Life Goes On

Nothing new has really changed lately. We are continuing to fix up our little home. We got the kitchen painted a couple weeks ago after some disastrous attempts at wallpaper. Wallpaper is not my first choice, but after you know how much I paid for it you will understand. I bought 8 double rolls for $2. Not $2 each, all 8 rolls for only $2. Talk about an amazing deal. They are prepasted too. I couldn't pass them up. The kitchen needed some color so we went for it. Bad idea. While the wallpaper was good, I think anyways, we didn't know what we were doing. We kept trying to put it up and always messed it up. We either cut each piece too small or too big, in which case we tried to slice the edges off resulting in the paper ripping, or the paper would be the right size but would have wrinkles all over it. Nothing we did would work. My mom always used a towel and a putty knife to smooth out edges. Her wallpapering skills are flawless. Mine and Nick's certainly are. We finally gave up after several failed attempts and went for paint instead. I thought we were saving money. The paint went surprisingly great. While it turned out to be more purpley than the blue I wanted, it looks really good. The kitchen has some character now! We are really pleased with it. We tried to finish painting the ceilings but got frustrated with that again, so it's still not all done. It's very hard painting the entire ceiling of your house. It starts to hurt after awhile, not to mention all the paint specks falling into your face and hair. Ick. That project is to be continued.

Jayden is saying more and more words. While he isn't speaking a ton yet, he is certainly trying. He says a lot more than we know, he knows exactly what he is saying, we just don't always understand it. He says "Get it!" when we throw his toy ball around, he says "Sit down." when we ask him to get into his highchair for a meal. Nick said he waved bye to me as I was leaving one day and said "Bye bye Mama!" He is so cute when we bring out his shoes to go somewhere, he plops down on the floor in front of us. We didn't even teach him that, he just started doing it. He loves to put our shoes on his little feet and walk around in them. Or trip around, I guess I should say! He is full of sentences and words but these are just a few that we can actually hear out of all the baby language he still uses. In time his speaking will be clearer. I feel bad sometimes when I hear about other babies his age practically getting ready to graduate college it seems. But Jayden is perfect and smart and growing in his own special way.



I will have been at the fitness center for 3 years this September. I'm so thrilled. I love it here. I was offered a full time position starting when our construction is complete in May 2011. I said I would love to, but I'm not sure I will be able to. If I work full time, Nick and I would never see each other. I would no sooner get home from work when he would be getting ready to leave for his work. We did that before Jayden was born and it stunk, we hated it. It's not good for a marriage. So I will either have to decline the extra hours or we might try to get Nick on a day schedule so we can all be home together in the evenings. That would mean Jayden would have to go to daycare. At this point, I'm ready to send him. He doesn't play with any kids other than at the church Nursery on Sundays. That's not enough. He needs to learn to share and play. I think being around other kids would help his shyness and even his speaking skills. Nick doesn't think he will be able to switch to days, his Chef wants him on evenings for his skill and maturity. We always say Nick has to "babysit" the other workers and that is no lie. Oh well, we have several months still to try to convince Chef.

We got a dog. And then took it back. Crazy 3 days, that was. Nick and I decided we were ready to have a dog. We found a little Chihuahua on Craigslist. He was 9 months old and already house trained. When we got there to look at him, we discovered he was from a breeder. The lady never mentioned that to us. We thought he was just a family dog that needed rehomed. Turns out the "rehoming" fee was actually a regular breeder-customer sale. I wasn't too pleased about that. But she was nice, knowledgable, and her dogs looked in great shape. She still said the dog was house trained because her children always brought the dogs into her house to play. We went ahead and took him. He was a darling. We named him Bailey. Jayden just adored him. Turns out the dog wasn't house trained. He peed on everything when we turned our backs and he was so afraid of us. Now I realize Chihuahuas are a shy breed, especially when they are in a stranger's home. We gave him a chance and when he still never warmed up to us and was still trying to pee on our furniture (and pooped in the living room at night) we decided he wasn't the dog for us. Luckily the breeder lady took him back. We were very disappointed that she told us he was housetrained when he really wasn't. If it weren't for that, we could have dealt with the shyness. But when you combine a shy, terrified dog and a sharp "NO!!!!" when he lifts his leg on stuff, it was a bad thing. Any fright he already had was made worse when he got in trouble for peeing. I'm sure he is happy to be back home now. I'm positive if the right person comes along that has the patience for that kind of behavior, he will make a great pet. Not us though.

Speaking of pets, my kitten Mischo went to get neutered last week. Yay! Vets are really trying to make it affordable to spay and neuter pets. It was only $40! That's cheap! That's the surgery, pain meds, and 1 night boarding for the animal to recover. Woo hoo!

Settling in Nicely

I wish I had pictures to share, but I haven't gotten around to uploading them yet. We have lots of plans still for the new place, including new, fresh paint! We did the ceilings last weekend and it was terribly hard. I couldn't reach very well even with an extended roller thing, and I kept getting paint dribbles in my eyes. I guess we decided we like polka dots because the carpet now has a few white spots where the paint dripped and we didn't notice it till it was dry. Boo! We still have yet to finish completely, we need to touch up the edges. My next project is to paint Jayden's bedroom a bright color, maybe even two. I would like to do two different colors to brighten it up. Wood paneling is so dark and out dated, Jayden needs lots of color to turn his room around. We will probably end up doing plain white in our bedroom and possibly the living room and hall way as well. Anything to be rid of the wood paneling. Luckily our landlords are great and told us we could do whatever we wanted to the house to make it look nicer. The yard is looking much better, too. It was overgrown with weeds and had lots of farm garbage. The previous renter had a horse and so there was bailing wire and rope everywhere, plus lots of just plain trash. It didn't take much to turn the yard around. We still have lots to do, but it looks so much better. We even took down the 3 satellite dishes that were stuck to the house. Yes, 3. It looked like an alien spaceship or something with all those things. We laughed when we saw all of them. Down they went and they will be taken to be recycled. We have plans to make a walkway and planters with big pretty rocks we will collect from the dirt road. I will eventually plant flowers and probably some hastas, those never fail to look gorgeous. The landlords are getting to work on the new house being built. He laid the concrete foundation on Friday. We went to look at it yesterday and it looks great! It looks soooo small, but we are sure it will be great. Everything looks smaller without walls.

Jayden is going through a huge shy stage. I brought him to work yesterday for a small party we had for a lovely coworker who is leaving for college. Jayden didn't want anything to do with anything or anybody. He refused to eat cake! All he did was cling to me and give everyone dirty looks. My mom and grandma always tease me about how when I was little, I always glared at people when I didn't know them or like them. Jayden was glaring at everyone, his looks could have killed! He seemed to be warming up to a few people after awhile, but not by much. Poor Kelly (my lovely boss) tried to make friends with Jayden but he didn't want to! I need to bring him to work more often to visit, I would love for him to get to know everyone better. He needs to socialize more often anyways. Without daycare and only just starting nursery at church, he doesn't see anyone besides close family very often. I hope it's only a stage!

Time for me to close out now, it's back to work for me. Until next time!

Just testing out the picture uploader... A lady named Terra on the JustMommies message board made this for me.

Totally exhausted....

Well, Monday was moving day for us. And it was crazy. I had to work Monday morning, so Nick and I sent Jayden to his first day of daycare to keep him safe and out of the way while we moved. He got to go stay with Kelsey, who is just great! I still can't thank her enough for watching him. He ended up going on Tuesday, too. After I got off of work, I got right to work helping. Nick and his brother Vince had already been at it all morning and they were just soaked. It was so hot. Vince had to go home shortly after I got home, so it was just me and Nick after that. Nick is an amazing husband. He loaded things into the big uhaul truck and I got to, for the most part, stay inside and put things in boxes and set them by the door. We eventually got done and trucked on over to our new place. My wonderful dad came over and helped us unload and once again, Nick did most of the work. Here's a shout out to him. He is such a hard worker and without him I would be lost! Somehow everything got unloaded and into the house. It was a disaster area. Stuff was just everywhere. We are still working to put everything away. We are so far really enjoying it and think it will be very comfortable. The road to here was a long one and is another story. I will be posting pictures soon of what the place looked like before we moved in and what it looks like after we get things put away. Let's just say it will be a blog to look for, the difference already is just unbelievable. To sum it up, the place went from nonlivable conditions to livable and very comfortable. Pictures coming soon!

Let's Get This Started!

I have to give credit to Trudi Matlock for the idea to make a blog. I don't know how well this will go over, but it looks like fun!

This last week all of us had the stomache flu. It was terrible. Nick started it. He was so sick. This started on a Monday, which stinks because Mondays are our date nights. Needless to say, we stayed home. He was fine by Tuesday. Then on Wednesday morning Nick sent me a text message saying Jayden was sick. Poor little guy was throwing up every couple of hours and had awful diarrhea. He was done throwing up by Thursday, but still had the runs. Thursday night, I got sick. I stayed home from work Friday morning and was fine by the evening. Poor Jayden was still having bad diapers. He has had it for a whole week. We even took him to the doctor yesterday, but he didn't want to give him any medicine because he is too young. We just had to keep pumping him with fluids to keep him hydrated. Finally today he had a normal diaper. We are so excited! Jayden has also been eating like a champ today, which is great because he had been eating so little. Yahoo for a healthy baby!

Tomorrow Nick and I celebrate our 4th anniversary. Is it even possible that we have been married that long? It's just amazing to me. It's been an eventful 4 years, too. We have been through so much in such a short period of time, but we have made it through everything. Our adventure is just beginning. Here's to many, many more years ahead of us!