My sh*t list

But first some pictures because I haven't posted any in a long time and I know ya'll want to see them.

Ain't she cute, sleepin' with her butt up in the air?

This is my rocker girl with a scrape on her face from kissing the pavement in our driveway. It healed in no-time fast, thank God. I thought someone was going to think I beat her!She is just so darned snuggly!! I've never held such a cuddly little thing in my whole life.

So lately I've been pretty depressed and I realize that I've NEVER known how to deal with grief. I just put it off and shut myself up because I feel like I don't "deserve" to feel it and I don't pray about it because I don't know how to pray to "feel better" because it doesn't work that way...so here is my prayer list and I'm going to consider this my way of "handing it over to God" so I can move on, hopefully.

1. We had to move out of our house.
2. We've been stuck in a house the size of a bedroom for 3+ months now.
3. My kids don't listen to squat and aren't free to roam/play/work out energy out here.
4. I have no computer during the day while Allan is at school.
5. I miss my mom and sisters, especially after I had an AWESOME time in WI in Dec.
6. My "dad" didn't say SQUAT to me or send a Christmas card for the 2nd year in a row.
7. My "church family" seems not to care that I tell them I'm lonely and stressed. I still only see them on Sundays.
8. The "extreme home makeover" has turned into the extreme home demolition...oops we don't have the money to fix it, so you'll just have to live with it.
9. I'm about to lose my promotion and become just a consultant again.
10. The only friend I can hang out with during the day and who I adore and learn from and appreciate so much just moved 6 hours away.
11. I got a ticket for being a neglectful mom.
12. The surrounding circumstances triggered my PTSD and now I'm super sad about crap I haven't thought about in years.
13. I have to go to court and file a complaint and all I want to do is forget about the whole thing.
14. A cousin from my step-family called me and I felt really bad about it.
15. Someone from church reported that I didn't clean up good enough after my Kids in the Kitchen workshop, even though I did.
16. My uncle died last week and I don't feel like I have the right to mourn because I pretty much disowned that family when I was 13.
17. No matter how hard I try I can't seem to feel close to God.
18. I can't make myself walk into the church service to save my life for the last 3 months.
19. I hardly get to cook anymore since our kitchen is torn up and I have no stove out here. The cleanup is horrendous.
20. My husband's been in 2 car accidents in the last 2 months.
21. My car is acting up.
22. My husband's PTSD is acting up and I can't fix him. I wish he didn't have to understand how I feel.
23. No matter how hard I try I can't stop screaming at the kids
24. I feel alone, scared and stupid.
25. I can't do anything right and everything I touch gets screwed up.

26. I had to give up nursing.

27. I had to give up pumping.

27.5. Formula is EXPENSIVE!

28. Violet is ALSO allergic to cow's milk and has to have soy formula.

29. The kids and I have been sick for a couple weeks with allergies.

30. I've been realizing I need to learn to reconcile old me and new me instead of just forgetting that that life existed. This is harder than I ever imagined.

31. My stomach is still all icky and fat from giving birth almost TEN months ago.

32. My long-lost step-daughter's aunt found me on MySpace and made me wish we knew her.

33. I miss Rhiya like crazy and it makes my heart ache. I love to talk to her on Sundays but I cry when I get off the phone with her because I wish she was here and I'm so impressed by the woman she's turning into.

There some of it is. Maybe now I can walk away from it or deal with it or whatever it is I'm supposed to do. Thanks for being my journal, blogger.

BOOYAH!

TITLE 5. OFFENSES AGAINST THE PERSON

Sec.22.10.LEAVING A CHILD IN A VEHICLE.(a) A person
commits an offense if he intentionally or knowingly leaves a child
in a motor vehicle for longer than five minutes, knowing that the
child is:
(1)younger than seven years of age; and
(2)not attended by an individual in the vehicle who is
14 years of age or older.

I'm filing a formal complaint against the officer who triggered my PTSD. I got his name and I'm going to get it notarized tomorrow. I'm also going to talk to the judge about how I'm NOT going to pay $932 because I left the vehicle for 45 seconds TOPS, which is much less than FIVE MINUTES.

Lots of other sh*tty stuff has happened the last 2 days, but I don't feel like typing it. Hope ya'll are having better months than me!

If you can't say something nice...

...blog about it.

Today I got in trouble. For being a crappy mom. Yepp, the occifers came to get me. I parked my car in the city hall parking right next to the cop shop. It was cold, so I left it running with the kids in the backseat, (GraceAnne was feeding Violet and both were happy), and locked the doors. I had to run across the street (25 ft) to drop off a hostess packet to someone who works down there. I knocked on the door, but the shop wasn't open, so I came back to the car. As I was getting into the car I heard the girl hollar to me, so I went back to give her the packet. She asked me a couple questions, (right inside the door of her shop...I could see the car and the kids the whole time), and I told her to hold on while I got her some more catalogs and moved the car, (didn't wanna get a ticket), and got the kids. When I got back across the street, (all this took no more than 45 seconds), a guy with a bandaged hand was yelling from the stairs. I said, "I know, I'm moving it right now, I'm sorry." He came over and tried to get into my car! I freaked, but figured we were in front of the police station in broad daylight, what could happen? I unrolled the window a hair so he could talk to me. He said, "I work for the police department, do you have a license on you?" I said yes and thought, "here we go...a parking ticket." He said, "you're going to have to step out of the vehicle." For parking in the wrong spot for 2 minutes?!? So I got out and he asked me what I was doing. I told him dropping something off, realized she had more questions and was moving the car, getting the kids and going back in. He asked how old the kids were and I realized this was about THEM and not my parking. I told him 9 months and almost 5. He just clucked at me. He said there was a patrol cop on the way and I could go do what I needed to do, but to leave the kids and the car there. OVER MY DEAD BODY am I leaving my kids here with some strange man, officer or not! So I stayed and he said nothing else to me. While we were waiting the kids were getting antsy, so I opened the back door and was talking to them. When the other officer got there, (how long does it really take? This town has all of 17,000 people and we were RIGHT in front of the station...give me a break!), she gets out of her car and the man says to her, "this woman left her 9 month old and 4 year old in the car alone. Just thought you'd be interested in that." To which she replied, "OH! I am VERY interested." The man drove away in his big, stinky diesel truck and the woman started taking down my information. The first thing she said to me was "did you know it's illegal to leave your children in a car by themselves?" I said, "I was unaware it was illegal to leave your children in a LOCKED car when you can SEE them and you're only gone for a few seconds." She said, "well, it is." At this point I have to get the kids out because she's taking forever and they're getting mad. So I'm now on the sidewalk holding Vi and GraceAnne jumping around. She ended up getting back in the car, (not in her carseat), cuz she was cold and she was jumping around in there like a fool and not listening to me which was just FANTASTIC for my nerves. The woman came to me with a little electronic dealy-bob and told me to sign it. I asked her what it was, because I KNOW I don't have to sign anything without being told what it is. She said, "No, you need to just sign this now, I'll explain in a minute." My bullsh*t meter was beeping, but I was about to blow a fuse so I signed it. She gave me the citation for 1. abandoning my children in a vehicle and 2. having said vehicle running. She told me to call the number on the citation for directions on what to do.

Can we say PISSED? Can we say HORRIFIED? Can we say EMBARRASSED beyond all belief? I spent a lot of time crying today and I'm left just pretty ticked off. I have to call tomorrow and find out what they want me to do. My very sincere prayer is that they don't have CPS come investigate us. They won't find anything but Lord knows what they'd say about us all living in the guest house. I have no idea what the dollar amount attached to this will be, I'm almost scared to find out, but if I only have to pay a fine and never hear another word, I'll be happy.

I hate these trash stories. It makes me feel trashy. Yes, I did wrong...but does anyone care that I was WATCHING them the whole time? It's not like I went grocery shopping and left them sitting in the car, (which I've seen around here!). It's also not as if I were gone all day. Do I need to take them out when I pre-pay for gas now? It's so very ridiculous. Things seem to get better and better around here.

Praise God for our health and for each other. Praise God that all things will work out in the end, because they sure aren't working out right now. Praise God because otherwise I might just think to hate Him for half a minute and I know that's just the devil working on me cuz I'm under stress. Praise God because I am not getting this onslaught of crap because I "deserve" it, but just because I live in this stupid, fallen world and someday it'll be better. Praise God because He still Blesses me, even when I refuse to see it. *sigh*

This post may offend...

This blog post may offend any non-believers out there. 2.5 years ago it would have offended me. Maybe we need to be offended so we can think, grow and accept the truth. So, consider yourself warned.

Allan got into a little bit of trouble at school today. There was a speaker who was talking about "disorders" in children and how there are many more disorders than we know about or diagnose. She talked for more than 45 minutes about how these kids have no impulse control and they are stressing their parents out. She gave 2 examples...

1) 2 little boys, (ages 6 and 5), were playing in their bedroom. The father was downstairs and kept hearing thuds. He was going to go check on them, but figured no one was crying so they were okay and decided to finish what he was doing. Then he heard a loud crash. He ran upstairs to see what had happened and it turned out they had been taking turns jumping from the top bunk. The older boy wanted to "fly" and grabbed hold of a fan blade, spinning around the room. He didn't pull the fan down, but something got knocked over, resulting in the crash.

2) a 16-year-old girl wanted to go to a friend's house. She borrowed the family car and didn't tell her parents where she was going. She broke her parents' curfew and didn't want to face the consequences, so she just didn't go home. The city had a curfew law, however, and the girl got picked up by the police and escorted home. This is how the parents found out where their daughter was.

So the argument is that these children have something wrong with them, but Allan took issue with that. What 6-year-old hasn't done something "wrong" and "damaging" because it looked fun? I'd say most of them have. My 4-year-old does on a daily basis. What 16-year-old hasn't disobeyed her parents and made things worse because she didn't want to own up to her mistakes?

At the very end of the presentation, the woman finally said, "perhaps the stressed out parents are affecting their children and causing them to behave this way." Then came Q&A time. People asked their questions and my husband happened to be the last to get to ask. His question? "Do you have children." Her answer? "no." Afterward his professors were upset with him. Apparently he embarrassed a very respected psychologist in front of the entire university. Was it not a legitimate question? People without kids probably don't think so, but I know you parents out there understand--KIDS ARE KIDS and HERE is WHY:

Life is meaningless without assuming a God. There's no reason to look forward to a future, no reason to be good, no reason for anything. How depressing. So let's assume there is a God...you know I believe this. God puts out rules, which is good, because HEY...who's right down here if we're not all right? We need guidelines or else all is chaos. So in being human we are ALL born with the propensity to sin. Don't get your panties in a bunch over the word "sin," either. It just means doing wrong and we all do wrong, so don't let the verbage catch you up. Children cannot teach themselves. They must be taught by others the difference between right or wrong. Anybody ever read Lord of the Flies? (Another point in the case for God...who originally taught us what is right and wrong?)

So is there really something wrong with these children, or is it simply their propensity towards sin? Each of us wants what we want. It's not until we're older and taught differently that we start to think of others/consequences before we act. Even then many of us don't act unselfishly. I hate when people walk around saying, "my kid has a disorder and that's why he screams in the restaurant." Okay, allow me to redeem myself by saying YES, some children DO have disorders that cause them to act out. Most parents of these children act accordingly and are very humble. The ones who irritate me are the same ones who irritate you...the ones smoking cigarettes and sipping coffee while allowing their children to run and jump off other booths and scream bloody murder with no sense of dissatisfaction or embarrassment that their child is behaving in this way. How should those kids know any different when the parent can't take 2 seconds out of their time to TEACH them how to behave in public? And the father's sin is visited upon the child...selfishness (I don't WANT to take the time or energy to teach them any differently) breeds selfishness (I don't care that the people around me would like to eat the meals that they paid a lot of money for in peace).

Maybe I'm rambling and this doesn't make sense, but when we realize that we live in a country where so many don't have faith in anything and so many don't fully KNOW what is wrong because they don't accept God's Word, of course we're going to think our kids are "messed up." Why shouldn't they just "know" how to behave themselves? After all, the evolution of humans has made us just THAT superior...we don't need to be taught anything, we came to these conclusions on our own. We have to realize that we NEED God just as children NEED parents. Then we think of what role God plays in our lives. He is a leader and He doesn't always give in to what we want. He knows what is best and He acts according to that plan. So how should we be raising our children? We should be leading them and not always give in to what they want. Just like we throw tantrums, (hello, I whine daily about being in the guest house!), our children will, but that doesn't mean we should just give in and assume they have a disorder and call it a day. God doesn't give up on us just cuz we're stubborn mules!

*sigh* I have to go because my 4-year-old is trashing her bedroom. Maybe I should take her to the psychologist and see what type of disorder she can be diagnosed with so I don't have to face the fact that I'm addicted to the internet and given to yelling at every little thing. Yeah...maybe then I'll feel better! I'll let you know in 14 years how that works out for me. ;)

Our Big Baby

9 months old! Can you even believe it? I sure can't! Violet is 18lbs 4oz and 29 inches long. She's only about 50% for her weight, so she took a big drop from 6 months, (80% then), but GraceAnne did the same thing and she didn't drop as much as GraceAnne did, so we're good. She's been very active and had been on a 2 day feeding strike before I took her in, so I think she's probably gained a few ounces now that she's decided a certain type of formula is her friend, (we like Similac Organic). She's very LOOOONG like her big sisters...95th percentile...and should be tall like they are, too.

Right now we're planning a few trips, so I'm very excited. First we're going to GA for a conference for Allan and then to FL to spend time with sister-in-law and mother-in-law. That will be in March. Mother-in-law wants us to come to PA in May for grandmother-in-law's 90th birthday bash. I'm not sure how we'll get there yet, but hopefully we can! Allan wants to go to PA pretty bad. We haven't been since GraceAnne was just a little over a year old, so it's probably time. Then we'll be going to Chicago in July for National Conference for me. I want to make that trip about a week long, (as long as Allan is not working), so we can see family and go to the Brookfield Zoo, (GREATEST ZOO ON EARTH!!), and Navy Pier with the kids. Rhiya will come with us so it will be SO MUCH FUN!

I love love LOVE travelling and we haven't been able to do much of it for the past few years because of school and money. Now that we've got the 2nd mortgage paid off we've been able to save a little more and do some fun stuff. Thank you, Lord! I missed travelling A LOT. Allan and I were in 28 different states in the first year we were together and made trips every 6 months from WA state to WI, besides little local trips in between. Once we moved to TX we became homebodies for the reasons stated above. I'm feeling very Blessed and very happy to be getting back to doing stuff. We usually drive everywhere, so we get to see a lot of really great things! Woohoo for getting the heck out!

To update everyone on my progress toward my goal of earning Disney World...I had $1278 in commissionable sales last month, so I earned a total of 5,556 pts. I need 52,000 total, so I got over 10% of my needed pts! I have until Dec. 31, 2009 to earn points, I WILL DO THIS!! We will absolutely be celebrating GraceAnne's 6th birthday at Disney World and I will absolutely be getting her breakfast with the princesses because the rest of the trip will be FREE! Please check up on me from time to time and kick me in the butt. I need all the encouragement and prayers you can offer to get this business going and meet my goals. I appreciate you all so much!

Same Ole Thang

More of the same here--trying hard not to kill each other as we stew around in the guest house for God-knows-how-much-longer.

Someone is coming today to buy our '58 ragtop. *sniffle* I hate to see this go, but at the same time I'm elated. It's been sitting in our possession doing NOTHING, (or rather, we do nothing to it!), for almost 4 years now. It's a beautiful specimen...perfect mix between original and modified so that it LOOKS the way we would want our bug to, but DRIVES the way we'd want a bigger car to. Here's a picture to commemorate the last of our project cars, (at least those on our property, teehee)

I'm elated because now we will have room in the garage to put our crap while we get the floors done. We were told to choose what we wanted done with the last of the money from the budget. I told them we need the floors done! They are so nasty. Here's a picture of how nasty they are. I literally CAN'T mop them or the wood will be ruined. Besides, my mother-in-law once tried to mop them and she went over them FIVE times before she decided to give up because they'd NEVER come clean. Turns out she was mopping the finish off. I've probably droned on about this before, but suffice it to say that I will be ecstatic to have beautiful hardwood floors that my children can actually crawl and play on!

P.S. Allan pulled all that carpet up in anticipation of getting the floors refinished. I don't know if you can tell from that picture, but it looks SO MUCH BIGGER now! Carpets really do suck.

Then we have the bathroom which is done except for the paint touch ups and the big holes in the wall and cabinet from the plumbing. Oh yeah, and it has to be sealed or we're tards, I forgot. Oh well, it's almost done. And it's gonna look awesome :D



Here is a picture of the most god-awful window I've ever seen in my life. This is what we are getting on both of the back bedrooms. I loved these windows, they were long and beautiful and now they are hideous. I'm glad we decided to stay in the front bedroom! I know, I know--will she ever be happy with anything? I'm not going to complain to the builders because-hey!-they were free, but OMG this is awful. It makes me tear up when I look out of the guest house at the big house. Blah.And now, a photo montage of the lovely little girl we are trying to wean from breastmilk to formula, (yeah, I gave in cuz I'm a jerk and it turns out I'm probably not making enough milk to support a growing 9 month old, afterall. God works in funny ways, huh?)
"Hey mom, you got something good for me? I'm a lil' hungry!"

"what in the sam-hell was THAT you just tried to put in my mouth? Certainly not the nectar of the gods I've been drinking for entirity of my life on this earth!"
"get this NASTY thing out of my mouth! UGH, PUKE!"

Okay, so that's probably as much drama as one blog post can handle, so signing off, this is Tara.

Goodday.

Photos for the Weary

For those of you weary of my whining, here are some photos. I'm too tired to even whine today.

I will say, though, that Allan FINALLY got the money from the insurance company 2 days ago. Last night he bought a 1989 Toyota 4Runner. He's pretty excited about it. It's big--it's ugly--it's totally Allan. The best part about the 4Runner? (Yepp, I said it before and I'll say it again!) There was money leftover. Soo...we went to eat at Chili's last night, (we've had literally NO cash this week, so I've been cooking crap from the freezer that's probably been there a year. The plus side? Now I can defrost the freezer for the first time in 2 years because I can see the bottom!), and went to WalMart and GraceAnne got a new pony and Allan got a new camera because he sat on his old one and killed it.

We tried to get a memory card for my phone, but AT&T is super cool and made sure we couldn't buy one at a normal store. Luckily it fits in Allan's phone because you can't return opened electronics, so now he has a brand-spankin' new 2GB memory card for his phone that he can put 400 songs on. But there is hope for me yet! I get a new haircut and color today. At this point I could care less about the cut and the color, but the time away from the kids sounds positively DIVINE!

So here's the house from the street with new windows. Pretty snazzy, eh? It's taking them longer than they thought because they are having to reframe every single window. But the front is all new and in a few minutes the north-face will be all new, too.
Here's the rear of the house. You can see them working on the north-face.
Here's my bottle-drinkin' baby, thinkin' she's cute. (she's right, but don't tell her or she might get a fat head!) I actually think I'll just give her sippy cups because I'd rather not get her on a bottle habit now only to break her of it in 3 months. Plus bottles are evil and I re-realized why last night--the freakin' things leak! I had a big old wet spot on my bed and I was NOT happy at 5:30 this morning. Boobs do not leak past the first month, so I've been spoiled. Blah.
And here she is again excited that she can throw her milk around and drag it with her. She is wearing my all-time favorite Violet shirt from Old Navy. I told Allan when she outgrows it I'm going to cut the patch out and someday I'll make her a patchwork purse with that on it and lots of different violet color fabrics. You can't tell from the picture, but it's textured and just way too cute.

Okay, so I can't manage to make it through even one post without whining, but in my 26 years I've come to realize that I'm FUNNY when I complain and people like me when I'm funny, so...maybe I ought to just roll with it. Besides, somedays I have nothing to say if I can't whine. Hmmmmmmmmmm...

Love and miss you all!

**Edited to add: here is the after shot. I got my hair colored and trimmed. It's grown a lot more than I thought it had since I had Violet and the color is WONDERFUL! What's that you say? I actually look my age again? Why, thank you. Gray is NOT the new brown after all!

The End of an Era

This morning I was bitten by a tiny bird for the 3rd and final time. Suffice it to say I was bitten in a not-so-fun area and nursing is no longer an activity that I will be participating in. This makes me really sad and I'm very disappointed. Yes, I'll blow the dust off of my big pump and still try to pump milk for Violet, (I did this for GraceAnne for 6 months), but it's not the same, it's annoying and it's a pain in the butt. Then again, at least it's not a pain in the "nibble!" UGH.

Pray I make it to 1 year with the pump. That was my goal to begin with for nursing, so hopefully I can do it and I'll never have to buy a can of formula.

blah blah blah.

P.S. A friend once told me that she was told that if the baby bites you, pull them in closer to you so that they can't breathe for a second and it scares them so they let go and don't bite again. If any of you have A) stubborn children like mine or B) crappy luck like mine DO NOT TRY THIS! I might not have lost blood or gotten teeth marks had I not tried this. *cry*

Pictures as Demanded

I had some peeps insist that my bathroom is not actually tiled until I post pictures of it. So I uploaded some pix and had a few minutes in between my phone calls to get fund raising leads, (does ANYONE know of a place that needs some fund raising? I'll do one for you!) so I figured I'd load some.

Allan laid this tile yesterday. I don't think I posted any pictures of the progress, but first he had to rip out the old tile, (2 inch hexagonal tiles), pull up the old hard wood flooring underneath, lay a new sub floor in the form of a 3/4" sheet of plywood, prime that with some bright red waterproof stuff and then lay the tiles. It went so quickly I was amazed. My hubby is so smart! I LOVE LOVE LOVE this new tile, by the way. It looks GREAT! We still have to do the grout and then seal it. My Sister-in-Law says if we don't seal it we're tards, so I think we'll seal it.
Here is the door Allan framed. We have a few more to go. The space above the frame is where we have grand plans of putting a transom made my my Sister-in-Law. She is a VERY talented stained glass artist.
Here is the new window from the inside. We have 5 new windows, none of which is really too different except this one. You can see on the left side of the fireplace what the old windows looked like, so this is a HUGE improvement! I really hate those glass blocks. I don't need any privacy in my library! There will be so much more light now.
And just because no blog post is complete without pictures of my babies...here they are! Violet thinks GraceAnne is the greatest playmate on earth! Blogger won't let me post below the last pic, so I'll tell about it up here. Vi ALWAYS has her tongue sticking out like that! I'm not sure if it's because she's teething, (she got one on Christmas eve and the other on 1/11), or just cuz she's silly, but it's SO CUTE! And that thing is LOOOONG!

Quick Report

I've totally been lacking with my blog lately, and I apologize. There has been lots going on here and I'm trying very hard to be a new person this year, not only with the house and kids, but also with my business. I went to Leadership Conference in Denver and got all psyched up for the coming year. They've given us a new career plan and raises and now our focus is supposed to be on building our teams instead of just selling. I was nervous about this because I thought I'd be pushy or creepy, but really, who doesn't like to be offered a job because they're outgoing? Who couldn't use a little extra money. So...I'm hiring. If you'd like to make a few hundred extra dollars and a couple nights out a month, let me know. This is probably the first thing I've done in my life, (other than being a mom), that I've liked for longer than a couple months. I'm having a great time and really determined to make this work for us. Plus, I'm TOTALLY going to Disney World with PC! I'll do whatever it takes now ;)

GraceAnne had a blast in Denver. She got to see geese, snow and a fox. This was all in downtown! The place is truly amazing and she said she is going to live there someday. I think even Allan would like to live there...we'll see where his job takes us. She's super happy to be back in school, though, I think she was going stir-crazy. Yesterday she told me about a small tiff she got into with a friend at school. I asked her, "why do you have to argue with everyone?" She looked at me and said serious-as-a-heart-attack, "because they're WRONG!" Wow...her face is all daddy, but her mouth is ALL MOM!

Violet is getting SO BIG! She's been saying 'hi' for a while now and calling GraceAnne 'guh' but while we were in Denver she told daddy she wanted 'breakfass' and the next morning she told me she wanted a 'dye-per' and her 'bucket' The following morning we were waving to mommy and Violet in the mirror and she waved and said, 'hi Vi-yet, hi Mom!' This is totally foreign to me. GraceAnne said her first word, "fishie" when she was 11 months old. 8.5 is a bit early to me. She's starting to stand on her own for a few seconds before she falls and Allan said he saw her stand up from sitting the other day. It's so amazing to watch them learn. What a little treasure!

Allan is back in school now and it's been a little bit of a stress with his car gone. They totalled it out and we're waiting on the check so he can go buy a vehicle. It's too cold to ride the scooter right now, so in the garage it sits and he's been taking my car. This gets me out walking more, but it's so cold I don't want to. I had to wrap Violet in a fuzzy fleece blanket on top of her hat and coat yesterday to walk GraceAnne to school. It was not much above freezing. That's not bad where I come from, but to these little Texan girls, it was pretty darned nippy! We're so glad this is his last semester, though, and if I had to walk every day for the rest of his 4 months I would. **Please Lord, don't test me on that, because you know I WILL complain every step!**

I would post pictures, but Allan's camera broke. We have my big professional Nikon, but for excuses of lack of portability and difficulty uploading, (there's no slot on his laptop for my memory card), it might be a while before I have some pictures to put up. Hopefully no one gets too bored just reading type. Love and miss you all!

A Warm Start

Please excuse the discombobulation, blogger is being a punk and I can't figure it out. Since this is our last day with Rhiya, I'd rather spend time with her than spend time on this, so....here is a backward story for you. Here are the girls at the late hour of 10pm last night. We stayed up later last night than we did on New Year's Eve. The girls were having a blast together.

Here is GraceAnne outside the train depot. At the mall in Dallas, there is a set-up every year to benefit the Ronald McDonald house at Children's. Allan loves trains, so we went to see. We all had a good time even though it was PACKED. At first I wondered why they had the AC on full blast, but I learned why pretty quickly.

Here are the girls at "Mt Rushmore." Rhiya was pretty excited about getting her picture taken in front of MR. She actually orchestrated the whole thing.

This year is starting off like our last 3 have--warm. January is so beautiful in Texas. I'm not sure what that's about...it gets cold for February, but I really do enjoy it. So we had some other kids over and we played outside all day long. Violet was having a grand old time playing in the dirt and managed to dig up one of the squirrel's pecans. I didn't realize she had it in her mouth until I grabbed the camera to snap a shot and she grinned so huge that I saw it in there.

If you can't tell, the above pictures and text are the ones that wouldn't copy/paste or work with me in anyway, so I hope you can deal with that. Hope you're having a great year so far! We love and miss you all...

What the heck have we been doing?

Been a while, no? Well, at least since you've gotten a real update and some good pictures. I've learned that living in a guest house has been good for breaking me of my internet addiction, but it keeps me out of touch with the world. As you know, we got Rhiya on Saturday and we've been trying to make the most of our time with her. The visits are too short and too far spaced.

Here are some pictures of the house progress. I see an end in sight! The exterior guys have said it will only be a couple more weeks on their end of it and the sheet-rockers started painting today. They won't paint every room, but they are doing the upstairs bathroom and the kitchen for us.
Here is my dining room. My question is: is Allan ready to fix those stripes? ;) Haha, he'll probably tell me I have to do them.
This is the laundry room. It looks TORE UP, but it's a lot better than it was already. That's a new door on the back, (we have to order the glass), and they're going to paint this as part of the kitchen. We pulled out lots of ugly cabinets and switched the entrance around.

The exterior guys actually did the door for us. It was really nice of them! These are the volunteer fire fighters. They're doing all of this for us for free, and they're nice to boot, so I really like them. They've been super polite and cordial and always tell us if they will or won't be here. You can see the replacement boards on the bottom right side of the stairs and the new trim work. They've done a ton of work, (there are only 2 of them!) and it already looks so much better. I can't wait to see the finished product!Here is the upstairs bathroom painted. Allan started laying the floor down today, so we should be able to get the plumber in there and get our toilet and sink done now. We've got to do the tiles and put up some bead board and it's done. That color is green, even though you can't really tell.
In the picture above we were making pinecone bird feeders. Have you ever made those? We found some fantastically huge pine cones on one of our country drive and snagged a few off the side of the road. Just tie a rope around the small end, slather in peanut butter and roll in bird seed. Then if you have a tree-climbing step-daughter, have her hang them from all kinds of high points in the yard. It was good fun and got me to thinking we haven't set out bird seed in way-too-long, so we went to Lowes and got some more seed, suet cakes and a new honey-bird feeder.

The neighbors 2 doors down have been moved out of their house for months. They are trying to sell it. We've been toying with the idea of getting a swing set for a long time now. The problem is that they're expensive and all of them on craigslist need to be hauled away. We don't have a vehicle with a hitch right now, so it's just not an option. There's a house here in town with a run-down swing set just sitting back next to the fence that Allan has wanted to buy from the owners for a long time. We've tried 2x to get in touch with them, but to no avail. The last time we tried they still didn't answer, and then I remembered that the empty house had a brand-spanking-new swing set in the backyard. Amazingly enough we saw the owner the following day, (I haven't seen her in months!), and we asked her if she'd be willing to sell it. She said she'd love to sell it to us and that her daughter never got to play with it because of the sweet gum seeds in the yard, (these are round, hard balls with prickles on them so they A) roll your ankle when you step on them and B) hurt your booty when you fall on them). We asked her how much and she said 40! I was totally going to offer her 75, so I was THRILLED to pieces when she said 40! You can see the girls are having a blast on it!

It didn't come with a baby swing, so while we were at Lowe's on our bird feed expedition we picked one up. There was a plain-old red swing and a bug for 2$ more. You all know my husband--which do you think we had to get? It has yet to be adorned with stickers, but it will be soon, I'm sure.

P.S. Is that not the cutest hat you ever saw?!?
Rhiya showing off her purity ring. We celebrated her graduation from the Passport 2 Purity at Carinos and presented her with this white gold diamond ring. She loves it. She promised to save herself until another man replaced that ring and we promised to take care of her until another man replaces that ring. It was pretty cool.
Violet loves to look out this window. When we were on the little bed her favorite thing to do in the morning as soon as she woke up would be to sit up and have me move the curtain out of the way so she could bang on the sill and yell at the birds. Now that we're in the big bed with Allan and the girls are in the smaller bed, she likes to get up, try to crawl over Allan and yell "HAAAAIII, GUH!" at GraceAnne. Then Rhiya picks her up and she gets to look out the window with them. For those who can't read Violnese, that means, "Hi, GraceAnne!"

Well, there you have it...a decent amount of pictures. I hope you didn't plan on hearing from me anytime soon now. ;) Happy New Year everyone!!

It's Us

Things here are going pretty good. Rhiya got here Saturday and we did our 2nd Christmas with her. We took them shopping with Christmas money yesterday before Allan and Rhiya went to Dallas to spend a night in a super nice hotel together and today they're going to see the King Tut exhibit at the Dallas Museum of Art. The real purpose of the trip is a cd set of lessons called "Passport 2 Purity" that teaches her why the bible says she should stay pure until marriage. They've completed 3 lessons out of 5 so far, and Rhiya is having a good time. She's especially looking forward to King Tut and dinner tonight. When we all meet up for dinner, (Carino's=YUMMMM!), we'll give her a "graduation" passport and a promise ring we bought her a while back. It's a beautiful little diamond, perfect for her dainty hand. I was a little nervous, but Allan says she's having a good time and really enjoys the projects they're doing. YAY!

If you're the praying type, please pray that she retains this and learns from God and the bible how to live her life, instead of all the earthly influences around her, including us especially.

Hope all is going well. We love and miss you!

Randomness

As we get ready for the holiday I have such a strange mixture of emotions. I want to go back home and have winter again, but I hate snow and ice and cold. I'm excited for our house to be done, but I do NOT want to clean everything up. In fact, I really want to just throw everything away and get new crap. I want to be with my family but I want to be alone because everyone gets on my nerves. I feel so great about the gift God gave us in His son, but I'm bummed out that some members of my own family could give 2 sh*ts that we even exist. I really want to get my business off the ground, but I have no motivation to do squat given the circumstances. I could go on and on and really what it boils down to is I need to vent and I need to shut up. Since you don't come here to read my venting, I'll shut up and show you pictures.Here are the girls with their cousins, Kellyse and Zekaeus. They belong to my sister, Kelly. Kaeus is 4 and Kellyse will be 2 in January. They're cute kids and GraceAnne had fun playing with them.

Here is GraceAnne playing in the snow. Here's what I love best about our family. GraceAnne and Allan love snow. I hate snow except to look at it. So Allan takes GraceAnne playing in the snow and I get to watch them from the comfort of the kitchen through the patio window sipping coffee. That's my idea of perfection--I don't have to deal with the cold, the wet and the squealing, but I can watch the people I love best having a great time! Then they think I'm a hero when I have hot cocoa with fat marshmallows waiting for them when they get in all red-faced and wet-footed. I've told Allan that if we ever end up moving back up north I need a BIG bay window looking out onto our back yard so I can sit at the table and watch the birds.This is our living hole. In case you were ever curious, it's not fun. BOTH of the kids were sleeping, though. That's totally rare. It was fabulous to get some time alone. So you can see what we were doing...eating and reading crap on the internet. I was cleaning the kitchen. What an exciting life we lead. *insert eyeroll here* I can't wait to be back in the house where I can sleep with my husband and ignore my kids while they play in their own rooms again.
Here is our livingroom. How pathetic are we, a friend said, "where did you guys get that fireplace??" when she saw it. I looked at her a little sheepishly and said, "uhhh, it came with the house." Yepp, it's always been there. We just had so much stuff piled up in front of it that no one has ever seen it. Those windows are going to be replaced with longer windows soon. Right after Christmas. Yeah AFTER Christmas. Looks like we're going to be out here another month. Rhiya should love that.
Here's my poor Falcon. *sniffle* When you look at it from behind this side is much higher than the driver's side. We think they're going to total it out. Our neighbor is a claims adjuster and he said that we should be prepared for them to lowball us in the offer. I don't know what a lowball on this car would look like, but it's a classic. I also don't know if they'll let us, but I'd like to keep the car to give to someone we've met who has a Falcon he's restoring. Does anyone know if they make us surrender the vehicle? That would be a shame. I think Allan is planning on fixing up the Ford truck a friend from church gave to him with the money from the Falcon. He's always complaining about wanting a truck anyway, so I guess that will work out. No fear of me stealing that from him either. *sigh* Guess I'm stuck with my POS Oldsmobile for another God-knows-how-long. Cars like that make me think I wouldn't mind going into debt to get a new one. Hmmmmmmmm.

Home Again, Home Again

Jiggity Jig.

The house is still not done. Hell decided to freeze over, (yes...the temperature in Texas was below freezing while we were gone!), and apparently contractors can't work on the outside of your house in the ice and snow, so nothing happened.

Our trip was fantastic, really. I loved being home and seeing everyone. It was a great time and I actually got to sleep in the same bed as my husband. I'm usually oh-so ready to leave by the time we go, but I was NOT happy to be home this time. I was hoping to get snowed-in. We did get 3-4 inches the night before we left, but we made it and made the plane and all was well for traveling by plane. But not so much by car. Yeah...we were in Dallas for all of 30 minutes when Allan got hit in stop-n-go traffic. Some lady hit him from behind. The car is JACKED UP. Allan went to the ER this morning because his neck hurts and he can't move it much. He has a sprained neck. *sigh* The lady wouldn't give Allan her information, so we have no idea what to do and won't until the officer puts his report out to our insurance company. What a load of horse you-know-what.

To keep myself from dwelling on the BS that is really ticking me off today I'll tell you about all the cool things God did:

Wednesday was the ONLY day we would have gotten out of WI. They're supposed to be getting 27 inches of snow between yesterday and Sunday.

We got the last 3 seats on the flight. This is a HUGE deal on stand-by. I almost didn't get on, but it all worked out in the end. We even got to sit next to each other from Kansas City to Dallas.

The weather was clear from Chicago to Dallas. This is rare this time of year. Especially considering all the snow in Chicago and the fog in Dallas.

Allan had left his car in Dallas...this was not our plan. I was even mad that it happened. But since it was there and we had to pick it up, the girls and I were not in the car when he got hit.

GraceAnne was not in the car with Allan. She wanted to ride in the Falcon with him and we probably would have let her, but she passed out about 2 minutes before we got to his car, so she stayed with me.

Our neighbor so happened to be at the exact same exit as Allan when I called her to tell her about the accident. She hung out in a parking lot off the exit so she could take him home, even though he didn't end up going with her. She said it was strange she was there because she had to snake around the city due to traffic and wasn't intending to be where she was.

A friend of ours towed the Falcon behind his truck so we wouldn't have to pay to have it towed back to Ennis. He saved us almost $200!

When we got back to the house, our neighbor, (the hubby of the one who was going to bring Allan home), had put a pretty wreath on the front door of the guest house, a cute rudolph decoration in the yard and a tiny Christmas Tree in the "house." I was so excited since I've been having a hard time with Christmas spirit. GraceAnne thought it was all about the coolest stuff ever. Allan was even cheered by it when he finally got home. We have the best neighbors ever!

My only show for December cancelled last night. This doesn't seem like it would be a good thing, but it is because I was totally stressed about what I was going to do. Everything is packed up and I don't have a clue where anything is right now, plus it's all FILTHY. Everything in the house is covered in a 1/4" layer of sheetrock dust.

It's a lot of Blessings. I'm still bummed, but I do feel better typing it all out. I hope ya'll had a great week!

Pics @ T-minus 5 hrs and counting...

We're going home in 5 hours! I have so much to do still, but I wanted to get these pictures posted before we go. Here's the wall Allan and Russ put up a couple weekends ago. Allan sheet rocked it and now it's ready to get the half walls put up. YAY for my hallway! :D
This is why we live in the guest house. Literally every room in my house looks like this. Everything pulled to the middle and covered with plastic. It's not even helping keep the dust off, but I guess it would be lots worse if we didn't do this. We're going to be CLEANING for Christmas!

I don't know if you can see it, but here's the side of the house pressure-washed, scraped and ready to be painted. How exciting! They're coming tomorrow with the new windows and yesterday they dropped off the replacement pieces of siding for the rotted stuff. It's in our garage waiting :)
Here's the porch. I'm aware it's a crummy photo but I'm not going out to take more right now. That's what you get.
Here is the cubby hole Allan built for the fridge. Where the fridge is right now is the old hallway into the laundry room and where the new hallway is, was the wall that the fridge was in front of. As soon as the sheet rock is finished, we'll push the fridge into the cubby and we'll be fancy! It's adding lots of room to my too-small kitchen, so that's a real plus!
Did I post this picture before? If I did, sorry, but there's the happiest Christmas baby you'll ever see. She's so darned precious!! She looks so much like GraceAnne and Rhiya!

This morning I woke up and said, "GraceAnne, what day is it??" She said, "it's 2-ones!" She ran and got her My Little Pony advent calendar and we opened the 11. I said, "where are we going today?" She said, "TO SCHOOL! and then to WISCONSIN to see Gramma!" I said, "what are we going to do tomorrow??" She said, "PLAY IN THE SNOW!!" She says she is going to make a snowman and that she even knows how to already. "You just roll snow into a big ball and then roll another little ball and then another little ball. I'll use 3 stones and a carrot and I guess I can just use my finger to make a mouth."

I'll miss the blogs I follow, but I'm so glad to be going home! God Bless you all!

We're Off

I'll try to post pictures of the house before we leave, but I'm not making promises. We're leaving Thursday afternoon for Wisconsin and we won't be back until the following Wednesday. Wish us luck as we're flying standby and we've had some rental car/carseat issues. Pray for my sanity, please. I could use some ;)

Dear Santa

A friend of mine does a special topic on her blog every Thursday and then invites everyone else to write on the same topic. This week I'm going to go in on it because I realize that yesterday's post is pretty revealing of the toxicity in my heart lately.

Dear Santa,

How are you this year? I'm sorry to only write one time per year, when I want something. I realize that's a little selfish. I'll try to write more often. Here is my wish-list, however:

1. I'd like to have my house back. My babies are so bored and I'm so tired of not sleeping with my husband. I appreciate that we have this little guest house for this season, and I realize that the stay is oh-so worth it, but I'm ready to be in the big house again.

2. I'd like to be content in what we have. We've been so well Blessed, and I hate feeling so ugly about being "stuck" out here. I pray that I can adequately humble myself so that I am not humbled by circumstances.

3. I'd like my babies to be happy and healthy and I'd like the power to raise them in Christ so that they become loving, kind, forgiving and secure in the Lord. I'd like for Allan and I to be able to raise them according to their purpose with love and patience.

4. I'd like to be able to open my heart to the Lord instead of being scared and hiding away from Him. I want to learn to pray more readily, stay in The Word and just let go.

5. I'd like to learn to trust in the Lord completely. I want to learn my purpose and to fulfill it with Joy and Exuberance. I'd like to learn those lessons from my children, who are so wonderfully gifted with both of those fruits.

6. I'd like to be a better friend to everyone who God has placed in my path. Instead of asking what my friends and family have done for me lately, I'd like to focus on what I can do for them. I want it to be blatantly clear to me who God wants me to be to the people in my life, (my husband, my kids, my family, my friends, my neighbors), and to have the strength to be that person. I hope they always see me as giving and loving and strong.

7. I'd like to pray more readily to Christ and to not only think of Him when I want something or when something is wrong or when His birthday is upon us. I'd like to walk daily with Him and feel the freedom that I KNOW is in Him everyday.

8. I'd like more and more people to find the reason for this holiday, season, year and life. If I can be instrument in that, I'd like to be. Not for my glory, but for His.

Thanks for all you do, Santa. I hope you have a Blessed season and a Blessed year!
-Tara

Some Photographic Evidence of Change

I realize there are far fewer than necessary photos of the house, but so far not much has taken place that's photo-worthy. There are a lot of really large holes in rooms that we worked really hard on, (anyone who has been in our house knows how proud I am of the paint jobs in the dining room, movie room and GraceAnne's room. Yepp--all ruined). Then the exterior guys pressure washed the house and sanded it, but you can't really tell that by the photos, either. Stupid crappy camera. So instead, let me entertain you with my adorable daughters:
We "made" gingerbread cookies. It's been really hard for me to get into the holiday spirit since I can't decorate, can't have a tree, we're not really going all out for gifts this year, etc. SO..while at HEB feeling sorry for myself, Violet and I decided we'd get a gingerbread cookie kit and force the holiday spirit. I really didn't even want to decorate the darned things, (not like it's hard), but after GraceAnne was so stinkin' excited to see the kit and begged me to turn on Christmas music, I had to smile. After I took a couple of sips of homemade hot cocoa with marshmallows, helped her decorate her first gingerbread men and heard 'Silverbells' I was sold. It is Christmas, tree-be-damned!
And what better gift than a tiny smiley baby? She's so darned sweet!

As far as the house is concerned, some pretty major changes have taken place in the last two days. Apparently hell has frozen over and the electricians decided to show up and actually do some work. They've even got their "rough" inspection done. There are now new light switches and outlets and new lights and new wiring...we'll have a doorbell wired in and our smoke alarms, (omg, we have more than one!?), will be wired in, too. Obviously none of that is very interesting in photographs.
The porch, however, ROCKS THE HOUSE! Or rather, preceeds it. I didn't know they were going to do this, so it's a Christmas surprise and I was SO EXCITED to watch them pull the boards off this morning. They were so rotted and disgusting and covered with about 20 coats of ugly paint. It's completely done now with nice new boards, but I haven't taken a picture of the new porch yet. Allan told me I should go out there, but seeing as it's in the 20's tonight and I'm in my skivvies already I'm not going anywhere. He said he didn't feel like hopping out there, either. Guess you'll have to wait. No whining...we've done our fair share of waiting on all of this, too!

Hope ya'll are having a great holiday season! We love and miss you all :)

I DID IT!!

This will sound so lame to you mommas who have done this before, but I'm so excited about what I just did! Let me give you some background...

Almost 4 years ago, when we lived in Seattle, I babysat a little girl named Iris. Iris was 2 days younger than GraceAnne, (they were both 9 months old at the time). GraceAnne HATED baby food. She always did. I fed her food from my plate, smashed or cut into tiny bits and she did okay, but naturally there were some things she didn't get to experience thanks to her age and gag reflex. One of my jobs with Iris was to give her her evening meal. Her mom was way more crunchy than I and made all of Iris' food. I would pop two cubes of food from a ziploc container in the freezer and heat them in a mug until they were melted. Usually I would sit GraceAnne on the floor with some cheerios or puffs while I fed Iris in the high chair and then let GraceAnne eat whatever I was eating. Sometimes GraceAnne would be hungry while I was feeding Iris and she would cry. I felt so bad about this, but what could I do? Then, once in a while, I would feed GraceAnne a cube of whatever Iris was eating. She mowed on it! I figured it was because Iris was eating it and it was all about getting what her friend was getting. Whatever it was, I was just happy she was eating SOMETHING and I knew it was healthy and organic, too. I swore when we had more kids I would make their food.

Then Violet was born. 4 years later. I was tired and REALLY into couponing. I managed to get A LOT of Gerber Organics baby foods for super cheap, (think 5 cents a container and that has 2 meals in it.) I figured "at least she's eating organic..." She likes baby food MUCH better than GraceAnne did, but she's taken much more to food off of my plate than the jarred stuff.

Yesterday I fed her a 3rd food called Cinnamon Apple Oatmeal. I thought, "how ridiculous...this must be SO easy to make!" So I looked at the ingredients and noticed that I had them all on hand and this morning I was bored beyond belief, so I ground some rolled oats in my food processor, (the chintzy little kind that almost everyone owns), and cooked them in the microwave with water and cinnamon, (I would have used breastmilk, but I have too much of some enzyme that causes breastmilk to spoil when frozen and thawed), steamed some apple slices with apple juice and mashed a banana, (yes, that was in the ingredients of the Gerber, so I used it). I blended it all together in the food processor and she LOVED it! GraceAnne even liked it. She ate a bunch, but I had enough to freeze some cubes for other days. I am SO EXCITED that I actually did it. Now I need to make other varieties, but I don't have much on hand as we are leaving for WI in a week, so I haven't gone all out on groceries this month. I really hope I can keep up with this, because I have more coupons for baby food, but I haven't seen anymore sales and I was about to pay 50 cents a jar yesterday. *gasp!*

Another step taken on my quest to be more crunchy. YAY!

P.S. Yes we are still in the guest house, no the electricians have not gotten their jobs done and they are now TWO weeks late and yes, I still have faith that God can get us back in this house by the week before Christmas. We shall see.