Small World

We did end up taking the trip to Oregon this weekend and it was fabulous, perhaps our best vacation yet and we have had some good ones. I will devote an entry to that soon, but in the meantime here was a random, small world experience that we had while on the road.

At a gas station in a small town in Oregon, a station where we were not even allowed to pump our own gas (apparently it is a law there?!), a woman struck up a conversation with my husband.

She commented about his UCF shirt--which stands for University of Central Florida-- where he went to college. She had attended another Florida school, UF or University of Florida. I stuck my head out the door and said mockingly, "You're a GATOR?!" UF was my college's arch rival. I went to FSU or Florida State University.

So at a Chevron station in a podunk town in Oregon, we had three of Florida's universities represented. Pretty cool. And to make it even more coincidental, it turns out that the Gator lady had also attended my high school but 10 years before me.

Wacky.

Party Pooper IV

Well, today I did it...something that for those of you who know me well, would NEVER expect me to do.

I signed up to be a Pampered Chef consultant.

Gasp.

Yes, I am actually going to try to do the party thing as a way of supplementing our income, helping with the mortgage and hopefully even earning enough to send Lucas to preschool in the fall. Ironically, you may remember that I have always abhorred "sales" parties, often chucking any invitation that came my way. And now I am going to choose to not only attend, but to put on these parties weekly (ideally I will do one show per week).

So, if you are needing any handy cooking tools, want to throw a fun kitchen party, or just want to pass a catalog around to your friends to earn some free gadgets, let me know.

Conundrum

Today we were invited to go with our California family (my aunt and cousins) to stay at a small cabin on the coast in Oregon for an upcoming weekend. It sounds like a dream to me...we've never been to Oregon, I love cabins and the beach, we've wanted to show the kids the ocean, clamming sounds like fun and I am sure that Lucas would get a big kick out of it, and we love to be with the family. So many reasons to go.

BUT, how would the kids handle a 9.5 hour road trip? That could be a big disaster. They have done fine with the 2 hour trips that we have taken, but this is almost 5 times as long (and that is without breaks). I suggested that we could drive at night, but then we would be so exhausted when we get there and the kids wake up...how would we enjoy our time?

Lucas was a road trip nightmare when he was about Emily's age. See here for a refresher. We went to Yosemite, which is about 4.5 hours away and he screamed for half the trip. It sucked. This is why we hesitate.

Too the cabin is small (only 2 bedrooms) and there will be 8 people staying there if we go. I don't know what the sleeping arrangements would be. My kids might not sleep at night or take their naps and will be crabby little cranks.

Anyone have any thoughts or advice on the matter? Should we go and risk bleeding eardrums and a weekend from hell or stay home and have a boringly safe, normal time where my every day looks the same? One positive if it is an awful experience, is that it could be a really funny blog or story later on.

What a dilemma.

On the Rocks

This breezy family shot was taken about a month and a half ago (pre-haircut as you can tell) at our church Easter Egg Hunt. It was taken by our friend, Chris Harder, the same photographer who captured Lucas' awesome first year portraits.

On Saturday, we finally take Emily to get her 6 month pictures done (she is now seven and a half months). What could I do? She was snotty and crusty her whole sixth month and is now only almost over it after finally giving in to antibiotics. I guess that she had a cold on crack or maybe it has just been allergies all along. Regardless, it is ridiculous!

Reason to Celebrate

It is finally over.

Our long saga of two mortgages, fear of foreclosure(s) and wondering where we will be living in the upcoming months has finally come to a conclusion. A great ending to a nail-biting, possibly financially devastating situation.

God is so good to us. As soon as we gave up control and let go of the desire to stay at our dream place, He moved in a mighty way. Almost immediately upon putting our current home on the market (I cried when the sign went up) and ironically just after firing our other realtor, we received the offer for the old place. It is truly by an act of God that we don't have to move yet again.

So you can keep our new address in your book for the time being. Hopefully we will be here for a long, long time.

Before & After

Rapunzel

My husband, like 90% of the male population (just a wild, but probably pretty accurate guess on the %), prefers long hair. Right now, my locks are long and to him, I am guessing luscious. Tonight I am going to get 'em all chopped off. Or at least significantly shortened.

I ran into some friends today and mentioned that I was going to give my hair the ax.

"What about Michael?" they asked. "Doesn't he prefer you with long hair?"

I found myself giving them all of my many reasons for wanting my hair gone: it is all over the house and is disgusting me...our shark cordless vacuum looks like it swallowed a human head with all of my nasty hair tangled in the brushes, Lucas tugs at it (lovingly, but quite annoying none the less), eats it playfully and while doing this gets his snot, food or whatever is on his face in my hair, Emily spits up in it and pulls it not so lovingly, I feel like I am living in the 90's with my same long, straight hair as in high school (I like to change it up every year or so),it finds its way onto the dinner table, wrapped around my children's fingers and toes, and I am starting to feel like I look like a neanderthal woman all weighed down and bushy.

Some good reasons for sure. But my friends question got me wondering, am I being selfish by not wanting to be pleasing to my husband? Should I keep it long so that he will find me most attractive?

My Favorite Day Part II

We had another wonderful time together as a family on Sunday afternoon. The weather was absolutely perfect out (70's, breezy, sunny and no humidity) so we took a late afternoon walk to a park and down a nearby trail.

Lucas, who often wants to be held instead of walking on his own, had a blast and ran for a good 1/2 mile or so with me (that's my boy!!). He also had fun exploring hills, trees, puddles and a creek with daddy and mommy.

Emily sat upright (normal) in the stroller for the first time, rather than in her car seat and attached in. She seemed to enjoy herself, but then fell asleep for the last half of the walk until a barking dog woke her up.

Why can't all days be this marvelous? I suppose if they were, I wouldn't appreciate them as much.

Playtime!

Energized

Well, I am starting to get back into a running groove. It seems that I need to with an impending marathon (less than 8 months away). This week I checked a training schedule online to see where I should be at this time and saw to my horror that I should be running 4-5 times and approximately 25 miles per week. Oh yeah right. That has NOT been happening, nor do I really see that rigorous of a schedule being too feasible with 2 little ones, but...I've got to do something to train.

My new sick plan is to run first thing in the morning. Evenings weren't happening with my parter's new work schedule. Tuesday she and I met at 5 am and today we moved it to 5:20 so we could sleep in a bit(5 was freakin' insane, you have to wake up at 4 something to get dressed, though she was smart slept in her running clothes).

Exercise is supposed to give you energy, right? Not me, at least not this week. I have been feeling totally drained, bleary and impaired most of the day. I hope that I can start to adjust to this new schedule soon. For now it is kicking my tail.

Easter Update

So, here we are looking spiffy for church on Easter Sunday (everyone except me that is--I was working in childcare and knew that I would get snotted on).

We had a super Resurrection day--Easter baskets, candy and Easter bread in the morning, church, naps for all of us;) and a lakeside picnic with friends and neighbors in the late afternoon. We also had an Easter Egg hunt with the same neighbors in our yard the day before.

On the homefront, we are currently in escrow on the sale of our old place. We received an offer about a week ago and accepted it after figuring out the financing over the weekend. Why do we need to figure out the financing if we are selling, you may ask? Sadly, we are selling the place for below what we bought it for which forces us to bring a big check to closing (to pay off our loan, pay commissions and all those blasted closing fees). Today, we found out that 1/2 of our financing is falling through because our new place is currently on the market. Ahhhh, the saga continues...We are so ready to be done with all of this and hopefully still have a place to call home in the end. Please pray for this situation.

Big Girl

A week ago today, my little Emily turned six months old. She's halfway to a year already. Wow, it really flies.

What's new with her now that she is such a big girl? Well, she eats solid food at last (only rice cereal so far) and seems to tolerate it. She is still sleeping pretty great at night. Last week she awoke in the middle of the night for the first time in months! And most mornings she sleeps in (compared to her brother for sure) until 6:30 or 7. I certainly can't complain about that. Her sleep is also finally occurring in her crib now, after almost 6 months in a playpen (the crib was at the old house for staging). She's rolling and bearing weight on her legs. I think that she will be sitting up any day now, too. She tries to whenever she is in a reclined position, such as in her bouncy chair or high chair. Emily also screams when she laughs, which is just how her Aunt Katie used to laugh. So cute! No teeth yet, though she has been drooling like crazy and chewing on everything in sight for months.


Today I bought her her first pair of patent leather shoes and a beautiful pink Easter dress to go with them. It is certainly fun dressing a little girl for a change! Even if she will most likely try to stick her patent leather clad toe in her mouth. Mmmph.

Cheap

Last night, I went out for a night on the town with my friend, Monica. We were in South Lake Tahoe for the weekend. Our husbands snowboarded for the day and we stayed at the cabin with the kids. To make the "vacation" a little more fair for us moms, we went out for the evening once the kids were in bed.

Our first stop was K-Mart, where I found a couple really cute tops on sale for $4 and $6. Not able to pass up the great deal, I shelled out the $10 hoping that they will not fall apart after one washing. This is still to be determined.

Later that evening, while walking the strip, I noticed a Patagonia store.

"My sister is so different from me. She's such a big spender on her clothes and shops at expensive stores like Patagonia and Banana Republic. She says that she wants her clothes to last her for a while so she spends more money upfront."

Monica quipped back, "She probably tells people how you are different from her. 'My sister is so cheap that she shops on the clearance rack at K-Mart.'"

Oh. Good point.

Putrid

Lucas found something that looked familiar behind a tree in the yard the other day. It was a discarded toothbrush with ragged, brownish bristles. And he did what any other 2 year old would do. "Toothbrush!" he exclaimed before shoving it straight in his mouth. When I realized this and took the nasty brush away, I felt the urge to upchuck.

Who knows what that brush has touched/scrubbed?

Now that is grosser than gross.

And what do you do with your kid after they have done such a thing? Brush their teeth immediately with their real brush? Make them rinse with rubbing alcohol or bleach;-)?

He's still healthy and happy, so it must not have been that contaminated.

Moving Again?

Well, our old house has been on the market for over 6 months now with no serious action or interest. We need to make a decision soon as we can't continue paying two exorbitant mortgages indefinitely. In fact, we've had to look at all of our options including: trying to rent the old place out (the problem is that we would only be able to collect 1/2 the amount of the mortgage payment in rent), foreclosure, and now putting the new place up on the market to see what happens.

I truly don't want to pack up and move again. This new place is our dream home. But the dream is not going as we had planned/hoped. We expected that we would sell the other home with relative ease (it's a great house) and that we would have approximately the same mortgage for so much more home. It's not looking like that will be the case anymore, though, as we've had to lower the price of the old place about $50K over the course of these months.

I feel a pretty defeated over this situation. We knew that we were making a risky financial move, but really prayed about it and researched it beforehand and felt led to go through with it. We are now trying to sort out what God's plan is in this situation. What is He trying to teach us? Did we make this move out of His will? Did He want us to move only to bring us back a few months later?

So, we don't know where we will be living in the upcoming months. Stay tuned for an update or perhaps a change of address and prayerfully it won't be to a box somewhere down by the railroad tracks (or van down by the river).

Turning Tricks

Emily has finally mastered rolling over from her back to her tummy. She'd been flipping from her tummy to her back for months so we were eagerly awaiting the roll in the other direction

Now that she has this new skill down, she wants to practice it constantly. It's nearly impossible to keep her on her back long enough to get a diaper on her and every time I get her from her bed these days, she is on her tummy grinning up at me with satisfaction.

She is starting to stick her dupa (her bottom) up in the air and move around a little on the floor, too. Any day now she will be off and army crawling.

I guess that we should think about childproofing again. But will we need to at this home?

Mission Impossible

My life as a mom of two little kids (one who just turned two and a five month old) is really KICKING MY BUTT!! Saying that my days are hard would be severely understated. It doesn't help that I am living on way too little sleep lately. I have insomnia again-where I am waking up at 4 or 5 in the morning and can't get back to sleep. I bought earplugs which is helping a little (at least I don't hear Lucas waking up early anymore or Emily stirring). It's nice to be oblivious at night and not thinking "Oh crap, now what?" whenever I hear a noise out of them.

My normal break during the day is the 30 or so minutes when they are both sleeping. And then I breathe my biggest sign of relief when they finally go to bed at night around 8. By that time, though, I am pretty fried and exhausted and don't have much energy to do much of anything.

Lucas does nap for a glorious 2-3 hours a day, but Emily tends to take these little nothing 30 minute catnaps all day long. What the heck can I accomplish in 30 minutes?! It actually seems like a really long time surprisingly, though.

Anyway, just bellyaching. That is why most people don't hear from me anymore, why my house is completely dirty, and why I really, REALLY want my family or Michael's to move out here.

Sigh.

We have such precious, wonderful times, too. Like this afternoon when we were getting ready for naps and Emily kept squealing, grinning and grabbing at her brother. They love each other so much. It's awesome.

Now if I can only survive the stress and lack of good sleep a couple more years...

Coke Bottles

I picked up my new glasses yesterday. Let's just say that I should probably go with plastic frames in the future. I went with wire ones for a change. Boy are my lenses embarrassingly and nerdily thick all hanging out behind the wire. When did I get that blind?

Snort.

I am even nerdier because I actually considered taping my other pair when they broke a month ago. But opted to wear a 5 year old pair that I could hardly see with instead.

What is Your Number?

Tonight we bought a Select Comfort sleep number bed that we found on Craig's List (my addiction for the past few months) for a steal. We'd wanted one for awhile and Mike has been complaining that our mattress hurts his back every night, so it seemed a good time to get it.

Here is the problem, though...we got it home all set to pick our individual number (I think that I am a 30 and Mike is a 60) and discovered that it has just one air chamber for the both of us. Not one on each side of the bed. This means that we have to agree on a number/setting for the whole bed.

It kind of defeats the purpose of a sleep number bed, doesn't it?

That's jacked up.

No wonder it was such a bargain.

Terrific Twos

Tomorrow (March 1) my son turns 2. They call it the terrible twos, but I am determined for it to be terrific instead.

Two years ago tomorrow, I became a mama. On this night, two years ago, I had no clue what my life would become. How little of me would be left. Yet how much I would love my child and do nearly anything to keep him safe and healthy and happy.

I am tired. He was up this morning at 5:30 am. I was up at 4ish anticipating his early morning alarm.

I must go wrap his gifts now and get some rest so I can party with him in the wee hours of his birthday.

Happy Birthday, dear Lucas. My little early bird. I'll never forget how amazed I was with your eyes the first time you looked at me. You are my sweet little butter bean. My big boy. Mama loves you so much, even though I don't seem too excited when you burst in my room when it is still black out. You make me smile even then with your overly chipper greeting.

Hmmm...Maybe I will wake him up in the morning;-).