It's Official!!

It is official that our house is on the market!! Oh my goodness!! That is so crazy to me. I was really apprehensive to put the house on the market at the beginning of February. Towards the end of February putting the house up actually made me excited. We said we would put it up the end of February/beginning of March. Well, our Realtor came Friday afternoon and brought a sign to put out front and a lock box for the key. We figured since it was Friday afternoon it probably didn't actually get put up so we weren't too concerned about leaving the house in excellent condition if we left during the weekend. I kept looking online to see if I saw it and it wasn't up. This morning when I got home from Visiting Teaching there was a message from a Realtor letting me know that she wanted to show our house today from 4:30-5pm. I told Chris yesterday that I would be excited to get the first call that wanted to show it but it would probably get annoying after that having to leave the house at any time. There are so many thoughts running through my head about whether they will like it or not. This couldn't possibly be the people that buy our house, of course not the first person. We like our house and think it is quite cute and in a great area but everybody has different likes and dislikes and different wants and needs. Though I am psyching myself out I realized that this is ALL real, our house is up for sale and I have even seen it online!! If it sells too quickly, I am not sure what we will do but we don't know how long it will take so we just have to do what we do know and that is that we are 99% sure we need to sell our house. So that is the step we are taking. I am really excited about this first showing though:) We will just have to see what happens:)

Yay!!

I have been trying to find a job on Tuesdays and Thursdays or nights or something for a few weeks now. While at work on Tuesday night, my coworker informed me that a girl that worked during the day quit and they needed somebody part-time. As soon as I got home I contacted my boss and she said, yes, call me tomorrow and we can set up a schedule. Today was my first day. It was a long day but I am very excited. I was there from 9:30am until 8pm. It went by pretty quickly though. Working at night we hardly know much and so I am really excited that I get to work both night and day and know what is going on. I am mostly over the Distance Learning so I get to keep that going, as well as helping out wherever needed. I am really excited to be working in the office again, working during the day and that I will get to bring in a little more money.
Chris is a really good stay at home dad. He takes the kids to the park and does the housework. Sometimes I think he does it better then me. He usually has a harder time when both kids are together and likes it much better at a one on one level. It works that Matthew is at preschool during the day and quiet time in the afternoon. We don't know how long anything will last but right now this is what we are doing and can only go one step at a time. This is a great step:)

I'm Done

Do you ever wish that you could just throw in the towel and say "I'm Done." That is totally how I feel right now and actually would just rather go in my bed that my electric heater warmed up and sleep every away. I hate all the variables in life. If I could just know what was going to happen things would be so much less stressful.
We had a Realtor, Myke Leatham, come to our house in the afternoon, on New Years Eve and give us suggestions of things that we could do to make the house look better. The next day we went to Lowe's and started our many projects. There were so many things that she suggested it was overwhelming. We have done some of the things she suggested and we only have a little bit left to do before we put it up on the market. Which then I start thinking if we should put it up now or not, will it sell quickly or not. What will we do from here? If it sells before the semester is out what will we do? Where will the kids and I go? Where will Chris go? When will all of this happen? Where are we even moving from here? We still don't have all the acceptance or rejection letters back from all the different law schools, as well as Chris still has 3 job applications out that he is waiting to hear from. If we do go to Arizona, do we buy a house because the housing market is SO SO SO bad there right now and if we do, do we buy a cheaper one to have lower payments or do we buy a bigger one and take advantage of the terrible market right now and REALLY capitalize on that? How are we going to live? How much is it going to cost to live for the next 3 years in law school? Will Chris even get a good job in law after school? Will Chris even like law school? What houses will actually still be on the market when we do actually sell this one, if we do? We also have to think about Matthew starting kindergarten whereever we end up, so how are the schools in the different areas? Is all of this just too much of a gamble and we just stay here? Should we not even put our house up? There are SO many unanswered questions and so many variables that I just want to scream right now or cry. This is also on top of is Chris going to get everything done on time? Is his committee going to pass him? Is he actually going to graduate in May? All of these things and SO many other things is what keeps Chris up every night until 3 or 4 in the morning thinking about. He is so stressed out thinking about going into that much debt, as well as going to do school for three more years, he isn't excited about it at all, to the point that I am not even sure he will decide to go to law school. He is so done with school and just wants to get a job and move on. It is really getting to me, I can't imagine how Chris is feeling having it constantly on his mind 30/7 (yes more hours then there are in a day). I don't know what to do anymore so I just want to throw in the towel, say "I'm Done" and crawl in my warm bed and not have to deal with it anymore. I think the things that makes this 1000 times harder is that we have kids. If I could just go to work and support the household then it wouldn't be as big of a deal, but unfortunately we gave into the temptation of having kids before we were done with school and now we get to suffer 100 fold. Such is the life of being an adult, especially parents.
I'm Done:(

Night Time Job?

Has anybody ever had a night time job? I am thinking that that may be the only thing that could keep us afloat. If you have, what did you do? What were your hours? What did you think about it?

So...Chris is thinking about going to Law School. However, it is REALLY expensive and the market is so bad right now that finding a job afterwards is not very hopeful. He has been trying to get a job as a History Professor but hasn't been able find one of those either. I am trying to come up with solutions as to how we could afford to go to law school and I am thinking that I either need to have a night time job or I need to watch a whole bunch of kids during the day. If you have any ideas as to how we could make this work please let me know. He really doesn't want to go to law school and come out with no job, be in the same situation that he is right now but have an extra $200,000+ in debt as well as the debt we are already in. Education pays doesn't it? It hasn't helped us out a whole lot yet and it is VERY discouraging. He could probably get a job teaching at a high school but he never wanted to teach high school and didn't need 2 other degrees to do that either. I am wishing that Allison was the one that was going to be 5 soon and start school so that I could go work while they were in school but that isn't the case. I have got to find something to do to help pay the bills while Chris is in law school or we will just drown in debt. He doesn't even want to go take on that much debt to be in the same situation. Any and all advice would be helpful.

SNOW!!

On Monday it was about 78 degrees. I was loving the weather then Tuesday it got down to like 47, and the wind picked up a lot. Wednesday it was really in the teens and the windy was blowing like 40-60 mph. It was crazy how cold it was ESPECIALLY with the wind. Though it was in the teens it didn't LOOK cold outside because there wasn't any snow on the ground. So being in Texas we (I) don't bundle up like I should because it doesn't look cold and in my mind, if there is no snow on the ground that is can't really be that cold and I don't prepare myself to be outside. Since it got so cold so quickly the state was mandated to have rolling blackouts, or brownouts I have heard them called since they were on purpose. So I didn't understand why we wouldn't have enough energy to run during the winter when it costs more to run the A/C then the heater. I was very confused as to how this could happen. Apparently, the state knows that they are going to need X amount of energy during the summer and only Y amount of energy during the winter but when it gets REALLY cold everyone has more heaters on and demands more energy. I learned that they shut off turbines for the winter because we don't need so much and it takes 6 days for them to start running at full capacity again so the weather turned cold so quickly they didn't have time to turn them on. The state did rolling blackouts for 30 minutes each (most of the time). The 30 minutes that the neighborhood by the church went out was right when we started playing basketball that morning. The score was 2 to 1 and the power went out. We didn't know at the time that it was a rolling blackout for 30 minutes. After sitting out in the foyer for 20 minutes we decided it wasn't going to come on so we set up tables and chairs for the Blue and Gold Banquet that night using a flashlight and a phone light for us to see what we were doing. The lights came back on after we had 10 chairs left to set up around the tables. It was great timing:) At least the seminary students didn't have to miss any seminary. At my house we didn't have a blackout at all but Chris said Blinn College did which is just across the street.
Thursday there was such a HUGE discussion about it Snowing Thursday night and what that meant with the schools. It is so amazing how the city shuts down when it snows around here. It didn't even cover the ground completely but the threat of "inclement weather" just puts everything in an uproar. School was to be postponed for 2 hours and then Friday morning they just canceled school. It really is ridiculous but oh well. I used to think that it never snowed in Texas but we have lived here 7 years now. The first 3 years it never snowed but the last 4 years it has snowed once or maybe twice every winter. I am getting used to it snowing once during the winter, the city shutting down and then life can continue when it gets above freezing again. That being said, my kids, or I still don't have snow attire.
Matthew was excited to go play in the snow and got dressed and went out.
It took us about 10 minutes to get Allison bundled as much as we could with what we have and she stayed out there for 5 minutes, literally. I put her out there and I even looked at the clock, it said 25, I told Chris I give her 5 minutes before she wants to come back in. Sure enough at the 30 she was crying outside the door, I want to come in. I SO called it. Matthew probably stayed out for 10 minutes before his cloth clothes were just too cold and wet and he wanted to come in. Here are my bundled kids.

Yes, this is the coat that she ate the cookie in and I haven't washed it in the last 2 days so the chocolate is still on there. It is better to be dirty and have her wear it then not wearing it at all. Her head should have definitely been warm with two really warm hats and 3 hoods. The rest of her body, maybe not so warm.

My sweet bundled boy.

The kids out in the backyard with the little snow that we got.

Got Milk?

We had our Blue and Gold Banquet for Cubscouts on Wednesday night. We ate first and then Chris being the Cubmaster had to present awards and such and I as a den leader have volunteered to be the scrapbook person so I brought my camera to take pictures of the boys. While such activities were going on, Allison helped herself to the chocolate chip cookie pizza slice that we hadn't finished yet. After the festivities I turned around to check on her and she was there, happy as can be. This was before she saw me looking at her, someone else had said something to her and she was smiling at them.

When she saw me this is the look I got.
I think it is so funny, as if she just got caught.

Then she saw that I can the camera and she had to play it up for the camera.

Wow, that is one messy girl.

Sibling Love

Allison has been a real stinker staying in her bed but usually she gets up and starts playing with the night light or something else that we hear and go in there and put her in bed.
This night we figured Allison finally went to sleep. When we went in there this is what we found. I think it was too cute, however she is suppose to stay in her bed. That could not have been comfortable for Matthew. Her leg was on his stomach and her foot was right up against his head. I wasn't able to use the flash so this is the best one that I got.

Medicine Anyone?

As we have been cleaning out closets and getting rid of "stuff" one of the closets we went through was our bathroom closet. So I have an issue with finishing medications apparently. There were some pretty strong medications in her, mostly because of 2 c-sections and a gallbladder surgery. Good pain killers, if you know what I mean. When I had my gallbladder attack I was prescribed these two medications that literally within about 10 minutes of taking them my head felt very light and my body felt very heavy and then I was out. It was great so that I didn't have to feel that pain anymore but if people have other problems they don't want to deal with I can see how they would just want to sleep them away and here is the medication to do that. Fortunately, I don't take all of my medications so thankfully I have never gotten addicted to anything. If it is something that I am suppose to take for 10 days or something I do take all of it, but when it is just for in case I usually try not to rely on it. Some of these bottles were from 2006 when I had Matthew and expired in 2007 but I just keep them "Just in Case I need them". I was actually really funny when I went through the cabinet and found all of these with my name on them. That is a lot of drugs to have put in my body, had I needed them. It was funny to take a picture of them and I even found one more after I took this picture:)
You know...I could have made a lot of money with these good pain killers:) haha just kidding.
It felt good to get rid of them.

Our Sick little girl

Our little girl was so sad looking for about two weeks. She started running a fever EVERY afternoon, after she woke up from her nap up 103 for a week. In the morning she would be fine and then after the nap it started all over again. After two nights of her just being so hot and not being able to sleep we finally took her into the dr. She had a double ear infection which she never complained that her ears hurt, she only complained that her leg hurt. It was always the same leg and it hurt her all the time. It was interesting that she had a double ear infection. After giving her antibiotics for 4 days, her fevers were still there and she said her leg was still hurting. She even started limping on that leg and sometimes wouldn't even use it to walk or even stand. She was one sad girl most of the day, every day. It was really bugging us as to what could be going on with our little girl. She also had a rash that started in her diaper area, anywhere the diaper was touching but then it continued to most of her body. We were getting concerned especially when one day after her nap she was limping SO bad that Chris mentioned we had our own little Tiny Tim on our hands. That made me really sad to see her like that. Dr. Svendsen wanted her to come in and get blood work done, and urine sample as well as many other tests they did on her. She was such a trooper and didn't even cry when they took her blood. The nurses were SUPER impressed with her. Her white blood cell count was a little high but every other test was normal. We don't know what it was, but her ear infections went away, her fevers eventually went away, her rashes went away and her limp eventually went away. She was kind of the clinics little project. We went in every other day so they could watch her and see how she was doing. Dr. Svendsen is the best pediatrician and I wish we could take her everywhere we move. Scott & White clinic took very good care of her. I don't know if I have ever or will ever see another medical company take such good care of their patients. She has had to have more blood work done and everything was at normal so nobody knows what it was but as of right now she is fine and healthy (other then coughing) but we are still suppose to go back in a month to do more blood work to make sure everything stays normal. It is so hard to see your child sick and the drs don't know what to do or what it is. I felt safe with Dr. Svendsen and felt that she truly cared and would do what she needed to to keep my baby with us.
She never slept well because she was always too hot, she was finally so drained one day that she just fell asleep in the chair while we were running around being loud. She was obviously exhausted because she hardly even take naps now. Her left leg was the one that was hurting her.
My poor little girl.

Christmas Morning

We started a new tradition the first year we stayed home for Christmas that we continued this Christmas as well.
I get so excited for Christmas morning to get here that I can hardly stand Christmas Eve, it just seems like such a long day. (I know I am like a little kid).
We started the tradition to cook Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve and that way it gives me something to do on Christmas Eve and then Christmas day I don't have to worry about cooking. It is fabulous for us. As long as we are at our home I believe we are going to do this every year.
Christmas morning was so fun to see the kids excited.
Allison has LOVED playing in these little cozy coupe cars. LOVES them. Santa knew how much she loved these things so he brought one for her and put it under a blanket. When she saw this huge blanket thing she was very scared of it. We had to unwrap it for her before she realized that it wasn't a monster or something. She loves it, can't you tell by her smiles.

This doll has been another favorite of hers. She loves to feed it and change its diaper.
You could put water in the bottle and it would go through the baby and have a wet diaper. After doing that once we opted for the dry baby but Allison still loves to change its diaper. She is so stinking cute but still gets in trouble.

I love my cute little boy. He is such a joy to have around...most of the time:) I love his orange hair and it really helps me when I am asking people if they have seen my red headed little boy. He stands out from the crowd which I love. I can't believe he has such orange hair but I can't imagine him with any other color. I love his cute smiles:)

He has been asking for transformers for the past couple months. He got one from Ka'Melo which he loved but still hoped that Santa would bring him one. Santa actually brought him two which he was ecstatic about. I love the look of unbelief in this picture. This transformer was even a Star Wars one which he is definitely into so it is even more amazing to him that he got a STAR WARS TRANSFORMER!! This is one of the presents that I was so excited about him opening.

Admiring more about the transformer.

I think I have been more excited for Christmas then my kids:)
We had such a fabulous time just doing whatever we wanted all by ourselves ALL day long. We stayed in our pjs all day and just played and lounged around. Now that is a great day:)

Christmas Prep

We have some fabulous friends in this ward that I am going to miss so much. I really hope that I can have as good of a ward family in our next ward but I just don't know if it is possible. Bryan 1st Ward is absolutely amazing.
Anyways, some of our awesome friends invited us to go Christmas caroling with them. I always did this growing up so to do this with my friends was over the top for me. There were the Goddards, Tooles, and Hooses. It was so much fun singing with them because they are all Excellent singers. We went to five different houses and delivered treats and sang. Afterwards we still had some time so we came over to our house and drank hot chocolate and ate the rest of the goodies that we didn't give to people as well as watched youtube on our laptop. It was fun to hang out with these amazing friends.
Thanks for inviting us friends:)

Of course we had to make sugar cookies and decorate them and leave some out for Santa so here are my cute kids eating their cookies.

Preschool Christmas Party

Matthew is in a public preschool this year that is 3 hours every day. It has really been good to help me adjust to having him be gone every day. This fall he starts Kindergarten which just writing that brings tears to my eyes. I don't even like him being gone those few hours every day now but it is good for me to separate a little bit. I have offered to come in and help out the class so Mrs. Dockery said I could come in once a week and read to the students that don't get read to much at home. I am grateful for that time that I get to go in and see Matthew in his classroom. They had a Christmas party that I got to go participate in.
Take a look at this class of kids. Do you see anything odd? Or what which of these three children don't belong:)




I had a friend that moved away but when she lived here her son went to this preschool and had Mrs. Dockery. They really liked Mrs. Dockery so I requested her for Matthew's teacher. Then two other moms in my ward wanted to put their children in this preschool so we figured strength in numbers and they requested Mrs. Dockery also. There are were only 4 Caucasians in Mrs. Dockery's class. Corinna, Jeffrey and Matthew were already friends from Sunbeams. A couple days before Christmas Corinna moved away so now there is Jeffrey and Matthew and one other Caucasian. It is a really good experience for Matthew and not once has he talked about any of his classmates being a different color or anything. In fact at the beginning of school he kept talking about Camillo. I really didn't care about all the things that Camillo did but Matthew talked about him ALL the time. I mean ALL THE TIME. I had no idea who this Camillo kid was but Matthew said he was his best friend. About a month into school we had an open house and as we were waiting outside for the doors to open this little kid came running up yelling Matthew, Matthew, Matthew, and Matthew saw him and shouted Camillo! and gave him a big hug. His mom was smiling and said so this is Matthew, Camillo talks about Matthew all the time. I asked her what her name was and I heard randa, I said Miranda? She said no, SHiranda. I found out later that Camillo's name is not how I had ever seen it before, Ka'Melo. Matthew and Ka'Melo are best of friends and it is really cute.
At this Christmas party, Jeffrey's family (my friend Sadie) came also as well as NUMEROUS other moms and dads and relatives. Sadie and I just looked around and felt very out numbered. I thought it was funny to be such a minority, physically. I just have to laugh when I think about it.

Mrs. Dockery and Mrs. Lopez gave all the kids a book "The Gingerbread Man" and a box of crayons.

My sweet little boy

I saw SHiranda one time at Walmart before the party and she had mentioned how Ka'Melo had Matthew on his list of people to get presents for. I was glad she mentioned that because I wouldn't have thought about that. After the party and all the bus riders and most of the car riders were gone Matthew and Ka'Melo exchanged gifts. They both loved their gifts. Here is the one and only Ka'Melo and his buddy Matthew.