Howdy

Despite having the extra time on my hands on tuesday/thursday mornings, I still haven't found enough time to do the things I imagined i'd have time to do. First of all, up until last week, my physical therapy appts. were all on tues/thurs mornings when Avery's in school.
This was the first week of not having any appts.  And one of my 2 "free" days I went to Costco.

I've been trying to streamline ALL my recipes into one organized binder and have all my recipes be in plastic sleeves so if I spill on them, I can easily wipe them up. The reason i'm trying to do this is because since I meal plan for the month in advance, I am searching for many recipes to use. Sounds simple, but when you have recipes all over the place- pinterest, printouts, recipes cards, recipe books, on the computer, etc. its hard to find things quickly and easily. And then I forget where a particular recipe was located. This has made meal planning terribly difficult and irritating and not at all fun. I didn't even make a menu this month. SO, something HAS to be done about it! So i'm doing it similar to this one that I found on Pinterest. But this means i'm typing out a bunch of recipes. Yeah, its going to take awhile, but I know i'll be so much happier once i'm finished!

So back to PT. It helped my back a lot! I was worried because for most of the sessions it didn't seem to be getting much better, but once I started the strengthening exercises, it really started helping! I also have a book that my physical therapist recommended, and it is fantastic! It totally explains WHY my back hurts, and exactly how I can fix it. The only problem is it doesnt contain strengthening exercises, but for me that wasnt a problem since I went to physical therapy and learned them. BUT, it explains so much of why/how bad posture affects your back and even other parts of the body. If anyone wants to borrow the book you're more than welcome to.
I'm supposed to keep up with my therapy for another 2 months, then narrow it down to just a few exercises and stretches after that. I'll never be "cured" but now I know what the causes are and how to fix it if I start getting a backache.

So our deck is half done!!  Its big, and its great! I wish we could have enjoyed it this summer, but we will get to next summer for sure!!! Because our house faces west, we will have the morning sun on the deck, and the shade of the house on it in the evening.  I'm really excited!! The deck is possibly going to be done on monday.

This morning i'm getting my hair cut. I haven't had a cut since January! Hair has been a low priority, and I just throw it back in a holder most of the time.

Avery turned 4 on Tuesday!  I can't believe my baby girl is 4!! (Avery says "i'm a 4 year-older") How did this happen?? It crept up on me too fast, so I didn't get any party planned, but she still wants to have a party, so probably later in the month i'll get something together.
She is enjoying school, and she's always excited to show me her art projects after school. And I look forward to picking her up and spending the afternoons with her. But, after having a live in playmate (Jadon) for the last 4 years, she's a little lost on how to play by herself without him. So as soon as we eat she's begging me to play with her, and she mopes around until I do. I finally had to start telling her that if she didn't go and find something to play with on her own for a bit so I can get the kitchen cleaned up, then i'm not going to play with her. At which point she goes to her room and finds something to play with, but then still asks me every couple minutes if I'm ready to play yet.

Jadon is loving school still. You can tell he thinks he's a cool dude for getting to ride the bus. And i'm happy for him to get to ride. He had his jog-a-thon at school a couple weeks ago, and he ran 9 laps. And, his class ran the most laps out of all the school, so they get to have ice cream soon!
He's taking a lego class after school one day a week right now, and he's enjoying that.

Both kids are in swimming right now, both in level 3 together. Yes, Avery caught up pretty quickly. I've said it a billion times, but she's a fish. Poor Jadon is struggling after having a "traumatic" experience in swimming class a while back. So now he's afraid he's going to drown and starts panicking when they let go of him. Of course, when he panics he starts sinking. He did better at class this week though. He needs to get his confidence back up.

Well I cant think of what else is happening, so I better get ready for my hair appointment!

School days

Busy busy busy. I don't know why I always think that when school starts things will get less crazy?  But then again, I always think that summer will bring less chaos as well. Not so. I just need to accept that life will be crazy until the kids move out.

So about a month ago I hurt my back. I strained it so bad I could hardly walk. Luckily I had my annual physical with my doctor and I mentioned that my back was killing me and that I seem to get backaches A LOT. My doctor referred me to physical therapy. So twice a week i've been doing physical therapy. My back is very slowly getting better. And now I know how to deal with it better. However, my poor posture seems to be a major contribution to my back aches. I slouch when I stand, I slouch when I sit, and I don't always lift things properly. I'm ruining my back by doing all of those.

So school is going well for both kids. Jadon loves it still, and loves riding the bus. Sadly, last week they practiced their "drills"- fire drill, earthquake drill, and lockdown drill. It saddens me that they have to even HAVE a lockdown drill. Things have sure changed since we were in school.

Avery enjoys preschool, and during snack time, parents are selected each day to bring in snacks for the kids. It has to be healthy snacks, except on birthday days, people can bring in cupcakes or cookies or something like that. Well, Avery is not into "healthy" really. So twice now parents have brought in carrot sticks. The first day Avery refused to eat it. But the teacher told her she had to take a "polite bite" meaning she had to at least try it. Apparently she screamed about this, i'm not surprised, and it took her 20 minutes to take a teeny tiny bite. She also had to try a piece of turkey on another day. Avery does not eat meat, so again there was issues, but she did end up trying it. If only we could get her to try things around here, but we think its because she is in the room with a bunch of classmates and also because she's not quite comfortable enough with her teachers yet to blatantly tell them NO! like she does to us.
And in case anyone thinks we baby her when it comes to eating. I can assure you, we do not. She has missed many many many dinners and desserts because she refuses to eat or even try dinner. She skips probably on average 4-5 dinners a week. Our pediatrician told us last year at her appointment that after a few missed dinners, she'll get the hint. HA! Fat chance. She gets the point and she does not care. She's stubborn as can be. Little stinker!
She has another appointment coming up in a couple months so we'll see what her pediatrician says this time!

I painted Avery's bedroom this week, so now both kids' bedrooms are painted in colors they picked out. I love the color of Jadon's room, its a blue color. Avery wanted purple. Dark purple. So her room got painted a darker purple color. She loves it. Its not terrible, but its not my favorite. I had tried and tried to convince her to pick a lighter shade, but she desperately wanted the dark purple. So be it.

And so it begins again

Today was the first day of school for both the kids. Jadon's school was a frenzied crazy mess, as first days usually are. Poor kid though, we couldn't find his classroom. When we came last week to visit, the secretary showed us one of the wrong classrooms. So we found it right before the bell rang and we felt terrible leaving him like that. Queue me crying.
Then we dropped Avery off at preschool, and that was much less chaotic since there are only 14 kids, and we've been there before. I don't think she even knew or cared that we left, she was too busy playing with a Little People princess castle. But queue more crying for me anyways.

So now here I sit, its silent in the house, I can actually hear the fridge quietly humming. Its very strange, something I haven't experienced much of in 6.5 years. I feel oddly lost. Kindof like how I feel when I go shopping by myself, I feel more scattered and like i'm forgetting something.

Lunches will be totally strange and quiet for me and Avery, without Jadon here to jabber continuously.

I'm so excited to see him get off the bus this afternoon! He's been looking forward to riding the bus. I'm excited to hear all about his day.

Summer, swimming, house, & articles

I don't understand how this summer is going by so fast. Its depressing really. :(

Anyways, I've got a couple articles posted by friends on Facebook that I thought were good reads:

An article about accepting your post-baby body as something beautiful that grew a life in it! It will never be the same again, but it did a miraculous thing!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joy-gabriel/kate-middleton-and-the-mom-in-the-mirror_b_3672553.html?utm_hp_ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false

This is an article that follows a lady who takes pictures for Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep... an organization that sends photographers to hospitals following the loss of a baby, to take pictures of the baby. My friend who had the stillbirth last year did this, and the article has pictures of the family and baby, as well as thoughts and comments from them. Very touching.
http://www.pamplinmedia.com/lor/48-news/156045-a-gift-few-can-give

I think in my last post to the blog, I mentioned we were going to build a bookshelf and bed for Jadon.  "We" just finished and are in the process of getting it all painted. I say "we" because Derek decided that it was his project. ;) Being our/his first building project, it has its ups and downs. First off, the wood we bought was probably not the best wood for furniture, and most of the pieces were bowed. And there were issues when we tried to make the shelves movable. So we ended up doing staggered placed shelves instead. It ended up looking very nice though, regardless of the setbacks. And I think Derek had fun with his new tools- Kreg jig, circular saw, nail gun...
It was a good learning experience and I can't wait to see how the bed turns out! :)

Swimming lessons are going really well for the kids! Jadon finally passed level 2, and he has really taken to the water this year!  He's not a worrisome little guy who's tense and stiff in the water anymore. In level 3 he is learning how to do the freestyle swim on his own, both front and back. He has really taken off with lessons this summer, i'm so glad and proud of him! And he REALLY loves swimming now.
Avery is also doing really well in level 2. She is very young, so I expect her to be in level 2 for several sessions. She was pretty disappointed though when Jadon passed level 2 and she didn't.

Well around our neighborhood there's lots going on! We have a new neighbor moving in this month, the man to the right of us is building his own house and while its going to take him a long time, but he finally is getting the frame up.  And friday they started digging for the last house in the culdesac. Hopefully the new people moving into the houses will be a good fit for the neighborhood. Right now we have such great neighbors.... totally unlike what we had at our last house! We hardly knew any of our neighbors at our old house. We had a water fight with the neighbors to our left one night. And the kids love playing with the neighbor girl up the street, who ironically is also a 3 year old named Avery. Yes, we are still very happy here! :)
Unfortunately, the backyard project is much more work than I think we were anticipating. So the backyard will not be completed this year. Hopefully next year. We ARE hoping to have the deck done this year though.

Summer summer summertime

Busy summer already round these parts!
Already i've sewed 2 grocery bags from this tutorial- http://www.sew4home.com/projects/storage-solutions/make-your-own-grocery-bags - love them by the way! So much better than those cheap ones the stores sell! Much more durable!
I also converted 2 pairs of Avery's old jeans that she outgrew in length but not waist into skirts following this tutorial- http://www.allaboutyou.com/craft/make-clothes/sew-girls-denim-skirt - They turned out so cute, and since she has such a small waist, I made them a bit longer than the tutorial suggested, that way we will have plenty of growing room, both in length and waist!
I also went through ALL of the kids schoolwork and artwork for the last 3 years.... said goodbye to alot.... kept some.... and the best part is I organized them into neat, tidy bins to use for all their schoolwork through 12th grade! I found this idea from this blog: http://iheartorganizing.blogspot.com/2010/11/school-paperwork-storage.html- I heart that blog! :)
I also just finished painting Jadon's bedroom!
I've got several more projects in the works, as well as tulle all over the loveseat waiting to be made into tutu's for Sunnypatch. Everytime I turn around I find something new I want to do!
We've only taken 1 trip to the pool to swim so far, which is less than I was hoping to do. This is the last year we can take advantage of "toddler time" at the pool because its for kids 6 and under.
We took a day trip to Wildlife Safari and we all rode the camel. They have an elephant car wash too that we really wanted to do, but sadly it was closed that day. I guess they wanted to give the elephants a break.
Today we got 7 lbs of fresh blueberries, and i'm pretty sure Jadon already at a lb. That kid LOVES blueberries! He couldnt wait to get home to eat them.
I have been off of that horrible Topamax for almost a week now! My fuzzy brain feels sooooo much better, and i'm not super tired constantly like I was when on the Topamax. Aside from headaches and migraines, I feel terrific being off of it!!!! I had no idea it was making me feel so crappy.
I have only been on my new medication, a calcium channel breaker for less than a week. I haven't had any side effects from it, but I'm still waiting to see if it helps my migraines. Just feeling better physically has my spirits lifted though!
Jadon's bed broke unfortunately, so we are planning on making him a new bed... not sure WHEN we will find the time to, but i'm super excited! I love a good project ;) We will follow this tutorial: http://ana-white.com/2011/04/plans/hailey-storage-bed-twin and since his bookshelf is garbage, I was planning to make him this: http://ana-white.com/2012/03/plans/4-cubby-bookshelf-or-nightstand (another website that I heart!)
It seems that the convertible crips are not as fantastic as we thought they would be. Avery's bed works great as a crib and toddler bed, but once we converted to a full size bed, it doesnt work so well. The headboard and footboard do not work. Its as if they added it as a full just as an afterthought without thinking it through. I love her bed though, so Derek found a way to hook the headboard up to the frame. Maybe if Jadon's bed is successful, we will make her a new one that will include her headboard and footboard.

Medical

So its been a year and a half on my preventive migraine meds, and although they give me a ton of relief from the migraines in that they reduce the intensity of my migraines, I still get about as many as I did before. So, my doctor referred me to the neurologist, who I saw earlier this week. 

The neurologist said everything with my migraines sounded totally normal and didn't feel a need to order any scans. She said only 1% of the time do things actually show up on MRI's anyhow, so unless there's a concern, its a waste of my money. She basically said I could do it for peace of mind if I wanted to though. But i'll pass. 

She said sometimes migraines just cycle themselves out eventually. They are often hereditary, but just because I have them does not necessarily mean my kids will. I hope that's the case! 

So since the preventive i'm on isn't working well, the plan is to wean off of that over the next 2 weeks (or more if needed.) At the same time, I am also starting on a new medication, a beta blocker. Hopefully that will work better. 

I'm most excited to get off of the other med since it made my brain so foggy. Topamax is known for making people feel mentally slow.  Its nicknamed "dope-amax." Of course, not everyone has this side effect, but unfortunately I did. I forget things all the time, can't remember conversations, can't remember calendar events, have a hard time finding words when talking.... its extremely irritating. I feel like an idiot.

Unfortunately, when some people start beta blockers they can feel tired and run down for a few weeks.  Greeaaaat! But I guess that's nothing new since migraines all the time make me feel a little tired and run down too. 

Annnnd, I apparently displaced my tailbone. Last summer it started hurting, I just thought it must be bruised or something, and never sought medical attention for it. But it never got better, and so last month when I saw my PCP, she ordered an X-ray, and according to the findings on the X-ray, my tailbone is displaced. Not sure when or how this happened, I do not recall falling on my butt or injuring it somehow around that time, so who knows. Anyways, i've been putting off going back to my PCP for further treatment because well for one, its time for my annual (yuck), and 2, at that time she wants to do an internal exam of the tailbone also......... if you know what I mean.  So i've been putting it off.  And I'm worried about how they fix a displaced tailbone! I hope they'd give me an epidural or something! Put me under so I can't feel anything! 

And where the heck did our sunshine go?????????????????????

Graduate

Jadon graduated from kindergarten yesterday. They didn't have a graduation ceremony, so I made him a graduation cap (thank you Pinterest) and a diploma (thank you again Pinterest) just so I could take a picture of him. :)
To him it was pretty much just a normal day. To mommy it was like the end of the world. Apparently motherhood has turned me into an emotional mess and I'm required to cry about everything pertaining to my kids.  So yes, when we picked him up from school.... I cried.

I had Jadon give his teacher a potted plant with a little note taped to a pencil poking out of the dirt that said "Thanks for helping me grow this year" (another shout out to Pinterest.) It was the least we could do for all she did. She was the perfect teacher for Jadon for kindergarten, and she even made each of the kids a personalized scrapbook of the year. I'm not talking a 3 page scrapbook either. This is like a 20 page scrapbook. She put time into these.

It seems like the year just started, and now its already over. In the end, Jadon did very well, thrived even. It was a rough start though... moving from our house, the only house he knew, and that he loved. Where he was able to ride the school bus home from school and that he LOVED. Into a dark, dingy, stinky, tiny, bug infested rental that we all hated. And then 4 months later moving again. We had plenty of problems, and I thought we were all going to implode. But, with consistency, Jadon's counseling, and moving from the rental, we have emerged from the darkness. Thank goodness. And now Jadon only has one more session of counseling. 

He thrived in school regardless of his situation at home. 

So anyways, now we have a few months home. He told me the other day he was excited to be home with me all day. I'm planning to try to keep us busy this summer with fun activities since last summer was a total flop being consumed by house stuff. 

We love our house here, and we have so much space to roam and be free. So do I still miss our old house? Yes and no. I don't miss not having any storage space. I now have soooooo much storage space. And you know how I love to be organized.  I don't miss our tiny yard. I don't miss obnoxious neighbors. I don't miss the train. I don't miss the small master bathroom, or the extra 1/2 bath to clean. I don't miss the carpet or the ugly vinyl floor. I SERIOUSLY don't miss the laundry in the garage. I don't miss climbing the stairs with full laundry baskets.

I do miss the memories. I really miss seeing Jadon get off the school bus; it stopped right in front of the house. That was a very special time for him, and I'm so glad he was able to do it at least for a month and a half until we moved. I miss seeing the kids ride their bikes and playing in the yard... even though they do those things here, I still have fond memories from the old house. I miss that we didn't have any bugs bothering us. I miss that my plants (indoor and outdoor) seemed to grow without any effort from me. 

Have I driven by the house yet since we moved out? No. And i'm not sure when I will. I know.... I'm just too darn sentimental!!

Kids

My little guy is almost done with kindergarten. I'm pretty sure he just started yesterday and here he is already   finished!  He started the year as a little guy, and now he seems so grown up. Its amazing how much he has grown up this year... both physically and socially. In fact, he just had his yearly well-child checkup a couple weeks ago, and in the last 3 years he grew 11 inches! No wonder his pants are always short, and no wonder I have to buy them big just so they are long enough, but then the waist is too big. 

Every day this year, I have walked him up to his school because he wasn't comfortable with me dropping him off like all the other kids in the school. There are a few other kindergartners who also have mom or dad walk them in. I occasionally would ask if he wanted me to drop him off, but he would always say no. A couple weeks ago, he just decided out of the blue that he wanted to be dropped off from now on, and so now, that is what we do. It was bitter-sweet for me. I didn't mind taking him up, it gave me a chance to see some of the other kids he goes to school with and other grown ups. And it made it feel like he was still little I guess ;). But, I know that it was a big step for him, since he can be so timid about certain situations.

I know my time with him being a loveable little child is limited now, and soon he will be a cool boy.... too cool for his family.  In the last week when we've been walking places, a few times he's grabbed my hand to hold for a few seconds, and I treasure that.

Avery, my little fish as I have been calling her. She started swimming lessons a couple weeks ago. It was her first lessons in the pool in classes without me.  No longer in a "waterbabies" or "waterkids" class, but now in a youth swimming lesson, so I now sit on the sidelines watching. With the selling of the house and all the moving, we took quite a long break from swimming lessons.... like 9 months.  So I was afraid Avery would have forgotten everything she'd learned from her waterkids class. Um, no. She is even better in fact. And she LOVES having more freedom in the pool. She started in level 1, the lowest level in youth swimming, and they "test" the kids periodically throughout the session to see where they are at. She didn't even finish the 5 week session before she passed level 1, however she will finish out the session with the level 1 group. She is SO comfortable in the water, its crazy. 

Last weekend we went to a 1st birthday party/"birth"day party. Yes, a 2 in 1 kindof thing. Only it was not a typical birthday party. It was a heavenly birthday party. It was 1 year ago that my friend from high school lost her baby boy. He was overdue and was stillborn. His mommy wanted to have a first birthday party anyways. To add to this, they had another baby 3 weeks earlier, a baby girl. So it was a very special party for 2 reasons- to meet the new baby, and to remember the baby boy who was born sleeping into the arms of Jesus a year ago. My friend lives in Portland so I rarely see her and she wanted her friends and family in our area to be able to meet the new baby. The party was held at Sunnypatch, and it was really nice catching up with friends. The kids also had a blast because the other kids there were all around their ages.  We ended up staying until 10:30pm, and all the kids had tons of candy and Avery came home SUPER cranky. SUPER CRANKY. But at least they slept in the next morning!

Friday we went to Jadon's school carnival.  What fun!  In the weeks before the carnival, each class had a theme and everyone was encouraged to donate to their classes theme basket for the silent auction. There was a chocolate basket, a summer fun basket, a family/game night basket (Jadon's class), and I cant remember the rest.  We bid on Jadon's class basket $45 and won! So, for $45, we got I think 5 movies, only 1 of which we already have; 4 boxes of popcorn, several different games (including the one we bought for the basket), some flash cards, some glow necklaces, some popcorn bags for putting popcorn into. And a storage bin that it all came in :) I may have forgotten something else. 

The bookfair was also going on at the school, so each kid got a book, and we also bought a book for Jadon's teacher for her classroom. 

Jadon left a little bummed. He was expecting carnival rides. lol! He also left bummed because I think it hit home that he would not be returning to that school next year. While we were at the carnival he had met several teachers at the school, and they were all sooo nice, and said that maybe they would be able to get to know him next year, and he would have to tell them he would not be back next year. 

Our nice weather finally came back yesterday after nothing but cold and rain for weeks. And now we have to let our backyard dry out again before we can finish it. Oregon weather is never cooperative.

Happy Mothers Day!

My wonderful hubby is making me coffee cake for breakfast as I type, the kids are watching Disney Jr., so I thought i'd update the blog with some pictures!

My handsome little man! I think this one was on our trip to Washington

So a few weeks ago, the kids were being my "doctors" when I was getting over the last bit of a cold.... Jadon drew my diagnosis, and this is what it was.  A cough.

Deer in the backyard. We have a family of 4 that frequents the backyard often. 

Jadon's Spring school picture. I told him to smile big like he did in his Fall picture, but he apparently forgot that. There were only 2 other kids from his class that got Spring pictures. He's looking awfully grown up though! My goodness!

My pretty little angel.

Typically when she gets out of bed every morning, she comes out of her room with a bunch of things...usually her doll stroller and a baby inside, a purse or bag, flip flops or slippers, or wearing something like jewelry. The binky adds just the right touch! ;) 

Part of the back of the house.  For some reason its not letting me upload another picture, so that's just part of it. But we are planning to put a large deck on the back of the house.  

 In trying to get our office/craft room organized, I was desperately searching for some way to creatively organize all my ribbon spools to make things convenient for me, and yet not take up a bunch of space! Id looked everywhere online, and all I was finding were things that were not convenient.  Those large ribbon spool holders are not convenient because you have to take all the spools off to get to the one you need, then put them all back on again. We had this large heavy duty cardboard tube that was left some construction of the house after move-in, and my clever hubby asked if I could use it in any way for the ribbon. **LIGHT BULB** So I cut pieces off and sliced them in half, then covered them with fabric and mod podge, and the end result was pretty much just what I was looking for. This freed up an entire storage bin, and space in the closet! 

Another picture of my pretty little angel.

The cat, passed out on the back porch in the morning sun.  The cats absolutely LOVE it here, I cant say it enough. They really do.

Look at the butterflies out here!!!  They are massive and totally colorful! ;)

At school the other day, Jadon made the yellow butterfly in this picture, and I thought it was the cutest thing, and so that day the kids and I made 2 more to hang on the patio door. Arent they adorable?

We are constantly blown away by Jadon's reading abilities... I know i've mentioned it 20 times already, but its truly amazing.  Here's a sample of what he reads... with ease, I might add!  We don't ever have to help him out with words. His reading group is still the only group out of 4 to have started on 1st grade reading. They started that back in January.  The other groups are still working on kindergarten stuff.  Last week, his group had to go and help out one of the other groups with reading. And he has informed us that he likes his reading homework. We will have to keep working with him for sure this summer! 

In other news around here, since its been almost a month again since I last posted....... time flies when you're having fun in your new house! :)

We've been blessed with some super super nice weather for the last month! 70's and 80's... sunshine.... totally gorgeous!  Which was just what we needed to dry out our backyard so they could come dig up the trees, blackberry bushes, and level out all the dirt so we could start getting our backyard turned into a backyard!  So yesterday they came an did just that! Unfortunately, the piles of dirt that they had made from the construction were just too big and were not dried out enough to be able to finish the job, so they will have to come back in a month to finish. But now, our backyard is free of all trees, bushes, and is level, and after looking at piles of dirt and basically field and scrawny trees for the last few months, its pretty weird seeing it all gone and leveled! And it really shows how ginormous our yard is now! Even the guy who ran the bulldozer said it was a really nice yard.  So, we are pretty stinkin' excited to get things goin'! Our plans are to get a nice deck on the back of the house, have a nice garden somewhere, perhaps a couple fruit trees, and a basketball hoop, a shed, and a swingset.  All in good time.

A couple months ago, we debated whether to keep Jadon in karate or not because after you've been in karate for awhile, they require you to buy a Gi (a karate uniform) plus biyearly insurance since it can be a dangerous sport... not so much at Jadon's age though. We thought this was ridiculous. After researching though, I found that this seemed typical of most karate classes. He has really improved in his balance and coordination is slowly improving. Also he's building strength and getting exercise. So, we decided to keep him in, at least for a bit longer. Kindof like laying a foundation for him an any future sports he might want to do, since this is helping his balance and coordination. 

And every 2 months they do testing, and if they've earned enough stripes on their belt, and their sensei thinks they are ready, they are invited to test to see if they can move up to the next belt color.  The belt colors are really weird at his age, its not just white, yellow, orange, blah blah.

So Last month Jadon was invited to test, so we went and he had to test. Parents are not allowed to be there during testing, but Jadon and 2 of the kids in his class tested together and they all passed!  Jadon and one boy moved up to a white belt with a yellow stripe down the center, and the other boy moved up to a while belt with an orange stripe. So now, a little more is expected of him, which is a good thing. 

Avery started swimming lessons again, and shes now in level 1, so I am not in the water with her anymore... shes a big girl now! She's a fish...or a mermaid. She looooves the water.  She's always been good at swimming, and apparently almost a year away from lessons didn't mess her up much. She needs a little more challenge than level 1 has to offer I think, so we think she'll be moving to level 2 really fast. 

Jadon will be joining her in lessons after school is done.  By then they may both be in level 2 together. Poor Jadon and his tentative nature.... maybe if he and Avery are in the same group he'll feel more challenged to push himself.

HOWEVER, she's fully potty trained now.... with pee that is.  Poop is a disaster. For some reason she thinks there's a toilet monster!  And so when we asked what the toilet monster is, she said its her poop! So how are we supposed to teach her that her poop is not a monster when its in the toilet???  She's only scared of it when she's sitting on the toilet. She said that when she's 6 like Jadon she'll try pooping on the potty. Oy.

So I'm going to see a neurologist next month for my migraines and headaches. The preventive medication i'm on just isn't cutting it, so my PCP referred me on. Hopefully they change medication or something. I'm not liking this stuff that i'm on. It makes me tired, ALOT, and makes me feel very mentally slow. My short term memory is shot. 

So I think that's about it for now. 

Well we've been here in our new house almost 2 months now! We're finally getting settled in....some pictures hung on the walls, almost all the boxes are emptied, or at least have been addressed in some manor.  The majority of the mess in the garage now is from large items that we no longer need that we brought with us from the old house- our old washer/dryer, microwave stand, and things of that nature.

Our backyard should be started in a couple weeks when it starts drying out more, and let me tell you, we cant WAIT for that! Right now, the gigantic pile of mud out our large back windows is really unattractive, and the water that pools around it is an attractant to the kids.... so, they've come in from outside covered in mud, and i do mean covered- from head to toe, dripping wet, with mud. 

I don't think we'll be able to get a garden started in time this year, but next year, look out!  We're having a beautiful garden with lots of good veggies, and tons of strawberry bushes and blueberries since the kids eat them like they are candy!  We've talked about a fruit tree or two.... we've got plenty of room for it now! Perhaps this year we'll be able to prep for next years garden ;)

We really love it here though.  We see lots of wildlife, as I may have already mentioned?  Lots of bluebirds, which I researched and they are Western Scrub Jays. A family of 4 deer have been wandering around the area in the evenings, and in fact last night I was doing dishes and I looked up and out the backdoor and one of the deer is about 10 feet from the backdoor!  

And so Kira, one of our cats, spends most of her time on our small 3x3 temporary deck out the back door. Since she's getting old, all she does is sleep out there all day, I think 2 moves in 4 months really stressed her out, and she's pretty high strung so I think this last move did her in, so now she just sleeps almost all the time on the back porch. So we've been feeding her on the back porch. So one night I was sitting on the couch, kids were in bed, Derek was in the office working. And I heard a commotion on the porch so I looked back, and I saw Kira, but all I could really see was her tail, and it was HUGE, so obviously something freaked her out. So I went to the door to inspect.

Sitting there staring her down was a big old raccoon!!!!! Now, I know those things are really cute, but that they are mean as can be! So I'm banging on the door trying to get it to go away and it just sits there, and i'm banging on the door trying to get Kira to go away so she doesnt get attacked, but she just sits there! It eventually it jumped down but just stood by the deck, so at that point I opened the door enough to stick my arm out and try to motion it away and hiss at it and yell at Kira to go away some more. Of course, both just sit there.  Finally the thing turns its back in defeat and wanders off, but it kept looking back at me. Kira was pretty jumpy the rest of the evening.

And now we don't feed the cats after dark unless we have to.

Other wildlife, someone across the field from us has a peacock that is often wandering around the backyard. Thats amusing as neither cats nor bird seem to really notice each other or care that the others are there.

Jadon had his 6th birthday, and when we were in the rental he'd talked about having a party in our new house.  We didn't think we'd be here in time though.  We were!  But since i'd been sick that first week, and Derek was tied up with his big work project for those first 2 weeks, we never had a chance to plan anything. So we had a late one a few weeks ago, and he was super excited :) 

Not last weekend but the weekend before, we made a trip up to Washington for 4 days. Derek's grandpa passed away, so we were going up for the celebration of life service. The kids did surprisingly well!  Considering we don't take that many overnight trips.  They had a hard time settling down to go to sleep the first night.  It didnt help that Avery took a huge nap on the way up, and that they sat immobile all day in the car so they didn't get to burn any energy off.  And it was on this trip that we learned of Derek's love of hotel toast! ;)

So i'm FINALLY getting around to getting my monthly menu back up!  I plan to start back in May, and i'm really excited, I found some new recipes on Pinterest that i'm excited to try.  We've been stuck in this horrible horrible rut since we moved out of our old house and away from the menu, and i'm so sick of food, and its no wonder Jadon always wants to eat out now!  It was hard at the rental because I had no space to cook, so I made easy things that cooked fast... a lot of boxed items. As a result, I've put on a couple pounds. It doesnt help that i've had to miss a lot of my exercise classes due to illness, moving, and Derek being busy with work and unable to be home in time. 

So i'm excited to finally be getting back into the swing of things and get back on track! 

3 weeks already!

Its hard to believe its been 3 weeks already since we moved! Every day I wake up i'm still so thankful for this house and can't believe its ours!
Everyone is so happy here!  We love everything about it here. Even the birds in the backyard are mostly bluebirds, which are so much prettier than sparrows! Even the cats are thrilled to be here! And not because of the birds, but because of all the space they have to roam.
We occasionally have a female peacock roaming around in our backyard, and lots of deer pass through. And its so quiet here! And the air is fresh and doesn't smell!

We are very slowly getting settled. Its been slow going but its happening.  Boxes are finally almost gone from  inside the house... can't say the same for the garage, but slowly that is being chipped away as well.
So we haven't taken any pictures of the house yet since its been a mess, but I thought i'd take you on a mental tour.

So i'll start with the master. So I did not realize just how badly the rental reeked. I'm guessing we eventually started to adjust to the stink since we lived in it all the time. But after moving, we can smell it. Just walking into our master closet, the smell of the rental settled into all our clothes, shoes, blankets, coats, etc. It smells terrible in our closet!  So, I ended up washing every piece of clothing that we own that could be washed, every blanket, every sheet, every coat.... i haven't done shoes yet, but that's next.  Its been a very long process.  I also bought a reed diffuser to put on the shelf in the closet, hoping to get rid of that smell!!!
As far as the master bedroom, its become the dumping ground for all of our wall hangings and decorative objects that came out of boxes, as well as extra blankets and things that i'm still trying to find homes for in the house. Its pretty disorganized.

The master bathroom is looking nice though.  The drawers were full of my hair and body products though, and it was bugging me because some of them couldn't stand up because they were too tall.  My little sister pinned this on Pinterest: http://www.kevinandamanda.com/whatsnew/house-and-home/organize-overflowing-bathroom-beauty-products-with-crown-molding-shelves.html And i thought it was a really nice idea, and surprisingly it doesn't look cluttered! I immediately loved the idea and went and bought those shelves (very cheap $6 each at Walmart) and created my own wall.  Of course, mine doesn't look nearly as pretty as that girls does... hers looks like a beauty salon of products, but mine serves its purpose!

My laundry room, I am LOOOOOVING!  LOVE having indoor laundry!  My laundry gets done much quicker, I don't dread doing it nearly as much!  And I love my new washer/dryer... they sing to me when they are done. :)  I love having a utility sink also, and its came in handy several times already when Avery's pooped her underwear.  The stuff that wouldn't come off in the toilet sprayed off easily in the utility sink.  Unfortunately, the very first load of laundry that I did in my new washer, I washed one of her turds unknowingly. She'd pooped her pants, and apparently a turd got in her pants too that I didn't see when I threw in the washer, so when I pulled the first load out after it was finished, I thought it smelled a little less than fresh, and a couple turdlets fell out and I picked one up wondering what it was.  I smelled it.  Really!?!?!  I washed a turd on the very first load!? Luckily my new washer has a "sanitize" wash, which I think just uses super hot water and washes for longer. But, since it was not clothes that I could wash in hot, I ended up washing the load twice in cold just to make myself happy.  Then the next load I did the sanitize option!

Office/craft room, is slowly coming together.  I finally got my sewing/craft table that I got for christmas put together.  The room is still disorganized and very messy, but its not a high priority.  It functions fine, so we can organize it after more important things are done.

Kids rooms haven't changed much... a couple things added to the walls.... a little rearranging.  That's about it.  Oh, and the kids already managed to rip the curtain rod in Avery's room out of the wall. Clearly the drywall anchors that came with the rod were garbage.

Kitchen and living area is finally looking normal!  Derek is slowly getting the cabinet pulls on the cabinets in the kitchen, but its slow going. When he's done with the kitchen, he'll still have to do both bathrooms, and laundry room. And yesterday our TV mount finally came, so he got the TV on the wall.
My kitchen still has empty cupboards, :) although yesterday I did a little rearranging while dinner was cooking. Canned goods were in a very terrible awkward spot where I couldn't find anything I needed, so they got moved, and I think now they will be much easier to find things, however I had to use up a cupboard that was once empty. :( Sad times, I like being able to brag that I have empty cupboards since i've always had a shortage of cupboards and had to store things in extra cabinets all over the house/garage.

I love how much space we have!  Currently, i'm sitting on the couch, the kids are on the floor in front of me with the bins of legos out, playing legos.  I've got 4 baskets of laundry sitting on the floor near them, with laundry waiting to be washed, the vacuum is out, several boxes are sitting out, a puzzle is in the middle of the floor, and 2 small ottomans, and a new tree/plant and it still doesn't feel overwhelming or messy. In the rental the entire living room would have been taken up, and even at our old house, the living room would have been quite full, and overwhelming.
The other day the kids were running around and through the house chasing each other, and Derek and I were smiling at each other that it was nice that they had room to run now.

Jadon's attitude has improved since moving, and its amazing to me that the rental house had such a hugely negative impact on all of us. I remember while we were there feeling like I whined and complained about it all the time, and then I started to feel like maybe I was just being dramatic.  Then when moving day came (finally!) and I heard everyone's comments about the rental house, how bad it smelled, how small it was, how gross it was... it made me feel better that I wasn't being overly dramatic about the place. :)
I wouldn't say that living in the rental makes me more grateful for our house now because I am grateful for this house no matter where we had lived before. I was grateful for our last house.  However, i'm so extremely thankful that we didn't have to live in the rental for longer than 4 months!!! I'm grateful to our lender who pushed for a quicker closing date to save us money, and i'm grateful for our builder who had no problem taking on that challenge!

And because I haven't had a chance to thank you all yet, THANK YOU so much to our families for helping us move in!

6 years old

Its hard to believe that my little boy turns 6 tomorrow.  He's growing up so fast.  Every year i'm amazed how he's grown and changed in so many different ways. He has more energy now than he did when he was a toddler or preschooler, and he is constantly climbing..... climbing on counters, over couches, in the window sills, up the cabinets, up the cars, up trees... pretty much if he can climb it, he will, regardless of if he's supposed to or not. 

He's more of a handful now than he was as a toddler/preschooler too, which is weird. He's a very particular kind of guy, and likes to have things go the way he has them planned out in his head, and if they don't go that way, he gets a bit out of sorts. 

The last year has been hard for him because of this.  A lot of changes in his life. And now we are having to make another big decision- which school to go to.  Stay at the school he's at, but we're just outside the zone for it, so he wouldn't get to ride the bus, which he really wants to do.  Or, go to the school in our new zone and have to leave his friends behind, and the familiarity of his current school, but get to ride the bus. He's pretty torn. 

He is a very smart kid.  He reads everything.  EVERYTHING.  We worried that reading would be hard for him, but reading comes so incredibly easy to him, its insane. His reading group at school started on 1st grade level reading a month or so ago, and its a breeze for him.  

We started him in karate in January to help him learn balance, coordination, and focus.  His balance has improved, and he finally learned how to do a real push up... something he has struggled with.  The physical aspect is good too, he gets a lot of good exercise. 

He and Avery are such good friends.  They get along really well 90% of the time.  On the day these pictures were taken, it was shortly before we moved into the new house, and Derek was trying to buy new socks.  Who knew it takes 20 minutes to decide what socks to buy??? ;)

Anyways, the kids entertained themselves by trying on different hats that were nearby, and then posing so I could take their pictures.  Eventually Jadon got silly. 

Looks like he's trying to have a movement in the last few!

His 4th tooth finally fell out last week!  Its been loose forever, and the grown up tooth had almost grown completely in front of it, but it FINALLY came out!  He was disappointed that the tooth fairy didn't bring him a new tooth brush or floss, but since he already has 3 toothbrushes, and had just visited the dentist the week prior and gotten a new tooth brush, the tooth fairy thought he didn't need another tooth brush. Besides, the tooth fairy wasn't prepared for the tooth to come out that night so she didn't have a new tooth brush in waiting. :)

Anyways, Happy Happy 6th birthday to my big boy, my firstborn, my son who made me a mama! I love you!

A piece of heaven

We've been in our new house now for 3 full days now, today will be the 4th. It feels a bit like a piece of heaven on earth here. We are loving it!
Its been slightly....who am I kidding, its been extremely chaotic.... having boxes everywhere, and not knowing where anything is. We've vowed never to move again.

It took me a full day just to get the kitchen unpacked, and i'm still coming across boxes that have kitchen stuff in them. I have empty cupboards still, and plenty of counter space.  I even have my toaster oven, toaster, and tea maker on the counter, as well as 3 utensil holders and a knives holder, spice rack..... annnnnd i've still got plenty of space! :)

The house is so bright, like our old house, and I love the views!  Out our back this morning were 3 deer!  And I love looking out the front, and seeing the neighbors house way on the other side of the culdesac.  Our closest neighbor will be next door, and her house is being built next month.

We met our other neighbors, and theres another 3 year old little girl named Avery who lives just a couple houses away.  That spells trouble with a capital T!

The cats?  Well, they are loving it here too.  There was no disappearing acts for 5 days.  They seemed to have immediately settled in.  They love having all the space to roam around!

The kids are enjoying it here too. Jadon really loves it here.  He's very happy. And the drive to school is a quick hop skip and a jump away.  The parents are enjoying it too, but we haven't had much opportunity to take it all in yet. I do feel like I have breathing room though, and I think Derek is happy to have his desk back.

The rental is done.  My mom helped me clean it all up yesterday, and the keys are turned in, and it has been wiped from our hands now!  It was crazy going back in there, I can't believe we lived there for 4 months, it smells so badly and is so dingy!  We feel incredibly blessed to have this house.

I'm looking forward to going through the rest of the boxes and getting things organized.  Unfortunately I came down with what we think is the flu yesterday, so i've been ordered to take it easy. Which means boxes will have to wait. And I can't break the rules because Derek is working from home today and he won't let me. I'm the only one in the house who didn't get a flu shot. I don't usually get the flu shot unless i'm pregnant, and I usually manage to avoid the flu, but this year is such a bad year, Id be surprised if I came out without getting it.

Counting it down

Almost done! The house will be done in a couple days! Its looking beautiful if I do say so myself! ;) I can hardly wait to move in!

We were joking the other day because the breakfast bar alone at the new house has about the equivalent of the entire amount of counter space we have here in the rental!  Even my laundry room beats the amount of counter space that the kitchen in the rental has!

This weekend we ordered our fridge, and washer/dryer. A new washer was needed since our current 9 year old one would randomly leak. This has never been a big problem since our laundry has always been in the garage on a concrete floor. But we didn't want it leaking inside our new house.

On a different note, Avery was complaining that her ear was hurting her last week so after a couple days and no improvement I took her in and she indeed had an ear infection. Just her second one, and it was luckily just a mild to moderate one, and the doctor gave us an rx but said we could wait a few days to see if it goes away on its own. We did that since it wasn't affecting her in any way- she was still acting normal, sleep wasn't affected, appetite hadn't changed, no fever, etc. and it appears to have been the right call as she says a couple days later that it's not hurting anymore.

Jadon had his valentines day party at school last week and avery and I got to help out for that. That was fun, but it's always amusing being around a group of kindergarteners. Avery just walked around socializing with all the kids and grownups...seriously, I have to wonder sometimes if she is really my child with as social as she is, but then again, I enjoy people, im just shy.... It's not like I don't like people. If I weren't shy I would be very social I imagine.

So we've got a very busy week ahead of us, getting things ready for the big long awaited move! There  is so much sickness going around right now, we've been extra cautious about it since Derek's big work project is happening next week and the move is happening this week. I realize with Jadon in school there's only so much I can do. I dreaded taking the kids to pediatrics last week for Avery's ear infection. But then again, what parent doesn't dread taking their kid to pediatrics in the middle of cold and flu season?  Or any season for that matter! I really really really hate this time of year! Can't wait for summer!

Anyways, busy week, so I should probably wrap this up and get started!

House pix

Since those of you who don't/can't get out to see the house "growing up", I thought i'd post a few pictures.  The first few were taken over the weekend. They are of the kitchen/dining/living area- all one big room. They had just painted all the doors so the doors were all standing in the middle of the living room floor, so it was hard to get a good picture.  Actually, it was hard to get a GOOD picture of anything with my ipod.

Here i'm standing in the middle of the kitchen, looking towards the breakfast bar (and Jadon), and towards the back of the house, or what we refer to as the "wall of windows" since its mostly all windows.

And here i'm standing in the spot where the last picture was just looking, and now looking into the kitchen.

This picture i'm standing back in the middle of the kitchen looking more towards the middle of the living room.  We debated about the vaulted ceiling, since the kitchen is also vaulted, but we are so glad we went with the vault!  Its such a small vault, but it looks so nice :)

Here is the master bathroom cabinets, just installed today! There will be dual sinks... Derek and I are excited to have our own sinks!

And this is exciting.... my laundry room! :) I didn't get to see the cabinets personally, but Derek said the room and cabinets look huge now.  And, the corner cabinet is a lazy susan... a pleasant surprise!  Didn't realize it would be a lazy susan! Washer and dryer will go on the left of the cabinets.  I'm so excited to have INDOOR laundry facilities! I think my laundry will get done faster, because I won't put off going into the garage to freeze! Also, a utility sink will be in the cabinets also. Another thing i'm really excited for!

I cant wait to see the kitchen cabinets installed!  At the end of the kitchen cabinet there will be a desk, which will be home to my laptop, and will be my command center where i'll keep my day planner, my monthly meal planner, and everything else I need to help keep the family and house organized and running smoothly!

Beautiful

Our house is looking really beautiful!  I'm so happy with the plan we chose, and I can't wait to move in! Its so light and bright inside, i'm so happy with it!

This week the changes have been less obvious, but they are still happening rapidly.  The ceiling was textured and painted, the walls were textured and will be painted this week, exterior was painted and trim is in the process of being painted. Gutters were installed. Garage floor was poured.  Interior trim was installed and painted. Someone is ALWAYS at the house doing something, day and sometimes nightly too. It really is like extreme makeover!

So why is there a push to get the house done so quickly? Well for starters, because it can be done. Randy said any house can be built fast, and it does not affect the quality of the house.  Usually when a house is built, between each job, the house sits for weeks with nothing happening. For example, after foundation is laid, it sits for weeks. After walls go up, it sits for weeks, etc.  These weeks add up to months.  Randy just scheduled our house so that there was never any down time, and even sometimes crews were there at the same time.
Secondly, our lender, who has worked with our builder many times before, was pushing for a sooner closing date so we could get locked in at a low rate. (Funny thing is, the day after we locked in, it went up a half a point, so we saved a lot of money there!)
Thirdly, Randy has several other jobs lined up waiting!  Funny.... we talked to several other builders who said they hadn't built houses in years because the economy was so terrible.  Its because they aren't willing to build quality homes at lower costs.  They are more worried about making a pretty penny than just having the work.  That's why we like our builder.  He's not willing to raise his prices! :) And THAT is why he has work and the others don't.

This coming week pretty much everything will be finished, and I cant WAIT!!! :)
We spent a couple hours at the house yesterday measuring the windows for blinds, and talking with the landscaper who will be doing the front yard this week. We met our future neighbor, who dropped in to show her friend the house because she will be building a house right next to ours, and she loved our floor plan so much shes going to use our floor plan too.  Derek's a bit disappointed. He was really excited to have a house that probably no one in the world had. Obviously the floor plan was similar to someone else's but not with the changes we made.  Luckily Randy will be building her house also, and he told his designer to change the elevation of her house to look differently from ours.

Jadon's starting to get anxious about moving. We started taking him back to see his counselor a few weeks ago. His counselor said that Jadon is a hard one to get information from, but his session yesterday went really well and he gathered a lot of insight. Jadon really really REALLY hates this rental house, he's excited about the new house, but also confused about moving. He's also still having some underlying issues with the sickness stuff. I figured. Whenever a kid is not at school, thats the first thing he tells me about his day when I pick him up. Or the first thing he tells me is that a kid went home sick that day. Or he seems to be a little anxious when his teacher is out for a couple days. Oddly, he didn't have any problems when I was sick a couple weeks ago.
He really misses our old house, and doesn't understand why we had to move. Its all he ever knew. He's very sensitive to changes in his life. We are learning when something is bugging him, how he is acting.
The other night, he wouldn't stay in bed, and was crying about it, which is not normal unless somethings bugging him. So we went to talk to him. It was really sweet, he tried really hard to tell us what was going on in his little noggin that was bugging him, but he doesn't understand and therefore can't fully put into words.  So he told us that he had a lot of boxes in his head, and they all had question marks in them. So we talked to him about moving and the new house a little and how things will get back to normal again, then after that he said one of the boxes turned into an exclamation point. We were proud of him for trying to talk to us. That's the first time he's been able to tell us somewhat whats going on in his head.

On a different note, we signed him up for karate last month.  Poor kid, I didn't realize just how much of my lack of balance and coordination he got from me, but its pretty evident at karate. However, after 5 or 6 weeks of karate we are already noticing an improvement in his balance, so we are encouraged!  He is enjoying it too. I've heard a lot of positive things about karate, physically, mentally, emotionally. I think its good for him. Its teaching him to be quick, focused, strong, confident, etc. He has earned 4 stripes on his belt. We are working with him at home on everything as well. Practice makes perfect.

Avery is still the same. Nothing affects her!  I always sign her up for gymnastics at the beginning of the year for a few months through the college.  She LOVES it!  Its not my favorite... I hate driving all the way there, having to find a parking spot, then having to walk a mile to get to the building. Okay, i'm being dramatic, but its not the most convenient. Plus there's very little seating inside for the boys to sit and watch, and actually watching can be impossible sometimes.  But, Avery loves it, so that's why we do it. She's good too. She's much more agile than her brother.  Much more athletic. She has no problem doing everything that the teacher  says, and she has got some good listening skills!!  When I don't think she's listening, she is.  For example, the teacher will set up a little obstacle course thing on the floor, about 6 different things, and then show them what to do all at once. I don't expect a 3 year old to remember what to do for any of them, but she knows exactly what to do, so she was clearly paying attention!

Anyways, daylight savings begins in a month and Jadon's birthday is in a month. Very excited about both!  And very glad we will be in our new house for both! :)

2 weeks!!!

In 2 weeks we get to sign our lives over to our beautiful new home! Which means in 2 weeks and 1 day we will be moving into our beautiful new home! ..... but whose really counting? ;)

We are super super excited, but there's a ton of things that need to be done, here and there and everywhere!  The next 2 weeks will no doubt be busy ones, but i'm okay with that, considering the circumstances.

Tired...

If you asked me if I'm too excited about the house to sleep, the answer would be yes.

House update

Excitement is growing in the Loveless household!  We have a new closing date of...drum roll please................................................................................................................................

FEBRUARY 22nd!  Yes that is correct, 3 weeks from now!

Interior walls are being put up as I type. Siding is being put up as I type. The driveway and garage are being poured next week. The siding is being painted in the next couple days. After that, all that will be left will be trim work in the house, which may be done sooner and I just don't know it...carpets and flooring's  cabinets and counters, toilets and of course sinks and faucets, and painting the interior, and of course all the finishing touches like fixtures. Its really coming along, its amazing.  Every time we go is a huge change.

I have to admit, I was a little worried the second we submitted the plans, even after spending hour after hour analyzing the plans until we came up with what we thought was the best possible plan for us.  There were still things that worried me.  But now seeing it all come together, every time I go I love it more!  Its nice and bright, which was a HUGE deal for me.  I HAVE to have natural light. That's one thing I loved about our last house was all the natural light. And that is very important for me, especially in the winter months when I tend to get dragged down by the short, gray, dreary days.
In the new house, our plans called for basically our living/dining area to be a wall of windows, but its facing the west. Getting to go there in the middle of winter and see how it is, and there's lots of light coming in, even in the winter.

Another thing that I am really loving is the HUGE hallway!  Not long, but very wide!  Its so wide because the original plan was, as I think I mentioned a daylight basement plan, so the hallway was where the stairs were to be, so we took out the stairs and put in a huge storage closet area instead, but the hallway is really wide, and it is really great! Several people can walk through there at a time. The kids will be able to run around and play.....

We are really loving our builder as well.  He has been great.  He's not just out to make a fast buck, even though the house is going up fast. If he were out to make a fast buck, we would not been able to build, it would have been too expensive for us. He's a family man with 6 young kids, the youngest still an infant.

We are leaving some projects for the future for us to do in an effort to save some money.  For example, the back patio/porch, we are just having a small 3x3 pad- which is what he is required to do- put in for now, and then we are going to build a deck, and i'd like to put a post up on the end of the over hang on the back patio as it looks funny hanging over with nothing supporting it... IMO.  We plan to someday put some stonework on house as well, but not for a long while i'm guessing.... like on this house: Dovetail with bricks That is actually the color we are painting the exterior as well.  (I loooooove the color of the doors on that house too, but those doors were much too spendy for our budget, so we had to go with white doors.)

So there you have it!  We're in the process of picking out our lighting, which will be minimal. And then we will be picking our faucets, and after that I think most everything has been picked! Phew! What a whirlwind ride this has been!  Its still hard to imagine us living in the house.

Home progress

So the house is rapidly moving along!  All the exterior walls are up, and all the interior "bones" are up, so we were able to walk through the house and get a feel for how it actually will be.  Pretty much how I envisioned it after analyzing our plan for so long!  There are things here and there that are either bigger than we expected, like all of the windows (which is a good thing!), or smaller than we expected (like the kids bathroom) but not a huge deal and nothing we could really do anything about anyways without changing the floor plan and adding to the cost of it which we could not do. And really, how much time will they spend in there?  We got along fine in our previous TEENY bathrooms, so this will be just fine!

Did I mention the roof is up and the shingles also? Yeah, they are.  

The windows and exterior doors are in the garage and will be installed on tuesday. We just picked out our front door earlier this week and already its there!  The shower/tubs are sitting outside waiting to be installed this week too. Also the interior walls will get their "meat."

The electrician comes this week as well so we had to go mark any special places where we wanted plugs and cables installed. 

This past friday we went and picked out our cabinets. We went with cherry cabinets in a shaker style I guess is what its called? We then picked out all our flooring- carpets, vinyls, laminates. Countertops/backsplash.  Phew, it was exhausting but I think we are happy with our choices!  I know i'm definitely happy with the cherry cabinets because i've always thought they were beautiful, but we'll see how the rest looks once its put together. 

Our master bedroom closet is humongous. I didn't realize it would be so big, at least for us its huge. Considering we don't really have a ton of clothes or shoes, we are going to have a heck of a lot of extra storage space in our closet! And the floor plan we selected originally had a daylight basement with a set of stairs in the hallway, but obviously we did not need a daylight basement for this lot or the stairs, so in place of the stairs we made a giant storage closet.  I shouldn't have an issue with storage in this house like I did at our other house! Since the closet is not as wide as a set of stairs, this also made for a nice wide hallway as well. I LOVE how spacious the house feels! I can't wait to move in and feel the breathing room!

My only complaint is that right between our lot and the next lot is a street light, but looking out Jadon's bedroom window of the house the first thing you see is this big street light. Hopefully with some clever landscaping I can make it less noticeable- both from the street and from inside the house!

I am just beyond thrilled! This is such a dream come true for us! We always knew we wouldn't stay in our last house forever since it was such a tiny lot, but we never dreamed that we'd actually ever be able to sell it and make enough to afford to move somewhere bigger with a bigger lot. I'm so excited my kids will get to run and play in their own backyard and kick/throw a ball in it, have a slip n slide, a pool, a swing set, a playhouse, etc.  We would be able to fit it all in our lot now, and then some! And we will be able to have our families and friends come over and be able to fit comfortably inside our house for gatherings without being squished inside.  We will even be able to put the leaf in our table and have plenty of room! 

I can't wait to have you all over to see it when we move in! :)

Pix Post

Here's a long overdue picture post.  Just random pictures! 

A few weeks ago, Avery learned how to write her name.  This was the first time she wrote it.  She hasn't stopped since, and she has greatly improved!  And now I don't even have to tell her anymore what letters to write, she knows the letters in her name.  My little smarty pants :)

Avery got some lip gloss for Christmas from her Aunt Alayna, and we got that out a couple weeks ago, and boy did she have fun with that.  She had to keep applying it over and over to both our lips, and here we are showing off our glossy lips.

One morning Avery came out of her room with I think every piece of jewelry she owns on, as well as a flower in her hair and her sunglasses on.  She was very stylish.  I snapped several pictures (only posted 2 here though). My favorite is the 2nd one on here where her big brother tried to photo bomb.  Have I ever mentioned how much I love having both a boy and a girl? I get the best of both worlds!

Here is the foundation of our house!  This picture was taken on the 15th of this month. 

Like I said, Avery is constantly writing her name now......even in pretzels. 

This sweet little face was beginning to remind me of Tow Mater (see next picture).  His two top teeth are loose, and while the one adult tooth has already started growing in front of the baby tooth, the other one was not, and it was growing properly.  However, that tooth kept getting looser as the adult tooth was pushing it out, and as it pushed it, it started to stick out and down farther and farther.   To be continued..........

So this picture was taken yesterday of the house and all the walls, internally and externally are now up!

Wearing her sleeping mask.  She insists on wearing it most nights.  Such a personality she is!

We've had the weirdest weather lately!  Its been cold!  Mid-upper 20's and low 30's, but never warmer, and the fog never clears.  Its been going on this way for like a week.  And for many of those days we've had some freezing fog.  Except the freezing fog only affects this particular area, and then once you get out of that  "zone" it clears and its dry. So this is pretty much what yesterday looked like, and today at our house.  On our way home from dropping Jadon at school, the street was empty, I slowed down and snapped a picture because its so weird to me.  Its very slick.  I couldn't figure out why they hadn't cancelled school, and then once I got out of that pocket, it was pretty clear, and by the time I got to Jadon's school, the road was dry. I really have enjoyed the pretty white though!  Its given us some different scenery.  

And today when I picked Jadon up from school, I noticed a hole in his mouth. His tooth finally came out! It got knocked out while he was playing basketball at recess.  Now if we could only get the other one to come out!  Then we will have 4 lost teeth already.  

I have to say, I think nothing is cuter than kindergardeners with missing teeth.  Those grins with the missing teeth just make them seem so innocent and cute.  I couldn't wait to get a holey smile of Jadon! 

This week we picked out our front door and interior doors for the house.  And later this week we are going to pick out our cabinets, counters, back splash, carpets, and all other flooring. (deep breaths.........) that's a lot of decisions to make but i'm so glad because we are getting to move in a month earlier than planned!
I cant wait.  I cannot wait!  I CANT WAIT!!!!!!!

Reflections

So I know its a couple weeks late to do a post reflecting on the previous year, and my hopes for the new year, but I haven't had time to sit and write up a big post.

What a year 2012 was!  It started when Derek had to go to Wisconsin for training for work as soon as the new year began. Having been pretty much thrown into his new position and didn't really have an option to not do it, we were uncertain of what the future would hold, or what the new position would mean for him. And knowing that he would have to take several trips to Wisconsin early in the year was not appealing to either of us. 

While the weeks that he was away were tough for us all, we survived :) As I knew we would. And his new position, while it has been stressful for him, its also been quite a blessing, and he really enjoys his job and his boss loves him.  He earned several certifications over the year, and is now extremely important and valuable to his team at work. So there's no doubt that his job is secure!  And, with his certifications now, if for any reason he decided to change jobs, he would be hired quickly.

I am quite proud of him and all he has accomplished and how hard he works and his work ethic!

Continuing on with the year.  Jenny then got sick and for an entire month it seemed like time stood still.  Everything revolved around our ability to be able to get to Portland to see Jenny and support the family. It didn't happen nearly enough since it was the middle of cold/flu season, and with Jadon in preschool, we always had colds. We didn't want to spread our germs and risk spreading anything to Jenny and complicating her situation. We did everything humanly possible to keep from getting sick- washed our hands incessantly, I was bleaching a lot, we stayed home a lot to avoid germs.  It helped, and after the first couple weeks we didn't have any more colds amazingly, and weirdly didn't get anymore until the first week of June! 

By the grace of God, Jenny thankfully got better!

It was during that whole thing that Jadon celebrated his 5th birthday.  Unfortunately, while Jenny was getting better, Jadon was not. Being the sensitive guy he is, and a little (a lot) on the fearful side, he was a little traumatized by his Aunt's serious illness and the situation. Queue the sleeping problems and serious anxieties.  After about a month we realized things were not getting better, and were actually getting worse, he was really bothered by something though he could not tell us exactly what. We decided counseling was needed.  And thank goodness!  I will highly recommend therapy for children, as it not only helps the children, but also the parents to understand what the kids are going through, which is SO SO SO important!  We learned so much about Jadon that we had no idea was going on with him. For example, to him after Jenny's illness, all illnesses, whether a small cold, or pneumonia, etc, became life threatening to him.  It didn't matter if it was big or small, they were all catastrophic to him.  So we had to learn to make him see that colds were not a big deal.  We had to take the power away from the colds. Its still a work in progress, and he still gets worried when a kid in his class is out sick for more than a day, but the improvement is massive.

Just when it seemed like things were finally going to calm down, I had planned to have a fun filled summer for us and the kids with lots of activities, park trips, outings, swimming, etc.... We decided to put our house on the market. So all our fun activities flew out the window when we had to get the house ready for market. Once the house was on the market, I would do my best to keep the house clean and well kept, and before we would leave the house we would clean it and make sure it was show ready in case we got any calls while we were away.  It was such a pain, and i'm SO glad that after 35 days we got an offer! I couldn't imagine doing that much longer!

We got the offer while we were in Sunriver with my family over Labor day.  What a fun time we had!  Jadon talks about Sunriver all the time. I love when good memories are made, especially when so many not so good memories have been made previously.

Unfortunately we couldn't find a place to live in time, and well, you know the story.... we're renting a tiny house that was dumped on by the previous tenants. 

It was difficult moving, as I've already blogged about.  Apparently Jadon has been having a harder time with the move than we had thought though... my sensitive child.  So we are having him go to the counselor again for a few sessions.  We are hopeful that once we get moved into our new house, settled, and back into our normal routine that things will improve. Again, we are so thankful for the insight that the counselor provides us with!

Since the move, we've been quite busy.  Derek's work has been terribly busy.  The kids and I have been busy around here, and random things keep coming up.  Our new house is the silver lining in it all, and that is what I focus on!

December was tough.  The Sandy Hook shooting was really hard, I think it affected me so deeply since I have a little guy in elementary school. I take him there, assuming he will be safe.  Its an elementary school! I still think about that every day, and those poor families, those poor children. Every time I drop Jadon off at school I give him a hug and kiss, I say a pray in my head for the safety of the school and all the people inside it, and then I walk away trusting God to protect my baby boy. 

My hopes for this year are different than previous years.  I learned a lot last year. I learned a lot about people in my life, about my kids, my family, and what is really important and what's not. 

I learned that family is the most important people in your life. Except not everyone in your family is "healthy" for you, which is so sad.  I've found that the ones that accept you the way you are the ones that love you unconditionally and will not go behind your back. Additionally, the ones that constantly create drama are not healthy.

This year instead of a personal new years resolution, which I think are pointless because how many times do we ever stick to them? never. This year I made one for my family instead, which I think we are much more likely to stick to.  So they include things like- monthly date nights for mommy and daddy; monthly date nights for parents and each kid; be kind to one another; work on ALL manners; have family games nights; less screen time; find a charity to volunteer for.

The charity one is tough since the kids are still small and can't do a lot of things but its important to me because I want the kids to grow up knowing the joy of giving and helping, but I found a blog where a woman lists a bunch of different charities that kids can do. One of them is to sponsor a child, and so we already started doing that.  We are sponsoring a little girl in Colombia who is 3 like Avery.  Her name is Carolain, and we are looking forward to corresponding with her and getting to know her and watching her grow up and now have access to things she wouldn't have otherwise if we hadn't sponsored her.  We'd also like to sponsor a boy who is Jadon's age.  After looking at all the little faces online, its just so hard to chose, I want to sponsor them all. For some reason it was easy to pick the girl, but i'm struggling with picking a boy.  But anyways, for just over $1 a day, less than your daily Starbucks run, you can also help a child. Check it out at Worldvision.  The kids are excited to write a letter, draw pictures and send our pictures.  Of course Carolain will be a little young to understand it right now, but someday she will.  And someday if we win the lottery we can go visit her. :)

It's Official!

We're buying a house!  And there it is in the picture below!

No no no, not the back of that yellow house on the left of the picture. That's someone else's house.
Do you not see the house??????  You don't?????  Oh, well you will in April when we move in!  For now you just have to envision a house there, because that's where our house will be!  You are looking at our lot, and this Friday they will begin excavating!

We couldn't be more excited with how things have worked out! :)

So our lot is .39 acres, its mostly flat, and its on a culdesac which will be PERFECT for the kids to ride their bikes in! Our house will be a single story, with 3 bedrooms and an office, and INDOOR laundry!!!!  Something we didn't have at our old house, and we don't have in the rental now either, so i'm sooooooo excited!  No more freezing my tush off every time I need to throw in some laundry!  The main living area, dining, kitchen will be a nice, big open room!
And best of all, the kids will have a TON of room to run around and play outside in the backyard!
We can hardly wait!  April can't come fast enough!  Usually I want time to slow down, but not so right now! Derek's going to continue to be super busy with work as they move closer to his "go live" at the hospital, and now that we are "settled" here, I've got the kids signed up for lessons again, so hopefully that will help time to go faster!

I'll be posting pictures of the progress along the way, as I can hardly contain my excitement! :)

Happy New Year!

Happy new year! Here's our yearly slideshow!
I know this year one of my resolutions was to take more pictures of the other people in our lives, not just the kids, but it seems I forgot that resolution and I did an even worse job taking pictures than last year! :(  Very disappointing!  

So this year, my only resolution for myself is, once again, to take more pictures of the other people in our lives (friends and family) that are important to us, so that you may all be a part of our slideshow next year, and because well, you are all important to us, so why wouldn't we want to include you in our picture life?

I don't know if anyone even watches these slideshows, but they get a lot of viewings around our house all year round!  My kids LOVE LOVE LOOOOOOVE to watch them.... over and over again!  I have to admit that I love to watch them too.  I love seeing the kids grow throughout the year, seeing the things we did, things we accomplished, setbacks and heartaches we may have encountered and overcame.  I love to see all of this... the good, the bad and the ugly, as it reminds me that I am blessed no matter what. 

I'll be posting again soon my reflections on 2012 and my hopes for 2013

http://youtu.be/GjfJGH1JnVY

Merry Christmas

Hope you all had a very merry Christmas!  I can't believe its already here and gone.

This year I didn't send out Christmas cards, I didn't have time to do so. Plus with everything packed in boxes, I just feel overwhelmed and cramped and unorganized (we all know how I function better when i'm organized!) my to-do list was 100 miles long and I just couldn't bring myself to add Christmas cards to the list. I fully intend to next year! But I can't make any promises ;)

I keep hearing from people, including myself, that this year just didn't feel like Christmas. And I can't pinpoint why exactly. Perhaps for us it was because we aren't "home", and we don't have decorations set up, and our tree is a 4 ft, fake tree that had no lights (until Santa put lights on it.)  Or maybe its just because we've been too busy to actually sit back and enjoy the season. I know for me, for an entire week after the Connecticut shooting, I felt like I was in a trance. I just couldn't fathom what had happened in that elementary school, and it affected me very deeply. Its just hard to understand the horror that was taking place there, while for the rest of us life just continued on as normal. Here we were, preparing for the upcoming holiday with our babies and families, while these poor families were grieving over the deaths of their young children who should not have died in their school where they were supposed to be safe. It just didn't seem right.

Whatever the reason, it just didn't seem like Christmas this year.

Regardless, we are so blessed to have such wonderful families, both close by and far away.  We couldn't ask for better. Thank you for being a part of our lives.

I'll end this post with a few of the more "memorable" pictures from Christmas :)

Not sure what this face was from!

Cousins

In the next few pictures, Tinkerbell was mad that her new makeup case that she got from her fashionista aunt was taken away for the picture since I caught her with a thing of nail polish opened...ready to paint her own fingernails i'm guessing.  So she was unwilling to cooperate for this set of pictures, but at least her big brother was a good boy and sat nicely for it! 

 She certainly is dramatic, isn't she?

Here's our lowly little tree on Christmas morning

Jadon is so excited to open presents!  But we are waiting for Avery to wake up.  He was bouncing all over the house!  We got a video of it. :)

She finally got up. Unfortunately we can't get a "normal" picture of them, only goofy ones. Notice the pink eye cover thingy around her neck.  That came with her beauty case that she got from her Aunt (mentioned above and pictured in the photo with Avery and Brooke)... Avery insisted on wearing that all night long on Christmas eve.  She's so silly! 

And finally, Christmas morning at Gramma Karla's. We sure are glad to have gotten to spend Christmas with that lovely girl this year, even if it was for only an hour. 

Very sweet to horribly bitter

Friday was a very bitter sweet day, except in the other order- sweet bitter.

The day started out good.  Derek and I volunteered to help out in Jadon's kindergarten classroom for his christmas party.... sorry, HOLIDAY party. Gramma D came to watch Avery so we could have that time with Jadon, and we enjoyed being in his classroom, seeing him and his classmates and his teacher, and seeing a bit of what they do during the day before the party started. 

Jadon was very happy to have us there and wanted us to stay even after the party was over. But the rest of his day consisted of recess and library (tough day!!) ;)

That was the sweet part of the day. 

Later in the day I was on my computer and that's when I found out about the shooting in the CT elementary school and I started sobbing instantly. After having just been in Jadon's class with all those sweet, innocent little children, I kept thinking of their little faces and how unfair it was for those children that were shot and their poor families. What kind of world do we live in where we can't even take our kids to their elementary school without fearing for their safety?? They were mostly kindergartners (correction: I just read that now they were all first graders).... Jadon's age! Its just something that my mind can't wrap around.  HOW does someone do this???  HOW does someone kill another human being, let alone a CHILD?! 

At that point, Avery asked me why I was sad, and Jadon asked if I missed the old house again.  I said "noo." What do you say?  There's no way I'm telling them what happened, they don't need to hear about this,  this is almost too awful for even adults to hear. So I just told them that the reason I was crying was because there are some very bad people in the world. 

So now while the rest of us are spending the holidays holding our children, these poor families had that joy ripped from them. And for the rest of their lives this time of year will be a constant reminder to them of what happened. 

And what does this mean for us?  Well, Jadon's school already goes on lock down after the bell rings, so that is good.  Everyone who enters the school must be approved through the office staff first, sign in, and wear a visitor name badge. 

This only makes me teeny teeny tiny better. The office staff can only do so much to fend off someone that forces their way in, especially since they are behind a desk. And if the person comes in with a gun, they are defenseless. So basically the lock down only makes me feel better about some creep who wants to come kidnap kids from the school.... but not from some psychopath wanting to come shoot up a school.

Basically its just one more thing that i'm going to worry about. I always worry when i'm away from my kids anyways, might as well add school time to the worry list too!