Journal Entry

It's been a long time since I've really talked about how I'm feeling, about life in more than a "this is what we're doing" way.
My life right now is pretty much me trying to be sure that my kid-o's have all that they need.
Let me be clear, not all the things they WANT, cause my kids want just about everything in Target.
Kallin, who literally wants a million things, Star Wars and beyond, and thinks that Target is like THE most coolest place to be.
Colette who wants an iPhone & iPad, uh, no dear. (Though we've started a earning chart, maybe if she works her little tail off she can earn something cool?)
Then there is Corinne, who wants every single lipgloss, tu tu skirt, and glittery she sets her eyes upon!
Not those temporal things...

REAL needs-- like am I making sure I feed them the right things, healthy meals- with no gluten, or dairy? (Uh, it's hard, and I honestly get so tired of having to think hard to cook a good meal, are ya with me!??!?!) Are they getting off the couch enough? Do they have a love for the outdoors? Are they healthy? Strong? Growing?
Oh, are fulfilled emotionally... do they get enough praise? Love? Am I teaching them to be well adjusted? Do they know how to handle defeat, sorrow, stress?
--sometimes I think, can I teach them that?!?! I'm sort-of a mess in that department some days.  
Are they being challenged in their little minds? Are they reading to me, so I can help them? Are they reading alone and developing a love of books? Are they counting? Do they know their colors? Numbers? Shapes? Is Colette doing her regrouping in math?

It's endless.... and I'm so tired of it all sometimes! Don't tell ok? 'Cause I like to appear perfectly assembled.
In my motherly role, I take it all on as my PERSONAL responsibility. Ok, I'm a little bit of a seriously obsessive person who loves to control my environment. :)
My husband and I laugh sometimes, because we really feel like kids raising kids. We have to dig deep, uh sometimes we have to go to the pro's-- think about things our parents did, and what we want to do differently, or what we really need to implement. I talk to my girlfriends about what's going on at their nest, and what their doing that works, or we compare total failures, and laugh our butts off about the crazy things we've done!

So how are the kids? They're great. They're mom is a little bit of a nutcase some times, but the kids are excellent.
We've had a lot of changes in the last year. Corinne sleeps in a big bed, is all frills and glitter, and can talk your ears off. Kallin is in pre-school, tall and handsome he loves Star Wars & Transformers. Colette is completely self sufficient & super-loving school. She's a great big sis, too. Each of the kids are phenomenal.

Let's hit on something I've not yet addressed. We moved, and then tried to buy 3 homes- all of which fell through for some reason or another. That was a really interesting time for me. I can't even begin to tell you how hard it was to leave the house that we'd built to our specifications. I put a lot into that place. There's so many memories in that home, and it's been a great place to be. We know so many incredible people who live there and were really sad to move away from them.
We sold the house in such a way that we could buy again. (never missed a payment, and our paperwork was done in such a way that we have full release of liability and the wording "Paid in full as agreed" and that allows us not to have a credit disaster.) We started hunting right away. I think I've seen a few hundred homes across Henderson.
Each home that we offered on, we got our hopes up. Well, I did. I always decorate in my head, and start to imagine what it would look like when we lived there. It was hard to loose the bidding war. It was even harder to finally decide that maybe house-hunting wasn't what we should be doing.
It was the right decision for us. I was so caught up in house hunting that everything that is important was on the back burner. We were in such a rush, and then we realized, we need to just sit tight and rent for a bit, keep the place safe and cared for. Well, as 12 things broke, and we fixed them, it was really good to be here. Disasters averted. (except for that time that Corinne took a sharpie to the cabinet... we might have caused that disaster.)

Then we decided to move our records to the ward here, and now we've got new callings in church. The kids are so busy in school, and we've started some extra curricular activities (dance & jiu jitsu).

I think this may be the busiest I've ever been in MY life. I'm the taxi cab, I'm trying to keep this big-ole house clean, and then there's the never-ending chores, i.e. Laundry & Dishes.

We're happy. We're living more in the NOW than we ever have. It's really been good for us. We enjoy this chapter of our lives and are planning for the future, we are looking ahead, but living life as it comes. It's great. We're rolling with this new plan that we feel the Lord has for us, and have given up the ideals of what we thought it would be. That's working so much better.