Happy 2011

Well we had a nice Christmas and New Years... now we are all (except for Lelah) back into our school routines. :( Josh has a really homework-heavy load this quarter, poor guy has been spending about three hours each day on homework. We have decided that his advisor must be a real jerk. Logan still isn't enjoying school, but his name has become easier to read... I keep hoping to see that lightbulb that his teacher was talking about, but aside from his name being more legible, I'm not really seeing anything. :( Yesterday I realized that I wanted to mention something on here... even though Logan cries about 50% of the time in the morning when he realizes that I'm dressing him so he can go to school, and even though some mornings he tells me that he hopes that he missed the bus so he won't have to go to school; every morning when the bus comes up the hill his face lights up. I think the bus driver probably thinks that school is his favorite part of the day, cause based on what he must look like to her, I don't know how she could think anything different. :) This smile makes me think that maybe this hate for school on Logans part is just an act. He smiles the same when he gets off the bus. It makes my morning a far better place, because I don't hate myself for putting him through such torture quite so much.

Lelah went potty on the potty chair twice in the last two days, I'm thinking she's getting ready to start the real deal... she even wore undies all evening yesterday. This is a huge thing because normally she tells us that she doesn't want them cause she will poop on Minnie. :D While we are progressing on the potty training front, we are regressing on the binky front. It's my fault; I had held on to some binky's so that when Noah came over I would have them. Lelah found one the other day and was actually sad when I took it from her. To make matters worse, I thought maybe naptime would be less traumatic if I offered her a binky. I was right, but now she's attached to the damn thing all over again. We won't let her have it except in bed, but boy am I kicking myself for holding onto those things! The softer part of my brain/heart is saying that maybe she really wasn't ready to get rid of them, and that this is the right thing though. Naptime had become a living hell with 10-40 minutes of crying, and it was terrible. I had given up on giving her a nap every day because it was so stressful for both of us, and that made the evenings HELL... and then at night even though she was totally exhausted, she would lay in her bed playing for at least 40 minutes before finally falling asleep. Since the binky thing started (two days ago) both naptime and bedtime have been so much easier to deal with. And while I know that makes me sound extremely lazy, I can't help but think that me being able to say that Lelah doesn't use a binky anymore isn't nearly as important as her not only getting the sleep she needs but remembering that "time for bed" doesn't mean "time for torture." So, obviously this is upsetting to me, but I don't know where I'm worried for Lelah and where I'm worried for myself and how spineless I am. Either way- Lelah has a binky at night and naptime again.

I'm terrible at this

I was IMing with Zoe early this morning and telling her that she should blog. LOL... "You should blog, Zoe, because it's fun." Do I do it? Well, yes.... twice a year. ;)

So........ we are in the "new" house. Things are good. Hmmm, where to start?

Logan started school in September. Can't say that I love the school or the teacher, but I suppose it could be a lot worse, and I think that a lot of my problems with the teacher were mostly my fault. I think I wasn't communicating well? That's what Josh says at least. I feel a lot better lately, so hopefully the good feelings will keep on coming and by the end of the year I'll actually believe in the public school system (I think it's mostly that, not the teacher... afterall, she's trying to do her job). I'll keep you posted on that. :)

Josh started school in the fall with me. He took a full 15 credits and did well. It was a tad more than he was expecting, but he did good, and kept REALLY good grades. Jerk. It came so easy to him too. :(

We went to Kauai, Hawaii in October and had the TIME.OF.OUR.LIVES. :D Can't tell you how awesome it was, cause there aren't words to describe it. So awesome! Anyway, we were there for a week, and it was super great because we were able to fly mom home for the time we were gone (+ a week for me to visit with her) which helped us to really let go and have a great time. Having mom watch the kids gave us an amazing peace of mind. Thank you God for that! :)

We got home on Friday, October 22nd, and by the 24th we were in the hospital with Logan and he got admitted because his O2 levels were so low. Ugh. Boy we paid for that fun we had.... what a traumatic mess that was! Poor Logan- he still says mean things about the hospital when we drive by it. :(

Within two weeks of the hospital visit/stay, Josh had to replace the sewer main and boy was that crappy! Haha, funny, right?

We've been sick more than we've ever been sick in what feels like our entire lives since Logan started school. :( We've had the pukey flu twice, I think three or four colds each and I just got over what I'm POSITIVE was Influenza. The real deal, not the fakey stuff. Achey body and head for a week followed by another week of the coughs and weakness. Lovely is what that is!

Josh and I just finished fall quarter and we both did well. :) Grades come out tomorrow, but I think Josh got all A's, maybe a B??? I got At least one A- and either two B-'s or a B- and an A-. I don't know... teachers seem to neglect the grade book towards the end of the quarter. :( I'll know for sure tomorrow. :D

The kids and I are going to visit the Chicago family in February. I'm looking forward to that, and so are the kids. :D Lelah is "Happy!" and Logan wanted to know today, "When are we going to see that guy that lives far far away again?" :) I love them so much.

Crazy two weeks

I have more news... something I don't think many people would have been able to guess.

WE ARE MOVING!

Exciting, right? And confusing... at least I would think so if I were a friend or family member reading this. I love our house, and it has so many good memories and important moments wrapped up inside of it, but we're leaving it.

Two weeks ago mom told me that her and Tim were moving to Alaska because Time had gotten a job. Now, I kinda knew that this was coming because she thought it was a good idea to ask me to write him a resume. Ha ha. Yeah right. I told her that it would be a cold day in hell before I helped Tim get a job 3,000 miles away from where I live. Damn it anyway- Tim was able to get one without me. :( Anyway, I was pissed, and hurt and heartbroken. Still am, but some things have changed

Oh wait, you're probably thinking we're moving to Alaska with them? Ha Ha- no, not in a gazillion years! That's not going to be happening........ ever. Nope, we are moving to their house. aka Grandpa and Grandmas house. :D This makes me very happy and I can barely wait. :D :D :D This is perfect for us, and the whole situation played out so nicely!

Mom told me they were moving on Sunday

I told her we wanted to buy on contract on Monday

I told Kristina and Bob that we were selling our house on Tuesday

On Wednesday they told me they wanted to buy our house on contract

Can you believe how smooth that went? Everyone is nervous about the stupid "buying on contract" but whatever. I figure that no matter what, it's gonna be fine. I refuse to live a life of untrustworthiness. R-E-F-U-S-E This set up is good for everyone and it's gonna be fine.

This means that Logan will be going to CVG, not Wallace. :( This makes me sad because I was looking forward to Logan going to kindergarten where Josh and Joni did.... but that's okay. It also makes me sad cause I thought he would go to Robert Gray... but nope... they'd much rather us pass TWO elementary school to get to Logans. This does not make sense to me either.

The plan is that mom and Tim are driving up to Alaska with the trailer in a week from Friday. (August 13) Mom will be gone a total of 8 days, and then will fly back and Tim will stay in the trailer and start his new job. Mom will stay with us for about a month or so to tie up all the loose ends. This arrangement should be interesting since mom and I can't really handle more than a day of time together. We'll see how it goes. :)

Bye for now.

Almost an entire year gone.

Whoa. It's been only 19 days short of a year. A lot can go on in a year. I'm gonna try and get this up to date....

Josh lost his job July 3, 2009 due to being fired by a mean ugly ummm.... yeah. Due to the fact that the person that was his boss is an unhappy person.

Lelah turned 1 on July 9,2009. She had a pretty uneventful birthday and I feel like a piece of crap about that. The kids' combined birthday party was nice though, and Josh and I made all the pizzas by hand, and they were BEAUTIFUL! *If I do say so myself*

Zoe came to visit sometime between when Josh got fired and Lelahs birthday and we had a great time, as always, and were sad to see her leave.

Josh, Logan, Lelah and I got to spend the summer together, without having to worry about Josh having to be at his crappy job. :D Josh and I ran the morning breakfast at the Kelso Theater Pub for awhile, and that was fun. We hiked, backpacked, camped, it was GREAT!

Josh turned in a gazillion applications all over the place, and had a hundred interviews. (It felt like anyway) And finally, after like four interviews with the DM, he got a job at Labor Ready as the BM (hahahaha, funny, right?) at the Longview branch. But he didn't start for quite awhile due to our vacation to meet our niece/nephew.

We went to Delaware in September to be there for Jonis baby being born. And guess what, it waited!!! (It wanted Auntie Melissa to be able to be involved.) ;)

It's a BOY!!! Noah was born on September 5th after the longest stinking labor known to man. Seriously, I don't know how Joni lived through that. He ended up never coming so she had to have a c-section, and I got to nurse him for the first 36 hours due to them thinking Joni had an embolism. (Serious stuff, let me tell you!) What a lucky aunt I am, right??? I loved it. Noah didn't, I'm sure Joni didn't, but hey, I did. ;)

On our last day in Delaware we went to New York, that was awesome, but it would have been wayyyyy awesomer (lol) if I wouldn't have been so DANG exhausted. Ah well, someday we'll go back. :)

Logan started preschool at Winners on Ocean Beach Highway the Monday that we got back.

Josh started his job in October, left us for three weeks to train, and we missed him A TON! I took over for Josh at the pub and wow, that was a lot of work.

I stopped watching the boys. And they moved to Port Angeles. :( Really HUMONGOUS adjustment for poor Logan and Jameson. They went through BFF withdrawals, as did Jen and I.

Lelah didn't start walking until she was 15 months old. I know, right?

Joni and Noah came to visit at the end of October, beginning of November. We loved their visit and tried EVERYTHING in our power to keep her here. She even missed her flight out of town.... nothing to do with us though. I'm serious.

Joni and Noah moved home in December. Jason and Chris drove from Delaware to Washington in a really short amount of time.... ??? Can't remember what short amount of time = sorry.

I stopped working at the pub because I decided to go back to school to become a midwife. Yay!

Logan decides that he doesn't want to go to school anymore cause he's just "gonna work." As a police officer. :) Josh and I talk him into going to school to learn how to write tickets, and he says okay. :)

February I go to Seattle for my first class, "When Survivors Give Birth," taught by Penny Simkin. I know, exciting, right? Shes' amazing, just so you know! :D

Josh and Chris start the remodel on the bathroom with $$$ from our tax return.

I also take my birth doula training in February and on my first day of training ended up going to a naked spa with the instructors. Totally awesome, it changed my life. Seriously.

Going to school, being a mom and keeping the house clean proves difficult. The house is what loses. I scraped by with a C+ in English 101, got an awesome A- in Math 92 and a Pass in the typing class I took. (I apparently can type 102 words a minute) :D

Logan stops going to school in April. We can't really afford it, and it's about over anyhow, so yeah. Done with preschool.

At the end of April/beginning of May I take the prenatal doula training.

Bizo and Matt find out they are pregnant!

I take my Lamaze educator training. (I know, this totally doesn't make sense since I was a successful Bradley method student, but this is what they wanted as the pre-req for midwifery training.)

Spencer Daggett goes into a Diabetic coma on May 1st and never comes out of it. He dies at 17 years old on May 4th.

I register Logan at Wallace for him to start Kindergarten. :)

Josh and I celebrate our six year anniversary.

Bizo and Matt lose the baby. This deserves it's own blog as does a lot of these things, but since this is still so fresh, I'd like to say that this is devastating news to me. I literally cried for an entire day. My heart is aching for them, and I feel so helpless, as does the rest of the family. So so sad.

And today is June 3rd. Josh and I are leaving for our anniversary get-away tomorrow morning... the exact destination is a surprise. I know it's near Port Townsend and that it's a cabin with a private beachfront hottub. So exciting! :) My mom is taking both kids over the weekend, and it'll be so great! I'm turning 26.

Lelah is talking, walking and being the most beautiful little girl I've ever seen. Her hair is curly, she leaves her pony tails in and is a joy! She loves dresses and shoes, her purple teddy bear and babies, baths and washing her hands. She loves to eat... and drink cinnamon dolce flavoring in her milk. She refuses to say Logan, instead when we prompt her, she just says her name with a lot of force. "LALA!" So funny! :D She's afraid of the trains, and gets hysterical if she's outside playing with Logan when one goes by. Kinda funny, really.

Logan is such a big boy now. :( It makes me sad how much he understands and that he's starting kindergarten in three short short months. :( We've decided he definitely can't watch Family Guy anymore, or anything else that he used to not understand, but definitely does now! He has his very own police uniform that he has worn NON STOP since the day he opened it... thank you Grandpa and Grandma Chicago. :) He's excited for school, and I have him wiping his own butt (most of the time), dressing himself and putting his own shoes on. (All things they said he should be doing by now.) He knows how to count basically to ten. He knows the alphabet song, but not his ABC's, if that makes sense. Jameson is still "my baby" and he misses him as much as he did when they first moved. :( He often asks when he's gonna come over. Made me cry for the first six months... seriously. On emotional days I still do. I didn't know it was possible to be so attached as an adult to a friend, but I miss Jen terribly.

Alright, I'm posting this. I shall try to update on a more regular basis. :D

Logan turned 4

So yesterday was Logans birthday... he is four years old now. Officially a big boy. I'm having a really tough time with it. We didn't do a whole lot, but I think Logan felt special anyway. His birthday began at Grandma Lauries house... Grandma Laurie, Grandpa Chris, Ray, Karen, Kristina and our family were there to sing him the Happy Birthday song. Grandma Laurie had a present for him to open, and that was fun. We came home, went to bed and then woke up and he was so excited that it was STILL his birthday! He was so cute! So I sang him happy birthday on our way down the stairs, and he joined me in the second line and sang the rest with me. We went to Joshs store, got him, Olivia and Jameson some coffee (and my an iced tea) and met Vanessa and Jen and their kids at Chuck E. Cheeses. The kids had a really good time there, and I was so thankful because it wasn't busy at all. I think I had the best time I've ever had at Chuck E. Cheese... which still isn't like a good time, but it's something. :D After Chuck E Cheese we ran over to Target for him to use his gift card that Grandma and Grandpa Chicago sent him. He got a Spiderman car with a Spiderman guy to go in it. Logan tried to tell me that Lelah wanted this baby that crawled and said "dadadadada" but when I put it in the cart next to her she threw herself at the opposite side of the seat and started to cry. So we ended up just getting her some new clothes. :) After Target we came home and Logan, Lelah and I took a nap. After our nap we kinda started the Fathers Day stuff. We took papa his dinner and Grandpa Chris his card and ate dinner with them. I've decided that from now on for every gift-giving holiday, Chris is receiving salsa from us. He's so freaking difficult to buy for, so I'm just going to start doing the one thing I know he likes.... salsa. He seemed happy by that. :) We stayed there until 10 o'clock. We came home, Logan opened his present from us (a fan for in his room) and we all went to bed. Today Laurie called me to let me know that she bought Logan and Lelah a Zoo Membership for their birthday party. I think this is wonderful and know that we will really love having it. :D

So I don't know if I mentioned it in the last post or not, but Josh and I are seriously considering buying the Kelso Theater Pub. It's something that Josh has always dreamed of owning at least a part of, and awhile back... probably a month or two, Mike Julian planted a seed that has been growing bigger and bigger every day. We finally called Mike after we talked a tiny bit with Tom and had it confirmed that yes, they might actually want to sell, and sometime at the end of the month we will be setting up a meeting for us all to talk numbers. There is some question as to whether or not the Pub really is making that great of money, so it'll be really nice for us to sit down and really see the numbers. Every day that passes I get more excited, and think of more that I want to do with it. My latest idea has me very excited... flowers. Totally not a money maker, but I wonder if it would make it a little more appealing to walk up to, or to drive by, or maybe even more interesting to look at and maybe could get us a few more customers. I should probably say before I go any farther that I have it in my head that it's pretty much a done deal. In my head it's not a question of 'if' we are going to buy it, it's a question of 'when'. Anyway, so I had asked Josh a long time back if there was a way to get up on the top of the roof. He said yes, and explained that it's out a window (I think in one of the bathrooms... must be the womens) by the marquee. Josh and I have always wanted a rooftop garden, I've always been fascinated by them. Anyway, so my thought is to have planters along the top of the roof with hanging type flowers... or vines or something. Something to add some color and prettyiness. I think (if I'm picturing things correctly) that we could have them not only by the marquee, but also on the very top rooftop. I'm not sure how to get on the very top, but I'm sure that we can figure something out. I'd also like to plant a real garden up there. This is totally a personal wish, nothing really to do with the business except that it would be housing it. Anyway, so back to the hanging flowers... I wish I could draw. I really think it would make the building so pretty... and just more welcoming. I'm not sure how expensive it would be, but I'd sure like to do it. Maybe it's something we couldn't do until next summer (I mean, we probably won't even have any kind of ownership until this fall) and maybe it's not something that could be there all year round, but I'd really like to do it. It's funny because now that I've pictured it, I think the building looks so dull without it. lol Jen said that she'd help me. :) I also think it would be really beautiful to have two rather large pots on either side of the entrance to the cafe.

Becoming Greener

So I've been wanting to compile a list of what we've done to move towards our New Years Resolution of being greener.  Yes, our resolution also included the word "leaner" in it, but since we haven't really made any progress towards that, there really isn't much to talk about there. :(  So, on with the greener (and much more successful) part of our New Years Resolution for 2009.

One of the first things we did was buy a water cooler.  While it's not as green as I'd like it to be, it's still a large step up from the water bottles we were using.  At the same time we bought the water cooler we bought our little recycle thingy... yes, it's a laundry sorter for most people... but it's our official recycle bin.  Hey, it looks pretty nice. I think I might do this in list form... it'll be more impressive I think.

*Water cooler instead of bottled water

*Recycle bin, we now only have our garbage emptied about once a month instead of 4 times

*Making our own laundry soap

*Using ok-for-the-environment dishwasher detergent

*Using ok-for-the-environment dish soap

*I wipe the kids' noses and my own nose with burp cloths instead of toilet paper or kleenex

*We have a compost pile

*We are vegetarian

*We use cloth grocery bags

*I re-use our containers from sour cream, cottage cheese, and feta at least once.

*I stopped using Ziplock bags

*I stopped using saran wrap 

*We've cut way down on using foil and parchment paper

*I save the bag from cereal boxes to use in place of wax paper

*Logan doesn't take as many baths as he used to (probably 3-5 a week instead of 7-14)

*Josh and I both have re-usable Starbucks cold cups that we use in place of Venti waters... this is pretty huge I think.  We would both get one every time we went there, and Josh would bring one home every single day.  We would reuse them, but we still probably went through at least 7 per week.

*I save most of my produce bags and use them to wrap our bread in

That's all I can think of for now.  If I think of others I might just come and add to this list.  :)

Scooting Lelah and becoming vegetarians

I can't believe I haven't mentioned it yet... Lelah is now mobile. :)  She's not crawling though... she's scooting.  She started around Easter, and just keeps getting better and better at it.  She's ruining her socks, pants and diapers. lol  If she drools on the ground, or drips water on the ground from her sippy cup, or somehow the ground is wet, and then she scoots over it, what a mess!  It's pretty adorable how she does it.  She squeezes her legs together like a little frog and then pushes them out straight in front of her and pulls herself.  I think she's got to have the best leg and core muscles out of everyone in this household. :D  When she wants to she can get going pretty dang fast... it's so adorable! I plan on videoing it sometime soon so I can post it on my hippy site, and probably on myspace too... I really feel like we need to record it so that we never forget how adorable her mobility is. :)

Josh and I decided on Tuesday that we are going to be vegetarian.  It's been going really good... I'm quite impressed at how easy it is.  I have an appointment on Thursday to talk to a dietician just to be sure that I'm not missing anything.  I gave all of our meat to Jen and Jeremy on Tuesday after we decided.  We've been eating so well.  We're really loving it so far.  We have had vegi stir fry on yakisoba noodles, a new macaroni and cheese with cottage cheese, parmesan and sour cream, made with broccoli.  I made manicotti tonight with ricotta cheese (that I made myself!), parmesan, mozzarella and spinach, with the no knead bread that we love so much and a beautiful salad with cheese, red onion, cucumber, tomato, red pepper, sunflower seeds and pine nuts.  I've also made a "taco" salad made with kidney beans seasoned with taco seasoning, and then all the regular fixings.  Saturday night I made a pasta salad that was "complete" according to the mayo clinics "lacto-ovo vegetarian food pyramid" complete with whole wheat pasta, vegis, and legumes.  It was super yummy, and everyone in the house enjoyed it.  (Josh and I have decided that Lelah enjoying something doesn't count for much though since she enjoys EVERYTHING.... lol)  I've made a list of all the dinners we've tried... I don't want to feel like I don't have anything that I can cook.  One thing is for sure, we're getting way more green vegis, and since we've moved to the baby greens, I feel like we're being quite healthy.  Today I made some seitan, which is a vegetarian (and vegan for that matter) meat alternative, and it's okay.  I'm hoping that I can find a recipe that will make it a bit more firm.  Right now it's awfully spongy similar to tofu... and while I don't mind the taste, I would really like to enjoy the texture just as much.  This stuff is seasoned in a oriental-type way, so I figure we'll have it in like stir fry and maybe fried rice or something.  

Okay, that's it for me.