Thanksgiving 2009

Thanksgiving was a wonderful time for us.  We got to celebrate with my side of the family in our new home for the first time.  It was a great time to just enjoy each others company and watch all the cousins have a ball.  BTW Thanks to my friend Kelsey for giving me the idea of using goggles to cut onions.  Jeff always makes fun of me, but it is so much better than crying the whole time I cut them.  The girls did get to have a slumber party in the living room one evening.  Kadyn had a BALL playing with the cousins, and it was such an nice break for me to have other people to entertain Brennan and Kadyn, so I could get things done.  The cousins loved carrying Brennan around and doting all over her.    We enjoyed our time watching movies, driving through the festival of lights display, playing our new Wii games, doing a little hiking, watching the kids open their Christmas presents from Grandma and Grandpa early, driving around Branson to take in the sights, walking around the Branson landing shopping area, watching the fire/water show at the landing, doing the river walk at the landing, celebrating Brennan's first birthday (a little early, pics for that coming later), making and decorating birthday cupcakes and sugar cookies, decorating our new Christmas tree and an old one too, and just enjoying each other's company.  Of course there were a few brave souls who did a little black Friday shopping. And Jeff and I were able to escape on evening alone to go watch the movie 2012.  It was the first time we have had a night together since before Brennan was born.  

One of my favorite memories of this holiday will be listening the little pitter patters of girly feet going down the stairs to hop in bed with Grandma and Papa early the morning after the slumber party, my poor Dad.  Good thing he has his first Grandson coming soon!  We're all excited.  

Overall, all the stress of getting the house settled and ready in time for our guests was worth it.  It was relatively a stress free holiday.  It is always so hard to see everyone go.  I long to have my family closer.  I see how much fun the cousins have together.  I imagine how wonderful life would be to have Grandma and Grandpa around to take the kids for a night so Jeff and I could have a date once in awhile or how my sister and I could take turns watching all the little ladies so we could just have time to get things done.  Sigh....maybe someday.  Anyhow, it was a good time.  I am very very blessed.  I am very very thankful.  I am so happy with my life.

Such a process

Can I say, moving is such a process.  It baffles my mind to even think that once upon a time I actually moved into a new place and had it settled in one day!  This move has been very very stressful.  Never have I wanted to have help with the kids more than now.  I am usually very self sufficient as a mother without help, but this has been so so difficult to do without someone to help with the kids.  There is so much to do and consequently I am confessing I haven't been the best mother..  I suppose I put this all on myself as I volunteered to have Thanksgiving for my whole family.  However, to my defense we were supposed to close the end of October.  This would've given me so much more time to get settled.

If we could've just moved into a house that was completely done it would've been a much easier process.  However, the money we saved doing some of the painting will be well worth it.  We paid a little extra to have a nice neutral color painted throughout the entire house, but I wanted to have a few different colors in the bedrooms so that is what we have been up to this week in addition to all the unpacking, assembling furniture, and organizing.  I have been so unsettled ever since we moved out of Springfield that I NEED to finally feel home again.  I just can't stop moving and getting things done.  I can't relax until I can sit down and breath a big sigh and know that finally.....I am home.  For the first time, every improvement we do is for us.  No longer are we painting rooms thinking, this will help us sell someday.  We finally have a home that we will be in for  a very very long time and it's a good feeling. 

The first few days were very rough on the girls, especially Brennan.  She was so unsettled and her emotions were all over the place.  It was hard to find time to sit down and give the girls mommy time for I knew that some things had to be settled to function like our kitchen and bathroom. I also began to get sick 2 days after we closed.  Add to this a big lack of sleep and it made a big emotional mess for all the Bilberry girls.  For some reason the first thing to go for me when I am sleep deprived is my patience.  Consequently, I haven't been quite as accommodating to some of Kadyn's preschoolish behaviors as I should be.  Tonight was probably the worst.  I'll spare you the details.  Let's just say, that by the end of the night,Kadyn was in tears and I was in tears too. 

Part of my stress level has been increased due to a few problems we have with the house.  We knew after the inspection that we have two leaks under two of the sinks. I currently have bowls catching the water until it is fixed.  We also were supposed to have a heat pump installed to help save cost in electricity.  When we closed we agreed to hold part of the earnest money until the builder made good on the fixes.  By contract he has until tomorrow to get it done.  He has yet to show up.  I really hope he shows.  I'm ready to have a fully functioning home.   

We had a few mishaps with paint the first few nights.  Jeff accidentally bought me oil based primer which didn't become a problem until I went to wash the brush in the sink.  It stuck to everything like glue: the brush, the sink, my hands.  I was all by myself; Jeff had the girls.  I was afraid to turn off the water because I didn't want the paint to dry.  I was afraid to touch anything because the paint was stuck to my hands.  Eventually I decided it was worth it to scrap it off my hands with a steel wool pad so I could at least use my hands to call Jeff and tell him to pick up paint thinner. Then there was a mishap with the pink paint in Kadyn's room.  Lets just say that after 2 coats on the wall and 3 trim jobs we realized why the paint looked so wet and shiny all the time, the guy gave us semigloss instead of the satin I requested.  We had to redo it again. This also made us realize that the entire house was painted in flat paint after we specifically requested satin and paid extra to have the paint of our choice.  Grrrr!

Add to this list the fact that the faucet in our master bath came shooting off one evening as I took a shower.  We tried to fix it but it just kept coming off and leaking. 

Oh and then there is the fact that when we tried to hook up our washer, we discovered that the builder didn't cut a hole for us to put our waste pipe so we had to figure out how to do that ourselves.  After the first wash, it came detached from the washer and leaked a HUGE puddle into the basement and all over the laundry floor (laundry is upstairs).  Finally got that fixed and then the water lines to the washer started leaking.  I worked on that all day today and still haven't been able to to get the leak to stop.  I HATE plumbing.  Anyhoo....add to that my lack of handiness when it comes to installing blinds, making it all the way to target only to forget my wallet, going into target and finding they were out of what I needed,  and other such things silly things makes for one very bad day. 

I'm so sorry this is such a downer of an update.  You would think that I would be estatic right now.  After all I have a NEW home that we actually fit in and I am no longer in that awful apartment.  Don't get me wrong, I am very happy that this step in our lives is finally happening. It has been a long long wait.  I just wanted to say that the process of moving, for us, this time has been a stressful one.  I'm ready to get through this transition and settle.  I'm ready for life to get back to some kind of normalcy.  I'm ready to sit down on the floor with the girls and play without having a list of thousand things that I need to do racing through my brain.  The time will come I know.  Hope I can hold it together long enough to get there.  Regardless I just want to end this post saying, I am blessed.  Through it all and all the trials, I am deeply deeply blessed and I don't for one minute want anyone to think that I am not appreciative to our God for the great gift he has given us.  I have just had an incredibly tiring and stressful week and I need to vent a little bit. 

Once things calm down a bit, I'll try to post some pics.  Until then.  Good night.

Next time

Just a quick update to say we made it to closing day.  At 4:00 today we will be the proud owners of another home.  Hopefully this home is a keeper for many many years.  I am relieved anxious and just plain READY.  Kitchen is almost entirely packed.  Was hoping to have the entire apartment packed by now but ran out of boxes.  I will have to unload the packed ones and then take them back and pack some more tonight. 

Our inspection report came back yesterday and it showed that there were a few leaks under some sinks (easy fix) but also that the wrong furnace unit has been installed.  Apparently we were supposed to have a furnace with a heat pump.  This is supposed to save us a lot of money in energy costs.  I'm not sure if it was just a mistake or whether the builder tried to pull one over our eyes.  I'm trying not to assume the worst on that one, but the important thing is that we caught it and are getting it addressed as soon as possible.  There was also some moisture in our crawl space that we need to keep an eye on.  I'm hoping it's just because we had torrential rains without gutters and it won't be an issue anymore.  It may mean we need to bring in a little more dirt to put around the house.  Figures that even in the very end there would be issues. 

The next week will be a busy one.  After we get everything over the painting begins. I'd like to get the girls' rooms done first and then an accent wall in the dining area and our bedroom.  After all the painting is done and the house is settled I have to start planning and getting ready for Thanksgiving and Brennan's birthday party.  My parents and my sister's family will be joining us this year; we will be celebrating Brennan's birthday a week early but I really wanted to take advantage of having the whole fam together and here for it.  My side of the family rarely gets together at the same time.  We're lucky if it happens once a year.

Kadyn has her flu shot today and I am sooooo nervous about it.  She found out she was getting one last week and she has been flipping out about it ever since.  I have tried bribing her to chill out but it is not working; how do you convince a child to let you hurt them, at least that's how she see's it; shots....HURT.  She doesn't seem to remember this morning what is going to happen.  Shew!  I think I will just drive to the doctor's office, distract her with a sucker and her teddy bear, say a little prayer and hope for the best.  She'll figure it out as soon as we get the doctor's office I'm sure.  I'm about 95% certain I will have to sit on her to get the shot in.  Wish me luck.  I hate this. 

Anyhow, the next time I blog I will be a home owner......Yippeee! 

****Sigh******

Yesterday night I got the well deserved treat of walking through our house completely finished.  There was a couple of pleasant surprises.  We have really nice framed mirrors in the bathroom.  The faucets actually look classy and not cheap.  The light fixtures also look class and not cheap.  There is a huge long fluorescent light in the kitchen; I won't have to cook in the dark anymore.  The door knobs look classy and not cheap.  About the only thing that I could complain about during this walk through was the placement of the chandelier in the dining. Needless to say, our table won't be centered under it or we would always be tripping over the table. 

Of course there are a few other things that were disappointing which we noticed before it was done, but I'll spare you.  I'm sure over time we'll fix it to meet our criteria.  Overall, this is the best house we will have ever owned, and I am still blown away at what we are getting for the price.  We couldn't come close to touching this type of house already built and lived in when we first came up.  All existing homes in this price range were mostly smaller fixer uppers; we were taking a gamble that it would all work out because no one had heard of this builder.  It was a stressful process, but in the end it was all worth it.   I'm so glad it's almost over.

5 more nights in our apartment.  Tick...tock....tick...tock!   Sigh.

Teething blues

I've got the teething blues.  No I'm not teething but Brennan sure is and it's been a LONG day.  After two weeks of her on and off again whining with a lot of ear scratching I decided better safe than sorry and took her to the doc again.  Good news is there is not an ear infection.  Bad news is, she still hasn't popped those darn top teeth that she's been working on for a couple of weeks and it's starting to jack up her nap schedule too which causes even more fussiness and the cycle begins..  This is really new territory for me.  Kadyn really was a champ when she was teething.  She did struggle a bit with the molars, but never with the other teeth. I must say, I'm not a fan of teething.  Motrin doesn't even seem to help that much and I'm not a huge fan of keeping them on drugs anyways.  If only I could magically make them all come in at once.  Then all this would be worth it.  I can't imagine what the next several months are going to be like if she keeps acting like this over breaking in only two teeth at a time.  Thanks goodness for Kadyn.  I must say, she's very good at distracting Brennan from her druthers.  Perhaps that's why God gave her to me first.  She didn't need help teething and she's so helpful when Brennan's teething.

You would think the girl has a good pain tolerance considering I went ahead and had them give her the flu shot while we were there and she didn't even cry.  A miracle really.  I think that was a God thing because Kadyn was just about in tears knowing she was going to be getting hers next week.  For her to see little sis get one and not cry was a HUGE blessing.  We wanted the H1N1 vaccine too, but they didn't have any that were preservative free.  They thought they would be getting them next week.  So hopefully we will get all of it taken care of next week for both girls.  I'm sure you've heard of the controversy over mercury in the preservative vaccines and it's link to autism.  There's a lot of studies out there and they are all turning up different conclusions.  It's hard as a parent to decide what to do when you have all this information out there pulling you in different directions.  All I could figure is that it would be worth one extra weeks wait to get a vaccine without the controversial perservatives.  I'm not sure I could ever forgive myself if one of my kids got autism and I had gotten the controversial vaccine with preservatives.  I would always wonder. 

Anyhoo....sure hoping Brennan (and I) can get some relief from the teething blues.  It's wearing this mama out.

Weight/wait lifted

Ahhhh....did you hear that.  It's a big sigh of relief.  I feel as though a big weight has been lifted because our wait has been lifted, if you know what I mean.  We FINALLY have an answer.  God has answered our prayers.  God is good.  Our house is set to be COMPLETELY done tomorrow.  Everything has been installed and tomorrow is just a routine check to make sure the air conditioner that was installed today works.  It appears as though we are going to move our closing date to a week from tomorrow.  I really don't care anymore about everything that happened.  I'm just glad to forget about it and move on.  I feel badly that I let it get to me so much, but I am such a worry war; my apologies for using my blog to do so much ranting.  It helped me to just get it out of my system. 

Anyhoo...I told you I'd let you know when I found my sanity.  I think it returned today.  You have no idea how much contentement I feel in my soul just knowing we are going to have to a place to live come December.  It is a scary feeling not knowing where you will reside in a month.  I, of course, let my emotions get the better of me and imagined the worse case scenarios. I'm so glad I didn't have to travel that road even though I know God would have provided somehow.

Although we still have to get through closing and moving all our things, I don't anticipate any hiccups.  For those of you who have kept us in your prayers.  Thank you so much. It's been a long 5 months.  I never expected it to be this difficult to live in an apartment with two children.  The lesson I take from this....it's easier to do apartment living when you're single or newly married.  Avoid living in an apartment with children at all costs.  Here is my rational for this conclusion based off of my personal experiences here:
 
1.  Children make lots of noise whether you like it or not and your neighbors may not be so understanding  
2.  Children....correction, children's stuff takes up lots of room, and apartments don't have very much room.
3.  Neighbors can be very very noisy and wake up sleeping babies
4.  Neighbors can smoke and your children can smell it through the vents
5.  Neighbors aren't always careful about the language they use and your children can hear it


6.  You have no control over the filthiness of the people that lived there before you.  Therefore, your crawliing infant will be crawling all over filthy carpets getting stains on her socks and pink pants.
7.  You have no control over people pulling into the parking stall in front of your child's window in the middle of the night and shining their headlight beams in the window
8.  You have no control over people's car alarms going off 10 feet from your children's windows at night. 
9.  You have no control over whether your neighbors treat their animals for fleas and they can wind up in your apartment on your kid's head.
10. And for the top 10th reason, you have no control over your neighbors period and can be woken up by the police knocking on their door at midnight because of a call reporting a "fight."

In the end,  we did what we had to do.  I'm not sure we could have done things any differently considering our circumstances.  I know it will all have been worth it.  I'm glad it's finally coming to an end and I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.  Thank you sweet Jesus.  We're moving on.

Dealing

In case in of you were wondering how all our house drama panned out, all I can tell you is no news is our news.  We thought we'd have answers last week.  Last week came and went and we had no answers.  The house sat untouched the entire week.  From what we can tell the gutters, doorknobs, and air conditioning unit outside are still needing to be done.  We have contacted the builder but he isn't giving us any answers as to the hold up.  Friday I was quite emotional about it all.  I'm getting really tired of getting hopeful about it all only to have those hopes come crashing down because I'm told over and over again, just wait a little longer, a little longer.  It will be done this day, no that day, no two more days, yada yada yada.

I had some huge dramatic blog post prepared, but decided to spare you.  Just know I'm dealing.  Somehow, I'm dealing.  I assume we will have a house within the next couple weeks, but at this point, I don' t have faith in anything I'm told about the house.  I am of course worried we do have a lot of money tied up in this house that we may not be able to get back if something falls through.  My parents are flying in for Thanksgiving, my sister is coming up too hoping to see our new digs.  I told our apartment people we would "for sure" be out by December.  At this rate I'm wondering if that will even be a possibility.  I would be embarassed to go in there and ask them yet again for another month providing of course they don't have new tenants lined up for December.  I just don't know how to feel about it all.  Logically speaking they should be able to finish the last few things in a day or two, but why haven't they?  Why has it sat untouched for a week?  Why won't they answer our quesitons?  A girl has to worry when the lines of communication are disabled.

Praise God that we were able to sign our lease for the month of November.  Here's hoping that we have answers this week.  If I can get answers then I can move on one way or another.  I hate living life in limbo.