Shocking.... I know!

After about 3 months I am actually back to blogging. Wow! I wonder how many people have given up on me....... Anyway, things have been CRAZY in so many different ways that I am not going to count them all. And I don't even have any pictures to post because as I went to download pictures the other day (after finally finding my camera cords) I discovered a formatting issue that made my 1,002 pictures unrecoverable!!!! I am not quite sure what to do with that, but at least I don't have to do 10 posts in a row with a million pictures (or more correctly, a thousand pictures). So, here is a verbal recap of our lives...

Shayden~ started the year in the ALPS program at the same school she went to last year, but about 2 weeks ago we switched her back to our school. She loves being back with so many of her friends, riding her scooter to school and especially loves not having even a 10th of the homework she had before. After taking the summer off, she is back into piano lessons and is already practicing her song for their Christmas program. She is also in a musical program called "Up with Kids." With the addition on our house done, she now has her "own" room and she is absolutely LOVING it! There is also a new bathroom downstairs right next to her room that we have had to explain that even though her stuff is in it, that doesn't make it "her" bathroom. She loves reading, singing, playing with friends and helping in the kitchen.

Tanner~ started kindergarten!!!!! It is still hard for me to believe that my little boy is old enough to be at school 5 days a week. The year started out a little rocky for him. For about the first week every day when I picked him up I would ask enthusiastically how school was. He would get a mopey look on his face and say "so boring, all we had to do all day was sit in our seats." Luckily, he has made some great friends and now LOVES going to school. He is learning to read and it is so fun to watch him discover that there are words all around us and that he can actually know what some of them are. Another big step for him is not taking naps anymore. Yup, Shayden napped until she went to kindergarten, so we told Tanner the same thing. There have been a couple of times where he could have seriously used some extra sleep, but he is determined to never take a nap again. Ohhh.... how I wish someone would make me take a nap!

Jackson~ our little guy has started preschool! Yikes! I am doing Joy School with him (the same program I did with Tanner). Where a group of moms get together and alternate weeks teaching. He absolutely loves going! It is 5 girls and only 2 boys (and both boys are the very youngest of the group). But that doesn't bother him one bit. He thinks he is so grown up and loves having a backpack just like Tanner. We are in the midst of potty training and having issues with #2. I'm on my third~ you think I would have figured it out by now. We'll see how it goes....

House stuff~ well, they finished the house the end of September, about a month later than they thought (but we were expecting that). They had it written out in the contract that they are not a cleaning crew and would not be cleaning our house when they were done. So, I knew not to expect a homecoming like on Extreme Home Makeover where they hand over the keys to a pristine, clean, organized, decorated house. But it was still very anticlimactic and depressing when all of the sudden one day they stopped coming and I was left with a garage full of boxes to unpack, a backyard in shambles, and a completely filthy, dirty house in chaos. There are still some projects that we are doing on our own and a LOT of unpacking and organizing to do. But it is slowly coming all together.

Part of the reason for the addition on the house was that my parents have now moved in with us. They have both found jobs up here, which is amazing and everything is going well. It is nice to have 2 more sets of hands keeping kids quiet at church, cleaning bathrooms, making dinner, etc. It is working out great and we hope they stay for quite a while.

On to me... Well, the end of August I found out that I was expecting (don't get too excited) and was overly tired and sick. Everyday life was hard enough, on top of all the house stuff I had to do. I went for my first appointment the beginning of October to discover that I had a "molar pregnancy." I had a d&c about a week later and am still dealing with some of the issues that come with this type of pregnancy. It has been so long since my life has felt normal, that I think I am beginning to forget what it is like. I haven't given up hope though.... one of these days I will get everything under control again. One of these days.....

In the meantime, this weekend I am going to dress my kids up in their Halloween costumes and take pictures again (since I can't get the first ones). So, hopefully I will have some pictures to post next time.