2009 is Out...2010 is In!

I have never been much of a fan of New Years Resolutions. I think it limits a person to only focus in improving once a year. I tend to take stock every few months and really look at what I'm doing and where my life is going and make small adjustments all through the year. My goal every year is to be honest with myself and make changes as they are needed no matter how much work it may mean for me. I continually try and focus on living the best life I can for myself, my marriage, and my future child.

Having said that I am taking part in a 8 week challenge on a blog I follow...Engaged Marriage. (Great blog by the way. Lots of good posts and info about a wide range of topics.) The challenge is to pick a goal, or several goals, to focus on for 8 weeks. We post comments on the specific things we are doing each week to reach our goal. I think my goal may take a lifetime to master, but an 8 week jump won't hurt. My goal is communication with Mark. By that I mean controlling how I react to perceived "tones" when he is talking to me. By and large we communicate well especially about the big "issues" most married couples face. What I need to work on is when we are working on projects around the house like painting, moving furniture or working on the camp trailer. I tend to feel like he is talking to me like a 3 year old and his way is the only right way and he does not think he comes across that way. We may never see eye to eye on this and I have come to the conclusion that the only thing I really have control over is how I react to him and the perceived tone.

It really does not matter if he is talking to me like a 3 year old or not (he is not being mean or malicious and he does not think I'm stupid what he is saying is based out of what is safe and correct) what matters is how I react. I need to take more deep breaths before popping off some smart retort. It is amazing how such a little thing can ruin a day and has even ruined whole weekend trips, and I will admit it is me getting angry and not getting over it. So that is what I'm working on for the first 8 weeks of the year, and am sure it is something I will continue working on the rest of my life.

Now for a Recap of 2009 the good and the bad:
-Co-chaired the original Relay For Life event during the 25th anniversary. What an amazingly rewarding challenge!
-Decided to start our family through adoption!
-Bungee Jumped for the first time!
-Spent an amazing week in Whistler with Mark.
-Found new joy in my workout routine!
-Added some truly amazing friends to my life.
-Re-painted and floored three rooms in the house.
-Lost my Steelers room to the nursery.
-Painted the outside of the house.
-Put in new sod/seed in the yard and worked on filling the flower boxes.
-Learned a lot about what does and doesn't work with 3 year olds.
-Sadly saw our community changed forever by an act of violence that ended 4 lives.
-Joined the dodgeball league and am still dealing with an injury from the first game.
-Learned how to use clip less peddles on my bike and also learned the danger of the jagged medal edge coming in contact with my shin! Still dealing with that injury 4 months later!
-Re-discovered the joy of being at home with my husband and having time to myself again!
-Learned how to say no and manage my time and my calendar.
-Learned a lot about myself, Mark, our friends, our family, and our marriage through the adoption process.
-Camping with family in particular my sister and her family.
-Saying a final goodbye to Grandpa and Grandma.

Looking forward to 2010:
-Hopefully a birthmother match!
-Whistler with the Beckham's!
-Camping trips that are already in the works!
-My baby shower!
-Re-connecting with some HS friends...gotta love Facebook!
-Spending more time with the people I love.
-Growing and learning more about myself, my husband, my marriage, and hopefully our daughter.

Goodbye 09...it has been a great year that brought more than its share of joy and sorrow. Welcome 2010 I can't wait to see what you have in store for me!

Time Off

It has been so nice to have some time off! I worked Monday and Tuesday last week and have been off since then. I don't go back to work until the 4th. Poor Mark has been working though. It is hard for him to get out of bed when I'm still out and don't plan on getting up until 8 or 9. It is amazing how much sleeping in a person can do.

I have been productive though. I cleaned out my closet and dresser and took 3 garbage bags to Goodwill. The laundry is caught up, the house is clean, we have had several dinner nights with friends/family and my last project is to organize the kitchen. I know I have stuff that I never use, and I need to make room for the new Crockpot. I have a huge one, but just got a smaller one so that I have the right size for smaller dishes. One of those smaller dishes is cooking right now!

In between all of this I finished a book, started a new one, am almost done with a scarf and ready to start a new one, and have watched several movies...as there is nothing on TV during the day.

It has been good time off, but busy time off and I wouldn't trade it. It has been the perfect mix of getting a project done, relaxing, starting a new project, relaxing, taking long showers, relaxing, cleaning, relaxing...you get the picture.

Tomorrow starts the prep for the PJ's New Years Eve party. It is our 2nd annual pj party that is pregnant person and kid friendly. It is a blast! I don't have all that much to do, just some last minute bathroom cleaning and making sure I have all the goods to make the snacks and drinks I want to make.

Photo's soon of Christmas and New Years.

Headed East

Mark and I take off today for E WA. Staying with Candy and Paul for the long Holiday weekend. We love doing Christmas morning with them. We have so much fun! Then we will head over to Dad and Vals for Christmas evening and dinner.

Can't wait to see some snow over the pass and spend time with people we love.

Another Sad Day

I'm not sure what the heck is happening around Pierce County, but two more officers have been shot in an ambush. This time two Pierce County Sheriff Officers were shot by a gunman hiding upstairs when they responded to a domestic violence call.

It makes me sad that the people who are trying to keep us safe and help us when we need it are being repaid by being shot at and killed.

My heart goes out to the two officers, their families, and the Pierce County Sheriff's Office. I hope the two officers hang in there and make a full recovery!

Dinner With the Beckham's

Saturday evening we had some of our favorite people over for dinner, gifts, and crazy Jenga! Kiera got to test out the new crib, changing table and high chair! We must have put them together right because the didn't fall apart!

I made my favorite balsamic turkey roast in the crock pot with sweet potatoes and green beans. We had poached pears for dessert along with some hot spiced wine. It was a great evening of fun!

The new Jenga game...not sure what I think about it, but we had fun playing.

Opening gifts...Bob and Michelle decorate all out for Halloween so we had to get this for them when we saw it.


This is the coolest football book ever!

Michelle showing off her new Hawks garb.

Grace decided she had to put on every top and skirt from her dress up trunk. She seemed to like it!

Wait...my hair is not perfect!

Holding Kiera.

Table full of yummy food!

Friday Update

It has been a few days...here is what our week looked like in words...I need to be better about photos!

Sunday - Finished all our shopping...we only had stocking stuffer left to get and that is the best part. We have so much fun raiding the dollar store!

Monday - Kicked butt in Zumba. I am loving that class more and more!

Tuesday - Finalized the menu for our dinner tomorrow with Bob and Michelle...I love being ready ahead of time!

Wednesday - Did the late 7pm to 8pm Zumba class. It is one of my favorites and one of the biggest classes!

Thursday - Played dodgeball and Mark was the King of the match! He was awesome and won our Team MVP for the night. Due to a scheduling confusion we showed up at 9 not realizing our first game actually started at 8. So we forfeited the first game and the refs let us squeeze in the second game. The team was good and we went back and forth, and as I said Mark was awesome, we ended up tying the other team.

Friday - Tonight I think I have talked Mark into hanging our pictures and artwork back up! Can't wait for that last little thing to be finished. The house keeper comes today as well...can't wait to walk in the doors of a clean home and I didn't have to do the cleaning! I'm setting up the high chair tonight and the portable crib to make sure all the parts and pieces work.

Weekend - 7:30 am coat sale tomorrow, dinner with friends tomorrow night, and hopefully football on Sunday. Also, I will finally post photos of the living room! That is as long as the pictures and art are hung back up. :)

Nursery

The nursery looks like a nursery! We have all the basic stuff that we need, Thank you Dad!!! Now we just need the little person that is going to live in the nursery to find her way to us.

I had fun shopping this weekend with a gift card from Dad. I was able to get the changing table, ExerSaucer, play mat/gym, changing table pad and cover, matters covers for the crib, the lamp and mobile that match the bedding, the baby monitor, and the portable crib/bassinet/play yard!

Mark put the crib together for me this evening and I added all the bedding and the mobile. Next is the changing table and the portable crib...we have to make sure it works before the return period is up.

I will say that I adore how cute is all is, but think it is a rip off that most of it has to come off the crib to make is safe for baby. I guess I will have to enjoy it prior to bringing baby home. Seriously does anyone have any good ideas on what to do with the crib bumpers? The books I have read said to take them out before letting baby sleep in the crib due to SIDS. Seems like a waste to have them and not be able to use them for something!

Some photos of the nursery...

Closet full of cloths thanks to friends. We have a range from 0 months to 18 months.

Crib and mobile.

Blanket that goes with the crib set...the blanket that the books say is not safe to use! It will just have to look pretty on the glider.

Shot of the crib, mobile and lamp. Also a glimps of our new carpet. (Photos of the living room to come after the house keep cleans later this week!)

I have my house back!

It has been a busy couple of days!

The carpet was installed Tuesday, and it looks great! (Photos to follow in the next few days.) Tuesday night Mark and I moved all the furniture back to where it belonged (why is everything to heavy?!) and put all the Holiday decorations up as well. All that is left is hanging our art work back up. We are contemplating moving some of the art from one wall to another, so for now we are leaning it against the wall on the floor to see if that is where we really want it to go. I would be happy with it all going back where it came from, but Mark is the one responsible for putting holes in our wall so I have to wait until he decides where it will all go.

Last night I hung up all the cloths we have been given for Sky. Let’s just say whenever she does arrive she is going to have one stylish closet to work with! She already has so many cloths I almost ran out of hangers…I bought 80 hangers last night on the way home! Next project is to put the crib up and I need to find a dresser I like and add that to the registry. I realized last night we don’t have a dresser. Thankfully there is a lot of shelving in the closet system that is installed in the nursery, but a dresser would still be nice!

In between putting the house back together and organizing Sky’s closet I have also been trying to get the laundry done. The couch was in front of the washer and dryer for days and I couldn't get to them, so now am playing catch up on the laundry.

Adoption News: We had an exciting hour or so yesterday. We received an email from our agency letting us know there was a baby girl being born 12/31 and the agency the birth mother is working with does not have any couples that are open to African American children, so our agency sent an email to see if we were interested. My heart skipped a beat to think that we may have a baby in 3 weeks! But, after a few phone calls we found that the other agency required us to pay their full fee to them up front, the birth mothers hospital stay, and travel expenses for the birth mother (I still don’t understand why the agency is flying a woman who is giving birth in 3 weeks from Alabama to Utah for the deliver…I didn’t think you could fly that late in the pregnancy). While we are well aware we may match with a birth mother that does not have insurance and we will have to pay for her hospital stay we just did not feel like we could pay for all of those expenses in just 3 short weeks. We have already paid the fee to our agency and to turn around and pay another agency fee was just going to be way too much! (Especially since this other agencies fee was more than double what our agencies fee was). So even though I would have loved to give a home to this little girl that needs one we had to pass on this opportunity. I was a little sad at first, but I realize that the baby for us will fit the budget we have set up with the agency and hopefully give us more than 3 weeks notice! (I would be ok with short notice if it was the right situation though…just putting that out there.) It is going to be really exciting when we do get that call or email and we realize it is the right situation for us!

Almost Back to Normal!

We were able to move some of the furniture back into the living room over the weekend. It was so nice to have a few pieces back where they belong so that Mark and I could enjoy eating dinner together, since there was somewhere for us to sit, and we were able to watch football (although I would have been happy so be spared the misery of watching the Steelers lose to the Raiders!) and movies as well. Before bed tonight it all has to be moved back out so the carpet can be installed tomorrow. I can't wait to put the house back together tomorrow night! I may have to stay up until 2am, but my house will be back in order!

I love it that Mark did most, ok all, of this batch of painting on his own and has not once complained. I have been less graceful about how I feel about the house being a mess. He has had to put up with a lot the last few days.

I hope that I will have time this weekend to put the nursery together. Dad is sending us a gift cert with a list of items he would get us if they had a Babies R Us in E WA. I still don't have the first batch of stuff he got set up, so had better get on it!

Random Friday

-I stopped by the Lakewood Police Dpt last night with flowers and a balloon. I didn't know any of the officers personally but feel like it is important to pay my respects. It was a harsh reality check when I heard a little girl look at her Mom and say, "I'm going to miss him so much." I don't know how they were related or if they were family friends or what, but it really drove home the impact their death has. There were officers there from Algona, Seattle, Kirkland, and Renton paying their respects as well.

-Dodgeball was fun last night up to the point where I fell on my butt! I landed on one cheek and bounced. Now I have a huge bruise and can't sit on that side at all. I will have to be more careful next week! The only good thing is I got to leave work early because I was in so much pain.

-New take on an old hair cut. I had my hair cut into a bob just before Halloween and I loved the length, but it was still way too thick. So I went back last weekend and asked for layers and a razor cut, and now I love it. May not be the best photo of me, but it's the best I can do at 5am by myself. I also notice the color is really yellow...not sure why.

-The house is still a mess! I came home yesterday and the door was taken off the bathroom! Thankfully we have two so I used the other one. But man I will be glad to restore order to our home! Here is how it looks now...

The couch tipped forward between the kitchen counter and the washer and dryer.

The Christmas tree shoved in a corner and surrounded by furniture.

Stuff in the nursery...no where else to put it for now.

The living room before I left for work this morning. As I'm typing Mark and his Dad have almost finished painting it. Carpet on Tuesday and then we move everything back in!

-Since the house is such a mess Mark and I are going out to dinner and a movie. I may have to sit funny and lean to the side, but we don't want to spend all evening in the mess that is our home right now.

Disaster Zone

Our house has been declared a Disaster Zone by me! I cam home yesterday to find all the furniture moved out of the living room and into the dinning room/master bedroom/hallway. I knew Mark was going to do this in order to paint and carpet, but I was not prepared for the reality of cramming a living room worth of furniture, art, TV & stereo equipment into the rest of the house.

The bathroom door won't open all the way, the hallway is not usable and now all traffic going from one end of the house to the other must go through the kitchen, I keep banging my shins on furniture that is completely out of place and blocking my dresser in the bedroom, I can't get to the washer and dryer so no laundry will be getting done, the kitchen counters are covered in stuff (cooking is not working out so well), all the Christmas decorations have disappeared and I don't know where they are other then the tree (I can see it shoved to the back of the dinning room with tons of furniture stacked up in front of it), and the only chair in the house that we have access to is Mark's office chair.

Basically it is hang out in the bedroom (the only thing to sit on is the bed...I ate dinner on the bed last night!) At this point I find it so stressful to be at home that I would rather stay in a hotel! I really don't know if I will make it until Tuesday.

Adventures in Babysitting

Last night Mark and I babysat for Bob and Michelle. I realized that adding a second child to the mix greatly changes the dynamics! I was surprised that Kiera, the 4 month old, was the easy one to get to sleep and she didn’t fuss once the whole night. Grace, 3 year old, was much more challenging. She is at the age where she will try anything to not go to bed. Plus she is wicked smart and really funny. She told me she couldn't sleep until the birthday cake was delivered (there was no birthday cake being delivered), she informed me she couldn't sleep as long as the dog was outside because the dog hates being out alone (so not true), then the issue over what light she is allowed to keep on at night. She is too dang smart for her own good and I had a hard time figuring out what she is actually allowed to do. Eventually I got her to bed and she fell asleep.

The secret it turned out was to ignore her. I let her try to convince me to do what she wanted, but I pretended I couldn't hear her. I turned off the lights, put her in bed, gave her a kiss and left no room for discussion regarding her not feeling sleepy and not wanting to go to bed. It worked because she was out in less than a minute. I knew she was tired but she was determined to fight it all the way.

One funny exchange between her and I was regarding the Christmas Tree and taking the ornaments off the tree.
Me: “Grace, if you take the ornaments off one more time you are going to your room.”
Grace: Picture a cute 3 year old taking the ornaments off the tree.
Me: “Go to your room right now.”
Grace: Diving under the highchair kicking and screaming.
Me: Carrying her to her room saying “You are not being funny or cute right now” (no I have no idea where that came from other than just being frustrated).
Grace: “Well I’m not trying to be funny or cute right now.”

Needless to say Mark lost it as did I after I made sure she could not see or hear me laughing.