Success!

Monday we made a bid on a house, and yesterday we found out that ours was the highest bid.  So if all goes well, we’re going to move very soon!!!!  Hurray!

No more apartment living!  No more neighbors taking showers at 4:30 am so that I can hear them!  No more lawn mowing and leaf-blowing at 6 am!  No more gross food smells coming from the neighbors!  No more incense smells coming from the vents! No more shower heads that are too low for even me, no more tile counters (who ever thought that would be a good idea?)!  No more single-paned windows!  No more ugly cinderblock!

This is cause to celebrate!

I’m very excited!  Plus I am so looking forward to having a backyard for Christian to play in, a kitchen that doesn’t feel like a tomb, and a guest bedroom to put up family and/or friends who may want to come for a visit (wink, wink, nudge, nudge…).  And just plain TONS more space!

Hallelujah!

Thank you to everyone who has prayed for us these past few weeks in our search.  We have gotten some awesome results from your prayers.  The house is ten years old, in a great neighborhood and (drum roll please) right behind the elementary school (and a very highly rated one at that!) 

Here is what I get to cook in for Thanksgiving:

Of course there will be a fridge in that empty spot so that it will look even better!

I can hardly wait for visitors (though it’s probably best to come to AZ between November and March, we had 107 degree weather the other day….and it’s nearing the end of September)!!

The Hunt

For those of you who are not aware, Jared got a job here in AZ so we will be staying for a while longer. Because of the housing market is the way it is, we've decided to buy since we can own a newer 5-bedroom house for the same price or less in one of the nearby suburbs than it is to rent our 70's 3-bedroom apartment in the more down-town area we're at.

The hunt is still on-going though there have been some houses I've been really excited about, either the price, location or someone else bidding on them has made it so we haven't found 'the one' yet. Hopefully we'll find something soon. You know that feeling you get when you know it's time to move on? That's the feeling I get every day lately, so I've been packing up what's practical to do so and trying to finalize some last minute projects. Pray for us. I'm hoping to get into an area with some really nice families for us and the kids.
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The Artistic Child…

Friday morning after a long night of being awakened almost every-other hour due to bad dreams, fevers due to a cold, teething, and my own cold, I woke up late at 9 am when Vivian woke me.  I came into Christian’s room to see how he was since apparently, he’d been happily playing for probably the last two and a half to three hours—never waking me.  He popped up from behind his bed to show me some art he’d been working on with the paints (which are  acrylic and are kept in the closet in the hall at the highest shelf I can reach).  I was delighted with the lovely colors until I saw where he had decided to set up shop painting.  This is what I saw:   

Thank goodness I bought that Advantage Cleaner a couple of years back in Utah when that lady came knocking on my door.  Because this is what it looks like now.  Not perfect, but after 30 minutes of scrubbing, it was going to have to do.

My only question is, how do you punish kids for stuff like this?  I know my one SIL would make her kids clean it up themselves but then it probably wouldn’t get as clean and I wouldn’t want a four-year-old cleaning with chemicals.  What I did make him do was sit on time-out until I finished scrubbing because I was so frustrated I was about to lose my cool.  I feel bad that it was such a long time-out but I hope he learned his lesson.

Vivian is 8 months!

Eight months was one of my favorite stages for Christian as a baby and Vivian has not failed to make it still one of my favorite baby ages.

Milestones:

This month has certainly been a month for milestones!  Vivian not only started sitting up on her own at the beginning of the month, she also got her two bottom teeth.

 

This is Vivian before she learned to sit on her own.  I love this stance.  It cracks me up…she just needs an evening gown and a piano and she’ll look like a torch singer.

Here she is doing what looks like Pilates.  Trying to get strong enough to sit up and eventually crawl.

This last Sunday (the day she turned 8 months)  as I was contemplating that she was now 8-months old and couldn’t even crawl when her older brother was cruising around the furniture on his 8-month birthday; she started crawling across the room for the first time!

Here’s a picture of her little teeth.  The one on the left is just popping through.  She fought me a little bit to take this picture.  Poor little girl has my shaped mouth so it’s difficult to see her teeth even when she smiles.

One other thing that she started doing this month is giving kisses.  She will look at you and lunge at you with her mouth gaping open and then suck on your face while she makes “mmm” noises.  It’s really cute and funny. The only problem with that is now that she has teeth, it doesn’t always feel that great! ;)

She has started babbling even more now and sometimes I swear it’s in the intonation of “I love you”.  I have to post some videos of her cuteness soon.

Eating:

Another thing that has been really fun this month is that she has developed her pincher grasp to the point that she can sit up in her high chair and eat finger foods without help.  Hooray!  This is one of my favorite things about this age: Learning to feed one’s self.  So helpful.  I can actually do the dishes really fast or work on dinner while keeping her happy if I just give her some food to work on for a while.  It’s quite liberating.

Sleep:

The one thing we’ve got to work on is a problem related to her lack of understanding object (or person) permanence.  Ever since she started teething she does not want to be separated from mommy.  It’s quite a pain and has caused a  horrible sleeping problem.  She wants mommy or daddy near her as she falls asleep or she gets herself so upset she throws up within 5 minutes if someone’s not with her.  So frustrating.  It doesn’t help though that she has had a cold for the past 10 or so days.  Poor baby.  She’s been feeling so rotten for weeks because of her teeth and her cold.  We’ve had some very difficult nights with her.  I guess I’ll worry about her sleeping problem when she is better.

This was taken Friday night after she had a fever of 103.4 off and on all day and feeling awful.  It was very relieving to see her sleeping so I had to take a picture.  It was so sweet the way Jared was so patient with her.  I love her little hand on his arm.

Play:

It has been so fun this month now that Vivian can sit up because she is happy to sit and play with her brother. 

This is Vivian smiling at her big brother as he tries to encourage her to try sitting up.

Mostly she just holds a toy in each hand and tastes them now and then while Christian plays next to her, but it’s very cute.  She’s getting more fun everyday.

This has by far been one of the most difficult months health-wise with Vivian.  But she is still a sweet-heart.  She hasn’t seemed quite as happy and easy going this month, but if she was with how sick she’s been besides her teeth, I’d be worried.  I was thinking the other day that her inner diva is coming out more and more but I think it’s quite healthy to let those around you know what your needs are.  We’re all so happy to have this sweet little girl as part of our family.  The other day I asked Christian if he missed being the only child to get attention and he said “Sometimes, but I love that I have the prettiest sister in the whole world”.  I’m so glad that he’s happy with his baby sister.  I’m happy with her too.