Facebook-free

About two weeks ago I decided that I've had enough of Facebook for a while.  With the exception of a few acquaintances most of the people on my friends list are people that I care about and I like knowing how they're doing.  However, it's rather draining to sift through all the nonsense posts like, "Laundry day!" and "Wow, my kid ate all his dinner last night!  lololol", and spammed religious "uplifting" messages while looking for posts that are actually meaningful.

The thing about Facebook is that it gives people an unnatural look into others' everyday lives.  I normally wouldn't have any idea about my friends' laundry days, how addicted they are to Pinterest (quite a few of them are), what they thought of the Presidential election or how they feel about gay marriage or legalizing marijuana.  It has started to feel weird knowing those things about my friends when I don't even know their kids' names or ages, their general likes and dislikes, or even where they live (some of them have outdated locations).

Personal blogs are different because you have a chance to elaborate and the posts are generally available to be viewed by a much smaller audience.  Plus, the people who take the time to go to your blog and read it are usually people who care about you and genuinely want to know how you're doing.  <3

It's been about two weeks I think since I've spent time on Facebook and I feel great.  If I want to know how someone is doing I can either email them, call them, or send them a Facebook message if that's the only contact info I have for them.  I feel so much more connected to people when there is a conversation going on rather than reading soundbites of random information.

 So yeah, you won't see me on Facebook for a while unless it's to reply to a personal message.  And if these past couple of weeks are any indication, I like it this way.

Traveling with Kids

Our Thanksgiving Week trip was a mixture of very good and not very good.

Mc and I have been playing an MMORPG for a few years and there are two people that we've talked with a lot and I thought it was high time we meet them in real life.  The thing is, they live in Texas and we're in Arizona.  So we planned it out for this Thanksgiving week and made the trip out there to see them for a day.

It was a lot of fun meeting the man (sadly, the woman couldn't make it), and I'm very glad we made the trip out there.  We also spent Thanksgiving with Mc's sister and her family in New Mexico, which was very nice.  They did an amazing job with the Thanksgiving dinner; it was deeeelicious.  But to help keep the kids on a normal sleeping schedule we drove at night and Mc and I tried to catch up on sleep during the day.  That didn't work out so well, especially when Little One didn't stay asleep the whole time.  The changes in altitude made his ears pop and that woke him up a few times, and he would wake up Baby Girl and she would have a hard time getting back to sleep.  Plus, both of them move around a lot in their sleep and so sitting up in a carseat for hours at a time was hard on them.

It was SO nice to see family and friends, but this is the last time we will take the kids on a long road trip when they are this young.  Unfortunately, that means they will not be going to Utah for the End of the World party nor for Christmas this year.  Mc will go to Utah and I will stay home with the kids.  I would love for Baby Girl to see her cousins and for everyone to meet Little One, but this experience has taught us that they are too young to handle the long trip.  That's just how it is when we live so far away, and our kids' well-being has to come first.

We will travel again when our youngest child is about 2 years old.  That might be in a year, it might be in 3 or 4 years; dunno.  It all depends on when we have our next kid and all that jazz.  But if anyone wants to see us badly enough, you are more than welcome to come down to Arizona and stay with us; we have a guest bedroom for that very purpose.  :)

(P.S.  I realize I wasn't clear: Mc will not be away from us in Utah for Christmas; he's going for the End of the World party and spending time with family and friends for a few days, then coming back here the day before Christmas where we will all be together.  Yay!)

Halloween Pictures

I'm terrible at posting pictures on here.  When I am upstairs I see my camera and remember about posting pictures, but then I forget to bring the camera downstairs to my computer and when I sit at my computer I forget about the pictures, and the cycle continues.

Anyway, here are some pictures from Halloween.  I didn't dress up; I was really not feelin' it this year, but Mc and the kids did and they look good.

 Mc was NOT Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter.  He was just Abraham Lincoln.

And Little One was in an orange onesie that says, "Daddy's little monster".  He's not really a monster though; he's a sweet boy.

We didn't do the trunk-or-treat with our ward.  These pictures were actually on Halloween; some members of the ward had a hot dog and chili dinner at their house and the whole ward was invited, so that's what we did.

At home we had quite a few trick-or-treaters come to the door and Baby Girl was fussy at first, and then after a few times of that she said, "I wanna play with friends?"  She thought the kids coming to the door were coming to play with her but then leaving.  So we gave her some candy to hand out to the kids, and then when that didn't work I took her downstairs to watch Super Why on my computer.  She was okay after that.

All in all it was a good night.

The Hobbit

To read, or not to read, that is the question: whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer through a movie with fresh knowledge of the book, or to take up a bag of popcorn and enjoy the movie for what it's worth.

That's what I've been thinking about for a couple of weeks now.  For years I've had the Lord of the Rings books and I've been meaning to add The Hobbit to my collection, and last week I finally did (along with The Silmarillion... all with similar book covers, of course).  But with the movie "The Hobbit" coming out on December 14, I'm stuck.

I really want to read The Hobbit right now because I'm on a reading streak and because I remember liking the book a lot; it's a good adventure story and it's much easier to get through than LotR.  But at the same time, I am going to watch "The Hobbit" movies and I really want to enjoy them.  If I watch them before reading the book I will be watching them as a movie-goer hoping for some good entertainment.  But if I read the book beforehand, then I'll be watching the movies as a critic.

The last time I watched the "Lord of the Rings" movies I didn't have a good time because I had just read the books and the story was fresh in my mind; so I noticed some HUGE deviations from the books that I would not have noticed if I hadn't just read the books (mention Arwen to me and that will set me off on a rant).  Do I want to do the same thing with these movies?

****************

You know what I just remembered?  There are going to be three "Hobbit" movies, and only the first one is coming out in December.  I don't know how long it will be before they release the second movie, but there's no way I'm going to wait until the third movie comes out before reading the book.  No way!  I'm going to read the book now.

P.S.  If Arwen has more than a very minor part in these "Hobbit" movies, I'm going to flip out.

Pacifiers

For future reference with your kids: don't give them pacifiers.  Sure you're not supposed to give them pacifiers before they're 1 month old anyway because of the "nipple confusion" thing, but after that it totally messes up their mouth which I didn't find out about until last week.

Up until last week we used to give Baby Girl a pacifier at naptimes and bedtimes to help her go to sleep.  But last week we took her to the dentist for the first time (Baby Girl did surprisingly great) and he saw that there is a gap near her left canine teeth where she sucks on the pacifier.  Like, her upper canine teeth haven't grown in right there because the pacifier has kept them from coming in.  I thought she just had a cute and naturally crooked smile, but no, the pacifier has actually affected the bone structure of her mouth.

I didn't notice it before because it's on the side of her mouth and I didn't know that's where she sucked on the pacifier.  But now it makes sense why she has a hard time biting down on things with her front teeth: half of her front teeth can't bite down together.  And now not only will she need braces when she gets older, but after I got back from the dentist I found all her pacifiers and threw them away, and now she has a very hard time falling asleep at night and it's so hard on all of us.  It's like sleep training her all over again.  I probably should have taken away the pacifiers slowly but I was so mad at myself for not seeing this problem sooner that I did it all at once. 

I cried all the way home from the dentist.  Baby Girl was sweet, she got a concerned look on her face and she said, "Mommy is sad?  Mommy is cwying?"  Through my tears all I could say was, "Yes, baby girl, Mommy is crying.  Mommy is sorry."  I feel so guilty and so stupid for not knowing that this was happening.  I just thought that these were the last few teeth to come in and that they were taking a while; I didn't know that they should have been in long before now and that the pacifier was preventing them from coming in sooner.

At least she'll look really cute with braces.  And at least it hasn't inhibited her ability to speak and pronounce things well.

Lesson learned the hard way.  Hopefully you all can learn from my mistake.  So here's the advice: use pacifiers sparingly (if at all) and if your kid ends up liking the pacifier a lot, break them of the habit around 5 or 6 months before the teeth start coming in.  And don't let a pacifier be one of the things that you use to put your kid to sleep.

Thoughts about the Presidential Debates

So apparently there was a Presidential debate last night.  *shrug*  Here's the thing: both Obama and Romney suck.  I will not vote for "the lesser of two evils"  just so the other guy won't win.  And I have a husband and kids and video games that are much more important than watching a debate between two guys who I will never vote for.

An Update with a Few Pictures

People have requested of us that we post pictures of our house and our kids.  I've wanted to post pictures of our house for weeks now but here's the thing: I want the rooms to be clean for the pictures... and the whole house being clean at the same time just isn't going to happen.  Maybe we can do that for Family Home Evening tonight.  >:)

Anyway, here are a few recent pictures of us:

 Mc mowing our lawn from the perimeter inward.
Hey, you've gotta make that chore interesting somehow, right?  :)

Baby Girl chilling on the couch.

Little One right before he learned to crawl.  A perfect push-up!

I've lost 35 pounds since giving birth to my son (yay!) but I've still got about 50 pounds more to lose before you'll see me in pictures.  ;-)

I'll see what I can do about posting videos of the kids and probably of a tour of our house in the next couple of days.  Little One is crawling now (1 week shy of 8 months) and Baby Girl knows all the letters of the alphabet and all their sounds (23 months), so I must get a video of that as well.  Thank you to my sister for your gift to us of "The Letter Factory"!

One Week Later

A week ago on Saturday we moved into our first house and I can already see a huge improvement in our lives.  Little One is sleeping better during the day because he's downstairs in his room and Baby Girl is upstairs doing her thing.  Mc is leaving the house earlier in the morning so he can miss the rush-hour traffic and so he's coming home earlier and spending more time with us.  Baby Girl has more room to run around and she badly needed it.

It was nice filling and organizing our pantry and the kids rooms, but the thing I've been most excited about is being able to unpack all of our books.  We've kept the books we have because we like them and we'll read them again, and it made me happy to see them all on display in our bookcase, ready to be read again.  I really miss reading.  But with two kids to tend to and a house that needs to be cleaned and organized I feel like I don't have the time.  I've tried to read while the kids were awake a couple of times, but Baby Girl comes up to me and points to the book and says, "Whatssat?" and she tries to take the book and look at it.  It's a losing battle.

I'm excited about our yard.  It's huge.  There's a lot of grass to mow but I'm so happy that we have so much space for the kids to run around and that I can plant a garden and fruit trees.  I took Baby Girl outside the other day while I watered the lawn:

 

She liked the sprinkler.

The house is suiting our family very well.  And once the weather drops below 90 degrees we can enjoy the backyard, too.  There is still quite a lot to do around here; we're about 85% unpacked and it's coming along slowly but we're getting there.  This doesn't mean our house is clean.  With two little kids that's impossible and rather impractical, but most everything is out of boxes and has its place and that is what I want.

Homeowners!

We have it!  We finally have the keys to our house!

It feels like it's taken a long time to get it, but really it's only been about 2 months.  That wasn't bad compared to what it would have been if this was a short sale or a foreclosure.

Both Mc and I are SO ready to be in a house.  Here is what our 2-bedroom apartment is like:
-- The living room is also a dining room, a kitchen, and Little One's room
-- Our bedroom is also our computer room and library.
-- Our walk-in closet is also our office and storage room.
-- Our laundry room also houses our stroller, our vacuum, and our bird when he's being loud and the kids are sleeping.

Really the only rooms that don't double as other rooms are the bathrooms and Baby Girl's room.  But in our house every room will have one purpose, and we can unpack everything!  No more boxes!  We've had things in boxes ever since we got married 4 1/2 years ago, but now there will be room for everything.

I'm very happy, not only for the extra space but also because it's OURS.  We can do what we want with it (within code and legality, of course).  We can paint it whatever color we want; we can plant gardens and buy patio furniture or other yard accessories; we can change light fixtures and ceiling fans; anything really to make it ours.  I think Mc probably thinks I'm a little nuts about this whole decorating thing, but it's something I really like and I get excited about it.  And I know he's excited about our house, too.

P.S. If you want our new address, give Mc or me a call and we can give it to you.  Our phone numbers are the same.

Still No House

I'm really ticked off.  We were supposed to close on our house YESTERDAY and get the keys, but yesterday has come and gone and we are still keyless.  Apparently the paperwork is in the underwriting stage or something like that where the application has to be reviewed and then approved.  As of Thursday there was a stack of paperwork on the lender's desk that "just needs one more signature"... and that's the last we've heard.  They didn't update us at all yesterday so now we're just waiting.  And waiting.

Really I think this gal just doesn't know what she's doing.  A few weeks ago Mc had sent her some files in a zip folder but apparently she can't receive zip folders... but she didn't tell him that.  Mc had to call her after not hearing from her for a whole weekend and that's when she told him the problem.  So that day he resent the documents in a few emails... and then a day or two later she contacted him and said she didn't receive a couple of things.  He thinks she just didn't scroll down far enough in her inbox, because he did send her everything she needed.  Today I asked him if he could complain to her superior about her, but he said he thinks she's the vice president of the company (it must be a very small company) and so complaining to the president probably won't do any good.  I swear we have to babysit this girl to make sure she gets things done.

This is TWICE now that we've had to push back our closing date.  Neither we nor the seller are happy about this.  I've been packing up our apartment and that's going well, but Mc and I are both feeling the stress and frustration of still not having the house.  We can't buy the appliances we'll need because we have no place to put them. I can't paint the walls and give the house time to air out before we move in, so the place will likely smell of paint fumes when we move in.  I can't give the Post Office notice of when to switch our address because I don't know when we'll actually be able to move in.  This is month-end for Mc at his job but he can't tell his boss when he'll have to take a half-day to sign all the paperwork for the house because we don't know when that will be.  But the main thing is that the lease for apartment ends on the 17th.  That's two Fridays from now before we HAVE to be out of here.  I think we'll be in the house by then, but we have things to do in the house before we move and I'm not sure we'll have time for that.

There's just a lot of crap to deal with on our end and not enough crap going on on the lender's end.  This slacker seriously needs to quit dragging her heels on this and get it done!

Better House News

This past Monday the second appraisal on the house was completed and we found out that the value of the house is $2,000 higher than the first appraisal estimated, so there's no problem with the seller backing out of the contract.  The seller agreed to continue with the sale and we're on track to close on or before August 3.  In less than two weeks we'll have our first house!

One of my sisters got to see the house yesterday and she sees how good the house will be for our family.  I'm not getting too excited yet because the deal still isn't complete and there's still a chance that something could go wrong, but there is a huge weight off my shoulders because now I don't have to worry about finding another house or about extending our lease at our current apartment (or finding another apartment to live in).  I can resume picturing myself and our family living in this house and decorating it and such.  This makes the stresses of living in a crowded apartment more bearable since the end is in sight.  I am happy.

House Discouragement

We received some frustrating news today about the house we're in the process of purchasing.  Everything is fine on our end, on the seller's end, and with our lender... but the mortgage insurance company came back today (2 days before our closing date, by the way) and said that the appraisal on our house is too high and the process won't continue until we get another appraisal done and it comes in lower.

Our lender tried to get them to tell him where they think the price should be since they don't think the price is correct as it is, but they gave some b.s. answer like, "Oh, we're not allowed to divulge that information," or some crap like that.  But will they send out their own appraiser?  No.  They just want us to get another appraisal that's lower.  I would love to yell at them.  There is nothing wrong with the price of our house; I think the house is worth its current listing price and we are very willing to pay that much.  But there have been appraisal issues all over the state in 2012 so this isn't a unique situation; we likely would run into this issue with any house we try to buy.

Mc explained it to some friends of ours in an email and here's what he said:

"Back in the years 2005-2007, a housing bubble expanded.  Prices rose which silver-lined the pockets of brokers, banks, and appraisers alike.  This was capitalism and greed at its finest.  Why were house prices rising so fast?  Well, it was a self-feeding cycle in which people thought prices would continue to go up, so they were willing to pay more to obtain a house which they KNEW would appreciate.  

"Appraisers bought into this hype and appraised house values higher and higher.  Since they use 'comparable sales' as their baseline, it seemed to make sense.  A house that sold last week for $270K and then 3 months later for $300K must indicate prices are rising, so they would appraise the houses in accordance with the trends.  

"In reality, it was a bubble.  It burst in 2008 and banks would not loan and people would not buy houses and appraisers were slapped on the wrist.  Many banks and lenders, now saddled with a lot of bad mortgages, decided appraisers could not be trusted and required more stringent scrutiny.  

"Fast-forward to today and you have appraisers who are more conservative and banks/lenders who feel they cannot rely on the third-party, independent analysis of appraisers.  So, they will always ask for additional comparable sales and then, if they don't agree, reject the appraisal.  The market in Phoenix is appreciating.  Houses are disappearing very quickly (we know, we've been looking).  However, the values have not been allowed to appreciate because of this appraisal issue.  Despite the fact that we are completely credit-worthy, they won't lend us the money because they feel the house is not worth as much as it was appraised for."

What I'm worried about is that the seller has significantly lowered the asking price for us once already.  The appraiser determined that the house was originally overpriced by about $20,000 and the seller agreed to reduce the asking price down to the appraiser's price.  Now the mortgage company is saying they'll have to lower it again, and I'm worried that the seller will chose to cancel the contract rather than reduce the price again.

Our realtor has been wonderful and he's working hard to try to get this deal to go through.  I really hope things will work out.  I don't want another house, I want this house; it has everything I wanted in a house and yard and I will be so sad and frustrated if I have to start a house search all over again.

Even if things do end up working out, we'll be stuck in this apartment for at least a few more weeks, and I am NOT looking forward to that.

After All These Years!!

For years now, almost 2 decades, I've been trying to remember the title of a children's book I loved as a kid.  I couldn't remember the title of the book, the names of the characters, or most of the plot.  All I could remember of the plot was that there was a man looking for a flower which would save the woman he loved and he finds it growing amongst some rocks.  And this picture is what has stayed in my memory for all these years:

That, and I remembered the flower so well because there was a closeup of it on the page before:

Pretty, isn't it?

A few days ago I decided to search for the book online, but I didn't have much to go on.  After a couple of hours spent doing a Google search for "rose with pearl in the middle" I changed my search to "flower with pearl" and came across an excerpt from a collection of stories and I knew this was what I was looking for!

It is a German fairytale by the Grimm Brothers called "Jorinde und Joringel".  I was so happy!  But all I could find was the original fairytale in a collection of other Grimm fairy tales, and I was certain that as a kid I had read a stand-alone book (and I knew I had read it in English!).

So then Part 2 of my search was to find the stand-alone book I had read as a kid.  After about an hour I found this on Amazon.com and I was SO excited because this is the book!

After literally decades of wondering in what book I had seen that flower, I finally found it!  I immediately ordered a copy from Amazon.com and it arrived today.  The pictures are lovely, the story is captivating and interesting, and that flower is beautiful.  Joy!!

Such a Big Boy!

Our Little One is such a big boy.  We took him to the doctor last week for his 4-month well visit and they measured him of course.  He's in the 83% in weight and 97% in height!  He's now fitting into his 6-9 month clothing.  I'm glad he has a lot of clothes given to us by people, because he's growing so much and so fast (and he also still spits up a lot, so the extra clothes are a must!).

He likes to observe people and things, and he's become interested in the books Baby Girl reads.  He loves to watch her.  She makes him smile and he makes her laugh.  We still have to keep her away from his soft little head but she is learning to be gentle and she really wants to play with him.

We're so happy that our kids get along, and we love them both.  When I've gotten caught up on sleep I can see that spending time with our kids is worth the sleep deprivation.  Don't get me wrong, I still need sleep and I'm still not getting enough, but that's what hubbies and weekends are for!  :D

Here are some photos of the recent goings on in our house.

Found a House!

We found a house, put in an offer, and it was accepted! (it's the house we went to see that time I left my purse on the hood of our car).  I'm excited about the house.  It's big enough for our family to grow into; the backyard is big so there will be plenty of room for the kids to play as well as a garden area for me.  The neighborhood is fine; we're a block away from the kids' future elementary school and we are literally behind the junior high.  We're a mile away from church so it'll take us about 5 minutes to get there as opposed to the 15 minutes it takes us now.  It's close to downtown/historic Gilbert where there are shops and a museum and a live theater, and a farmer's market every weekend.

This house was a flip and the guys have had it on their hands for a few months with no offers, so they will be glad to sell it to us.  After we get the inspection and the appraisal completed and pay more money and fill out more paperwork, we should have the house within a month.  Woohoo!

Baby-Brain and More House Hunting

I've had major baby-brain twice these past few weeks, both times involving my purse.

Three weeks ago on Saturday, Mc and I were looking at two houses in our house hunt.  Right before seeing the first one, I accidentally locked Mc's set of keys in the car.  I didn't have my set with me because I thought, "I won't need my purse, we're only going to be gone a little while," so I left it at home. We still saw the first house but then the locksmith guy took over half an hour to get to where we were and that put us all behind schedule.  That, and I think the guy over-charged us.  I felt stupid.

The second time was this past Friday.  We were going to see another house and the realtor was late.  I fed Little One in the car and then made sure that I had my purse and keys with me before I locked the car.  Our realtor arrived and we went into the house and looked around, and when we came back out I saw my purse on the hood of our car.  This time I didn't feel stupid, I just felt like my brain had skipped town.  Mc joked and said, "Hey, this was a test to see if the neighborhood is safe, and I guess it is."

I usually double check important things like if we have our keys with us before locking the car, and if we bring back with us all the things we left the house with, but lately it's harder to remember to check those things.  At least I've never forgotten the kids.

*****

Our house hunt has had me on an emotional rollercoaster.  On the 1st we had arranged to see 5 houses the next day, and by the next day we could only see 2 houses because the other 3 already had offers accepted.  Then the day after that and a few days later we put in offers on two different houses and we were outbid both times.  Both houses (the first of which was the one I wrote about in my last post) had cash offers, and sellers will always take cash offers over conventional offers, even if the cash offers are for less money than the conventional ones.  People are doing that a lot around here: they offer cash for a place so they are sure to get it, but then they take the house and "invest" in it, either to flip it or to rent it out; either way it's to make money.  That ticks me off because there are people like us out there who want to buy a house to live in it.

I'm tired of getting my hopes up on houses I like and then being disappointed, either by being outbid on a house or having it go off the market before we've even gotten a chance to see it.  Going back to researching the listings and comparing houses and all that stuff has cost me a lot of sleep.  That makes me irritable and tired and I don't like being that way.  Plus, this apartment still isn't working for us and I'm reminded of that every time I try to put Little One down for a nap or to bed for the night.  I really want to be in a place of our own where we can spread out and have at least one room in the house that can be dark and quiet for our baby boy.  A few days ago I broke down crying because I felt like we were going to have to settle for something that was just OK if we wanted to get a house at all.  Mc reassured me that we will find something we like but it may take time.

Well the house we saw this past Friday was a good size-- both the house and the lot-- and the location is good as well.  We put in an offer on it yesterday and we'll see how things go.  So far we're the only ones who have put in an offer, so I'm hopeful.

House Hunting

About 3 weeks ago Mc and I started our house hunting process.  We found a realtor and he's showed us 7 or 8 houses, and on Saturday we found one that I absolutely love.  It's a large house to accommodate our growing family and my need for lots of kitchen counter space  :)  and it has a good sized backyard for the kids to run around and to have fruit trees and a garden.  It's in a nice neighborhood with schools close by and the house is within our price range.  We sent in our offer last night and we'll know in the next couple of days if it was accepted or not.  There were at least a dozen viewings of that house on Saturday and I'm sure there were just as many yesterday, so we'll see how everything goes.

If we don't get the house I'll be so disappointed but we'll keep looking.  Now is the time for us to buy a house; the housing market is pretty much rock bottom right now; Mc has a good job that's in the same location every day as opposed to the public accounting firm he was with before which sent him to different clients all over the place.  Plus, the 2 bed/2 bath apartment we're currently in is no longer working for our family.  Our computers are in our bedroom so that Baby Girl can't get to them and so the living room is "family space".  But that means that when we're on our computers at night Little One can't sleep soundly; he needs his own room that we can keep dark and quiet for him.

It'll be nice when we finally get a house so I can get some sleep.  Between kids' different sleeping schedules and my thinking about the things we have to do for this house hunt, I am so tired but my mind can't shut off at night.  I need sleep!  Thankfully Mc's mother is here for the week and I've already gotten to catch up a little bit on sleep.  It's amazing how much of a difference just a little more sleep can make!

**UPDATE: at this time the house we're interested in has 15 offers!  :(  We'll see how it goes.**

Dancing Competition

Tonight for the first time I got to see my sister-in-law compete.  She's a professional ballroom dancer, and she is amazing.  Her dances were so beautiful, and everyone's costumes were gorgeous.  Well, one gal's red and white dress made her look like a candy cane, and it distracted from her performance rather than enhanced it; but most everyone else's dresses were so pretty.

It was a lot of fun going to see the performances.  Couples would compete and then while the judges totaled up the scores the audience got to get on the dance floor and dance.  That was fun to watch and I realized how much I miss dancing.  It's been almost 4 years since Mc and I have gotten to dance the night away together at a dance studio and I really miss it.

I'm glad my sister-in-law did so well; she got 2nd place in the professional competition!  So much fun.

INSANITY

Mc and I have started a workout routine together: it's Beachbody's "INSANITY" workout DVDs. This is our third day and we are so sore! But it's the good kind of sore where your muscles are getting used to a new workout. Mc, of course, is doing better than I am with the workouts; he can do at least some of each set of moves, whereas there are some moves that I know I cannot do without hurting myself. The DVDs say to go at your own pace, and I can do the majority of these moves moderately, but it'll take time before I can even attempt a few of them. We're both definitely getting a workout.

There are 2 parts to the program: the workouts and the food. We're cutting highly processed foods out of our diets and we're calorie counting. We're still doing the Bountiful Basket thing so we're getting a huge box of fresh produce every 2 weeks which will help us eat healthier. I can already tell my muscles are getting stronger from the workouts, and I'm hungrier during the day so that tells me that my metabolism has already increased a little bit. 90% of what we feed Baby Girl is healthy food (the other 10% is the occasional sip of milkshake or the occasional steak fry at Red Robin). Now, my new food philosophy is a simple one: if I wouldn't feed it to my kids, I shouldn't be eating it either. *sigh* goodbye brownies.

The program is a 60-day program and we're keeping track of all our stats to see how much we improve each week. We're excited and motivated to be doing this.

Pictures of the Kids

A few pictures of our growing children.


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Not Cut Out For This

Every night Little One decides he's going to forget how to breathe and eat at the same time. He fidgets and fusses and cries and swallows air and inhales milk, and I don't know what to do about it. It's no comfort at all to know that he won't have this problem when he starts solids; that's about 9 months from now. I can't deal with this for 9 more months. I'm way sleep deprived as it is and I'm not patient with him when I'm like this. Mc is good at taking over when I get too frustrated with Little One, but he needs his sleep, too. Any time I get to myself I have to spend sleeping-- but even then I don't get enough of it-- and as a result there is a long list of things I want to do but can't find time to get to them. I also miss spending one-on-one time with Mc; that never happens anymore and every time he sees me I'm taking care of a kid and half the time I'm so frustrated that I'm not fun to be around.

I'm not cut out to be a mother. Sure, I can pop them out easily enough but I don't feel I'm mother material. And I feel guilty for not "cherishing" this time in their lives when they are so tiny. I feel an unrealistic expectation to find joy in all of this when in fact I am quite unhappy.

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I was going to look up a quote from a church talk on www.lds.org that describes something about how motherhood is a wonderful thing and a joyous responsibility and then bash it by saying how people seem to idolize motherhood and ignore the reality that it sucks sometimes, but then in browsing I found this talk by Elder Ballard from the April 2008 General Conference: www.lds.org/general-conference/2008/04/daughters-of-god?lang=eng

It's actually what I needed to hear right now. Elder Ballard acknowledges that motherhood is wonderful but also challenging and frustrating sometimes. His words are encouraging. This in particular stood out to me: "[I need to] recognize that the joy of motherhood comes in moments. There will be hard times and frustrating times. But amid the challenges, there are shining moments of joy and satisfaction." The rest of the article is good as well, but this has comforted me tonight.

For a while back in college I decided I didn't want to be a part of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I had issues with some aspects of it and I wanted to find out for myself what I actually believed vs. what I was taught all my life to believe. After searching my options and figuring out for myself what I believed and what I wanted to incorporate into my life, I decided that this church is the right one for me, and I'm glad I made that decision. This talk by Elder Ballard has given me comfort and I am grateful for the acknowledgement that he has for mothers and motherhood, both the very real challenges we face and for the advice he gives to us and to fathers as well. I feel that his talk was inspired and that he knew women needed to hear these words, and that the men could benefit from hearing them as well.

Now to see if I can get any sleep tonight...

"What an incredible smell you've discovered."

Every day our apartment smells like vomit. Little One throws up at least once a day, with multiple spit-ups throughout the day as well. Either we hold him too crunched, or we bounce him too much, or we don't get enough burps out of him after a meal before laying him down to sleep, or we lay him down flat on his back, or we lay him on his side, or we let him fall asleep for too long in the baby swing... any given day it's a different reason and I'm getting really tired of seeing my precious milk outside of his stomach and all over the place.

I feel like I'm supposed to know beforehand what will make him throw up and then prevent it. Every time it happens I feel stupid, like I should have known that would happen. I'm glad and grateful that people have given us so many little boy clothes because I had no idea we would go through so many outfits in one day, and I don't know at what age this throwing up will cease. Baby Girl never had this problem; she's thrown up 7, maybe 8 times in her whole life so far. I'm still going to clean him up and wash clothes and other things that he throws up on, but when will this end?!

Tennis!

Although I am pleased with my body's ability to produce milk for Little One, every day I look in the mirror and I'll be honest: I'm disgusted with what I see. I seriously have about 80 lbs. to lose before I'm at a healthy weight for my body frame. I hate working out-- like, I have to be in a "I detest my body right now!" kind of mood to actually hit the treadmill-- so I want to find a way to get a workout while having fun at the same time so it's a workout in disguise.

Tennis is like golf: it's a very boring sport to watch; the only way you can enjoy it is to play it. Since there are tennis courts at the park where we take Baby Girl to play I bought Mc and myself each a tennis racket and yesterday we hit some balls back and forth.

Mc has potential, but there's no hope for me at all; I'm really bad. I hadn't played tennis since my P.E. class during my Senior year of high school and I was bad then as well. But I had fun yesterday and I did get a workout and those were my goals.

Baby Girl got a workout we well. She ran all over the courts chased tennis balls and we managed to miss her every time we hit the balls. After a while she wanted to be held by us and so we took turns holding her in one arm and swinging at the tennis balls with the other arm. That added to our workout and Baby Girl loved it; she laughed the whole time. It also helped us work on accuracy so the person holding Baby Girl wouldn't have to go far to get the ball. Little One slept the whole time in the stroller which enabled us to play at all.

I had a pretty good time and I think Mc did as well. His leg is a bit sore today and I have overall muscle stiffness but we'll keep it up and not only get good workouts but hopefully we'll improve our tennis skills as well. :D

Clothes are Inconvenient

When you're a nursing mother, it's just a bother to put on clothes... at least the tops. I told Mc that something I'm looking forward to about moving out of this place is that in our own house I can walk around in my underwear if I want to. He looked at me kinda funny but he knows I don't always like to walk around fully clothed, so he understands. Being fully clothed just feels so formal sometimes, especially when I've got a kid attached to me who needs to breastfeed every 2-3 hours. Our current apartment is on the ground floor and the windows face a big parking lot; so if it's a nice day like it was today and the blinds and windows are open, people walking by can look in and possibly see me in my all-together. I put on a shirt just so people walking by can't see me "indecently" dressed, but I'm really looking forward to the time when I won't have to worry about that.

Today, Little One is 1 month old. He's grown so much; he outgrew the NB-sized clothing weeks ago and he's fitting into his 0-3 month clothing nicely. He also didn't lose any of his hair; he still has a full head of dark brown hair (that's from my side of the family, for sure). He's such a sweet baby and we love him so much. He's about 90% over his cold so he's sleeping better and eating better as well which makes me happy. Baby Girl is also pretty much over her cold (she shared it with Little One last week) so she's feeling better as well.

Here's a picture of Little One I took today:


He smiles a lot but I haven't been able to get a picture of it. When I do I'll post it.

Baby Boy

My mind is in full baby-brain mode (meaning it's rather absent at the moment), but I should post.

We have a baby boy! Had him two weeks ago. I will refer to him on the blog as Little One.

He was 2-and-a-half weeks early but he was very ready to be born. I was in labor for about 3 hours before he was born. Did it VBAC, all natural, too (didn't have time to take any pain killers even if I wanted to; I was at the hospital for only about half an hour before he was born. He was eager to see us face-to-face, I guess. :) ). The pain wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. It hurt more with Baby Girl, being induced and all. I don't blame people at all for getting drugged up during labor, especially since they're usually in labor for much longer than I was.

Little One is healthy. He weighed over 8 lbs and had a full head of hair just like his sister. He was 20-something inches, average I think.

He has such a quiet personality; very patient, hardly ever cries. I can already see differences between him and his sister when she was this age. My babies are growing up so fast! *sob*

Mc only had 5 days for paternity leave but it was better than nothing, and my mom was here for two weeks to help us while I recovered and to help us adjust to going from one child to meeting two children's needs. It was nice having her here and I know Baby Girl will miss her. My dad was able to come down here this weekend and see his new grandson and spend time with all of us. Our two kids are my parents' only grandchildren so far, and my parents love them both. They were sad to leave.

This will be a difficult couple of months for me because Little One and Baby Girl have such different needs and Baby Girl is adjusting to having something else take up so much of Mommy's time and attention. It's been rough for her so far, and my mom could tell that Baby Girl misses me. She also does not have the understanding or muscle control to be gentle with him yet so I have to keep her away from him for the most part. She'll learn soon enough, I think.

I'm glad I got so much preparation done the weekend before he was born, because I was totally not expecting to go into labor so soon. I guess when those "nesting instincts" kick in it's a good idea to do something with all that energy.

Here are a couple of pictures:

Preparations Underway

Our second baby is due in 2-and-a-half weeks, which really means he or she could come at any time. Today Mc and I took a tour of the medical center where I'll be delivering the baby and I'm really happy with the place. They let the baby stay with the parents the whole time; no nursery! (the Level III NICU being the exception). And they put a sensor on the baby's umbilical cord so that if the baby gets too close to an exit the alarms will go off. It's sad that some babies get kidnapped from hospitals but it does happen, and I'm very glad to know that this place takes precautions to make sure that doesn't happen here. The rooms look comfortable and spacious, and it looks like they take good care of the families there.

Today was also a day for us to get things ready around the apartment. We reorganized our bedroom to make room for the rocking chair and bassinet, and we got out some of the little baby clothes and blankets that the baby will need when we bring it home. That's a nice thing about not knowing what Baby Girl was before she was born: all the newborn clothes and blankets we got were gender-neutral, and so with this baby we can use those right away and get gender-specific clothes later. ;-) We also got out the small car seat which we'll reinstall in the car tomorrow, and tomorrow we're also going to move things around in Baby Girl's room so it's more feng shui. :) We're also going to pack our hospital bags so when the baby decides it's ready to be born we just have to grab our bags and go (after calling someone to come watch Baby Girl for us).

This was a really productive day and I'm happy about what we've done. I feel better knowing that if the baby wanted to come this early we'd be ready for him/her. And don't worry, when the baby is born we'll start referring to it by its proper pronoun... we won't be like those crazy parents who keep the kid's sex a secret from almost everyone to prevent "gender stereotyping". So annoying.

Our Climbing Baby Girl

Baby Girl has loved climbing up on things for months-- mostly boxes-- but this past week she has started climbing up on things that she couldn't before, like coffee tables. Here are a few of her favorite spots. :)

This is the first day she was able to climb up onto this coffee table on which, until now, we had placed things so they were out of her reach. We can no longer do that.


We put a big box behind the couch for her to sit on and stand on, and she's so happy that she can see over the couch.


As of this date, she can now climb up onto the couch/ottoman, which means she can go from the couch to the black coffee table and then onto the ottoman and reach the TV and computer, which is unacceptable. So we had to move things around again, and this is one of her favorite places to sit:

Yeah, we have EVERYTHING up on that table so she can't get at it. Makes things look crowded but hey, she's safe this way and so is our stuff. We do what we've gotta do. :)

She can also climb up onto the recliner in her room. She loves to look at books as well, and I caught this picture today:


It's fun to see her grow. Sure the rearranging is annoying but once things are in place and she's safe, it's fun to see where she'll go.

Altered Dress and Holiday Pictures

**Be advised: lots of pictures in this post**

So I just remembered today that I was going to post pictures of the dress that I altered for Baby Girl for my sister's wedding. My original plan was to add green puffed sleeves to the dress to make it festive, but the other decoration I had in mind really clashed with the green color, so I did this instead:

Before: dress from Carter's


After:


And she looked really cute in it: (that's Daddy behind her, making sure she doesn't fall)


My youngest sister got married/sealed at the LDS Oakland Temple, and here they are coming out of the temple right after the sealing:

She looks really happy, and I was happy for her.

Here are my brothers B and D being silly. I love these guys.


I had posted a picture of my dad and his fiasco with his tuxedo pants from the Men's Warehouse, but I just remembered that he didn't want it posted, so it's down. But I'll describe it anyway. Let's just say: he did NOT like the way he looked. Originally the pants he ordered were I believe 4" too short, so he went in and got remeasured. Only problem was, instead of adding 4" to the pants, they took away 4", so he was left with tuxedo pants that came up to his midcalf, and he didn't realize it until he was in the dressing room at the temple. Luckily he had worn black pants to the temple and so he was able to wear those with the tux top. If he had worn any other colored pants though, he would have been in a real jam. To their credit, my dad has gone to them for tuxes/suits for years and this is the first time they've screwed up; but they sure screwed up big-time! He walked into the store wearing his full tuxedo outfit to return the tuxes and the whole store became quiet. Needless to say, he got a refund for his tux.

Baby Girl loves to touch Christmas lights, so here is our baby-safe Christmas tree:

Cracks me up every time I see it. I liked it though. (and there's one of my sisters)

On Christmas Eve morning we went with my brother B to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Baby Girl is still a little too young to appreciate everything we saw, but she liked a lot of it. Here she is checking out fish and the signs they have on different aquatic life in this tank:

Mere railings can't hold her back! No, really, they can't; she fits right under them.

This is one of my favorite shots from our trip to the Aquarium: it's my brother taking a picture of some jellyfish:

He got some really cool pictures too, and I liked the one he got of a sign in front of the octopus tank that read, "Do not flash the octopus." :)

And lastly, here's Baby Girl with a fun present from Grandma and Grandpa:

She actually had seen it on top of my mom's dresser a few days before and she wanted it, and now she could have it! :) She still likes to play with it here at home.

This vacation wasn't without its issues, and there were a few unpleasant things that happened, but all in all this was time well-spent with family. Baby Girl warmed up to my family after a few days and she enjoyed exploring the house and going for walks with my parents' two dogs... which I enjoyed as well. We ate good food, played games with family, played a lot of Peggle on the computer, and got introduced to "How I Met Your Mother" which is actually a funny show. Thanks, B! And thanks to the rest of my family for loving us and being there for each other and making this extended Christmas vacation a good one.