Yes, it has been a while...

So, I realized that blogging is really exciting and fun for the first few times you do it and then it gets a little bit hard to keep up. Just like journaling. I did write in my journal about my trip out to PA though. So, yay me!

So, my trip out to PA was interesting. It was really a great trip all around, but there were a lot of things that made me really think about what I am thankful for. That is particularly good because I was there over Thanksgiving and I haven't sat down and contemplated it to that degree for a very long time. My family's life is kind of in an uproar at the moment as they have a rather untidy family living with them. It opened my eyes to just how lucky I am to have a semi-tidy husband, and one that encourages me to clean. Odd as that sounds. I am grateful for children that are fast learners and for the fact River speaks with such fluency and can say all her letters. My children will not be behind in any schooling, I can tell already. I am grateful for the fact my husband has a great job and has so much more self-worth now than he did before we were married, and even in the first part of our marriage. I am grateful that I was able to have my grandparents in my life for as long as I have and that Grandpa Bill was in my life when Grandpa Phil couldn't be. I am so grateful for having my own house to do with what I want, but that I get the opportunity to help others with theirs on occasion. (It's fun to clean someone else's house!) Haha! Life really is, that good. ;-)

We are nearly completed in the hallway and bedroom downstairs, a few more touch ups on the walls in the hall and then trim and ceiling paint to do. We order our carpet next week and get it installed around the beginning of the year! I am soooo happy for it to be so close. (Though, I wish we could be getting carpet IN next week!) The paint color is gorgeous, I went downstairs and thought that the light was on, but it was just the sunlight reflecting off the color! Beautiful! Deric isn't too thrilled, but he only gets it as his office a little under two years. (until the next child is born.) Hooray for getting rid of more of the brown in this house though!

I have been working on Christmas presents and cards the last few days. Got the pictures printed and ordered, got Doug's gift ordered (an 8-bit tie--think: Mario pixels), Molly's gift ordered (a bib with a runway on it and a matching airplane spoon! They light up!), Plus, Joan's gift ordered (a book of pictures from us and Evette's family--she complained about not having us in the one the step siblings did last year.), plus more that I can't tell you about. Hehe! I got all the neighborhood gifts out this week too (purple ornaments with a little "reminder" attached about Christ being "King", get it? Royal purple...anyway). I am excited about Christmas, but behind on getting the tree up, we put it together tonight, and will decorate it tomorrow.

I had a terrible night last night of about 4 hours total of sleep. Molly was wide awake for some reason...so, off to bed I go. Goodnight! Happy Holidays!

Stuff, n' stuff...

Sunday we went up to Deric's grandparent's house. (The Abels) They hadn't seen Molly yet and they basically told us "get your butts up here". So, we went and visited with them a couple hours and saw Pat and Von (Deric's aunt and uncle, the cowboy-Dad's side). Then we went and visited with his half-sister, Monica for a little bit and went to dinner with them. So, we got to see everyone up north, they should be good for another year. ;-)

Monday night was the opening social of the snowmobile club. It was fun. I made Chili and nobody ate any. :-( Sad, so, I froze half of it. I won a hoodie in the prize drawing! Yay, I love hoodies! Got to see some friends and talk with them briefly. We are starting to upgrade this club a bit. It is getting better than just being thrown together each year. It's kinda exciting.

Today we went to the temple for the first time in three years. It is pretty crazy it has been that long...but the last time we were there we asked to get pregnant and River was conceived just days later. I didn't learn anything amazing, but those few moments of pure si9lence and peace in the celestial room were worth it. Molly slept the exact amount of time I was gone too. :-) Good day...

Super Productive Saturday :-)

This is all we did today...so far:

Winterized the trailer
Cleaned out the garden
mowed the lawn and put the debris on the garden (compost)
tidied the yard
tidied the carport
trimmed the blackberries
trimmed the fruit trees
moved the play set
trimmed the rosebushes
insulated the new bedroom walls
weeded the flower bed

We are still going to cover the trailer and go trick-or-treating. :-)

The room downstairs will have WALLS by Wednesday! Yay!

Yay for productive days like this!

Shedule

Well, I decided that the only way to be less stressed and get more done would be to create a schedule for myself. I have never been able to stick to hourly type schedules because I don't like the limitation...so here is what I did:

Monday--vacuum the house, art and music with River

Tuesday--Laundry, art and music with River

Wednesday--Sweep/mop the floors, special treat making with River

Thursday--Grocery Shopping, play group (for River)

Friday--Clean Bathroom, art and music with River, "date night"

Saturday--Yard work/Family Home project day

We started this on Monday and I really like it. I have gotten my house totally clean throughout this week. There are the normal everyday things to do, but it has divided the big stuff over the week. :-) I also like having a plan of what I am going to do with River for at least half an hour each day. I get a teaching moment with her, she gets a creative outlet, and I feel like a good mom! haha! Monday we made a Fall leaf collage, Tuesday she painted egg carton bugs, and Wednesday we made oatmeal-molasses cookies.

Last night was the Halloween Party. Again, Sister Frost went ALL out...yikes, what a crazy night. There were so many booths, and it was just nuts. Last minute the Relief Society Activity committee was told they were in charge of a booth. Yah, it wasn't really very fun...we have young kids, and it is geared toward the kids...so, it was hard to enjoy it. River was so distracted by everything that she didn't eat her dinner or really pay attention to me at all. She just wandered around looking dazed, and staring. Funny girl.

Tomorrow we are winterizing the yard, trailer, shed, garden, and carport. Lots of work, and hopefully it will be doable with Molly...she naps for a while in the morning...so, I think it will work. I am kinda excited to do it. Always feels good to get a big project done.

I just can't wait until November 13th when we get enough money to put up insulation and drywall in the bedroom/hallway downstairs. :-) In December we will finish it up, yay!

Joan and I started a business together called Blissful Bags. We are making those scripture bag things out of the placemats and selling them on a site that contacted us about being on it. Smashion.com. They saw them on etsy and loved them so they contacted me to be on their site. The best part is, it's FREE! Yay! We are hopeful. We got 12 faux leather mats, and 12 microfiber mats, and lots of fun plastic handles (like dalmation print) and so on. If we can sell them for what I was hoping for we could have $300-$350 profit EACH! (with the bags we have already)

I'll put up pics as we make them...just waiting for everything to arrive in the mail now.

Ben Franklin Addict...

Yes, I admit it.

I have been trying to go to Ben Franklin nearly every day this week. The first day I went by myself with the kids and Molly cried nearly the whole time while River ran around touching stuff. Too stressful to get real shopping done. Then I tried to go Wednesday night with Alaris, and we got there at 7...but it had just closed. When online it had said it closes at 8! (they changed it for going out of business) Then last night Joan and I went, and we were stopped on the freeway for an hour! It is 12 minutes away normally...but at Hill Airforce Base there was a plane that jettisoned its fuel and munitions. So, we were able to look around for only 20 minutes before it closed. Today, I am going to take my girls again...and try to have Joan come along with me, or watch River. That way I can actually really look around and get some things for Christmas gifts. I hope that it works....

I got a cute little table last night that I am going to turn into the girl's art table. It was one of their fixtures and it was only $5. So, I am going to paint it and make some holders for things to use for River's stickers, crayons, paper, coloring books, etc. I think it will be really a great thing for her to have in the room downstairs for when I am doing my crafts.

This past little while Deric and I have been in a slump. I have tried not to be for his sake, but I am getting worn out on being a Mom. We have been SO busy every night and day this last few weeks, working on the basement, canning, doing our callings, etsy, and doing our jobs for the snowmobile club. Plus, Molly was screaming every night from 5:30-11 because I ate chocolate. So, I have now given that up. :-( Sadly, Halloween is just around the corner...Ah well, she goes down at 9 and wakes up only once (at 4am) when I don't eat it...which is wonderful! So, here goes sacrifice. I have just been craving sugar so much! And chocolate more than I ever have in my life! Weird how pregnancy and birth changes things...

I have been pretty proud of my cooking recently. I got this "Church Supper" magazine that has something like 300 recipes for potluck dinner items! Nearly everything we have tried we have liked, there have only been a few "ok" dishes, and one "yuck". It is the greatest magazine I have ever gotten. I have been making notes in it as I try each thing...but we probably won't have the same thing again for a LONG time.

I got the girl's costumes done yesterday. They are going to be mermaids, and I think it is going to be adorable! Well, toodles for now!

Long time since the last time...

Hi there all who might read this...

I wanted to update you all on the progress of our BIG project. We started on the basement and so far have finished the framing of the bedroom, hallway, and most of the bathroom(we are waiting on the shower or bath to get the rest of the framing finished). We installed all the electrical outlets, switches, and light fixtures in the hallway and bedroom. We are now waiting on some money so we can go buy the insulation and drywall/mud/tape.

We just refinanced our house to 4.875% so that we have an additional $180/month to put toward paying for things and paying things down. Plus, this gives us more "emergency" money for each month--ie. more wiggle room. Which is a fabulous thing. We also subtracted 2 whole years from our payoff time frame and are under 10 years for complete payoff of everything including the house. I am really proud of how we are taking care of everything. We are putting much more than the minimum payment each month toward everything. Yay!

Because we refinanced we get November "off" from paying mortgage. So, we have about $900 to put toward the basement finishing. This means that we can finish the hallway, bedroom, and start framing, electrical, and insulating in the theater room. The bathroom is going to be our "drawn out" project. We think it will probably be able to be done by summertime however. I am really excited to have the basement finally becoming finished usable (useful) space! The bedroom down there will serve as Deric's office (and a guest bedroom) until we plan on either doing carpet and paint in my craft/guest room, or we move River down there. Which could be about 2 years.

Molly is having a tough time the last little while with getting to bed. She has always been kind of hard to get down...staying up until around 11 each night. But, I think she may not be able to handle me eating chocolate. Which is really sad, because it is Halloween month...and I love my reeces and butterfingers! :-( So, I am off chocolate as of today to see if it helps. We are going to put away the bassinet (which she has never liked sleeping in--just our bed or the floor!) and get out the crib tonight too. Which means we will be moving her into River's room with her soon. I also think I will put away the swing, since she is not a fan...

She is smiling like mad now! It is the cutest thing! She just melts your heart whenever she gets excited that you are around...even if you are sooo tired and frustrated from the fussiness it makes it all go away. :-)

River is starting to really show an interest in potty training...I just don't know what to do...it is a daunting thing to start. Plus, then we have to make bathroom runs wherever we may be!

I got all my new stuff up on Etsy. I am really excited about my Tie Tree Skirts and hair clips. :-)
www.FromEveryday2NewLove.etsy.com

I did a bunch of canning: Plum Jam--7 jars, Applesauce--10 1/2 quarts, Pear slices and halves--27 pints, Peach jam--6 jars, dried apples--3 large & 4 small containers, Dried banana chips--1 sandwich bag full

Finishing the basement!

YAY!!! I am sooo excited about our new project! We are going to start on finishing the basement today!

We have Craig Anderson (one of our stake presidency, and a long time friend/teacher of Deric's) coming to help us. He loves doing these kinds of projects to keep him entertained, so he is doing it for FREE! He is coming over tonight to help us "draw up" plans of the layout and what supplies we will be needing to get. I also get to pick a color for the bedroom at least...and probably the hallway. I dunno if we will get all the bathroom finished with our $500 budget...but we will see. I'm just excited to get everything moving down there after 4 1/2 years in this house! Having a clean space down there will be wonderful. :-) (Plus, when we get the other bedroom done we can move everything over from the "guest bedroom" now and tear up that carpet and paint and all that in there!

Today, I am going to do some scrapbooking. I am hoping to be caught up to 2009 soon in the next couple months. Even though I have Halloween and Christmas projects to start on too. With Molly staying up until 11 every night, I might just have to use 8-11 for doing my crafts. :-) Slowly I will figure out life. And have a great balance of everything.

Days gone by...

I just want to say that August flew by in a blink of the eye. I feel like it didn't actually happen...life is crazy like that.

We are trying to catch up on everyday things. I have a yard to attend to, a trailer to deep clean and winterize, a batch of tomatoes to turn into sauce, and I really want to get the scrapbooking done that I have pictures in piles for downstairs. At least I got the 9 loads of laundry done from our trip.

I offered to help Heidi with her kitchen and living room when she paints it. I don't know why but I have been craving that. It is nice to have a project to "entertain" me with someone to talk to and kids for River to play with, and something 'creative", and not in my house...haha! Plus, it's service (her birthday was last weeks so this is my gift to her). She is really excited about it, having a motivator now.

I went to playgroup yesterday and kind of broke down and vented to Diana and Heidi. River had thrown a very large and hard toy at Diana's youngest girl's face. Go River. So, I started crying...I am so tired of her acting up! I can't control her with a baby in my arms. I did decide afterward that I need to work on my tactic with her. I need to be more loving throughout the day and then find ways to discipline her without "beating" her. I feel like such a failure when I hit her back after she hits me or Molly...that can't possibly work. Ah, but the motivation to really start doing better is wavering...someday, somehow, I will do it. Time out may start to be important. I think I will make a time out rug and sit and watch her and make sure that if she gets up I put her back...over, and over, and over again until she stays. Diana said that it worked with her oldest. We shall see what I can find at Zion's market.

I AM SOOOO STOKED FOR ZION'S MARKET!! I cannot wait! It is better than Christmas for me! Of course, this is where my Christmas shopping starts...I get crafts and things to make my gifts and it just works out fabulously! I have a shorter list this time...but it will still be fun to see what all I can find. Maybe some things to finish our bathroom downstairs with...who knows! Only one week!

Ah, back to screaming babies...while whitening my teeth...yes.

Home Alone...well, sort of ;-)

Well, we have come to the end of the 3 weeks of visitors. We loved having my Mom out for a week and my sister, Ginny, here for 2 1/2 weeks. Some of the highlights included:

-Going to Ravali's restaurant with my Mom, sister, and my girls...good eats!
-Getting a 2 hour long pedicure with just my Mom. :-) It was super fun and my toes are a fabulous blue-green color! We got to talk and relax without the distraction of kids. Our ladies were fun to get to know. :-)
-We went to the Hogle Zoo with the girls and my Mom and Sister. River loved all the animals! She especially loved the giraffe baby, elephant, and the monkeys. She has been talking about them ever since. :-)
-Going to the mall with my girls and my sister...though River got ornery I was able to get a super cute purple shirt from Aeropastale and a fabulous bright green button down shirt from American Eagle. We ate soft pretzels and Orange Julius too...mmm.
-Camping in the Uintas from Thursday night-Sunday morning this Labor day weekend with Ginny. It was really fun. We went on a walk around the lake and took some great pictures. We went fishing a few times. I almost caught 3 fish...but lost them all. :-/ Deric caught 2 fish and someone gave us one, so we were able to have enough for all of us to have one. Mark and Joan were there with us too. They were sick, so we didn't do a ton with them. We had dutch oven one night that they cooked and another we cooked. We played "Dollar, dollar, dollar" with them with pennies. We watched movies, read, wrote in our journals, and just relaxed. It was nice, but it was also nice to get home. :-) On the way home we blew a tire on our trailer and were on the side of the freeway for an hour while the cop, Deric, and Ryan worked on getting the spare on and the other one unwrapped from around the other tire. It was scary with the trucks and cars rocking the trailer as the passed at 80 miles per hour. We were very happy to get going again!
-Gena and Cal's baby shower we had Ginny watch the girls and went and enjoyed some treats and company.
-Ginny watched the girls a bunch and let me run around...Mom was great this way too! Thank you both so much!! It made it so much easier with not having Deric around for that week!

I'll miss everyone, but I am happy to be able to start my schedule with the girls. :-)

Molly Sage Abel...

She is so flippin' cute! I love little babies! I just want to cuddle her up and love her forever. I know it goes fast, so I am trying really hard to enjoy all the little moments. It is kind of difficult to divide my attention between River and Molly. But, like Deric said, at this point my main priority is to take care of the needs of the newborn. He has made sure to play with River whenever he can. I also make sure I read to her at nap time and bedtimes. She is jealous of Molly, so it's a bit tough when I have to hold and feed her during the day.

Molly Sage Abel was born August 7th at 2:34am, she was 7lbs and 19.5inches long. She came out wide eyed and looking around. She cried only a little bit when they started rubbing her to get her to cough. She had inhaled a little bit of amniotic fluid when she was coming out. So, they had to put her on some oxygen for a couple minutes.

I wasn't able to have her naturally because they had to induce me. It was a terrible ordeal...I was battling depression and the worst pain I have ever felt in my life. I screamed so loud during every contraction that I couldn't scream loud enough to satisfy the need. I am not a screamer, so this was pretty terrible. Deric was nearing mental breakdown. He really tried, but it was too much for both of us. I went from 4pm to 1am without the epidural. When I got it I took a nap. (The epidural was the worst part of the whole experience due to a cocky anesthesiologist and being manhandled during intense contractions and shaking.) When I woke up about an hour later my stomach was flat, like she was gone! I was worried that I had given birth without realizing it and they had either taken her or she was there. I couldn't feel anything at all, not even an urge to push. But, Deric ran and got the nurse and she checked me quickly since Molly was about an inch and a half away from being born. I breathed her down. Then at the last minute the monitor died and they got worried so Julia yanked her out. Ouch. The placenta wanted to stick around, so she pulled it off...also ouch. Then because I wasn't contracting down she had to knead my stomach. HUGE ouch. The experience was a lot better in a lot of ways though, being able to watch, no tearing, very little pain down there afterward, caring nurses, and a perfectly healthy baby that I got to bond with in the first few moments of her life. Next time it will be even better.

I hope that I can get to the point of going to bed at a decent time so I get more than 4 hours of sleep each night. I am dying.