offered that to me, so making my own scrapbook was the only logical idea.  So I made alot of Avery's up when I was pregnant with her, and then just had to fill it in.  After she was born, I liked hers so much, I decided to redo Jadon's and make his scrapbook style too.  And I'm glad I did. 

So their babybooks go from before birth until kindergarten.  Then when they start kindergarten, i'm making a new book, no longer called a baby book.  It will be a school days book.  I remember having one as a kid growing up, and I looked forward to filling that in every year when I started a new school year.  Of course, that was a "fixed" book.  This will once again be scrapbook.  And i'll be elaborating quite a bit, and adding things into it not only from just school, but things that happen outside of school as well during that entire year. Anyways, those books will go from kindergarten until grade 12.  This way, I will always have their lives documented for them (and me) to get to go and look back at.  Who doesnt enjoy going and looking back at that? 

So this summer, I will be finishing Jadon's babybook (sob!) and starting his school days book.

Time just keeps marching on doesnt it?  I feel like i'm on a treadmill that never gets turned off, and each year someone cranks it up a notch faster. 

I wish I could slow it down just a little.

This n That

I have no idea how to open this post, so i'll just start it by sharing a few pix of the kids. 

Here's a topless moviestar I found in my garage.  She was nice enough to smile for a picture, but I think she was confused that she was at a mall because she had a stack of credit cards in her hand, seemingly ready for a shopping spree!

 And then one minute later I spotted an awesome basketball player showing off his moves on the court!

 The kids love the cats.  They love to decorate THIS cat with flowers and leaves, and this cat takes it.

When they're not showering the cat with petals, they're chasing them around trying to scare them.

And...... it was bound to happen eventually, and Avery WOULD be the one it would happen to, since she's the incredibly curious child.  After dinner last night, the kids went into the garage (the playroom) to play, and in a matter of minutes, we hear Avery start crying.  We sit here waiting for her to come running in to tell us she "bonked" something and needed it kissed better.  She's so dramatic and cries about all her "bonks."  Only she didnt come running in like usual, so Derek went to the garage to see what was going on, and he came back in and said that she'd been stung by a bee and asked me to take her.  Poor gal, she was not a happy camper, and Jadon was pretty worried as well (the Worrier), but after washing it with some soap and water, putting it on some ice, and getting a little tylenol to dull the pain, she was a happy camper again.  And here she is, holding up her finger where she got stung.  And you probably wonder how she got stung on the tip of her finger?  She tried to pick the bee up. Yes, after warning her many times to leave bees alone and not touch them, she apparently has to learn some things on her own. 

And theres the little bugar that stung her.

 Here's my Shark.  See the extra tooth growing behind the other one?  The tooth next door to that one is now getting a tooth growing behind that one too.  When I called Jadon's pediatric dentist office, they said its completely normal, happens all the time and not to worry.  Just have him wiggle his teeth alot!  Well, this is so much easier said than done, but we've taught him to keep his hands out of his mouth, so getting him to wiggle his teeth is out of the ordinary for him. I dont think he likes doing it.  I think he's a little worried (surprise surprise) about the fact that his teeth are moving and new ones are growing in, and things are changing in him.  So, wiggling his teeth??? It isnt happening much at all.  One tooth is lose, the other WAS a tiny bit lose, but now feels not lose at all.  I'm afraid its going to have to be pulled in the end.... but please dont say anything to him.

Have you ever had this happen to a rose that you've received?  I got this rose for Mothers Day, (sadly not from my family or friends or anyone I know, but from a restaurant we went to at the coast...) and it before it died it started sprouting new growth, so I kept it.  I cut the rose bud off and put it in some fresh water to see what would happen, and the new growth keeps growing.  I'm interested to see what happens because i've never had this happen before. 

And isnt this a thing of beauty???!!!!  Its my new monthly menu planner!  I found many different plans on PINTEREST, and decided what I liked best, what I needed most. And I kindof combined a couple that I liked best.  Anyways, I found this magnetic dry erase board at Staples, and some magnetic printer paper.  I made a document with color coded meals- Green for veggies; Yellow for bread/grain/potatoes; Blue for Misc. dishes; Red for casseroles; etc, etc, etc.  and I typed out all foods we typically eat on it, plus many duplicates of things we eat alot of, like Jadon's favs- burritos and spaghetti.  And I printed it all out on the magnetic paper. 

Plus I printed a few "Leftovers" and i've also kept scraps of the paper to add foods that i've come up with.  You'll notice that 2 of the days have a questoin mark.  Those days Jadon has counselling in the afternoon, and I dont know what time until the previous week, so those meals are to be determined.  And I apparently forgot a day also, but thats ok, when I do the shopping I will buy for 2 weeks at a time so that things wont go bad. 

 For now, all the extras that are not being used for the month, I keep on my refrigerator, but it would be nice to eventually get another magnetic board of some sort to put them on to make things easier.

The goal is to attempt 1 new recipe a month, but we'll see how that actually goes.  When you're busy, sometimes its just easier to stick with what you already know! 

So today starts the first day of the new menu calendar, and the family is very excited... ok, the parents are very excited!  Jadon a little.  Avery had no clue.  Nothing makes the mommy happier than ORGANIZATION!!!!!!!!!!! :):):):):):):):):):)

***Oh my gosh, I forgot to mention the best part!!  So you'll see in the first picture of the menu that I have recipes hanging down, those are all my recipes that I have printed out on the magnet paper, so that I dont have to go hunting to find them when I need them, they are all right there for me! I just hole punched them in the corner, and I had 2 of these clippy things that open and close and I can get the recipe that I need, and then just hang them back up on the tack that is hanging on the cork board part of the calendar!  So easy and simple and again.... ORGANIZED!!!!  I love it!!!!

Tough

It is with a very heavy heart that I write this post today.
Two days ago, was a very bitter sweet day, for a sweet little baby was born sleeping into the arms of Jesus. Natalee, a good friend of mine from high school, was overdue with her 5th baby, a boy- Sawyer Jude.
On the morning of the 24th, she went in to get checked because the baby was not moving, and that is when they found that he no longer had a heartbeat.

She posted this on her facebook yesterday:

Sawyer Jude, 8 lbs 6.4 oz, 21" long and absolutely beautiful and perfect. He was born, sleeping peacefully at 1:18 A.M. May 25, 2012 ♥ It was the date that, for weeks now I'd hoped he would come into this world on... I loved the sound of 5/25 and how easy it would be to remember when asked all five of our kids' birth dates ♥ It will now be the second hardest date to remember....today's ...will be the first...as we have to give him all the kisses of a lifetime, all the hugs and try to memorize his every feature....all the things we wanted to a whole lifetime to do before we have to give him someone else and leave without our sweet baby boy. I can hardly breathe or see for crying. i want to take him home....I know he's at home with Jesus, but I wanted him longer with me, we all did. I know he's the lucky one, and I'm so thankful for the hope we have in Christ. We are, Jesse and I and the kids having to do something we never imagined.....please continue to cover us in prayer and encourage (we are reading all of it) us as we also begin to plan sweet Sawyer's memorial service ♥ I want to be overtaken with the peace only my heavenly father can give....I'm running to Him. I'm thankful for and so in LOVE with my son and our lives have been forever blessed, forever changed having him dancing in my belly these last 41 weeks ♥

 

Please, if you will, pray for this family.  I cant even begin to imagine going through this. I had early miscarriages, and that was hard, but to carry a perfectly healthy baby for 41 weeks and then suddenly he dies when he should have been born.... to leave the hospital with empty arms, and empty dreams, and then to have to plan a memorial instead.  To have to go home, and face the questions of curious people, deal with the comments of well-meaning people who just say the wrong things unknowingly, to have to walk into your house thats now set up and ready for a newborn.  All the little painful reminders that you were indeed supposed to bring home your baby to love and care for.

 

Its so hard to understand why these things happen. I know God had a bigger plan, and through this He will make something beautiful.  And as Natalee said in her post above, Sawyer is the lucky one to be in Heaven with Jesus. Im so glad they have such a strong faith.

 

I have read many blogs that I found through a miscarriage and infant loss website after I had my miscarriages.  I noticed the same two trends.  The blogs from women who were not believers were very bitter. Cold. Angry. Depressed. And some of these blogs were written years and years after their child passed, and they were still feeling these emotions. While the blogs from women who were believers and had faith were still sad, but there was hope in what they wrote. They knew their babies were in the arms of the Father, and that someday they will get to see them again.  They know God has a purpose and a plan for everything.  They were not bitter.  Obviously yes they were sad.... you'd have to be emotionally dead to not feel sad from losing your child, but it was a hopeful sadness.

His plan for little Sawyer was just as it was; to never take a breath of the outside world.  His little life has touched so many people already.

I was doing so good...

I was doing so good posting regularly there for a few weeks.... then life started to feel like it was getting back to normal a little bit!  And what I mean by that is, Jadon is acting a little more like himself lately.  Getting into trouble.  Acting up.  Being a stinker. Exhausting me in the process.Not worrying nearly as much.
Bedtime has improved dramatically.  Getting him to get ready for school has improved 10 times over.  Getting out the door to preschool has greatly improved.  Pretty much everything has improved.  There are still a few little things that are suffering.  He's still worrying about separation, though not to the degree that it was, and this is apparent when we actually get to preschool and he refuses to get out of the car.  Although once he is in the building he is fine.
He's also still worried about getting sick, and this was made evident the other night when he and Avery both got in trouble before bed and lost their bedtime snack in the process.  He was worried that he'd get sick from being hungry..... (long story short, he's gotten sick from being too hungry before)...... so he was up for a few hours crying in bed that he was scared.
So the plan for his councelling is that we are going to continue weekly until the end of the school year, and re-evaluate at that time again.

For mothers day we decided to go do something as a family, since we've really done nothing fun this year because of circumstances and jobs and just busyness of life.  So we went to the coast to the Tillamook cheese factory, and the Tillamook air museum, looked at a lighthouse, and spent some time on the beach.  It was a lot of driving for one day, and Avery was being especially "two", particularly at mealtimes.  Nothing is more embarrasing than a child throwing a tantrum in a restaurant.  You can feel all eyes on the parents and they are all thinking "cant they get control of that kid?!"  Well, if you've ever dealt with a headstrong two year old, then the answer is no. The only thing you can do is take them away, which is what Derek did.  Avery went in timeout in the car 2 times while at lunch that day... and lunch was only about 20 minutes long, maybe even 15.  So, it was really unpleasant.

Unfortunately the beach was about as unpleasant as the 2 year old.  At least the sun was shining, but the wind was whipping so hard that the sand was pelting our legs, and felt like we were being sandblasted.  Not to mention, it made the temperature, which was probably in the low 60's, feel much cooler than that, and we were all in shorts because the weather men said it was going to be in the 70's and 80's on the coast.

By days end, we were ready to be home and out of the car. 

Lucky me, the next day was my birthday, and Derek took the day off of work, but that day we just hung around the house, running errands and shopping.  Jadon had preschool. We ate out for lunch which is something we do as a family ritual on birthdays. The kids and Derek bought me a toaster oven for my birthday, and a new blender for mothers day, since my old blender pooped out on me recently. The weather was absolutely gorgeous!  I had exercise class that night, and unfortunately we got to class and found out our regular instructor was out all week camping and we had a sub. in her place.  She was alright, but lacked the pep that the regular lady offers. So in other words, it was a struggle! 

I'm going crazy with a few things.  Meals.  Dinners in particular.  I feel so unorganized and I cant stand it.  So thanks to PINTEREST I found a menu chart that I made and starting in June, i'm going to have a monthly dinner menu to follow!  This will make life soooo much easier!  Then 4pm wont roll around every day and i wont have to think to myself, What am i going ot make for dinner tonight?!?  I'll have my menu in place, i'll buy ingredients ahead of time and i'll know what i need when i need it.  Eventually i'm going to print out all the recipes as well so i have them all on hand.  I'll throw in a new recipe here and there, but my family doesnt seem to be too fond of trying new things, so i'll keep the frequency at a minimal on this.... but i'm sooooo excited to start!!  I'm so tired of not knowing what to make for dinner every night!
I'll take a picture of it when i get it all set up!

The end of yet another exhausting week

I'm glad this week is done.  It was quite a hectic one.  Derek was gone again for half the week in Wisconsin for more training for work.  Jadon didn't do very well with him being gone this time... something we found out he was not very thrilled with at his last councelling session.
Jadon doesnt often tell us much what he's thinking or feeling, probably because he either doesnt understand it or doesnt know how to explain it.  So he apparently said something about Derek going to Wisconsin again to his councellor, who then told us that Jadon was a little anxious about Derek going to Wisconsin. This was news to us.  As far as we knew, Jadon couldnt have cared less.  He's alot like me and keeps his emotions bottled up inside... both happy and sad ones.

So, Jadon was VERY anxious while Derek was gone, and would not go to sleep at night, once asleep he didnt sleep much, and getting him to school was an absolute nightmare.... I wish I could have seen what my blood pressure was at during those 3.5 days. It was very frustrating. 

Monday I had to go grocery shopping.  Everytime i go grocery shopping, when I leave the cart to get something off a shelf, I turn around to find Avery making out with the shopping cart handle.... AND. I. JUST. ABOUT. DIE.
Its so discusting!!!!  Grocery cart handles are one of the dirtiest things you ever touch, let alone put your MOUTH on!!!! Dirtier than a toilet seat!!!!!!  Oh barf!!!!!!  Then in the car after our grocery trips, her hands are all over in her mouth and nose...............So on monday, I was prepared!  I took a hand sanitizer wipe in with me (since Winco does not offer cart wipes for their carts... by the way, thanks winco for that.)  Wiped the cart down really good. 
Of course, this particular trip, she barely even touched the cart with her hands, let alone her mouth.  And when we got in the car, as usual, I made her wipe her hands with a wipe.  And of course this time her hands were no where near her eyes/nose/mouth.  So, of course, the day i'm prepared to fight off the germs, she does not do anything gross.  However, had I not washed the cart, or her hands, her mouth would have been all over the cart, and her hands would have been all over in her mouth and nose.
Such is life.


Derek and I have been talking about how exhausted Jadon has been making us over these last couple months. He has literally worn us out.  I have not done anything fun with these kids, and I feel terrible.  I used to do crafts with them all the time, or take them places, but I feel like Jadon has kindof sucked the energy out of us lately.  Monday I decided that while Derek was gone I needed to try to do at least a little something fun with the kids, so we made our own pizzas.  I bought a pack of 3 mini crusts and put out some toppings that we all like and I made my pizza first because I knew they'd hog all the toppings, and its a good things because shortly after they started in, Avery sneezed on the cheese.  Anyways, they had fun making their pizzas, and it was a short enough "activity" that it kept their attention, yet long enough that it satisfied them. 
Jadon's turned out pretty decent.  Avery's had an inch of cheese on it, so I intervened and removed a bit so that it would cook.
Avery, of course, did not eat her pizza though.
And Jadon does not like leftover pizza, so basically I ate most of the pizza over the course of the next 3 days.

Tuesday was Jadon's kindergarten orientation day!  He was really excited about it, until right before, then he clammed up and got nervous, and we ended up walking in late. He had the option of going to play in the classroom with the teacher and the other kids, while I went and listened to the principal talk, but he didnt want to leave me.  After the principal finished talking though, all the parents got to go get their kids and check out the classroom and meet the teacher.  It was crowded with a bunch of adult bodies and a little overwhelming for Jadon.  He met his teacher momentarily though, and we'll get a one-on-one with her again the week before school starts.  The thing Jadon WAS excited about however-  riding the school bus.  It will stop right at our house, and now everytime it goes by our house he gets Sssssssuuuuppppeeeeerrrrr excited!  After orientation, Jadon and I went and got gelato together.

Wednesday, we had a playdate after preschool with a buddy from Jadon's preschool and his younger twin brothers. All the kids enjoyed that, and it was the only non-rainy day out of like 5 days, so we got lucky.  It was still chilly, and breezy, but the kids didnt notice. They had a grand time climbing the trees, and that one was big enough for all 5 to get in, unfortunately its impossible to get a picture of 5 kids ages 5 and under to look at you at the same time and smile for a picture.

Derek came home early thursday morning and had to go back to work that same day.  He was exhausted. But surprised me friday when he was given the day off of work :)

So friday was a big day for a little girl who's growing up too fast. After months and months of me not wanting to convert Averys crib into a toddler bed, we finally, on a whim, converted it.  So now, my baby girl, is one step further away from being my baby. :*(
She was scared of her "new" bed when she took her nap, but did pretty good last night.  She stayed in bed!  And didn't even get out of bed this morning when she woke up!  I sent Jadon in her room to get her out of bed.  She'll get the hang of it.... in fact, i'm sure next week at this time i'll be blogging about how she wont stay in her bed anymore and i'm ready to rip my hair out.  :) 

And one final piece of information for the week.  Jadon has a new tooth coming in!  However, he has not lost a tooth yet.  This tooth is coming in directly behind one of his baby teeth.  I've been feeling his baby tooth, and it isnt loose yet.  Although last night I felt it, and it looks like it might be getting a tad bit loose..... so, we'll see!!!!!  I am going to sew up a tooth fairy pillow of some sort.  I have to find one that I like first though.  I'm trying to get Jadon really excited about having a new tooth, a loose tooth, and losing a tooth, because he got a bit freaked out at first about the thought of losing a tooth and was worrying.  So, ive been trying to build it into a big exciting thing!  Probably wont work since nothing seems to calm his fears.  But yes, we might have a loose/lost tooth pretty soon!!  Both my babies are growing up so fast! :*( Waaaahhhh!

Diagnosis

Jadon had his first "official" counselling session yesterday, and the therapist diagnosed him at that time.  His diagnosis is: adjustment disorder with anxiety.

So I came home and did a little research online about adjustment disorder in kids, and here's what I have found. Its usually brought on by a sudden stressful event, like a divorce, a big move, a death in the family, a major illness of a loved one... ahem!... etc.
Symptoms are: intense separation anxiety, irritable, anxious, subdued, resists going to sleep, frequent temper tantrums, regression in the ability to toilet independently, acting out by biting, hitting.  And not all kids will react to big stress like this.

Jadon's symptoms have been mostly intense separation anxiety, and resists going to sleeps, however, he sometimes goes through periods of irritability, anxiety, and he's a little subdued.  He's been acting out a little more than normal, especially when his schedule wavers at all from his "normal"... whenever we do anything other than what we typically do on a normal day to day basis. 

I'm very relieved to know that what he is going through is something very real, and he's not just losing his marbles or has a loose screw.  The therapist said that after spending time with Jadon, he seems completely fine otherwise, a little worriesome in nature, and he might have a little underlying generalized anxiety disorder, but otherwise he's a really enjoyable boy to be around, and he is very well adjusted.

We're going to do 6 sessions with the therapist and evaluate from there the progress.  After my research, the good news is that is sounds like adjustment disorder, unlike post traumatic stress syndrome, goes away after about 6 months with help.
We've done the right things sending him to therapy though, as i read its very important for people to get help if they have this disorder as it can get worse if help is not sought.  And another good thing is that he will hopefully learn coping skills for the future so that he'll be able to better handle stress in the future.... I hope!  I pray!  Poor little guy! 

I'm hoping this is all a good thing in the long run though... him getting this adjustment disorder. I'm hoping that through all this, we will learn alot about Jadon (since he keeps his emotions and his thoughts to himself most of the time), and to understand him better, and that we can all learn how to handle stressful situations better, for Jadon, and for ourselves. I love that little guy.

Spring :)

Spring is finally here!  At least for a few days! Its so nice to finally see some green growing on the trees again, and some color in yards again.  Its nice to hear lawn mowers, and smell the fresh cut grass.  To know that the promise of summer is getting close.  I love the longer days, getting to cook dinner and eat dinner with our blinds open and sun shining into our windows, and have it be light enough afterwards that we can take a walk or play outside for awhile. The fresh air. The warmth. The overall good mood that the sunshine seems to bring to almost everyone. Theres not much about spring and summer that I don't like!  There's plenty about winter that I don't like.

With spring, comes kindergarten registration for fall. We got Jadon's kindergarten registration packet in the mail, and in a week we have orientation where we get to go meet his teacher, see his classroom and school, and sign up!  I cant believe it!  Didn't we just sign him up for his first year of preschool last week???  My little man, my firstborn, is getting ready to head off to elementary school.
Preschool has been really good for him. He's made friends who absolutely adore him,  learned to write, learned numbers and he can count to 30 by himself, knows his ABC's (but he's known those for quite awhile, you may recall a video I posted on here before Avery was born when he was saying his ABC's?), he recognizes all his letters- upper and lower- and knows all the letter sounds, he is even doing a little bit of reading now, and we recently found out that he has reading groups at preschool.
His first year of preschool, he grew in leaps and bounds socially, and this year he's grown so much mentally, and he is very eager to learn now.  Yes, i'm 100% certain that preschool was the right choice for Jadon. 

On a different note, Jadon started counseling yesterday. His anxiety over his health and his seperation anxiety is not improving, sometimes it seems worse, and we want to get it taken care of before kindergarten.  And, he's only 5, we want him to be able to enjoy life without having to worry so much. :(  Luckily we were able to get him right in to get started, and next weekend will continue, and I imagine we'll be continuing each weekend until he is doing better.  Thankfully our insurance covers an unlimited number of visits, so as many as he needs will be covered, whether its 10 or 1000.... after our deductible that is. 

I did a little spring shoppin' for myself the other day... afterall, i've shed a few more pounds since last years shorts season.  I'm happy to announce that i'm in a size 8 now, and even fit into a 6 in one pair of capris so of course I bought that pair!!!!  Hip hip horray!!!!! :D

Derek ordered us a new dishwasher yesterday.  Ours is 8 years old afterall, but its starting to fall apart inside, and rather than spend $300 to replace the parts inside and have it die on us in a year, we just decided to spend $500 and get a new one that will be QUIET.  So, we wont get it for 2 weeks, but i'm a tad bit excited!  I've hated our dishwasher since day one.  Its incredibly loud, and i'm not exaggerating.  We cant run it and watch tv at the same time.  So, we always try to run it when we go to bed so we dont have to hear it, but alot of times we forget to run it when we go to bed.

Organizing..... again? still?

I'm organizing again.... or maybe i'm still organizing.... I dont know.  Either way.  I feel like i'm constantly going through all of our things, and purging, recycling, donating, trashing things to make room for the kids. They are growing like weeds afterall, and you all know how big our house is, and how much storage space we have... and why does it seem like kids toys are all bigger than they are?  This is true before they even turn 1 year old!

So anyways, our garage is not only our laundry room, its also our yard storage, tool storage, attic storage, game storage, food storage, and everything else storage... its also our playroom. Why would anyone want to park their car in the garage????  I mean, dont people enjoy having to get out in the rain to load up and unload the kids from the cars?  And don't people enjoy scraping the ice off their windows on a brisk 20 degree morning?  Or sitting down and burning their bums on their seats on a hot 90 degree day?  Yeah, garages for cars are WAAAAAY overrated! 

So back to organizing, I dont know how much more of our stuff I can get rid of before all we have left is large toys!  I'm fairly certain the large basketball hoop could double as a couch though.  And the bikes could be chairs. ;) 

I decided that I dont need to keep all of the kids artwork, even though it is all so precious to me, every piece of it.  As a solution, i'm taking pictures of all of it, and i'm going to make a collage of it all and put it in a photobook so we always have it, but its not going to take up so much space.  This is going to be time consuming. And i'm afraid i'm going to have to go through every bin in our garage again to see what I can get rid of.  I keep telling myself that in the end, its just STUFF. Keep a FEW special things, and the rest of the things take pictures of and put into a photobook if I always want to remember them but dont want to physically keep the stuff.  We just really dont have the space to keep so many bins of memories.  I'm pretty sure my sanity is more important than bins full of memories that will probably never get looked at.

With that said, my mom saved a bin full of papers from my school years K-12, and I went through that the other day.  It was interesting to see report cards, teachers comments, and stories I wrote.  On every report card the teachers comments were:  "Alicia is very quiet, but has some great ideas!" "Alicia is shy, but I just love her sweet spirit in my class!" 
In other words, Alicia is really quiet and I have no idea what else to write about her so i'm going to add something else that sounds good!  I'm so sick of the "shy" label... actually, i'm so sick of the "shy" label being such an issue with people.

So anyways, I enjoyed reading my papers.  Unfortunately Mom you didnt write any dates on any papers so I had to guess about the age and grade I was when i wrote things.  Here's a few papers.

I'm guessing these were around 1st or 2nd grade (and i'll type my spelling, punctuation, grammatical errors too as those add to the humor):  About my cats and dog!  I have same cats and my bruther has a dog before bed time for my cats and dog they haft too go outside and go too the bathroom when it is morning our neighbrors wack when cats or dogs chocke on samething my mother helps them and sametimes dogs eat poyven ivey when they up and our cats and dog wack up and the ather dogs and cats wack up sametimes do they diye it is sad when my cat diyes I will still love him even if he srached me it herts too be hert! by Alicia

My friend Erica!  My friend is nice. Her name is Erica! I innvited her to my birthday party! She invited me to Blow Birds. She is very very very very nice. She is a good friend!  The End by Alicia!
(Blow Birds was supposd to be Blue Birds... girl scouts)

Do you know about the bionic man?  My aunt wears a bikini when she swims.  Christmas is in December! Bumble-bees hurt when they sting. this one was dated 4-28-87  (I was almost 7)

My cat.  My cat is a very good cat. he tells me when he wants in sids our hose.  his name is tricsie.  Some times tricsie is playful. so you shude't pick him up!
(Trixie was my first cat)

Then this one was when I was in 4th grade when I switched to Christian School. We were supposed to write a love letter to Jesus, on one side of the paper was a love letter that He had written to us, and then the other side of the paper was a space for us to respond to Him. Here was my response:
Dear Jesus,
I love you to, I will try to get along with my brother.  He just makes me mad. On December 19th 1989 he trogh a napkin in my breakfast.

:)

This n That

Avery and I had to make a stop at the craft store yesterday and I came across the cutest dress pattern for girls and I couldnt resist getting it!  http://www.simplicity.com/p-5098-childs-dresses.aspx  I want to make all 6 dresses for Avery!  They're just too cute, and Avery has.... I think just 1 dress, and its very plain and second hand.  Yeah, she's not much of a girly girl. I guess I shouldnt say SHE isnt a girly girl, its that her mommy puts her in all pants because its cold.  Summer will probably bring more dresses and skirts, hence the pattern for dresses! :) 

Now to decide which one to make first, they are all so cute!
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So, as always, i'm struggling with time management.  I'm finding it so difficult to balance my time between housework, time with the kids, time working on my tutu stuff, and everything between- meals, errands, preschool, appts, activities for the kids, etc. etc. etc.  I just cant seem to find a rhythm, and its driving me crazy.  I like consistency. I like routine. I'm like the kids, I like predictability.
Yesterday, the only time I sat down was when I was eating, driving, playing with Jadon, or folding laundry.  By 4:30pm, I was totally beat. At that point, I had baked potatoes in the oven cooking, the kids were occupied, so I sat on the couch, set my phone alarm for 10 minutes, and shut my eyes.
Something has to change.  I need to find a way to organize my time better.  I need to spend more time with my kids. I need to spend more time on myself and my business, and I need to spend more time with my husband. I think the house gets enough of my attention, it just needs to be orchestrated better.

When I was cleaning my upstairs bathrooms yesterday, I was thinking that maybe i'm going about cleaning my house all wrong.  I've got a weekly checklist on my fridge, nothing too difficult, and I recently modified it to make it even more manageable.  Still, i'm struggling to get things done.  I've been trying to tackle at least one thing every day during Averys nap. Averys nap is now quite short. Its only about an hour, and in that hour, I have to do that chore, as well as spend my one-on-one time with Jadon. If she goes down for nap late, which often happens on preschool days since lunchtime ends up being late, therefore setting the whole day back, time with Jadon sometimes gets cut short.  I do NOT let Averys nap go past a certain time, otherwise she will not sleep that night. 
So when I was cleaning, I was thinking that maybe I should just be taking 1 day a week and tackling ALL the house cleaning on that day, then I have the rest of the week to focus on the kids, the errands, tutu's, etc.  It sounds alot better in my head, but is it really do-able?  I dont know, I think I might try it for a couple weeks to see if it works any better.  Couldnt be worse than what i'm already doing.  Sounds much less chaotic in my head!  If I wasnt doing tutu's, I wouldn't be having this issue at all.  However, I am enjoying having something extracurricular to do!  And I like making things. And sewing things.

Thoughts or ideas anyone??? Also, how often do you clean?  Bathrooms? Dusting? Mopping? Clean showers? etc.  Do you have a schedule or routine you follow?  Id love to hear!

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There was a show on HGTV a couple weeks ago called "Clean Freaks".... and it was ALLLLLLLL about ORGANIZING!!!!!!!!  I made Derek record it for me. I have to be able to sit and watch it when I have nothing distracting me so I can get lots of great ideas for organizing.  I may even watch it with a pen and paper so I can write things down! ;)  I'm very very very excited to watch it, since, you know, I love organizing, and the show is all about it!

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After 6 weeks of break, we started exercise class again last night.  I'm feeling it this morning!  Its sooooo hard going back, and its so easy to see why people never start exercising in the first place!  But, once there, it felt good.  Tough, but good.

Sunshine

We had a sunny day today, not quite 60 degrees, but close.  It was the kind of day we havent had much of around here.... in fact, I can count on one hand, and probably even a hand minus a couple fingers, the number of days this year we've had that have been that nice.  So lets just say, it was very WELCOME at our house!
So most of the week has been rainy; typical.  And the forecast for the rest of the week is rainy; typical.  So i'm bummed.  Sometimes it scares me how much the weather affects my mood.

Anyways, I signed into Pinterest tonight.... always a bad idea.  Everyone who has Pinterest knows that you can not get on Pinterest for a few minutes. Its impossible.  Pinterest is like an addictive drug.  So I was trying to find ideas for wall art on Pinterest, because i'm tired of my walls looking so drab.  I have zero decorating creativity when it comes to my walls.  ZERO.  I came across alot of pictures and quotes and such.  Alot of quotes are from Dr. Seuss, which I found interesting.  One of them was: "Don't cry because its over. Smile because it happened."
I've been grumbling tonight about the weather because this evening the clouds rolled in, and I know what the forecast holds.... and i'm a pessimist.  Derek said that the quote was perfect for me and today's weather. 

Sometimes I hate when he's right, but I have to admit, my pessimist attitude does ruin my enjoyment of living in the moment sometimes.  And when it comes to the weather, i'm horrible at living in the moment.  Sadly, i'm already thinking about next winter, being cooped up inside; the cold; the rain; the gray; the short days.... every year it gets harder and harder to endure winter, and it seems like every year winter seems to last longer and longer into spring time!  I have to admit, the thought of moving some place warmer, less gray, less rainy.... its extremely tempting. 

April 7th???????

Sometimes I feel like such a slacker.  Or maybe its just that things sneak up on me before I have a chance to even think twice about them.  For example, a few weeks ago, my mom asked me what we were doing for Easter.  "Its just a few weeks away you know" she said.  Seemed like months away at the time.  I swear that was yesterday she asked me.  And here it is, the day before Easter and I am literally, as I type this, just now boiling eggs for the kids to color.  I dont even have an egg coloring kit. 

I dont have any Easter outfits either.  Which isnt a terrible thing... I dont think I had any outfits last year either.  I feel like its such a waste to buy special clothes for 1 single day, so if I buy them "Easter outfits" or "Christmas outfits" I try to make it something that they can wear again and again.  In the past, I've just made tutu's for Avery and she's worn shirts that she already has, or i've bought a shirt to go with them that she can wear again. The tutu's then get used as play outfits, which by the way get used quite frequently by both kids..... yes, even Jadon likes to put them on.  They like to put the tutu's on and then dance to upbeat music.  I TRY to be frugal as much as I can.

So this means the kids dont have lots of shoes.  Its ridiculous for kids to have lots of shoes.  They grow out of them in a matter of months, so you've wasted $15+ on a pair of shoes that only gets worn for a couple months.  Avery has 2 pairs of shoes- a pair of shoes that are nicer looking that she can wear with dresses or pants, and then a pair or tennis shoes.  Jadon also has 2 pairs of shoes- 2 tennis shoes- 1 nice pair for school and another pair for play, although we havent had to worry about wearing the play pair since we've been stuck inside for the last couple months.
Then both kids have a pair of rubber boots.

So anyways, here it is Easter tomorrow, and we havent even gotten the kids baskets. Its been a hectic few weeks I tell ya!  I'm usually on top of these kinds of things!  I'm a planner!  I like things planned months in advance!  Even things as small as Easter baskets! :)  So, I kindof feel like i've lost control. I'm not used to feeling like i'm constantly a day or so behind since i'm always living a day or two in the future.
It would sure be nice to have 3 additional hours to the day.  However, i'd never make it through a 27 hour day.  I can barely make it through a 24 hour day, i'm totally wiped out by the end of the day and it takes me no time at all to fall asleep once my head hits the pillow.

YAY!!!!!!

Thank you all so much for your thoughts and prayers over the last 5 weeks!  I'm very very happy to announce that Jenny gets to go HOME tomorrow!!!  And I get the feeling she's ready to be out of the hospital and home with her hubby and her Hank (her dog.) 

We went up to visit her yesterday and we informed her that was the last time we wanted to see her at the hospital!!!

The kids went with us this time, and Jadon has been very insistent about wanting to go into her room to see her this time.  So he did, and while he was very hesitant and kept his distance, and was very concerned every time he heard a beeping noise outside the room, i'm very proud of him for going in.  Being a fellow worry-wart (and the one that passed the gene on to him:( ), I know he was probably feeling very jumpy inside; still not fully understanding hospitals and sicknesses.  But, he didnt even have a night terror last night! 

He's still struggling with separation, particularly from me, but I imagine this is something that will take a bit longer to get over.  Sounds like its something that happens in some kids around age 5-6 anyways.  Also separation anxiety in kids his age is a normal thing that happens in times of stress... like when a loved one becomes ill. And I dont think that him seeing me being hooked up to the heart monitor helped much.

The hardest part has been preschool though.  I'm having a really difficult time getting him to preschool.  Particularly getting him to get ready and get in the car.  Once we're there, i've been staying there with him for awhile, and the teachers are totally fine with that.  And i'm sure they'd let me stay the whole day if I wanted, but I know that won't do Jadon any good.  Monday he had a really hard time, probably because it was the first day back from spring break.  I ended up staying 45 minutes, and he was glued to me. I kept trying to get him to play with things or his friends, but he just wanted to sit in my lap. Finally his teacher had him go work on his math with the other teacher, of course I had to go with him, but I stood off to the side several feet.  While he was doing that, Avery was off playing with the other kids, and I quietly sneaked to the other side of the room so I could monitor her better, and once Jadon realized I wasn't standing in the same spot I was in, he had a moment of panic before he found where I was again.

Which brings me to a gross story about Avery.  So I dont know if you have noticed little girls pants these days or not.... but alot of them are low rise like womens pants.  Which is dumb.  It drives me nuts.  So in the preschool setting, and probably elementary setting too, you see a lot of little girls butt cracks because of these dumb low rise pants.  So Avery was on the floor next to a couple of the girls in Jadons class, and one of the girls had on low rise pants, and low and behold, her butt crack was showing when she was bending on the floor playing.  And while Avery was sitting next to her playing, Avery noticed her crack and decided to poke it with her finger.  Gross.  I'm glad I was sitting right there, I grabbed her hand so fast!  That child is so curious.

So anyways, back to Jadon.  He started crying when I told him I was going to go, and Jadon doesnt cry.  So, we always know when he is TRUELY upset about something when he actually has tears. It breaks my heart.
The pediatrician recommended a pediatric play therapy for Jadon to help with his worrying, so we may pursue that.  Poor guy.  I think people like Jadon and me have an overactive "fight of flight response" thingy.  The question is, why?????

Anyways, here's a picture of Jenny and Avery yesterday at the hospital. Obviously Avery had no problems with the hospital setting, but then again, she's only 2.5.  BUT, then again, Jadon was 2.5 when Avery was born, and he was already worried about the hospital and didnt want to come near me.  So.......... maybe that was a prediction into the future?  Maybe his fear of hospitals all started when his little sister tried to rocket out of me before he could even leave the room, and he was seeing me wailing in pain??

I'm pretty sure he would have been afraid of hospitals no matter what.  The boy's just too much like his mommy :(  Sorry little man ....

:)

Just thought id share this picture I found of the kids the other day.  Its from February.  I just love it!  This pretty much sums up their relationship most of the time.  They get along so well (right now).... as long as Avery does what Jadon wants her to do, all is well!  They have their moments, but usually this is what it looks like around here- playtime.
Their smiling, happy faces make me feel so blessed :) 
Lottery?????  Who needs the lottery when you're already a billionaire, for clearly I am quite rich!

***They sure do love each other***

April Fools Day and Lotto

Last night when I was tucking Jadon into bed, I was explaining to him that tomorrow (now today) starts a new month, and that its April 1st, also known as April Fools Day.  And I explained that its called that because people sometimes play jokes on people on April Fools Day for fun. So then I told him about the time when I was in 5th grade, and my teacher made all her students cupcakes, only cooked a cotton ball into the middle of each cupcake but didnt tell us, so when we were eating the cupcakes, we got to the middle and found the cotton balls!
Jadon thought that was great and decided he wants to do that as a joke on daddy today.  Unfortunately Daddy's not a fan of cupcakes to begin with.... how do you think he stays so trim???
So the morning started of with lots of little jokes:  "Hey Jadon, there's a bunch of chicken's downstairs" says Derek (yes, Jadon actually fell for this) he ran downstairs, then ran back up and Derek says "April fools!" Jadon caught on then, so he said "Theres a bunch of brocolli downstairs!" ;)

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Did you buy a lottery ticket?  We did not.  We never buy lottery tickets, but Derek was going to pick one up this time but forgot.  Yesterday I was reading an article in the paper about people who bought lottery tickets and what they would do with the money if they'd won.  Being the negative person that I am, I always question peoples responses to those types of questions:
"I'd donate most of it to charity"
"I'd start a foundation for _____"
"I'd build my grandma a new house."
Is that really what people would do with the money?  Money can really bring out the worst in people. We see it all the time, people murdered for owing money; friendships ruined over $5; lives thrown away either to gambling away money, or because money is everything to people. 
Yet what people dont understand is that money does not buy happiness.  It doesn't.  How can it? 

So, Derek and I were talking about what we would do with the money if we won the lottery, and we both agreed, we'd be annoymous.  Why?  Well because suddenly everyone you know would become your best friend.  And i'm not cool with that.  I dont want people to be my friend just because I have money. Obviously you know their motive.
We'd put enough aside to put the kids into decent schools and college.
We'd pay off our house and buy ourselves a bigger one, although nothing huge.  In fact, nothing much bigger than 2000 sq feet would be perfect since I dont want to have to clean more than that! And no, I do not want a maid, even if I could afford one.  But something a bit bigger on a bit more property than .07 acres!
We'd get me a new car, an SUV so we can take family trips in it, and have more space.  But we'd keep Dereks car because he loves his car.
Derek says he'd upgrade his computer. 
We'd pay off our families houses.
Probably put some into savings.
We'd most likely give most of it away. 
And as far as our every day life goes.  Derek loves his job and he would not quit.  And I love my job and obviously wouldnt quit. So I dont see our everyday life changing at all, other than being a little more comfortable in our living space and car.  And honestly, I wouldn't want it to change. I am totally happy with where we're at.  Which brings me back to my point of money cant buy happiness.  Afterall, if we had enough money, didnt need to work for anything... what would we be doing all day long?  playing?  eventually we'd get tired of playing all the time.  It feels good to work towards something.  To have a goal and to reach that goal.

It is finished

After several weeks I finally completed a pettiskirt for Avery!  Took forever, but I got side tracked by alot and the project would sit for days, or I ran out of thread and couldnt get in to the craft store.  Not to mention, its hard to sew with the kids awake since they are intrigued by my new sewing machine and want to touch it and push the pedal and try to sew my fingers to the fabric in the process.  Not to mention, theres LONG pieces of fabric involved in these little skirts, and I have a tiny house that during the day is covered in toys which makes it difficult to lay fabric out on the floor, especially long pieces.

She was SOO excited to put it on and has been bugging me for the last couple days to put it on, but it hasnt been done so I've said no. So this morning, when I said "ok Avery,its done, come put it on!" Her eyeballs got huge and she smiled and was excited and then I got it on her, and she wanted daddy to look at her once..... and then pretty much she didnt want anyone else to look.  I tried to get her to pose for a picture, and she refused and kept trying to run from me.  She would not twirl or anything.  She loves the skirt though.  She's just 2 and wishy washy and one minute wants to have every ounce of attention and then when she's finally got it she wants nothing to do with it.  So anyways, love the terrible twos.  But isnt the skirt stinkin' adorable?????  And it was so easy!  Time consuming, but easy.

So that is the first of a couple of new products i'm adding to my tutu business.  Or, at least hopefully.  I need to figure out a good system for making these so that i can get them made in a timely fashion without taking time away from everything else!  It would sure be nice if I had a craft room.

So anyways, I think the next skirt will be a little quicker since theres less fabric involved, but i'm still trying to understand the directions.  I'm really excited to get started though! :)

Oh, and yes, I dont know if I mentioned in a previous post that I got a new sewing machine?  I know i've mentioned that i have been wanting to, and i'm SOOO glad i did!!!!!!!  http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_12605_02098030000P?prdNo=7&blockNo=7&blockType=G7 Here's the one I got, and while it doesnt have all the bells and whistles, its not top of the line.... it did get really good ratings, it does everything i was wanting and needing it to do, and it has been a dream come true!  I dont know how I used the other one for so long.... which was only like a year and a half if that?  Bless Jadon's little heart for getting that other one for me.  Up until then, I had no interest in sewing and when I needed something sewn i'd just do it by hand (pain-in-the-NECK!) So, in buying my other machine, Jadon sparked my interest in sewing more.  Oh but good heavens that machine did not make things easy to sew on!!!!!!!