This One is For You, Sadie!

Here I am! I am back! I am alive ;)

How do you even start a blog post after ONE ENTIRE YEAR!? I mean, K is two, G is four, how in the world can I fit in the last year to one post? Hmm...

(brb, going to refresh myself on what I last wrote. Also, side note, after the "RePhresh" commericals, I have to correct myself spelling the word "refresh" every single time. It's pathetic)

Okay, so, we left off with the Christmas vacation from almost hell. But, you guys, if I had ONLY known. If I had ONLY known, just how much worse it could have gotten... So, fast forward 11 months, it's now Thanksgiving of 2015. We planned, much earlier on, for another trip to North Carolina. We were prepared, it was going to be great! The timing wasn't the best, as my brother-in-law was still finishing up a field exercise and we weren't quite sure when he would be able come home to join us but alas, it was still just as nice to visit with his wife and of course play with cousin Alma! We got in later in the afternoon the first day and had time for a really quick visit to say hi and then retired to our rooms at the hotel. We all went to sleep, relatively well considering we have two toddlers that aren't the best sleepers. I woke up to K starting to cry and then the sound of choke/coughing/gagging. She was throwing up, everywhere. I have NEVER until this point in my motherhood experience had a puking child. Call it fate, call it whatever, but never have I had to deal with vomit or even diarrhea that wasn't in a diaper.

It was milky and it was chunky but most disgutingly it was all over the sheets, pillows and floor in a stuffy motel room that our entire family was sharing. It was horrible. K threw up once, I got her changed and bathed and she was seemingly fine? Fell right back to sleep like nothing happened. (my nose knew otherwise)

I felt so bad for the housekeeping, I tried to ball up the soiled linens and set them by the door. I gave lots of warnings in the morning. She was the sweetest lady and just wanted to make sure our baby felt better.

So, reluctantly we went over to our family's house and just kept an eye on her. I hated the idea of spreading germs, but at this point, we had all been in close proximity to her, and I wasn't about to fly across the US to be stuck in a hotel room (unless it was absolutely necessary of course). She was fine the rest of the day. Didn't eat much, but she tends to do that anyways. I thought it was the milk she had, (I mean, it is the south...) so I threw it away and bought another. We were completely fine the next night.

But then, the night after next, shit hit the fan. No, vomit hit it. It hit us all, all of except Ryan. G was puking, K was puking, I was puking. Poor G hasn't ever thrown up before, and he is old enough to want to know what the hell is happening to his body. He was a mess. Ryan was gagging at the smell, I wanted to die. K was happy go lucky until she was releasing the sour milk smelling vomit our of her mouth. There was crying from Gavin, "GET ME TO A TOILET, WHY IS THIS HAPPENING TO ME!!!!" There was running back and forth to the one and only CONNECTED bathroom that opens right up into the room was are all SLEEPING in. There was tears. There was gagging. There was the smell. I literally gagged remembering it just now.

We woke up the next morning like a train full of hobos hit our room. We smelled like a hobo. We looked like one. And at that point, I wish I was one. The kids, they were totally fine. It was like what had happened last night, that nightmare, was just that, a nightmare. Like it didn't even happen. But it did folks. It did.

I didn't even want to make eye contact at this point with anyone in the hotel, let alone the poor poor woman who was going to be cleaning our room that morning. I tried. I tried to contain the mess, but there is only so much you can do. I wanted to melt into a puke puddle myself and just flush myself down the toilet. But, we got the same housekeeper again, and either she is really good at faking it, or she genuinely felt sorry for us.

The kids were fine that day, playing like not a care in the world. We had Thanksgiving Dinner (some of us very reluctantly) and even though I had a mild upset tummy, thought were in the clear.

NEVER THINK YOU ARE IN THE CLEAR.

K threw up again that night, but only once. Such a weird bug that we caught, I remember thinking. G seemed to be fine. Well, we woke up the next morning, Black Friday. We got lunch at Sonic, and on our way back to the hotel, in the RENTAL van, G starts puking. All over his clothes, and all over his car seat. Poor thing was just crying, "GET ME TO A TOILET. GET ME TO A REAL TOILET." He didn't want to throw up in the medium sized milk shake cup I was shoving under his jaw. It was RANK in that car. I had to wash his car seat cover in our bathtub.

Okay, so, how do you explain the car seat cover hanging in the bathtub, that smells like faded hotel shampoo and sonic vomit to the hotel housekeeping? You don't. You just leave a $50 on the pillow and pray she isn't too upset. You pray and you apologize profusely.

And that folks, is Thanksgiving 2015.

Another side note: We did have some GREAT family time and had some amazing memories made with our family, so don't be completely fooled, it did have silver lining in the visit! My sister in law is a gracious host and of course the kids had fun bonding and playing with their cousin!We flew into Raleigh, so it was a MUCH shorter drive than last time! My father in law didn't have his luggage lost! And Ryan and Jay didn't get the plague.

Pics first; post to come!

Seriously! Walking at 10 months is insane!!!

No fears for this little one. She knows what she is capable of and does it. I hope this continues on for the rest of her life. She'll stress me out but that's okay, she'll know!

Christmas 2014

So, it's practically Valentine's Day and I am just now finally getting to posting about Christmas...

This year, with it being the anniversary of Kathy's passing as well as our first Christmas without her, we all decided it would be best to get Jay out of the house and for us to travel to North Carolina to visit Chris and his family. Unfortunately, it was booked last minute, and Kathy's son and his family weren't able to join us (we had our own Christmas celebration with them when we got home). Once we **FINALLY** decided we were going for sure (after two almosts and two maybes) we ended up paying for our tickets in virgin blood and body organs to be sold on the black market. Not really...but they were stupid expensive. We flew into Charlotte, and were under the impression that it was a relatively short drive to the Fayetteville area where we would be visiting. We had a later flight out of Spokane, and arrived in NC around midnight local time. We were waiting for our bags, and Jay's never showed up....Then, once we finally got to our rental car (a mini van, LOL) and the address put into the GPS we realized we had a THREE HOUR CAR ride ahead of us; plus it was extremely foggy. It was horrendous. We were all tired, all the verge of cranky. All I can say is that Ryan is a rockstar for driving on unfamiliar roads in the dark and fog and our kids were great thanks to lots of help from Jay. I was the co-pilot and using every ounce of energy to just stay awake. I think we pulled into the hotel parking lot around 4am.

Once we got to our hotel in Hope Mills, we crashed hard. We all woke up at 10am, and got over to see Chris, Amber and "baby" Alma. She has gotten so big, and is running around into everything. It was such a blessing to see how much she has grown since we saw her this past summer. We had a great visit. It was very low-key and we just stayed at their house and enjoyed watching the kids interact and play together. We opened a few gifts on Christmas morning and then were up early the next day to catch our flight home. Because it was such a last minute flight, and we had been traveling quite a bit prior (had we known we were going to NC we would have bagged a few of our other plans) we decided it would be best for the kids to just have a quick weekend type trip. We would have LOVED to stay and see the area a little more; as North Carolina is a very pretty state with a lot of history. But OH well!

Our flights home were relatively uneventful, except I left my camera on one flight. Thank the Lord I realized it right away and the plane was still there and one of the flight attendants had turned it in! We made it back home the day after Christmas around 10pm or so and we were all very exhausted.

Santa found our house finally, he had gotten lost and confused since we were gone in North Carolina. So that morning, Gavin found all his presents under the tree and was having a blast helping Kjerstin open hers. That afternoon, we had Christmas with my family. Gavin and Kjerstin had a blast with their uncles opening presents. Kjerstin's first Christmas was a whirlwind to say the least. And even though this very special holiday will always be bittersweet, at least it is around a time of year that is very joyous and we will be surrounded my our family and loved ones.

(Pictures to come!)

Kjerstin 7-9 Months

Where do I even start with this girl?! Let me just say, if we had this little lady first, there would be a five year age difference between her and Gavin, haha! She is so crazy! I love her and every bit of her crazy though. I just wish she would sleep. She still wakes up like three times a night, so not cool. She gets separation anxiety really bad, poor thing. 

So, Kjerstin was standing and cruising before she started crawling. She technically said mama first, but says dada now exclusively. I have Heard her say baba, mama, dada, nana, buu, and all sorts of fun baby sounds. She is SO cute. I mean, like those eyes, and she has such a sweet personality. But she is sneaky and stealthy. When she gets caught doing something naughty she stops and starts clapping to try and distract you from being mad. She puts her hands up to say "so big!"

FAAAALLLLLLL

I am really tempted to just make a post that has the word "fall" written a thousand times and leave it at that. I am just so excited to be in a place finally that has a real fall. By that I mean, it isn't still 90 degrees, there are trees that actually have leaves that turn fall colors and it isn't raining constantly. It's pretty much one of the best things to happen to me.

So. Anyways....Moving on. Kjerstin is now 7 months, and she is already pulling herself up on shit?! WHAT THE HELL. Sorry for the swearing, but it is totally necessary. She went from sitting up to practically standing in a matter of minutes. Girl ain't got time for that.  Gavin and I were playing on the floor in their bedroom, and I had K in the crib (set at the highest setting/newborn height) and all of a sudden I hear her "struggling" and look up and here she is about to pull herself over the damn crib! WTF. I couldn't believe it. (will post pic later). Because, yes, I did take a picture....

She seriously, is just an amazement. 100% energy all the time, she CONSTANTLY moving, and the wiggliest baby I have ever held in my life. She loves to be held, but she doesn't want that to hold her back from the action, and her pilates/yoga. So she does it while being held. It is a workout for me too. I think I have said it before, but she is the reason there are weird safety warnings on everything. She was able to untie the breathable crib bumpers. They were double knotted, and on the OUTSIDE of the crib. I just, can't even. I love her so much, but all I can say is, pray for me.

Kjerstin has the most beautiful eyes. I hope that they stay the same color, because now they are half green half blue. The insides of the iris are blue and the outside is green, they are gorgeous. And they are big, she has big eyes and long eyelashes. We are in for some trouble when she gets older. Her smile though is what gets you, she smiles with her entire face. I referred to it as like the grinch smile, not in a menacing way, but the way the cartoon slowly smiles and then it eventually involves his entire face, that is what she does. It is so cute.

The two kids and I got our flu shots yesterday, and it was really poor timing because we all have a little bit of a cold (Ryan included). I have had it for like 3 weeks, but I swear my symptoms change every day. I could tell Kjerstin didn't feel very good because she stayed still for over a minute and let me snuggle her. Gavin, the poor thing, is a snotty mess. But like with Kjerstin, it does involve extra snuggle time, so I am trying to remain positive. It is so trying being a parent when you feel like total crap. All Ryan and I want to do is sleep, more so than usual!

Speaking of which, I will finish this post later in an update, because I am going to bed!

Two rather large developments/announcements!

First one is we are finally "getting married!" Haha! Ryan and I obviously, never had our wedding and we finally decided that June 27, 2015 is going to be the day!!!! Now the fun part begins, all the planning!!!! I am going to be BUSY! I have the church, the reception area (community center) and photographer booked. So, I feel somewhat accomplished. Now its time to reign in all my Pinterest ideas, yikes.

The next exciting piece of news is that my mom has quit her job and is going to come work for us! She is going to "nanny" our kids part time. I am going to "go back to work" and by that I mean, I am going to start substitute teaching more at the school, do more photography gigs (hopefully) and then finally focus more on our farms bookkeeping. My mom has been looking at finding something new for a while and I know that eventually I will want to find a more stable possibly full-time job. The problem is that there is no child care centers here, and I don't trust my kids with just anyone. So when my mom was talking about looking else where, and I found out she was really serious about it, I jumped on the opportunity. We are all pretty excited about it, it really is the best for everyone!

Kjerstin 6months and other happenings!

I think the six month mark is the hardest to grasp at how fast the time flies. When you look at the six month clothing before the baby is born, you think, that is going to take a long time before he/she fits into that! That is half a year away....and then it just happens, bam, they are that size!

At six months, Kjerstin is SO freaking close to crawling. She has the "army" crawl down pretty well and uses that and rolling to get where and what she needs. She is a diva, a princess and a LIGHT sleeper. Uffda. I thought I was going to have it easy with her, but yeah, not so much. I was talking to Ryan today and I could come up with 3 nights that I know for sure that I have slept an entire night all the way through since BEFORE she was born. As you likely know from reading previous posts, pregnancy isn't easy for me and sleeping is definitely a huge factor in why it is so difficult. Probably from 20 weeks on or so, I haven't slept more that 3 consecutive hours (except those three nights) in over a year. I am exhausted. Yet, here I am, almost midnight, typing away. Anyways, I digress...Kjerstin so far is eating "solids" pretty well, she loves squash and sweet potatoes, wasn't a huge fan of prunes or peaches but they are pretty intense tastes. She has started "sleeping" and "napping" in her crib, which even though it isn't working out the best is a good move.

Gavin and Kjerstin share a bedroom, only due to the fact that the other fully functional bedroom is on the other side of the house and I am not keen on Gavin being that far away quite yet. Plus, it is nice to have a guest room (aka Gavin's office as he calls it). Well, since Kjerstin has been sleeping in with Gavin as well, both of their sleep has gone down hill a bit. This will be a learning curve for everyone. We'll see how long I last. I think the main thing is that it is hard to allow Kjerstin to cry and learn to self-soothe when I am worried about her waking Gavin up in the process.

Gavin is going great! He is just so smart. He uses full sentences and we can have full on conversations. He is understanding both his and other peoples emotions and that is fun to watch. He has been a much better eater as of late and loves the summer for all the fresh vegetables, specifically tomatoes. His newest craze is the movie Tarzan, and playing with his rather impressive train collection.

A little update on our puppy Odin...he spent the night at the vet last night due to some kind of bacterial infection. We aren't exactly sure how he contracted it but the poor thing was puking and not eating/drinking. The vet kept him overnight to pump him with fluids. Odin does not like the vet. He is the biggest scaredy cat I have EVER seen. He literally gets nervous and pees every time we go to the vet. It is quite the experience...I don't even want to know what it is going to be like in 2-3 weeks when I take him in to get fixed. Oye....But he is doing much better now and we were able to pick him up this morning and boy was he so happy to see us! Ryan and I both mentioned to each other that we had no idea how attached we were to him until he was gone and we were both so worried for him! I hated the thought of him being in a cage overnight all alone without his family! It kept me up all night just thinking about him.