Vacation starts today!!!

This week has been busy. It's been the first full week of school, and it's been hectic. Ari and I spent the first few days at home, getting things done. She still spent the beginning of the week crying each time everyone left, but seems to be doing better now. We have started going out and doing things just her and I and she seems to really be enjoying that! The kids are enjoying school and doing well! They are all pretty tired when they get home though!

We are leaving for vacation this afternoon. We were thinking about it and this is our first family vacation that isn't to go see extended family. Kinda weird. We are excited, and the kids are definately excited! Sunday we will be meeting some very close friends of mine in St Louis. I have known their family for over 25 years now! WOW! I'm so excited to get to see them and spend some time with them!

We won't be taking our laptops on the trip, but like always will have our cell phones if anyone needs it!
Pictures when we return! :)

29 years 4 months and 5 days..

DRUMROLL PLEASE.........
I did it!!! BY MYSELF!

This poor thing used to be a whole chicken before i cooked it. i tried to cut it off the bone with my eyes closed but almost cut my finger. so then i tried to simply cut it off the bone. how the crap do you use a knife with a bone. i ended up having to pull the pieces off the bone by hand. OMG. i haven't decided if i'm eating it tonight but my family will be eating homemade chicken and dumplings.
I took photo proof because I know you my dear family. i needed proof! :)
mind you this occured at noon so I was home alone, with no help. I did this all by myself! don't think this shall happen again though. next time we are at a restaurant my plate still goes to one of you first! :)

Our Weekend

Saturday~ We helped our friends move. Halfway thru the day my foot was swelled so bad I couldn't get my shoe back on. Called the doc and she wanted me to go to ER to make sure it wasn't a blood clot. We spent FOREVER at the ER and they think it's arthritis, but hadn't gotten the lab work back to specifically confirm that. I am to go to my family doc tomorrow. They gave me a weird boot to wear on my foot and sent me home to rest. I'm most comfy being barefoot.

Sunday~ We decided to take the kids to our local park on Old Mac Donald's farm. They had alot of fun. The cow came right up to us and started mooing and the kids this was great and all mooed back at the cow. Ari was most fascinated with the cow and the pig. The kids played at the park for a bit and checked out tthought he animals. It was a great day to be outside. It was low to mid 60's when we were there!

I have some pictures from the park today and 1 random picture of Emily reading the kids a book friday night before bed!

The School Week Ends

Friday afternoon has arrived. Emily had 3 days of school this week, and the boys 2. We took everyone to school the first 2 days and today they rode the buses. Everyone has enjoyed school and done really well.
Emily~she has already made some friends. She is in the same class and shares a locker and rides the bus with a little girl who lives right across the parking lot from us in another building here. She's enjoying her teacher and her new school. She had no problem riding the bus today as it's old hat for her and both of her friends were on the bus with her.
Jace~ he had a great time yesterday and said he made a friend, a girl of course! :) this morning he was a bit nervous about riding the bus, but sat with emily and did great apparently. upon coming home he informed me that he doesn't have to ride with emily next time because he likes the bus. He brought home the snack bucket today, and they are going to celebrate his summer birthday on monday. he's excited about that!
Benjamin~he did good yesterday. he even got to be the leader for the day. this week was only IEP kids so there were just 2 of him in his class. that helped give him a chance to get used to it. Today he took the bus. When he came home this afternoon i asked him about his day and what he did. he said he played outside in the sand and then MOMMY! i thought it was so cute! yesterday he informed me that he ate cookies and drank water and then mommy came back.
Ariana has been the one who has struggled. she cried yesterday and today when we left ben, the last one of the group to be dropped off or picked up. she spends her whole morning hanging onto me and pulling me along behind her everywhere she goes. I'm hoping she settles down into a routine soon. poor girl is used to always having someone to play with. she was sitting next to me on the couch earlier and had my cell phone. she'd pick it up "hello bubba. hello jace." and she did this over and over for 10 minutes. i felt so bad for her, but i had to laugh!
the weekend is here and i'm ready! tomorrow my SIL and BIL will be coming and they are going to watch our kids while we help some good friends of ours move. They have helped us move twice now and they are moving! we are excited to get the chance to help them out as well!

Jace and Ben's First day of school

Ari was the only one who cried! :) She didn't want to leave Ben at school and cried. Then she sat in the car looking around and immediately starting crying when we got home. I went to the toy closet and got her out a special toy just for herself. She's happy at the moment but wanting to stay close to me! :)

Emily's 1st Day of School

Doesn't she look so grown up! 2nd grade is definately NOT how I remember! :)

Our Apartment

Vacation!!!!

We are going on vacation...FINALLY. We've decided to go ahead and do it over the holiday weekend. We will leave Friday and come home late monday evening. We're going to St Louis for the weekend. I'm so excited to take the kids and show them around to all the places I grew up. I've got lists for the Zoo, St Louis Childrens Museum, Science Center, Grants Farm, and the Arch. Then on my backup list is Botanical Gardens, Art Museum, History Museum, and Union Station. Clearly for those of you who have been this is WAY to many things, but I want to make sure I've got directions and hours and admission and all that info ready to go just in case! The zoo right now is doing a huge Dinoroarus event. The kids will absolutely love it! If you enter within the first hour of being open from 8-9am admission is free! We will be there! :)
We have reserved a suite hotel with kitchen and such, so that will be nice! Will help save a bit of money and also allow us to keep Jace's diet and such monitored well!
I really think that we need this. I think it will do us good to simply get away for a bit and be together!

In other news....Emily starts school tomorrow. Jace and Ben start on Thursday. They are excited and so am I! Last night was Ben's open house at his school. We dropped off his school supplies and got to see the classrooms all made up. His special classroom that he'll be in 2 days a week has a pet lizard and he was pretty fascinated by that! Tonight is Emily's open house where she will get to meet her teacher and classmates and see her room. We will also drop off her school supplies!

All of our furniture finally came in. I'm going to finish up putting out all the "pretties" this afternoon and then I will get pictures posted!

Attempted Burglary

We left this morning around 10am and came home around 12:30. We ran errands and went grocery shopping. Came home and someone had tried to break in. The doorknob and deadbolt were broken on our front door and our storage closet on the patio. There were pry marks on the frame. We called maintenance and the police. Officer came and took report. Apparently our doorknob is a closet door knob and the dumb ass who installed it put it on backwards. If the thief had a screwdriver with them they could have simply taken the screws out and the knob would have come off. Maintenance will be coming to fix the door. We will be filing a HUGE complaint with the manager tomorrow. They didn't get into our home but still. we had our front blinds completely open for all to see right in...didn't even think about it, we just love the light. we asked the officer if this happens alot in this community and he said no. but we are back in the middle of the complex, on the 3rd floor, and our neighbors are on vacation. so yeah.
i'm so damn sick of it all.

Half Furniture

Well half of our furniture is here. We got a call yesterday that part of our loft beds were in. They sent 1 whole loft bed, and then 2/3 of the other set of beds. The didn't send the headboards and footboards for 2 of the beds. So we were only able to put 1 loft bed together and 1 roll under twin bed. So the boys have beds. we have all the HUGE pieces of emily's and ari's beds in boxes taking up about 2/3 of my living room. Then they inform us they aren't sure when the next truck comes in. They know it won't be this week, maybe sometime next week. nobody seems to know for sure. Then today I get the call that part of our living room furniture is here. The couch and loveseat. the chair and ottoman are on another truck, should hopefully be here next week. of course my living room is full of bed parts. so i have random pieces of furniture all over the place. my itty bitty apt is a cluttered mess, with boxes and pieces of furniture everywhere. people randomly sleeping on the floor and all that great stuff. last night ari ended up sleeping on emily's twin mattress laid on the floor and emily slept on the carpet. go figure. so maybe the rest will come in some time next week. ugggh. and to think we only paid $5000 for the dang crap. shitty customer service i tell you.

in other news....today was ari's first appt with her occupational therapist. she definately noticed ari's hands and showed me some exercises and games to help ari start working with her hands more, especially her thumbs. she immediately noticed how ari favors her right hand, to the point of forgetting she even has a left hand. She said they don't like to see that so strongly at her age and to try and encourage her to use her left more, set up scenarios where she has no choice.

the kids and i are getting MAJOR cabin fever. the house is a cluster of boxes. we are in MAJOR budget mode and so we've pretty much stayed in. so far this week we went to the doctor, ran to their school to drop off 2 forms, and drove to the store a mile away to help load a few pieces of the loft bed yesterday. tonight we may get to run to the store for 1 loaf of bread. The kids are fighting constantly and i'm absolutely sick of hearing it. as of right now the oldest 2 are behind me on MY bed fighting over a stupid nintendo DS game. ugggh. my sanity is on thin ice right now.

more later....

Baked Bread

Our apartment maintenance was out here on Monday and repaired the roof. It had lost a section of shingles in the storm. he also came inside and looked at the damage here. They will be out today or tomorrow to repair the entire damage...taking out the section of ceiling, treating, redoing, etc...Yesterday I spoke with the manager of the apartments and she apologized multiple times and told me that we would get a rent discount. She called Brian and let him know that we would get 2 days free rent, $60 off. then yesterday as we were cooking someone knocked on the door. It was a card with an apology and the rent discount in writing, and a loaf of fresh baked raisin bread. Although it doesn't fix the problem, it shows us that we are dealing with a whole new bread of landlord. We felt so much better.

In other news...Emily is doing good. She is getting ready to start 2nd grade 1 week from today! WOW! She's been reading alot, and loves it! Jace is not so great. He got an absessed cyst on his bottom. He couldn't even sit down. Went to the doc yesterday and the cyst ruptured and they had to completely drain it. he had to lay on the table for 15 minutes afterwards till he felt like he could get up. He's on meds, obviously and still pretty sore. He starts kindergarten 1 week from today. Benjamin is doing pretty good. he's trying to learn how to walk down stairs. We live in a 3rd floor apartment, so it's 4 flights of stairs. He's afraid to walk down stairs so he crawls down concrete. Rough on the knees and super slow. Yesterday I got him to take 2 steps down before picking him up. We'll keep working it like that. Other than that he starts his Preschool program next week as well! Ariana is doing pretty good as well. She's starting to get an interest in the potty so she sits on it multiple times a day, nothing yet but we shall see. She is now in a toddler bed and doing pretty good so far! Getting big!

Brian and I are ok. We aren't fighting right now, but definately aren't what I would classify as friends at the moment either, if that makes sense. Right now we have a goal to get a $2500 debt paid off, and we've budgeted out to do that by mid November. Makes life pretty tight until then, but it's something we really need to get done. Last night we went on a walk at a nature park, and it was interesting to say the least. :) We are hunting out free things to do to occupy time!
Hopefully our new furniture will be here this week. I never knew how important beds and living room furniture were until now! :) Once it's all here i can get to decorating so it will feel more like our home instead of an apartment!

Well I'm off for now. Hungry kids calling! :)

Our Weekend In Photos

Saturday August 9th @ Playstation for Jace's 5th Bday party











Sunday August 10th at the Amana Colonies

We are CURSED

we had huge rain storm yesterday. This morning we went in to get Ben and Ari up and I saw something on their window sill. WATER. I looked up. The ceiling paint and drywall are bulging. We had a roof leak. It got their ceiling right above their window, their window sill, and their toy basket. I freaking give up. Seriously. I don't know what it is about us, and why we can't get a damn break.

Changes

life is constantly changing as we all know.
jace is 5 now, his birthday was on wednesday and his party is this saturday. he had his appt at the UofI hospitals with a new pediatric GI surgeon. We really liked the 2 doctors that we met there. They changed around his medications and are pulling all of his record to go back through them. They agree that we are missing something somewhere. We are hoping that they are as dedicated as we are to get to the bottom of this. We felt like they truely listened to the entire story. Most just say he doesn't look malnurished all must be good. They took quality of life, social and everything and looked at it as one huge picture. So we are hoping for the best. They said it will take 4 to 6 weeks to truely get an idea of how the medication changes will do, so we wait and watch.

in other news. as you clearly saw i've changed my look. everyone is loving it. i'm not sold on it but that's ok. it will take time i suppose. lots of things are changing with me. i'm trying to figure out where exactly i fit in my family, and all of that. i'm not feeling right now as though i fit in my marriage at all, and that scares me. i'm feeling pretty isolated, and like i've lost a friend. not exactly sure where to go from here, but i suppose the road will make itself clear at some point. as of now i've been told "Let's move on" so that's what i'm doing, i'm just unsure where "on" is.

the kids are good. school starts on the 20th. they are all excited. we need to finish up a few basic school supplies, and do some clothes shopping. Emily and Jace will obviously be in school 5 full days a week, and Ben will be in school 5 mornings a week. So Ari and I will have some time just the 2 of us. I'm sure she will greatly enjoy that!

My parents are on their way into town now. They will be here for the weekend. Jace's birthday party is on Saturday and he's super excited! my parents, his aunt and uncle, and his 2 best friends will be there! After his party we are going to go swimming at our apartment complexes private pool. the kids are pretty excited about that! I probably won't blog much this weekend, but I will try to get on and update with photos soon!

oh and for those who have been asking here are the links to photos of the home we just moved from. These are photos from some of the rains, the last flooding, and then photos for our attorney of the mold and damage and such on move out day. There aren't many pictures of the actual flood as we were WAY to busy during that time saving our things. we didn't think to take pictures! :) there are a few though.
June 8 2008
July 19 2008
Aug 2 2008

My Hair

I colored my hair. The color choice was not my own, it was my husbands. Everyone that has seen it so far says it looks great and that my eyes look really big and dramatic. I'm still freaked out cause I have never done this color. Anyways here is a picture!
(excuse the photo. I tried to take it by myself which as we all know isn't so easy!)

Moved

We are moved. mostly, sorta. it's been a long few days. it's been the hottest humidest days ever for this area AND that apartment that we got is on the 3rd floor. and you guessed it, no elevator. so we had to carry everything up 4 flights of stairs. we are beyond exhausted. we are working on unpacking, slowly, and it's not going very fast.
brian's sister and her hubby are in town so we are heading out to help them move and then back to unpacking. i've also got to get emily registered for school at some point.
internet back, obviously.
more later.

moving tomorrow

Our landlord was served. now we wait and see what he says. we are rushing to get all moved out. we have to be out by the 7th.

we sign the lease and get our keys for our apartment tomorrow at 9am. we have people coming tomorrow and sunday to help us move. we are keeping our fingers crossed that we will get it all out. only time will tell!

the kids are a mess. today was jace's kindergarten roundup. he totally freaked out and they had to pull him off of me. once he was there he did fine. but then we came home and he had nap. He tied ben to the bedroom door, and then punctured the air bed 8 times. I have no idea what to do with him. he draws on the walls and doors, he breaks hangers, shreds everything in sight, etc. He is really getting destructive. i don't know if he's just bored and doesn't know what else to do with himself or what. we've got to figure it out though cause i'm about to lose my sanity.
on the good news side of Jace i was SUPER happy with the school. I think it will be the best part of this move. i think it will be exactly the kind of school we've wanted for emily and jace.

so that's about all for now. we will get internet up and running as soon as possible. in the mean time, like always, i will have my cell phone with me at all times!