Quick 5

Sometimes I wonder if I lived in a place where the weather was a even, balmy 78 degrees all the time and you could leave your windows open all day and night, would I get bored a yearn for cold, cold winters and hot summers?  Maybe.  I'd like to test it out anyway.

1.  In answer to the number one question that I know is on your minds, no I have not started packing yet.  We are five weeks away from our move, and I really only need about four.  Otherwise we're just going to be digging through boxes to find the things we need.

2.  I should probably take this time to purge our house as I pack things away.  Think I can do it?  That seems overwhelming, but maybe it wouldn't be as crazy as I think.

3.  On Wednesday night, at the Awana Store, Alaina got a plastic bug magnifying glass.  It's now the second one that we own, but for some reason Alaina acts like it's the greatest thing she's ever seen.  Yesterday I was standing at the sink doing dishes, and she came up right behind me with it.  "Wow, Mom!  Your pockets are big!"  (Do you know what's coming next?)  "And your bum is HUGE!  Wow!"  She sure knows how to instill self-confidence in her mother.

4.  Yesterday saw ER Trip #2 with Joya.  She had been running a fever for two days, but then yesterday she woke up with a normal temp.  She was good all morning.  Then she woke up from her nap, and her temp read 106.  I called her doctor who told me to immediately take her to the ER.  They think it was residual ear infection and gave her some IV antibiotics.  We'll have a follow up (hopefully) with her doctor today.

5.  Happy 18th Birthday, Ben!  I now have a man-brother.

Quick 5

1.  It's no secret that our biggest news this past week has been our short sale approval!  We are officially under contract for our house!  It is one of those things that we knew was coming eventually, but now that it is here it is completely surreal.  We had our inspection on Monday (and a few more things checked on Tuesday) and everything checked out great.  The sellers had moved out so we were able to spend a few hours in the vacant house and the good news is that we still like it.  :)  I'm trying not to think about the fact that there is always the possibility that the deal could still fall through, because it most likely won't, because I still strongly believe that this house is a great fit for us.  We have a closing date of May 14.

That big beautiful evergreen tree is D-E-D dead.  But other than that, there she is!

2.  Our plan is to move on June 2nd.  Alaina's 4th birthday.  We'll celebrate her birthday earlier that week, and I'm hoping that since there are a few weeks between closing and moving that maybe we can slowly move most of the boxes over, so that the "big" move on June 2nd really won't be that big at all.  We'll need to spend those few weeks cleaning, bug-fogging and painting.  Lee's lovely family is already making plans to come out and help us get everything ready, so I'm getting excited about the nice little house that we will be moving into, once all the projects are done.

3.  I love having a pre-schooler around during this moving time.  Every day she asks me if we can bring her (fill-in-the-blank) to the new house.  Every time I try to explain that we'll bring everything, but maybe 3 1/2-year-olds can't really understand the concept of everything.  Anyway, it cracks me up.

4.  Joya turned 18 months last Saturday.  My one and a half year old.  She had her 18 month check-up on Monday and of course did great, even through the four shots she got.  It's slightly amusing to watch our doctor try and corral a toddler for an exam.  :)

5.  Anyone want to come help us clean?  Pack?  Move?  Let me know.  :)

Quick 5

< Insert witty opening line here >

1.  Joya is what Lee likes to call "a Stephanie."  He gets the term from Stephanie on the show Full House back in the day.  For some reason he thinks that Stephanie on that show was always disheveled or messy or maybe just annoying.  Anyway, sometimes he'll look at Joya and call her Stephanie, and I know that her hair is wild or her clothes are dirty that day.

A classic Stephanie look.  I think it's adorable

2.  Joya has a new game.  I do all the work of getting all the food on the table for a meal, along with all the other bib/fork/drink paraphernalia, and then I say, "Come on girls!  Let's eat!"  And then Joya grins, turns around, and runs as fast as her little legs can carry her in the opposite direction.  Her sister never did that.  I don't know where she learns these things.

3.  The Kimble family experienced our first ear infection this week.  I know childhood illness are not earth-shattering news, but they kind of are in our family.  We've been blessed with exceptionally good health, so it takes me by surprise when the girls are sick enough to go to the doctor.  Minor sniffles, fevers and vomiting are things I can roll with.  Three hours worth of screaming and ear tugging, along with a fever, are things that shoot me out of my comfort zone.  Thankfully we were able to get Joya right in to see the nurse practitioner and start antibiotics right away.  She was back to her cheery self very quickly.

4.  Easter was a lovely day.  We spent the whole morning at church so Lee could play guitar and I could manage the nursery, and then we went to my sister's in Colorado Springs.  Jamie had a fun little egg hunt for the girls, and they are still enjoying the fruits of that.

Alaina eating Aunt Jamie's birthday cupcakes

Joya eating her weight in crackers

Joya hunting eggs with Grammy

Alaina would shake the eggs as she found them.  If they didn't make any noise, she'd throw them on the ground.  I had to tell her there were stickers inside those so she'd put them in her basket

Enjoying the spoils

Girls will not smile at the camera if there is candy available in their laps

Stephanie #1

Believe it or not, this is the best picture I could get of the cousins

Stephanie #2...with jelly bean juice dripping down her chin

Having fun with the stickers she found in the eggs

5.  Alaina and I have a fun game.  We like to dream about the cat we are going to get in a few years (you know, when she's old enough to clean out the litter box on her own.)  We like to think about what we are going to name the cat.  For the longest time the cat was going to be named Bruiser.  I'd suggest another name, but she'd say, "No!  His name is Bruiser!"  But then Alaina got the idea to name the cat Fluffy.  Hopefully she'll grow out of that by the time we actually get the cat.

Happy weekend!

Quick 5

Easter says you can put truth in a grave, but it won't stay there. 

~ Clarence W. Hall

1. This is how Joya rolls:

  Orange jammies.  One glove.  Toddler belly sticking out.

2.  I have an aversion to mass-organized Easter egg hunts.  I fully recognize the outreach nature of them when our church hosts it each year, but I still don't like taking my girls to a place where they better be aggressive or get out of the way.  So instead of going to the church hunt this year, we went over to our friends' house and had our own hunt with our two girls and their two boys.  The downside: Alaina ended up with WAY more eggs than she would have gotten at the big hunt.  Of course, then she won't notice when a few of her eggs go missing...

Ready to go.  Bunny ears courtesy of the Singletons.

Joya's eggs were the easiest to find.  Getting her to put them in her basket was NOT easy.

Joya discovered the Teddy Grahams in hers all by herself.

 3.  Yet another way to keep Alaina occupied: give her a wet sponge and let her go to town on the cabinets, baseboards and walls.  It'll be a while before she discovers that scrubbing walls is not exactly entertainment.

4.  Gramma Kimble sent us a fun spring care package.  The girls immediately started fighting over the flower headband, even though I pulled out the bunny ears for someone to wear at the same time.  The rest of the package was fun anyway.  (Side note: I now know why I always take pictures of the girls at the dinner table.  They are contained in their seats and will smile for me.  Trying to take pictures of them not contained in their seats is like trying to herd cats.)

5.  I can feel myself getting older.  I'm turning 30 this year, and while it's probably not that big a deal, I can't help but feel like something significant is happening.  The biggest sign this week that I'm practically a full-fledged adult now came when I discovered my love for pecans.  I usually pick something without nuts over something with nuts, given the option, but I've tried a cookie and a cereal these past couple of weeks with pecans in them, and I truly enjoyed it.  Kind of makes me wonder if my taste buds have fully matured, and maybe I'll like things like brussels sprouts now.   I'm too scared to try it and see.

He is Risen! (And happy birthday, Jamie!)

 

Quick 5

The end of March has been quite calm, as evidenced by my paltry Quick 5 this week.

1.  Yesterday Alaina and I went to get Joya up from her nap so we could go to Wal-Mart.  Alaina walked over to the pack-n-play and said, "Well, hello there, Little Fella!"  I think she's seen Finding Nemo one too many times.

2.  Joya has starting saying "Mommy."  And it's pretty much the only word she'll say right now, besides "shoes" and "bup" (up...a command to lift her off the ground.)  It melts my heart every time.  Sometimes it's annoying because she's mastered the art of saying it with a whine too, but it's a mommy thing to love something and be annoyed at the same time. 

3.  Newest way to keep Alaina entertained: Oriental Trading Company Catalogs.  She is thrilled with every single item in there.

4.  It's that weird time of year when I don't really know how to dress the girls.  It's pretty chilly in the morning, but you don't need coats later and it's a drag to haul them around.  Anyway, I mostly have their summer wardrobes ready, but I needed just a couple more t-shirts for both of them.  So I headed to the best place for that: Wal-Mart.  Props to the Garanimals brand.  I bought them each two shirts.  And strategically, I bought them each a plain black t-shirt, in preparation for Cow Appreciation Day at Chick-fil-a in July.  I'm pretty proud of myself for the foresight. 

5.  No real news on the house front, but I have gut feeling that tells me we are probably about six weeks away from moving.  Now the question is, do I start packing or just wait until it's all official?

Hope your weather is as nice as ours.

Quick 5

This week has lasted a thousand years.

At the risk of wearing everyone out with my trauma, the biggest thing that happened in our week was Alaina's febrile seizure last Saturday.  She's over it...I'm not quite yet.  But rather than rehash the details, I'll talk about the things I'm thankful for through the whole ordeal. 

1.  I'm thankful for the Holy Spirit nudging me to go check on her.  It was really silly; I was getting Joya down from lunch and Alaina had gone to "have a little rest" because she didn't feel well.  I dropped a piece of bread on the floor and my dad pointed at it for me to pick it up.  I said, "In a minute; I'll be back" because I had a STRONG urge to check on Alaina.  It would have taken me ONE extra second to pick it up, but I really felt like I needed to check on her.  And that's when I found her in the seizure.  I know the Holy Spirit told me to go right then. 

2.  I'm thankful that the seizure was not as violent as it probably could have been.  She was actually quite still, but completely checked out.  She could have been really thrashing around, and that would have been worse. 

3.  I'm thankful that we were at my parents' house when it happened, so that my mom could confirm that we needed to take her to the ER and so that my dad could drive us there.  I'm thankful that we were able to leave Joya in my mom's care and not have to think about what we were going to do with her while we were taking care of Alaina.  I'm thankful that my dad drove us in their car, so that we didn't have to clean up Alaina's throw up out of our car. 

4.  I'm thankful that they immediately took us back right away when we got to the ER.  I'm thankful that the attending ER physician was also a board certified pediatrician and knew exactly what he was doing. 

5.  I'm thankful that Alaina is back to 100% Alaina.  She ran a fever all day Sunday and most of Monday, but even those days she was back to her normal self.  And I'm really thankful it was just a febrile seizure, which will have zero ill effects on her future health or development.

Oh, and I'm thankful that Andrea was back from maternity leave so she could cover for me in the nursery when I had to stay home with the girls on Sunday.

Here's hoping that your weekend this weekend doesn't come close to the weekend I had last weekend.

Quick 5

A little Madness in the Spring
Is wholesome even for the King.
Emily Dickinson

Hello, open windows!  Goodbye, winter stench!

1.  This glorious weather has not been wasted around here.  Last Saturday we spent a lovely afternoon at the park with Grammy and Granddad.  And on Wednesday we went and had a picnic with Lee at the park next to his office.  Outdoor air is good for the soul.  Alaina and Daddy fed the geese and ducks while Joya wailed in her stroller.  I still don't know what was wrong with her.  She probably wanted to get out and walk around, but the grass was c o v e r e d in goose poop.  Life can be really hard for a 17-month-old sometimes.

2.  Sometimes in life you have to take the good with the bad.  With this warm weather has come some not-so-pleasant wind.  But I've still opened the windows as much as possible, because I love the smell of fresh air.  That means the wind blows around papers and knocks over stuff in my kitchen.  Alaina freaks out every time she hears something fall.  She shrieks "Too much air!  Too much air!"  I love that that's how she refers to wind.

3.  Joya busted out a new word all by herself this week: bye bye.  I suppose we say it to her enough, but the other morning Lee was leaving for work, and rather than just her customary wave, she called out "bye bye!" along with it.  It's like she's finally becoming a real little person all of a sudden.

4. We submitted the offer for our house two weeks ago.  This waiting is not uncommon nor surprising for a short sale.  However, I find myself in a hard-core battle with anxiety over the whole thing.  The listing agent said that she thought the wait would be short; as in three to four weeks.  The thing is, our loan qualification expires on March 28.  We need to be under contract by then in order for it not to expire.  But March 28 is just a little shy of four weeks after the signing of the offer.  I suppose the worst part is that there is nothing I can do about it.  We have literally done everything in our power up to this point.  The bright side is, it's actually made the month of March sail by, rather than dragging like it normally does.  It's flying by for all the wrong reasons, though.

5.  This weekend is my baby bro's high school musical.  (Not to be confused with High School Musical.  They're doing Guys and Dolls.)  And it's big because it's his last one.  Because he is a senior in high school.  Not only do I have to grapple with the fact that I'm turning 30 in a few months, I also have to come to terms with the fact that my baby brother is graduating high school.  And will be able to vote in this year's presidential election.  Apple Ben is practically a full grown man. 

A small Apple Ben holding a small Alaina, July 2008

And a big shout-out to my bro-in-law Nick, on his (33rd?  34th?  46th?) birthday!  Hope it's full of Chick-fil-a good times!