To Facebook or not to Facebook….

That is the question…I have been off of facebook for quite some time now, and I am rather enjoying it, being off that is. With our impending move coming closer, I have friends and family who will want to know what we are doing, where we will be and so on. Without facebook, I spend a lot more times with my kids, cook, sew, crochet, play, go outside. I spent a lot of time on the couch watching and waiting for people’s status updates, pictures, etc…Waste of my time.

I had more important things to do then spend time on facebook. Now that we are moving all the way across the country, is it going to be any different for me? Will I be in the habit of not getting on as much even if I do have it. Or will I be so consumed of taking pictures and needing to get them on facebook as quickly as possible so everyone can see my adorable children? 🙂 Suggestions? Please?

Anyway…just a quick note of what was on my mind. I will update more soon, but today, I’m getting my babies back and going home to daddy. This was my last visit to my mom’s house before we leave. We have a lot of things to do before moving, and I don’t want to have to worry about driving any further that I need to. Plus, yaya misses us and we are going to the zoo tomorrow, weather permitting. 🙂 Have a good day blog world!

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There’s No Place Like Home

I begin to think about all the places that I have been and lived, and it’s a wonder why we haven’t settled. We both come from small towns, but we are definitely NOT small town people. We have big dreams. Bigger dreams than what living in a small town can give us. Some people like the small town atmosphere. The feeling of family all being in one place and everyone gathering for special occasions like Christmas and Thanksgiving. It’s not like that for our little family. Both sides drives us a little crazy, but we still love them, but not enough to move back to small town USA.

I went to my mom’s this weekend to spend some time with my grandmother. She is in poor health, and I want her to be able to see her great grandbabies as much as possible before anything happens. My kids are 1 and 2 years old so when I take them out of their normal environment, it really shows and makes this mama extremely tired. My mom’s house is no where near kid friendly so I was constantly putting things up so they couldn’t break anything. That’s exhausting when you are doing it all day. I went to my dad’s place and saw him this weekend. It was a nice visit considering everything that I have said to him this past year. (I’m not going to elaborate)

Kylee loved playing with Mammaw, and I’m sure that she enjoyed it too, but Kylee is 2 and a little rough. Mammaw was a trooper, but I eventually hod to get Kylee to quit climbing on her. She didn’t like that, but she was also very ready to come home and see her daddy. I was only gone for 2 days. Daddy went to his parents this weekend and went racing with his dad. We have to get as much family time in as possible. Why? We are moving to California in a very short 2 months.

CALIFORNIA!

You have to understand. We are from the midwest, which I think is inaccurate anyway because we aren’t even close to the middle of the US and we are more east than west. I don’t understand and I never have understood why they call us the midwest…Anyway…I’m super stoked. I’m really ready for this move, and I have been ready for this change for a long time. It’s way far away, and I’m ok with that. It’s going to be a journey worth taking. We just got the news at the end of last week. I was ready then to drop everything and go.

I love traveling, I hate moving. I love living in different parts of the US. I hate moving. I love seeing the sights and the beauty this country has to offer. I hate moving…you see a pattern? Moving requires organization, packing, driving, hotels, gas…$$$…My husband is fortunate enough to have a job that pays for our move, or at least, pays us back afterwards.

So this is a new beginning for us and I can’t wait to share all of our experiences and hang ups. Good times and bad. Will you join me?

When I Get Old…er

Sometimes, I get to thinking about when I get older, where will I be? Who will I know? Will my kids still be close? Will I start going crazy? Am I already headed down the path to crazy? Will my husband and I still be motorcycle riding, adventure taking old people? Will we own a house? Cars? Land? Grandkids? Will we go up in rapture before any of that will actually happen?

There are a lot of things to consider. We rent a house. We pay 2 car loans. Own 2 dirtbikes for actually racing purposes. 3 working bicycles for exercise purposes. We do not have a gym membership. We do not pay any kind of community fees from living in a subdivision. God forbid that we ever have to do that. The country is where we want to be. We will never own a mini van, no matter if we have more kids or not. I love my Cadillac! I make up excuses to leave my house so I can drive it.

I still have both of my parents. This will be the only time in my life that I can say that I am about to be a big sister. Half sister. My dad’s girlfriend is having his baby. Weird? Yes. Completely. It’s an *oh well, let’s move on* situation. I buy my kid’s clothes from Children’s Place and Baby Gap. I’m a little obsessed, but with this whole trying to save for a year to pay off a vehicle, I have to cut back that shopping a bit. My kids love being outside and would live outside if I would let them.

My daughter is cute and she knows it. My son is my bud and laughs every time I just look at him. I call my daughter monster. My son is called Bubby and mostly answers to Bubby. The monster girl does not like being cold. Bubby is hot most of the time. Anyway, you get the drift. Life is pretty great right now. We are waiting to see where the job is going to take us within the next few months. Somewhere South, just not sure where.

All of this moving around doesn’t leave much room for stability. The kids aren’t old enough to be in school yet, so it doesn’t hurt to move right now, but when they start school, things may change. Not sure how though. When I think about our future and where we will be, I honestly can’t see us anywhere yet. I haven’t found that one place that I love to be, and we just have to live there. We have met some great people in our travels, and we have met some not so great people. We have met people that were great in that moment, but very easy to forget in the long run and we have met people that will be our friends forever.

Our goal for our life is to eventually find land, build a house on a small part of that land and then the rest…motocross track! My husband will be riding his dirtbike forever into eternity. At our mansion in Heaven, God had better allow for a track to built for him or he may consider moving 😉 His dad still races and he is turning 61 this year. My husband is covered as far as what he wants to do when I grows old, but me? I think I may know what I want to do, but it’s just a matter of where we when that time comes.

I love being creative. I love home decorating and making things pretty. I love cooking and have people enjoy that cooking. I love making people feel comfortable and happy. Someday, I would like to open up my own B&B. Sounds reasonable? I think so. I just have to plan and plan…and oh yeah…make a plan. Pray and believe. I have ambition, but I need to learn the ropes. I never went to college. I got married early in life and still don’t regret it to this day.

I strive to be the parent that my kids can look up to and say to their friends *I want to be like my mom and dad when I grow up* I want to set the bar. I don’t want to be just another statistic. I want to grow up with dignity and be a woman of honor and help my husband be the man he is supposed to be. I am very blessed to be where I am at right now and try not to take anything for granted. I love my husband. I love kids. I love my family. I want to live the standard of Godly parents.

I will mess up. I will fail. I will occasionally yell and then cry because I was too hard. My kids will get mad at me. They will say things to me that will hurt my feelings, but in the end I know that they don’t really mean what they said. I will take things personal. But if none of those things happen, I will never learn. Growing up is hard and life isn’t fair. Just take what you have and cherish it and make the best of what God gives you.

My Life Consists Of…

I guess there is no better way than to describe my life as a dreaming wanting to come true. I love to go to school, but after discussion with my husband and future plans, and it just isn’t in the cards right now. It’s fine. Really…We are trying to figure out what to do about settling down, buying land/house, saving for our kid’s education, saving for retirement, etc etc…

It’s all a bit overwhelming right? Isn’t that the dream though. The great American dream with the white picket fence and all? Well, I found some land in Florida. 10 acres for $41,000. In this economy, you can’t beat that. How fast will work on this dream of ours and when will become a reality? Not too sure, but I know it’s there, we just haven’t crossed paths with it yet.

As for our perfect home. We have an idea of what we want and it isn’t anything elaborate by no means. When I say that, I mean, it won’t be huge or costly. What’s the picture of my dream home? 3 br. 2 1/2 bath. A small Chef’s Kitchen with living area attached, basically a big open space with an island in the kitchen. This island will have the stove and on one of the walls with dark wood cabinets, I will have a double oven. I love to bake and cook so it’s a must! The Bedrooms will be the only part of the house that is carpeted, the rest will either be dark wood floors or colored cement. The cement could get cold so that’s why I say either. A spacious laundry room with stackable washer/dryer and counter space for folding and cabinets for storage. A loft or rec room for toys, exercise equipment, music stuff, a whatever room with a guest bed. (A thought, what about a wall pull out bed?) You know what I mean?

The master bedroom will have a nice spacious closet and the bathroom will have a really deep tub that will look flushed with the floor ( instead of stepping over to get in the tub, I will step down into it) Separate shower with 2 shower heads. I realize that all that sounds expensive and costly like I said we didn’t want, but the bedrooms don’t have to be huge. We only sleep in there so need for huge rooms. The house will look more like a barn than an actual house. As much as I love to swim, we will probably skip on a pool. If we live in Florida, I’m sure that we can survive.

For the outside, we are a racing family, so what else would you expect than for us to build our own motocross track! A pee-wee one first for when the kids start out and build it up as they get older. A big barn/garage area for everything yard/motorcycle related.

Sounds like we have a lot of saving to do right? We have to, especially in today’s world. It is ok to have a dream right? I want to have a home so that I can decorate, paint, buy furniture, and basically have the space to do everything that I already do wherever we go. Anyway. That’s it for now. I got to get a baby blanket and other baby decorations done this week, so I better get at it!

Pancakes, Moving, and Other Stuff :)

Well, I realize it’s been a few days since I have been on here, but I have been keeping myself preoccupied with crocheting my bag AND afghan. Yes, 2 projects…something that I said that I wasn’t going to do. Finish one before I start another?? hehe…I just couldn’t help myself. After I started my blanket, I realized that I didn’t have anywhere to put all my supplies, so I decided to make a bag. A crochet bag for all my crochet stuff…Does that sound silly? Oh well…I’m enjoying myself. Anyway…

I made pancakes yesterday morning for breakfast. They are Totally Awesome Pancakes.

• 2 Cups Bisquick
• 1 Cup milk
• 1 Tsp. Vanilla
• 3 Tbs. Sugar 2 Eggs

My daughter devours pancakes! She loves them. Almost as much as she loves french fries! I have a very picky eater on my hands. I giving her veggies and she just won’t eat them, and you can’t force a 2 year old to eat. I just have to deal with it right now and do the best I can for the time being. I have thought about potty training, but I think that I am going to wait until our next move to do that. We will be at the next job for at least a couple of years, and I don’t want to try now and  have it go to pot with moving and changes (if you know what I mean) I’m so ready for this next move. I’m so ready, that after I come home this weekend after dropping the kids off at their grandparents, I’m buying moving boxing and organizing my house and pack things that I don’t need right now. I like being prepared and having kids when we move now, I have to be more prepared than ever. It’s really not that great moving with babies. They can’t pack their own stuff. They have to have their toys up until moving day. It can get  very stressful if I don’t organize better this time. Luckily the last we moved, it was only like 35 minutes away so it wasn’t that bad. We will most likely be changing states this next time (which I am COMPLETELY stoked about!)

I think that by the end of it all, I will be able to write a How To book on how to move…with kids in tow. Hmmm….idea to jot down 😉 So Saturday, I got to go SHOPPING! Something that I have not been able to do for quite some time. I have had 2 babies, back to back (15 months apart) which means that I spent the better part of 2 years being pregnant. I got up to 150 lbs with each of my kids which isn’t that bad. After I had my son, I figured I was done having kids so I was more determined than ever to lose the extra weight. I took a Hot Yoga class for about 4 wks. My bff was in from Texas, staying with us for a dew weeks, so we would switch days going. We had to do that cause my hubby was working nights, and I had no one to watch the kids. Well, long story short, I lost ALL of my baby weight and am down to my pre baby weight. Now understand that my body is not the same as it was, but I feel awesome. I’m 5’2” and 108 lbs! So Shout out to my new blog buddy BabyBellyKelli cause it’s ok to be skinny and show it off! 😉

Anyway…My shopping experience was, I went to 1 store and 1 store only and spent the x amount that hubby gave me to go shopping and got almost a completely new wardrobe. Maybe I will put everything on, take pix and post my awesome new clothes one day. It’s hard being short, look like a teenager and trying to look like a 26 year all at the same time anymore. Does that make sense?? Well, I love my new clothes and feel great wearing them. That’s all that counts right? So my son stinks and that means he needs a diaper change 🙂 ewwww…He really is a stinky boy! Time to get started on stuff anyway.

The Journey Began…

Well, I guess if I am really going to start sharing my life, I might as well start from the beginning. Of course, not the VERY beginning, but the beginning of when my life actually started to happen. I met my husband at a church function when I was in Masters Commission. He was there to play music and so was I, along with other things that were going on that week. The group that I was with was only in town for 2 weeks, and I happened to meet him the very last day before we headed back home, or at least what was home then. I was completely nervous and could hardly even stand to look at him, he was so pretty 🙂 Long, skinny, long hair. My best friend and I considered him a way younger version of Fabio. It was quite fun talking about him in that way. He was and is an amazing musician and so so smart and creative. It took him 3 weeks just to email me. The reason, I didn’t give him my number, just an email address. I really wanted to know if he was interested. Well, obviously he was. That summer, I ended up moving back home, which was a lot closer to him, and we started dating.

He was very much a ladies man, and, of course, I didn’t discover that until I came home. I tried breaking up with him, but he didn’t let me. Well, long story short, we dated for 4 months, got engaged and then 9 months later, we were married. We started out living in a well dressed little shack. It had a bathroom, kitchen, living area and a bedroom. The house was the size of a garage, but it was very well maintained. We definitely had our ups and downs. Sometimes, I was even afraid that we weren’t going to make it. It was very hard. I guess that is just part of marriage though. After 2 years of marriage, he got an awesome opportunity for a job that moves us around to different parts of the country. We ended up moving to Texas. Moving away was probably the best thing that we ever did for ourselves. Our marriage definitely improved, and we found a great church to go to. We were only there for 10 months, but I feel as though we were there forever. We had awesome friends, a great Pastor, and also great kids. Couldn’t ask for anything better. In 2008, hurricane Ike rolled through and ruined everything! The company that Jordan was working with lost their contract with where they were working, and he got a 30 day notice to find another job. This was very stressful, but we knew that God was going to take care of us. He always did. The hardest part was tell our kids that we had to leave. In the time that we were there, and for a very short time, we became the main youth leaders at our church. They had some amazing kids there! I don’t go a day without thinking of them.

Well, we ended up moving back up north, which was a huge disappointment. It snows here. It has snowed in Texas recently, but not like it has here. It’s still on the ground. It definitely has been a bigger adjustment moving where we are now than anywhere I have ever lived. When we did move, after being married for 3 years, we decided that it was time to start a family. I was so excited. I had been wanting to have a baby for a very long time. I am happy that we chose this time to have one. I started out 107 lbs and ended at 150 lbs! Crazy huh? I was and still am very small and short. I can pregnancy for me was very easy considering all the stories that I have heard. I did not get sick. I didn’t gain what I couldn’t lose. I was just tired all the time. Pregnancy and me just don’t get along very well. I didn’t like it. I wanted to be small again. Even though, it was totally worth it. Just to see that little image of a person growing inside of you is an amazing feeling, and she is wonderful. I can’t imagine my life without her now. She is very high spirited and energetic. The best baby ever.

Well, it’s been almost 4 1/2 years now and going strong. Kylee is now a year old, and we are expecting our second child here pretty soon. Due in March, but hopefully Conner decides to make his appearance sooner than that. A lot is going on, and that was just the short version. I can honestly say that I don’t know what I would do my God. He has made strong when I definitely didn’t feel like being strong. Wherever we end up next, I hope that it isn’t too far away, but far enough. I don’t like being cold and seeing snow. Until then…