We made it!

My first semester of school since being married was a success! One of the biggest helps was trading babysitting with Jamie O. Once a week she would watch the kids for a couple hours so I could do homework, and then later I would watch hers so that she could volunteer at her kids' school.

Joel was the other big big big help. He put the kids to bed 4 nights a week by himself. Half of the time I would be able to sit and eat dinner with family before rushing off to school, the other half, my wonderful husband did by himself.

But we all made it!! My kids aren't permanently scarred, Joel's still alive, and I got decent grades. 2 A's and 1 B. Not too shabby.


The kids are growing SO much!
Jetta is a big talker!! Most popular words are Applesauce, sockies, mommy, daddy, all done, food, ... she can say so much, it's hard to think of everything. She also loves music. She could hum the ABC's before her first birthday! She loves to repeat music she hears. She hums a lot. She's also silly and doesn't open her mouth when she "talks" sometimes. It's a gutteral mm hmm mm mm.

Bentley is growing tall! Right now he LOVES Thomas the train, trains in general, construction vehicles, seeing the library being built, watching fighting cartoons with a good and bad guy, doing projects with mommy and being silly. He's a very silly boy. Right now he likes to talk silly. He'll stick his tongue out while he talks, or add a few syllables to everything. Anything to be silly. He is also testing his boundaries of who is in charge and ABSORBING everything he learns! The other day we went to a movie in the theatre because he made it 7+ days without an accident in potty training. At the beginning of the movie, staring at the screen he sees Earth and yells THATS A PLANET! WE LIVE ON THAT PLANET! So smart.

I love how well the kids play together. It's so much fun to see them laughing together and playing nicely together!

School

Joel and I both felt really good about me going back to school this fall (finally). My mind has been thinking about it for a long time, especially since I know how important it is in our day. After we got married I was totally against going back. Not sure what I wanted to do. Not wanting to waste money. Not wanting to do the work... that last one might have been a bigger factor than it should have been. This last year I have had school on the brain and it slowly worked its way into "maybe now is good." When we decided to wait a little to have any more babies, it seemed like the time was NOW to get on the school boat. I'm not a happy pregnant person. I don't enjoy pregancy like some women do. So school + pregnancy is out of the picture. To summarize the going to school process, I got accepted to CWI, got government grants, and knew what I wanted to major in. (that's a story in itself. Thanks grandma gail, you gave me guidance, even after death)

I started school August 20th and here we are almost 4 weeks later. I love being back in school. Love learning. Don't mind homework. I don't love that you're either super busy or slow going. I'm hitting my first over-whelming busy period. It's a little stressful. Joel has been an amazing husband and father! Big shout out to my honey, you're wonderful and I'm grateful for you! He takes care of the kiddos and is SO supportive. He has done so much to help alleviate my stress and help me be successful. He's even preparing for another Actuary exam in November. His 3rd test of 5.

So to sum it up, we are busy around here. But that doesn't keep us from having fun and being goof-balls.

Bentley is going through "a stage"... you know... a behavior that keeps popping up over and over and you aren't liking this new learned behavior... that kind of stage. He's has so many thoughts. I can see it in the way he acts when we're talking and the way he speaks. He has so many things to say that he says a lot of words before he can wrap his head around one idea. He's so full of ideas. And so many questions. A favorite being "why?". I thought I had a little longer before that one showed up. I guess not. haha. He's a terd and yet so good at playing with his sister and loving her and being tender toward her... And rough housing with her and showing her how to do things and talking random non-sense to her. It's pretty cute.

Jetta is getting so big. She is learning lots of things. Words, tantrums, attitude, games, songs. She has hawk eyes on her brother. "Oh, I see, throw a fit. I can do that." :) I see her learning. She is incredibly smart. A new one was swinging on a big kid swing all by herself. I was amazed! She loves to say "wow" and " hi dada" and refuses to say hi mama. :( Daddy likes it! She is walking and loving it I am a happy momma. I love being a stay at home mom.

Beautifully busy life

Going back to school

I never make enough time to write what is happening in our lives. I wish I did. I tend to lay awake at night thinking of all the wonderful things I would like to do. Usually morning comes and my great ideas don't sound as great.

BUT... I have finally decided the time has come to finish my schooling and get my associates degree. I am going to attend the College of Western Idaho. I am excited. I am nervous. And mostly, I am ready to accept that my patriarchal blessing was given to ME to bless my life. I fought against going back to school. Not the right time. Not a desire. I don't want to be a nurse anymore.... That last one wasn't true, but I tried to convince myself of that. But alas, a seed was planted in my heart and has finally blossomed into a desire to finish what I have started.

My degree is Biology-Healthcare Emphasis. I was a little disappointed to learn that it would take me 3 full semesters to finish this. I was hoping for 2. I am crossing my fingers that it will work out. This semester I am taking Biology 202, Spanish 101, and Accounting 201.  $1000 back after school is paid for... I accept. :)

My kiddos are amazing. I love them. They are my life. Right now I am trying to focus on loving the stage of life I am in. It can be hard. Raising children isn't easy. It can sometimes be lonely. But it is also very rewarding. Nothing else in my life has been quite as rewarding as has been staying home to raise my babies. Jetta is 1 already! Bentley turns 3 in about 2 weeks! I feel like they are so big, yet I know they're still babies.

Jetta is learning to walk right now. She is SO close. She can stand up in the middle of the room and take a few steps. I know that once she conquers walking that she'll go straight into running. I can see it in her eyes, she just wants to get into so many things! She is SO smart too! Already she can hum the ABC/Twinkle Twinkle Little Star tune. I mean, full song. Just amazes me.

Bentley is learning a lot too! He is just absorbing information. The other day he asked us what 'God' means and in our attempt to explain it to him in 2 year old terms, he throws out things like "is he the father of outer space too?" "do astronauts go into outer space?"... All we could do is stare at each other stunned. Where did he learn about outer space and astronauts? Bentley is also testing my patience. He is being quite the pill lately. Last week he threw a fit at walmart, complete with throwing things from the cart, screaming, hitting, kicking his feet.... A very unproductive trip to walmart that day.

My only worry is that I am trying to do things in MY time instead of Heavenly Fathers. I will need to do better at praying for guidance.

My Costco experience

On Friday I took the kiddos to Costco. Bentley LOVES costco for 3 reasons.

1. He gets to sit up front by Jetta (when I was a kid we coveted sitting in the basket...)
2. I usually treat us to Pizza in the food court (after shopping) if the kids have been good.
3. He gets a smiley face on "his" receipt, which is apparently the best thing ever

So we go to Costco and I notice early on that my cart is building up a lot of static. And by "notice" I mean, it literally shocked me every 10-30 seconds. Now if you've ever been to Costco, you'd know that it is not a small store. And of course, the thing I was hoping wouldn't happen, did. I shocked my kids. At first Bentley was a little startled and giving me confused looks. Jetta on the other hand cried Every. Single. Time. It got to the point where it wasn't these small shocks either. It started to hurt! I would jump or my hand would instinctively fly up and I'd say ow. So, like I said, at first Bentley was startled. But this is where it gets good. Then he starts saying stuff like "Don't hurt me Mommy" "That hurts" "Don't touch me Mommy".... So to interrupt a little, I said before it was Friday and that means Sample day. So everyone and their dog is at Costco... As we walk through the store I'm getting funny looks because my child is yelling that I'm hurting him and don't touch me and "Please Mommy, don't hurt me anymore." The only thing I could do was say as often as I could that "it was the static and I didn't mean to shock him" and "I'm not trying to hurt you baby, it's the static"

I practically ran through the store to get my things. Several times I almost asked someone to trade me carts because here is Jetta crying and Bentley yelling that I'm hurting him... haha... I don't know why my cart was building so much static but it definitely made for an interesting day at Costco!!

House update...

After having our realtor over to talk about selling our house, we discussed price. Our realtor felt that to be able to get the price we wanted, we would probably have to wait 2-4 months. We decided that was fine, and hurried to get everything done so we could put it on the market. 2 weeks of busy busy.

Then, we stage our house (thanks mom for the help!) and the realtor comes to take photos. The next morning, our house is put up for sale. Day 1- 9am the house is listed online. By 7pm that night, our house had been looked at 3 times. Day 2- 5 people look at the house. We have 3 offers on the table. So uh... 2-4months turned into 2 days. We were not prepared for this. But we were excited! Plus, cash offer... Who pays cash for a house? lol.

So our house sells day 2 and we panic because there is nothing on the market that we want. I mean, nothing. We started looking at houses that might work or we could make work, and then decided that we would be settling if we chose any of those. Some houses we loved the location but hated the house, others, vice versa. A week of looking and not finding had me worried. It's not like buying a house is a quick thing. You can't pick one and move in a week later. So I was worrying that we would reach our houses closing date and have no where to go. We decided that if it came to that, we would get an apartment while we waited for our perfect home.

And then the perfect home came along! We've decided that my mother in law has a special talent. You see, when my SIL (Heather) told my MIL (Janice) that she wanted a house with some land and a place for her mother to live, Janice found their house. 3 acres, 2 houses on the land. Just what she wanted. So, when we mentioned that we wanted to move and our criteria. Janice kept her eyes and ears out and found our perfect home. A talent, really!

We are in the middle of buying this new home. Price negotiated, home inspection done, paperwork filled out. Now we wait on the appraisal and the finalization of our loan, yada yada. Yay! Our new home is about 200sqft smaller than our current home but is laid out well enough that we didn't notice or feel like it was smaller. I'm so excited. Now I just need to pace myself and not pack everything we own 4 weeks early :)

34 days

I have been struggling through some rough days this past month! I'm so happy to finally say I'm feeling a lot better! My shingles are gone, but have been replaced by something that looks like chicken pox. The "chicken pox" are healing, and I have had 4 nights of great sleep! My leg and back only itch occasionally and I'm in much better spirits these days! 34 days... that is a long time. I hope to never have shingles ever ever ever again!

On a brighter note, Joel and I are going to sell our home. We've started the process of cleaning the house up, painting, re-touching, caulking, etc.. to prepare our home to be sold. It's starting to look spiffy. Technical term, yes. :) I'm hoping to be out of our house before summer is in full heat. And for two reasons- 1. I don't want to move when it's so hot. Packing, unpacking, loading, unloading... not fun if you're sweaty and hot. 2. Our house has air conditioning, but it doesn't work as efficiently as it could. I want me some good air conditioning! My fingers are crossed that we can sell this house for a good profit!

Easter was wonderful! We got to see a lot of family and Bentley got to have 3 egg hunts. He finally understood the egg hunting thing this year. It was fun to watch. Got to see all my grandparents for Easter as well. I love getting to see them. Grandma Gail played a couple games with Bentley after his egg hunt. He loved it to say the least! Many more happy days to come...

Good news or bad news?

It feels like a lot has happened since last Tuesday.

I went to the Chiropractor again on Wednesday because I HURT! I couldn't walk, stand up straight, sit, lay... There was no comfortable position. So I went to the chiropractor with high hopes that I would walk out of there feeling so much better. I did not. I felt the same, maybe slightly better. I remember going home, sitting down in a chair and crying. Nothing was making me feel better and I was starting to feel helpless and desperate for something to change. Later that day I noticed a small rash on my leg. I didn't think much into it (because I was in agony and my brain wasn't working). But later when my mom came over it struck me that when I had described my tingling feeling in my leg to the chiropractor earlier that week he had asked me if I had a rash. And I thought, how unusual that he would ask me that. So I called him up to see why it was that he had asked me about a rash and he asked if I could pop in before they closed. I did, and he said he was almost positive that I had shingles. He said they can cause a good amount of pain and that it just might be what was making my back and hip joint hurt so badly. Went to quick care that night and sure enough, I had shingles.

I remember people kept saying to me that they heard it hurt a lot and they were so sorry. I completely agree now. By Saturday, a full 8 days after my initial symptoms, I was pretty well covered from lower middle back to knee on my right side. They say the rash follows a main nerve from your back. That's why it hurts so badly. Its on your nerve. Your pain receptors.

I felt a big rush of relief to know that I had shingles. Weird, I know. But I was having pain without reason, which is scary for the brain. Knowing that there was a reason and that it would end has made the process easier. Not easy, just easier. Like I said, I cried. I didn't even cry giving birth to my 2 children without pain meds... Shingles hurt. Now here I am 11 days into this and I am finally starting to see improvement. It's a little depressing to wake up each morning with things looking worse. I was very relieved that the pain in my lower back subsided!! Soo happy! Now if the pins and needles feeling would stop spreading to other parts of my body... So far the "pins and needles" feeling covers my lower back down to my ankle on my right side, my ankle and foot on the left side(my toes feel so weird), just above my elbow down to my pinky on the right side, between my shoulder blades on the right side, and one of my ribs. The rash feels like a giant sunburn. My pain medication doesn't even touch the pain. I would have to get a prescription for that... nursing prevents me from doing so. So, I live with it as best I can. By the end of the day I am drained. I cry almost every night just from the exhaustion of trying to maintain normalcy. I'm not proud to admit that.

Joel has been great. He takes over a lot when he gets home from work and during the weekend. Poor guy painted the kitchen by himself. (My sister Megan came over and helped prime the whole thing. Thanks Meg!) We were getting new kitchen cabinets and wanted the kitchen painted before they were put up. Poor guy hates painting and ended up doing it all without my help. Cabinets look great by the way!

Tender mercies have been my life saver! Little things to get me through the day. I couldn't ask for more. Heavenly Father was watching out for me and those around me. Thank you to everyone who has been able to offer help. I'm truly grateful! Maybe in a week I will be close to normal.

Fail

Exercising was going well. We were motivated to keep going, eat right, and getting excited to get in shape. But sadly both Joel and I were injured. Thursday night I pulled something in my back/buttocks area. I took Friday off with hopes of an easy day helping the healing process. Saturday morning, Joel was helping a family from church move and put his back out. Ouch! He was out of commission all weekend. I found motivation to do half a workout with as much enthusiasm as my body would allow. (Good workout too!) But, Sunday came and we were both out of commission. My body ached and throbbed and complained. Monday came and Joel and I made a chiropractor appt. Joel felt wonderful all Monday while at work. I on the other hand counted down the hours and minutes until our appointment in the late afternoon. Doc worked his magic and I left feeling SO much better. Maybe not 100%, but had high hopes that rest and relaxation would heal me quickly. 1.5 hours later I got an exciting delivery from UPS (the stroller I was waiting for! yay!) and with a little too much self confidence, picked the box up 1 handed and POP.... I put my back/pelvis out again. It hurt. And I regretted and kicked myself immediately. Today I am a big ball of hurt. I am doing my very best to not complain but my face says ouch, owie, groan, grimace. I had hopes of being able to pick up the work out again starting Wednesday... now I'm just crossing my fingers that I can get another chiropractor appointment for Wednesday and be healed enough to start monday. A whole week of break... boo.

On a brighter note, Jetta is getting close to crawling! She is leaning into a half crawling, half sitting position. You can tell she wants to do it but is frustrated and a bit scared what will happen. I'm excited for her and also thinking, crap, I'm going to have to put things up high again.

Jetta in her new slippers that mama made her. She's always happy. And maybe getting some teeth soon!

 Bentley is at a fun stage. Fun in honest and fun in sarcasm. At the same time. :) He is stringing sentences together and picking up our word usage. My favorite is hearing him say "I'm excited for ____." Today he was excited to have egg sandwiches for lunch and to go to Home Depot. Very exciting stuff. :) Apparently I have been saying 'excited' a little too much lately.

Oh and Bentley is currently obsessed with trains. And he has given favorite movies nicknames. "Cars" is called Mater McQueen (yes, 2 characters combined) and "Cars 2" is called Pink Racecars... ahh and Lion King is apparently being understood as Lyin' King... he said something to me today about the Lying movie. Can't remember exactly what he said but the gist was that it was untruthful. haha

Love my kids. Hope I heal soon. I hurt.

4 days down... 26 to go

Joel and I started 'Insanity' on Monday, February 25th. Our only free time when we are both home is either before the kids get up or after dinner. And lets face it, this mama isn't wasting precious sleep time exercising. So at night we exercise.

Yesterday was day 4 and the workout was called "Cardio Recovery"... What they meant to say is instead of doing everything as fast as we can (which is my interpretation of all other workouts thus far) we are going to do them moderately slow. And at first Joel and I were thinking, oh ya I can do this one! But then they want you to hold hard positions and "pulse". Pulse is like saying move oh so very slightly so that your legs BURN and yearn to stand or sit and not be BURNING. Needless to say, I think I got a better exercise from this "recovery" CD than I have from any other.

Oh and we bought a blender. Much much better! And we bought protein powder. (I never thought I would ever buy this in my life) We bought 2. One was from Walmart and was a vanilla flavor. YUCK! We couldn't add enough ingredients to hide that oh so awful after-taste. The second we purchased from Costco. Good 'ol Costco. It's chocolate flavor and of course double the size of our previous purchase. We had our fingers crossed we would like it because there was a lot of it. And success!! We both like it! We made a very simple shake last night after our recovery workout. (I still scoff at the 'recovery' part. ha... recovery) It was milk, blueberries, banana, chocolate protein powder and ice. Sounds a little weird but it was actually yummy.

Tonight will be my last workout until next monday. I'm shooting for 5 days a week, and Joel 6. Yesterday my calves were killer and I couldn't walk normally for the majority of the day. Today I feel much better. Except one of the muscles in my thigh. I think I pinched a nerve or something because it tingles in a not comfy kind of way. Oh well, more stretching I guess.

Still going strong.... Hopefully Monday finds me ready and willing to start again!

Insanity

So Joel and I are starting a new work out together. Joel is trying to get into shape once again and me... well, lets just say that things are jiggling that I'm not used to. Who knew your butt could jiggle just from walking?! So we purchased "Insanity" and have committed to each other that we will do this for 30 days. Joel is going to exercise 6 days a week and I am shooting for 5 days.

We started on Monday. First day, you do a fitness test. Holy moly... the warm-up was enough for me to say I'm done, but then we had to do the actual fitness test. We were both exhausted. And poor Bentley heard us jumping around in the back of the house and was having a little panic attack in his bed. (We did it at night when kids were in bed. Seems to be our only free time.) Both of us had beat red faces and were EXHAUSTED! I mean, drag our feet and flop onto our beds after a quick shower. Yesterday the work-out was even harder. But... we didn't feel so awful after our work out. I even felt energized. Joel thought I was crazy. Maybe I didn't push hard enough?? Who knows, I did a LOT more than I ever thought I could and was happy with my efforts. Jetta wouldn't go to sleep at her normal time so she ended up watching us work out. She giggled a couple times when our eyes would meet, but mostly sat and played with her toys.

2 days down. 28 to go.

Now to start eating healthy to jump start this program. Making a Costco run tomorrow. Last night we thought a blended something or other sounded good. We don't have a blender and thought a food processor would be good enough. Word to the wise, not good enough. (unless you don't mind chunky everything) My gag reflex wasn't having it. Blender from Costco? I think yes :) I love Costco by the way.  I'm going to try to blog our experience in hopes that it will keep me motivated to keep going. So far so good.