One Day at a Time. Part 2

Yesterday's post was getting a bit too long so I cut it off. But I never really got to the good part of my superlongwinded story!

In the midst of my hysterics, I realized I was very frustrated about Lily's sleeping again. She wasn't getting enough of it. She was waking up at 3am, then wouldn't stay in her room. So then I was having to sleep in the room with her. If this were happening at our house, I would have locked the door and thought nothing of it. But being with Wes and Kim, letting Lily scream for an hour while banging on the door in the middle of the night just didn't feel like an option. And they are leaving for Birmingham tomorrow, so I figured if we could make it till Friday, we would all be ok. And though I was worried about the negative effects my sleeping in Lily's room would have on her for the next few days, I remembered the verse about just worrying about today cause tomorrow would have it's own problems to worry about. That actually helped quite a bit.

So then 'tomorrow' came (which actually was yesterday). And it was awesome! I slept with Lily from 3am on, but we didn't get up till about 7:45am! Awesome start! Kim was already up and feeding Topher who was also already up. All this moving and stuff has affected Topher's sleep too, so instead of sleeping his regular 12 hours, he has only been sleeping 11. Not the hardest thing for me to deal with. Then it was nap time, and Lily cried for about 5-10 minutes. And then slept for over two hours. Superawesome. We hung out and played, and then when it was bedtime again, I put the kids down and didn't hear a peep from them till 5:20am!

I used to think 5:20am was really early, until I met 3am. Now I am thankful when 5:20am is the first thing I see in the morning, along with Lily's precious dimpled face asking for 'Mook', aka. milk. I was going to buy a sound machine yesterday, or possibly even some hard drugs off the street just to get Lily to sleep better. But I guess all she needed was a little time for herself to get used to the new changes in her life. I am trying really hard to be much more patient and understanding towards my kids, cause they are probably not really understanding what is going on. And they will probably be confused again when we move again in two weeks. And again in another 52 weeks... To stay sane, we are really trying to take all these changes one day at a time...

One Day at a Time

I meant to write yesterday. I really should have written yesterday. I was absolutely hysterical and stressed and sleep-deprived yesterday. All those reasons contributed to my not writing yesterday. But today was a new day and ever so different than yesterday- and Praise Jesus for that!



I am presently at Chris' dad's place. We have been living here since Monday evening. Monday was not the best day either. But it was better than yesterday. Monday we tried to 'finish' packing (it's Wednesday, we are still not 'finished' packing.) Then Robert and Chris proceeded to move all of our boxed stuff, and furniture to Barb & Jerry's garage, and Wes & Kim's house. We fortunately did not have a lot of furniture, so this made the move bearable. But I give serious props to Chris and his brother for moving in triple-digit weather. The kids and I hung out at Robert & Lindsay's all day, which was tons of fun. Even though Lily did not nap. I tried to put her down for a nap, but she is not very good at sleeping in different places. She used to be good at it when I made her sleep in her car seat when I would hang out with my friends at night. Oh the good old days! But once Topher entered the world, it was sleep at our house or bust. No game nights for us unless they were hosted by us. Anyhoo, I did not mind that she didn't nap, and I had a great time hanging out with her, Lindsay, and my nephews. Lindsay even got to go grocery shopping alone while the boys napped and I hung out with Lily. I felt very happy to be able to bless my sister-in-law with that gift, cause grocery shopping alone is a SERIOUS gift that you don't appreciate until you can't do it any more.



So Monday night I put the kids down, with Lily screaming and crying for about 20-30 minutes, then when Chris got home from school (yes, he is taking a night class, and two online classes. He is CRAZY!!!!) I went to our house to 'finish' packing up... Needless to say- that did not happen. Once I got there, I called Chris and he dropped a bomb on me: the renters that were supposed to move into our house on Friday were not going to move in. Ever. BOO!!!! So I sat around, felt sorry for myself, then packed. Very, very slowly. Not motivated at all. This sucked cause the next day Chris was going to haul all the rest of our stuff to Wes' house, plus run a few other errands while he had the trailer and truck that we had borrowed. I went back to the house in the morning, with the kids, to 'finish' packing. Topher broke a light fixture, his second piece of glass that he broke in two days, and we decided Chris would be better off packing by himself. So I went home with the kids to put them down for their naps. Topher would cry every time I put him down too, but only for a few minutes. And he's still in a pack and play, so he is not likely to break free like his sister. Lily on the other hand screamed and banged on the door for about 45 minutes. I sat on the ground holding the doorknob on the other side for about 20 of those minutes. Those 20 minutes really, really sucked. The other 25 also sucked, but at least I was being productive. Lily finally realized that she was not actually locked in anymore, so she broke out.



So as much as my day was sucking, Chris' was sucking too. Tuesday is a busy day for anyone who has a real job. So Chris packed up the trailer and unloaded it by himself. Until he got called into work. Oh criminals are always ruining the day for someone! So Chris had to hustle back to our house, leave the borrowed truck and trailer, grab his work car, go to Scottsdale, arrest this guy, miss out on family fun time, come home, eat dinner, go sell a couch that we had posted on Craigslist that was at our other house, come home, finish his dinner, and finally go to bed. Barb got caught up in the horribleness that was our day too, and that just really really sucked too.

I had an evening and night full of crying and hysteria. Most of it coming from me, some of it coming from the kids. I could blame it on stress, I could blame it on tiredness, I could blame it on so hormones, but I will just say that I have a season pass to Crazyville and sometimes my kids drive me there, but I often manage to get there on my own well enough too.

Packing Up

sorry i have not posted in eons. we have a ton going on in the house, which is not an exageration. my girlfriend from canada (who i met in korea) has been visiting this week with her adorable 9 month old, josh. so awesome. jessie has proved to be a ridiculously helpful and eager houseguest! she has been helping us pack up, throw out, and clean up all our crap. and boy do we have a lot of crap! even after downsizing!
we have now sold on craigslist (what did we ever do without that?!?!?!?):
-our giant tv, dining room set, computer desk, computer chair, bookcases, extra tv we had in our room that we watched maybe twice this year, entertainment stands, two sets of couches, our bedroom furniture, and i think that's it.
then we sold some stuff in chris' mom's garage sale last weekend, which really helped us to get rid of a lot of knick knacks. but after emptying my closet yesterday, looks like we are ready to have another garage sale... yowsers.
anyway, i am realizing hoe ridiculously blessed we are, and also how ridiculously wasteful we are at the same time. i am going to try to go on a shopping freeze for 6 months. i will buy no clothes or accessories for the kids, chris, or me. we have given away so much, and yet we are still left with... SO MUCH. we don't need more of much.
so that's where i have been for the last week or two. downsizing has been fun and downright cleansing- for the house and my soul. we are going to start moving starting tomorrow, and should be done by tuesday. it's not going to take us that long because we have so much stuff, it's just cause we have the opportunity to do things slowly. i have also realized that i am a disgusting pack rat and i need to learn how to do 'spring cleaning', but until that happens i will probably be moving once a year to keep myself, and my possessions in check...

Movin On...

Sungu, my nephew, is almost 26 months old. He has lived in 5 different homes, on 2 different continents. Topher is looking to catch up to his cousin's jet-setting ways. Only, all his homes will have been in Arizona, and really all within 10 miles of each other.

So, about a month and a half ago, our renters in our Gilbert house told us they are moving out at the end of their contract. Which would be at the end of this month. I did not panic cause I felt like God was preparing us for that. Then Chris decided (and I immediately jumped on board) that we should put our Mesa house up for rent too. If one got rented out while the other didn't, then we would just live in the rejected house. Everything was fine for the first week or two after we posted both houses on various sites. Then extreme panic would set in every couple of days, offset by days of shame for how weak my faith was that God was in complete control of everything.

Then this week happened. Chris had been communicating with this guy out-of-state who was looking to move into our Mesa house with his fiancee and her daughter. The finacee and said child came by on Monday to scope out the house. They loved it. Or they loved us, and the house. They took a rental application home that day, and now are signing a lease agreement. Praise Jesus. And that's for 2 years I believe. (Praise Jesus x 2!)

Then a lady called Chris on Wednesday asking if she could see the Gilbert house on Thursday morning. Chris said she sounded very nice, and very excited. I had already shown the Gilbert house to about 5 very nice people, none of which were terribly excited about the place. The Gilbert house is in a GREAT location, but the house itself is 20 years old. For people coming from new builds, the house looks like junk. The bathrooms are smaller, and not as fancy, the kitchen is tiny, etc. But I met this lady on Thursday morning and she was VERY EXCITED. About everything. The house was bigger than she thought it would be, as was the yard, the driveway, everything. She didn't get to see the master bedroom cause the guy who lives in there, a fellow policeman, was asleep. She told me was very interested in the house and would like to rent it for more than a year (!!!) and then I felt I had to be very honest with her. I told her the master bedroom was NOT pretty. Which is the understatement of the century. It has the stupidest looking wallpaper up, the toilet and this huge shower are in one 'room', and the vanity area is anything but vain. But she said she didn't care, she loved the house, the location, and that she was so excited to live here because she was coming from Florence, where they had been struggling for the last 4 years to make a new life for themselves, and it just didn't work. She felt like finding our house was the first step for a better life for her family. Praise Jesus!!!!! (x a million!!!)

So now Chris and I are going apartment/small house shopping! And we are so stinkin excited for this new chapter of our lives to begin. We are at a place in our lives where we just want to simplify and save save save. We could have stayed here in this amazing house that God has blessed us with. But now with Jeehon and Sungu gone, this place feels like a montstrous cavern!

This will be home #3 for our little Toto who will be 16 months by the time we move next month, so I guess he probably won't be able to catch up to Sungu. But we kinda don't want him to, so that works out for all of us.

And I just wanted to add a special shout out to all those of you who have been praying for ALL of this to work out just as it has. God is so good! Thanks for always movin on with us in prayer.

Pictures!

my sister is back up from Sierra Vista, and she brought back her digital camera. i took some pics on it a few weeks ago, but for some reason the pictures wouldn't download. probably cause our computer is a p.o.c. anyway, here are some literal snap shots from our lives over the last few weeks:

here is the fruit of my cake decorating class labor! yes, the cake looks very 1980s, but i made those stinkin flowers by hand and i am proud of it! i am now working on a birthday cake for my sister-in-law lindsay's birthday, which is tomorrow. we'll see how that goes...

we went to flagstaff! just chris and i (no kids!) and our new friends carrie and brian (they also left their 1 year old at home, their 29 week old came along as he is still in the womb). brian works with chris, and carrie is my long lost white-girl-pretending-to-be-korean friend. we went up for the Arizona Cardinals' training camp which was tons of fun. And we got to hang out with chris' awesome cousin todd and his beautiful wife elisa, and their two kids. We will definitely have to go back up there to hang out some more. the weather was great- 90 during the day, about 75 at night. so awesome!

this is the most recent pic of the crazy kids. they are just getting too dang big!

Wilton Cake Decorating Classes

Craft stores are simply incredible. I'm not even all that crafty (arts-and-crafty that is. I have been known to be connivingly crafty however!) compared to my super-creative-and (arst-and-crafty)crafty friends. But I love walking through the aisles and looking at the different hobbies that people are into- jewelry making, scrapbooking, etc etc. One thing that caught my eye a long time ago was the cake decorating aisle, and a sign that said 'cake decorating classes'. Sometime in June, Chris and I talked about how I needed to do something by myself to stay sane. And I remembered the sign I saw many years ago, and checked it out online. And sure enough, every Michaels, Joanns, and Hobhy Lobby offers cake decorating classes throughout the year. Amazing! I found out that the Michael's near my house was offering Course 1 (of 4) on Tuesday nights, and my small group was taking all of July off, so it was perfect! (cause Barb and Jerry watch my kids every Tuesday night anyway.)

So let me break this down for you, timewise. There are 4 courses available, but they say you need to complete course 1 in order to do any of the other courses, cause it teaches you the basics of using different icings, and tips, etc. Each course is made up of 4 classes that are 2 hours long. When you consider the time it takes you to bake, and prepare icing and stuff, you are looking at spending a good 3-4 hours a week on this class.

Now, let me break this all down for you, financially. Each course is about $45, depending on where you take it, and when. I was fortunate enough to take the class in July, when they had a 50% deal on the class, and they also gave me an additional $10 off. So I paid about $12 for the course. Then you have to buy a student kit. That's about $25. And some additional decorating items, which will set you back about $25 (and that's with using coupons). Then you need the actual baking and icing items, which will cost you another $5-$20 (coupons and sales are my beat friends). So even if you are a diligent sale-monger, you are still looking at spending about $50-$75.

There were plenty of times when the class was very frustrating. Like trying to ice my cake before my class without picking up crumbs, with my crazy kids trying to 'help' (ie. eat the cake). Or even trying to make the right consistency of icing for the first time was time consuming and draining. Everyone in my class walked into our first real lesson pissed off at icing and baking. But during our two hour classes, everyone was content to be doing something creative, that ended up being relaxing, especially cause there were no kids around. And that time alone as a mom (which 90% of the women in my class were) is always priceless.

(Imagine a picture of a cake here, with pink roses, and just a tiny bit of crumbs exposed in the VERY THICK layer of homemade buttercream icing. I still have no properly functioning digital camera. boo...)

NKOTB

If you grew up in the 80s, you know that NKOTB stands for New Kids on the Block. They were, in my eyes, the premiere BoyBand sensation, fronted by cute boy Joey McIntire (sp?). Where is he now? I think one of the other members is a real estate agent... Random.

Anyhoo, today's post is not about those NKOTB, but about the new kids in my life. July was choc full of births, and lots of time spent at Mercy Gilbert's maternity ward. As you know, my sweet nephew, Corban, was born on July 12. Then my girlfriend Erin endured A LOT to bring her son Greyson into the world on the 17th via emergency c-section. And finally my girlfriend Kelly brought her lovely little girl Gretta into the world on the 22nd of July (also via c-section, only this one was planned.)

All the new babies and their mamas are doing so great. I have added a picture at the end of this post to show some of the ladies I roll with here in Arizona. I am SO beyond blessed to have amazing friends and family to share my life with here in the hot hot desert. One thing that amuses me, because these kinds of things just amuse me, is that Lindsay had Corban on Greyson's due date, Erin had Greyson on my sister's birthday, and Kelly had Gretta on Lindsay's due date. Ah, the wonderful trivial things that keep us all connected!

Christin, Erin, Kelly, Lindsay, Cambry, Jeehon, me.