Friday, February 26, 2010

Warthog

Lucas was sitting on the floor looking at his plantar's wart on his foot." Look mom! See my warthog?," he asked. He's the only person I know who has a warthog in place of a wart.

A'gayle! A'gayle


Abrianna loves Abigayle. Many time per day she crawls up on my lap and pulls my shirt up exclaiming, "Abigayle! Abigayle!". This is accompanied by lots of hugs and putting her head on my tummy sometimes kisses follow. It's so precious She may not be quite two but she knows there is a baby in there.

Her adoring look says it all. Thank you Lucas for being our photographer!

Monday, February 22, 2010

Caught in the act!


She unscrewed the lid off a jar of homemade chocolate frosting and was helping herself. I didn't know she could unscrew lids! Miss capability once again.

Saturday, February 20, 2010

Sabbath pictures


Doesn't she look like she's posing?

Bored?

Exuberant!

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Imagination

Movies. They can only be watched on a screen, or can they?
Lucas snuggled quietly next to me in the early morning darkness. Suddenly he pipes up, " mom! I just closed my eyes and watched a movie about a slow moving train. It was carrying eggs and the eggs broke open and there was food in them."
He chattered on about this "movie" for awhile. Then he declared, " I'm going to close my eyes and watch the Polar Express now."
Who needs a TV?

Sunday, February 14, 2010

How do I measure up?

I was sitting at my computer checking blogs and facebook. Abrianna sat on the floor playing with a miniature tape measure belonging to Lucas.
She stood and approached me with the tape measure extended and began tugging up my shirt. She wanted to measure my belly!
We moved to the couch and I helped her measure my belly.
I don't know if that was a random thing or if she's noticed that Sherry measures my belly with a tape measure.
My little capable girl. So cute!

Ketchup eating cowgirl

28 weeks


28 weeks and counting.

More on life

I've been awake since 5:00, forcing myself to lay in bed until 6:00. It's really interesting to know that God made pregnant women to start waking during the night as they enter the homestretch of pregnancy.
I finally gave up. Took a bath then came out to to eat a kiwi. (I'm starving this early in the morning!)
I'd like to make something special for a Valentines day breakfast for my family-heart shaped muffins or french toast. We'll see...
Friday I had a reassuring conversation with Doreen ( Jojo's momma). She's a commercial loan officer at a local bank. She gave me so hard numbers to look at. I feel much more comfortable with idea of investing in a rental/owner occupied duplex now. I'm really relieved.
If we buy a duplex, we don't need to be in a hurry or stressed out to sell our current home and move. Maybe we'll rent this house out. Who knows?
In a worse case scenario we'd be "stuck" with about $1700 a month in house payments between the two places. It's would be tight, but doable.
Tomorrow, being President's day, we both have the day off may go looking. If we can arrange to view some of these properties, then we'll throw in a trip to the Olive Garden as well. Yummy!

Today I'm hoping to do shopping and laundry and belly dancing. It's strange how priorities adjust since I have little ones on the inside and the outside. I would've been horrified at the lack of what I get done now, 5 years ago. I'm working on giving myself grace.
Oh well, I'm done rambling. Hopefully I'll have something funny or cute to share next time.

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Thoughts and fears

I promised when I married Rick to go where he goes. That was a lot easier to promise than to put into action!
Rick spends 2 hours a day commuting to and from work. He HATES it!
When he first started working at Energy Solutions in Richland last June, we'd agreed to wait until he'd been at his present job for a year before trying to move.
He feels he's been very patient to put up with commuting this long. That patience is wearing dangerously thin.
Several things are holding us up in moving.

1. A big one for me being fear. Rick's lost his last 3 jobs for various reasons. I'm not ready to make a commitment to move when jobs can be so insecure. This one appears to be secure, but I suppose only time will tell.
2. Another reason to wait is that I'm 7 months pregnant and have a history of preterm labor. I've been told by midwives that it's very dangerous to move while pregnant as it can set off preterm labor. So moving is out for at least several more months.
3. Work. Too much work.
4. Living in the city. This one I detest. We'd like to live in the country and fairly close to his work. The problem being that we're not ready to double our house payment in order to do so.
It would be nice if life would just continue as it is. Not having to move would be wonderful.

Rick's solution to this problem is to purchase a duplex and live in half of it during the week, spending the weekends in Walla Walla at this house.
Theoretically this may work. As long as the other half of the duplex was consistently rented. This "should" cover the mortgage payments on the duplex. Then we'd still have our regular house payment to make on our Walla Walla place. It would be our weekend getaway place.
The practical side of me says, "TOO much work!" Double sets of food, dishes, furniture, clothes and diapers to be packed. Rick just waves these concerns aside. It would make more sense to me to simply sell our house in Walla Walla- as much as I'd hate to do so.
5. Then there is the financing options to be weighed. Refinance? Second mortgage? We don't have a 20% down payment just laying around. We'd have to transfer - is that possible?- the equity out of our house and into the duplex. Grrr! Life can be complicated.
6. If we were to sell our house, I'm overwhelmed with the idea of getting and keeping everything up to snuff for showing it. Rick thinks that we should start the whole process when Alyssa's here next month.
Sigh... I wish I could bury my head in the sand and wait for it to blow over. For it just to go all the way away! Why can't I just buck up and deal with it? It isn't as if we'd be moving across the country!
I've been praying. I don't have peace. Change is very hard for me. When we moved to Walla Walla 6 almost 7 years ago, I cried and cried. I HATED it! I know I'll adjust again. But there is such a good support network here.
Oh well, as my sister in-law would say, "suck it up princess!" In other words, DEAL WITH IT!

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Look Mom, I trimmed my hair!

Need I say more?
About a half an hour later or so, he decided he HATED having his hair buzzed off. After looking in the mirror he began to tug and pull at his hair. He thought he could make it longer and grow it out now if he pulled hard and long enough.

What's been happening?

This may seem really redundant. Why do I post about bugs so often? This seems to make up my life of late.
About 2 weeks ago, Jojo came down with a nasty snotty nose, which has slowly but surely progressed into a cough and fever. Her daddy picked her up yesterday afternoon and took to the doctor. Without running tests, she was diagnosed with RSV.
Yesterday was exceedingly rough! She took 2 hours to shut down enough to take her morning nap. I was occupied either holding her or making sure she stayed laying where I'd put her from 9:00-11:00+.
This would've been much easier to handle, but... After several nights of poor sleep, I've succumbed to the the RSV too.
While Jojo was gone at the doctors with her daddy, I attempted to nap. Abrianna chose to lay in her bed crying for at least 35 minutes of the 45 I laid down.
The combination of the above made me decide to move Lucas out of his current swimming lessons that were supposed to have started that afternoon to the next session.
I lieu of the swimming lessons, I bundled everybody up and we walked for about a half an hour. Lucas and Abrianna were cheerful on the walk. Jojo fell asleep for a little while.
Towards 4:00 she wanted another nap. Poor thing couldn't get comfortable enough to go to sleep and she started running a fever. I called her mommy to come and get her- which she did but not until about 5:00.
No energy or inspiration to make anything for supper. I ordered from the local taqueria. Rick watched the munchkins while I picked it up.
After supper, I lay on the couch. My children quickly grabbing books scrambled up beside me to be read too.
Rick loaded the dishwasher to take a bit of the burden off of me. I bathed the kids, read them a story as they snuggled next to me in the bed- the best part of the whole day!
Unfortunately last night, they both gave into the fevers and sore throats. It could've been worse. They only woke me up 4 times last night for brief periods.
I'm praying for strength today. By God's grace and through HIS strength I will be a much nicer mommy today.

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Lucas' bath

Lucas has a habit of stripping off every stitch of clothing when using the bathroom. Then he also like to fill the sink with water while washing his hands.
Today he'd asked for a bath. "Of course you can, " I replied, "when it's dark." He took matters into his own hands and this is how I found him. Silly kid.

Monday, February 1, 2010

Quiet

Peace and quiet fill my home. Both of my blessing are tucked into bed and quiet- one is sleeping already. My husband is relaxing outside in the hot tub. Dishes are done, a load of laundry is washing in the machine.
I'm sitting here relishing in the peace. I've learned to appreciate quiet much more since becoming a mother. Don't get me wrong, I love my children. But sometimes it's so nice to just be and not be needed or wanted, to recuperate.
When these times come, I regroup. I'm a much calmer wife and mother. This is so important for me right now. I'm having a hard time these past few days being calm and sane.
Normally an even keeled woman, these mid to late pregnancy hormones combined with 4 nights of very interrupted sleep have thrown me for a loop.
My poor children, Lucas in particular, bore the brunt of that yesterday. The phone not working properly- frustrating Internet!- when I HAD the need to air my grumpies to my mom was the last straw.
It took every ounce of my strength to not hurl the phone down. Instead I burst into tears and ran sobbing to my room, flinging myself on the bed. Rick came and let me just cry on his shoulder.
Poor Lucas, attempted to come in too. I shouted at him to get out. That is so out of character for me to talk to any of my children like that. He then burst into tears. Daddy went out to comfort him and let me regroup for awhile.
Today is better.
What is the purpose of this posting? I'm not really sure. I suppose it's more of a journal entry than a normal post. I'm going to go and tuck my tired body into bed.
Wishing you all a restful night.