My old friend

Well I have successfully been a lazy blogger. I wish I could say that it was from lack of free time and pawn it off on something other than myself but it's not. So here I am again. I am really going to try and post at least three times a week. I think that's a pretty realistic goal right? We'll see. If I start to slack you guys better jump on my behind! I don't even know where to start with catching everyone up on our lives. Let's see...in a nutshell Zach left on deployment for 6 months, we drove back and forth from Ventura a few times, Gwen and I went to Washington to visit Blair while Hunter got to play with Grammy and Grandpa, holidays came and went, I went to Chicago and left the kids for the first time ever (together that is), Gwen turned one, we had some visitors for a while, Zach came home, Hunter turned 3, I went to Kansas to help Blair with L's bday party and to get her stuff together to move and now we are getting ready for Zach's bday weekend craziness. Little things happened here and there in all that mix, you know, like Gwen walking... just the small stuff. HA! Oh and our good friends got married! That was fun. Currently we are all knocked down with a funky cold. I've never had one last this long and feel this way. There's always a first for everything. The kids are doing a lot better though. I think Gwen's now is just teething. Throughout this whole cold experience our fridge broke for the second time. Oh for joy. I'm so tired of things breaking. First it was my laptop and that took forever to fix. Well that's about it for this post. I have a lot more in my head but I don't want the first post to be anymore all over the board than it already is. :)

Granny Nanny

Last weekend my mother in law came to visit! It was so great! We actually had a few house guest last weekend. My cousins Beth and Darren, brother in law Josh and his wifey Kaytie AND my mother in law. We were rockin' the house. We all hit up Sea World and had a blast! Hunter is so in love with everything there, Shamu especially. Here are just a few pictures of our crazy weather. Hunter and Granny Nanny were loving dancing in the warm rain.

 

 

 

 

Kisses 'N' Stitches

Just a little sample of the things we make! The multi color shoes are for my little niece Casey, her momma chose this great soft yarn! A hat is being made to match. :)

 

 

 

 

Well hello there!

I have once again neglected my step-child of a blog. ha! Gwen is now two weeks away from 7 months...oh Lord...and Hunter is almost 2 and a half. Sigh. When did this happen? Well, time for the next one I suppose...NOT! ha! That won't happen for at least a couple of years. Ok, back to the kids and life. Hunter is my little weed. He makes up the best stories now and I absolutely love to watch him play with his toys. I'm terrible about posting pictures because the majority of my pictures are on my iphone and, Krista can confirm this, I never plug my phone into my computer! I really should. I have WAY too many pictures on that thing. I constantly realize that I need to do more projects with H. I think that I can have a moment of my own time when he's still awake...HAHAHAHAHA! I know right? Hilarious! Especially with little princess on the floor too. I need to work more with her too. I know I'm not suppose to use the previous child to measure the new child but H was already sitting himself up and starting to crawl now. This is taking a bit longer. Doesn't she know she has a certain timeline for these things?! I guess I'll give the kid a little wiggle room. The past couple of days she's been having a tummy issue. My gassy girl. Poor baby.

We're also getting ready for deployment. One month and counting. It was so much easier to do this deployment thing by myself. Pray for us please! Also, any advice from you momma's would be welcomed and much appreciated!

Oh, and then there's the house. Yeah, that's its own crazy whirlwind in itself. There are still a bunch of boxes in the garage and two bathrooms to paint. Our poor daughter has no furniture STILL and a guest bed is in her room. One day the house will be done and amazing...one day.

We've been in Ventura for the past week andit's been super! Zach is in OK for a training class and gets back Saturday so back to SD we go. I dislike that drive already. Well, with two children I dislike it.

Oh man! and then there is my new business! Kisses 'N' Stitches (kissesandstitches on Etsy.com) is my newest baby. I'm having a lot of fun making new things. Even more fun making new fun things for little ones! I'm in the process of having a logo made so business cards and eBanners are in the near future! I just wish the economy was doing better so more people would buy things! :)

New Adventure!

SO much has happened since the last time I posted. Let's see if I can catch you all up quickly.

We have made tremendous progress on the house! Mom and Dad came down for a week and we were able to knock out a lot. Finally have new carpet so we aren't living on tack strip and ply wood, all rooms but the master bath and the kids bathroom are painted, the kitchen is at a stand still for now. We found that there is bad drywall in the kitchen in a large chunk...like everywhere underneath my top cabinets. :( So we are waiting on our drywall guy next week to come and fix our world! Then the painting and new back splash can go up! So, so, so excited about that! Boxes, well boxes are still packed. It's a slow process with those. I can't lift as much as I thought I could...ouch. We have a lot unpacked but I never realized just how much stuff we actually fit in that other small house. I do miss my gigantic linen closet in Italy. The cabinet we have here is just not big enough for the mass loads of linen we have. I'm hoping to put in cabinets in the laundry room. One step at a time!

We have been back from our trip to Oregon and Washington for two weeks now. It was so amazing to go and visit family and meet our new niece Casey. She is beautiful! It was also incredible to be able to visit with a few of our friends from Sicily! Just what the doctor ordered. We got to meet the beautiful Loreli and eat homemade pizza's in an Italian pizza oven at a friends house for my birthday! Oh yes, my birthday also happened in my little absence from the blogger world. I am one year older and still feel like a teenager except for my aching back and the lack of ability to stay up past 11 o'clock. HA!!

The kids are amazing, growing like little weeds. Gwen is a week shy of 6 months and LOVES food. Baby food, people food (only what she can suck on from my hands) and pretty much anything with food in the title. She is so ready too. It's hilarious to watch her follow my fork and get mad at me for eating whatever bite was on it! She has to be at least 15lbs now. Hunter is now afraid of the big bad wolf and marsh mellow man, where he learns these things is beyond me. So now when we say our prayers at night he wants to pray for them to be nice. I love that little man. His vocabulary is better than mine as well as his ability to make a sentence. He only partially refers to himself in the third person which we all still think is hilarious. Oh and he hates wearing clothing.

We're staring another deployment in the face right now which is a huge bummer, part of the job but bummer none the less. Zach has to leave for two weeks before the deployment to some class so that's even less time we have with him right now. Joy. God, please grant me patience with these children! :) I love them but they both love to gang up on me already. Such smart little puppies.

Another HUGE adventure right now is my new business! My dear friend Blair and I just started our crocheting business, otherwise known as our grandma business. If you have a facebook account check out Kisses 'N' Stitches! We're still working on our portfolio but it's coming along nicely! I'm hoping to have an etsy shop up and running by the weekend. More on this little venture later!

Off to kiddy land now!

Just Breathe

There is so much to get done with the house before we leave on Monday. I keep trying to make some headway but then I get a crazy two year old meltdown AND a constipated 5 month old. Yesterday was absolutely the worst. Hunter was trying to kick Gwen in the head and poke and punch her. It's been lovely. I know he just wants more attention from me and I do my best to give it to him. The last few days I haven't even started on anything for the house or myself until naptime. I would sit and watch a movie with him or just fart around. The second part of our day would be fine for about 20 min and then the little stinker would go all postal on me again. While all of this with Hunter is happening Gwennyth is screaming at me because all she wants is to be held and for her belly to stop hurting. Poor little thing.

So Momma's any advice? I would love anything you can give me.

On a possitive note, I have my first order! A friend of mine is ordering a flapper hat for her daughter. I am so excited! I think Etsy is definitely in my future. I want to sell five items before I start a website though. So with that said, what would be a fun and cute little name for an etsy store?

Whirlwind!!

Well, it's official. As of 1:17pm on Friday July 1st Zach and I became homeowners!!

I had a GIGANTIC post written about our entire experience and then I lost the internet connection. That's what I get for "borrowing" the internet from someone around me. HA! Well we have our internet set up so here I go again. This will be a readers digest version. :)

We were supposed to close on our house on the 28th, well there were MANY hiccups as expected. We were scheduled to move out of our apartment on the 30th and I pretty much thought that something would happen so I booked a hotel for two nights. :) The Sheraton Marina is AMAZING! If you ever come down to SD definitely stay there. Every room had an incredible view and it was reasonable on cost. Anywho, as we were packing up our apt. we still had no keys and were "assured" that we would have them by the end of day. HA! Not so much. We were scheduled to get our HHG shippment (our house hold goods) on the 1st and we didn't have possesion of the house yet! Zach and I were kind of sick of waiting for all of the bank nonsense that was going on since our loan had funded already and all we were waiting on was a signature from the sellers lender and the deed to be recorded in our name. So, as per my Dad's advise and amazing advise at that, we called our real estate agent and told her to call the sellers agent with an ultimatum. Our ultimatum was "give us full access to the house or we walk". Imagine our surprise when they said YES! ha! These people were so irritating. They wouldn't let us in the house while we were in escrow even if we were with our agent. It was ridiculous. It all worked out and we started moving into a house that we still didn't technically own yet! ha!

Once we all got in to the house (Mom, Dad, Zach and myself) we realized just how dirty this place was/is. They must have NEVER cleaned this home the entire seven years of its exsitence. It was awful. We had two house cleaners come in and help us get it livable. The carpet is ripped up and paint is in progress. We got so much done thanks to my parents. Mom and Dad you are amazing and we couldn't have done it all without you!!! THANK YOU!!!

Well a baby is screaming at me so I must continue later.

Smack down

Well yesterday was NOT a good day for Hunter. Lot's of him screaming and being just plain naughty. It was very hard and exasperating for me. I had hit my limit with it about half way through the morning. We had a lot of time outs and a couple of spanks which afterwards I felt horrible for spanking him.
When Zach got home it was a huge relief. I explained to him that our day was full of craziness and he told me that he heard a story on the radio today that he wanted to share with me. I pretty much brushed it off and kept going about my business so we could get on the road (we had to meet the real estate agent and go to a furniture store before that). Well we finished up with the furniture store and we were on the way to the new house and Zach begins to tell me this story.

A family with a 3 year old boy kept having to take their son to the ER because of high fevers over a few week period. It kept continuing with the fevers and they kept taking him back to this same hospital that was basically telling them nothing. Well once their son was hallucinating because the fever was so high they decided to take him to a different hospital for a second opinion. The second they saw a doctor they were taking him to emergency surgery. His appendix had ruptured. The doctors said that they would do their best to try and save this boy but because it was so progressed it wasn't looking like they could actually save him. They came out of surgery and were able to give the parents good news. After the little boy had healed they were all driving together and this little boy started telling them that when they were in surgery he went to Heaven. When the parents heard this they started listening a little better. He continued to tell them, as he was coloring in the car, that Jesus had markers.They said "Oh, Jesus has markers? What color?" and the little boy said "red." They asked him where he had them and the boy dropped his colors and pointed to his palms and his ankles. Now the parents pulled over. They asked him to continue to tell them more about his story. At this point they were thinking that he was just making this up, he could have known about these things from Sunday school. He went on to tell them that he was playing with a lot of kids in Heaven and that he even remembered some of their names. He told his Mom and Dad that he was also playing with Pops. Pops was actually the Dad's grandpa that he would play with all the time as a child. When they got home they showed the boy pictures of Pops when he was an old man. The boy didn't recognize him. The Dad asked his wife to show their son a picture of his grandfather as a young man. When the Mom showed him the picture the boy asked "Where did you get a picture of Pops?" They were both a bit stunned. I mean, who wouldn't be? The little boy told them that when they were done with the surgery Jesus told the boy that it was time to go back but he didn't want to go back. Jesus told him that he had to go back. He told him that He was answering his Daddy's prayer. (At this point while Zach was telling me this I was bawling.)
The little boy asked his mother if she had a baby die in her belly before. She was in shock that he knew this because they had never told him. She told him yes. He told her that he was playing with his sister in Heaven. That she wouldn't stop hugging him and that she was so happy to have family with her. He continued to tell them that his sister can't wait until they are there with her too but she is ok right now, she said "God adopted me". The mom asked "Do you mean Jesus?" and the boy said "No. God."

I'm sorry, but how incredible is this? Hearing this was just Jesus putting me back in my place. Everyday I struggle with my walk. Everyday I wonder if I'm parenting right. Everyday there is another thing that takes my attention and focus off of my walk with God. Why am I letting this happen? How should I be disciplining our son and daughter? I feel like I fail a little bit more everyday in one area or another. Why do I let myself focus so much on the things that aren't important? I'm wasting time. After Zach told me this story, true story at that it was just validating my sadness about my day with Hunter. Today, today will be different. Today I will count to ten before I act when I feel myself getting heated. Today I will make a change. I will not let myself stay in this rut. Little victories, baby steps.

I am very interested in reading this families story, as soon as I figure out the name of their book! ha!

The last Month in a nut shell

Well I guess my little schedule didn't hold up! My bad.

Well let's see, the kids and I headed up to Ventura the last week in May for Hunter's 2 year well child check up (so sad it's not well baby anymore). He is such a big man! I wish that I had all of his stats! I love the doctor that we were seeing, he was actually my doctor before we moved. He just isn't the type of person that is "into" the keepsake part of getting numbers about your kids. Such a guy thing. Anyway, the same thing happened when I had Gwen's two month check up.

Later that week Zach came up so we could celebrate his birthday! I also had Gwen's 4 month well baby check up! I can't believe that she is already 4 months...well almost 5 now but I don't want to talk about that! She is a big ol baby! 15lbs! Off of the top of my head I can't remember her length. The doctor said that she was tall for her size and overall with her weight she is tall and thin!! Um, yeah...my baby is definitely not THIN! hahaha! I get what he was saying though. She's just tall. We'll see if she stays tall and gets yet another something from her daddy! She is doing great too. Doc' says she is looking like she will be ahead of the game just like her brother. Oh brother! Two kids that are little geniuses. :) Let's see if mommy can keep up.

June also held two family weddings! I now have another sister! My brother in law got married at the beginning of the month to a great girl. We are so excited to have Kaytie! My cousin also got married. I absolutely love the women that have been brought into the family this month. These guys did very GOOD!

House update:

Yesterday we signed loan docs and the loan is funding today! We will officially be homeowners tomorrow when we get keys! (HOPEFULLY!) This last week Zach and I went searching for appliances and carpet. We definitely need to re carpet this house. The homeowners before us started to not care about their house. It's a bit sad. Well long story short we found great deals at Lowes for all of those things. We were super excited to find a french door fridge for an amazing deal! AND because of the great deal on the fridge I was able to get the washer and dryer I wanted!

Well that's all for now, having a two year old meltdown at the moment...joy.

Video!

For all of my non-facebook stalkers! :) Yesterday the kids and I were waiting in the car for Zach and I couldn't help but take a video of these funny kids. Gwen just loves her Hunter. She ends up laughing at him at least once a day. I love these kids!