Shoes

I have been very slowly reorganizing my house. Basically when we moved in, I was still living with apartment mentality. The old ways of my organizing did not really accommodate my growing family and bigger house so that just equalled my clutter taking over. I have been throwing out, throwing things in the basement & organizing the rest. So far I love the way my towel closet looks & my entry way closet (although it could use some nails to hang the broom). Yesterday I started on our bedroom. Its going to take some time & money for it to get to what I want it to look like, but I started the process. In going through some of our closet, I realized that since I have been married (8 years in Aug), I have never bought myself a pair of shoes. I have gotten 2 pairs from my birthday from my mother-in-law & I got one pair from a hand-me down from my sister but I have not bought a single pair myself. Some of my shoes are looking pretty sad now. At least if I buy a pricey pair of shoes, I won't feel bad right. I make my shoes last so it will be worth the price for a good pair. Now in my head I can at least think of at least 7 pairs of shoes we have bought for Jason since we have been married...I thought girls were the ones that bought the shoes.

A Jewel of Thought

So I must not have too many Jewels of Thought since I haven't been writing. Life is pretty normal at the moment. As far as my job goes, I'm back on cruise mode of regular payroll stuff. Every now and again I get weird W2 questions or requests to resend it, but those are not hard to deal with and should stop by the 15th. In September I get an increase in work load since a coworker is going to be having a baby. I'm excited that I get to do some of my old jobs like bank reconciliation. Ok so I'm weird, I really enjoy doing that. There is just a joy I get when everything matches up or you solve the problem of why they don't match up. I will probably do some new things too that she will train me before she leaves. I will probably go into the office more just to get things done quicker so I will have to figure out what to do with Josh. Most of the time, I'm sure GM will take him, but depending on how often I need/want to go in I might have someone in either Gardner or Lawrence look after him. My boss said I could do most at home, but then I feel bad for Josh if I'm not giving him time.

In Josh news, he will be graduating infant toddlers when he turns 3. We will miss the weekly visits of Mrs. Nadene. He has made so much progress and I have learned a lot on techniques I can use to help him. He communicates his wants and needs very well now. We are working on expanding his vocab now. His articulation could be better, but that will come as he learns more words and I understand him and that is all the counts at the moment. In May, Josh will be going to Madison elementary 2 times a week to work on his speech and he may qualify later for more of a preschool environment. He is growing up so quickly. I am so proud of him.

In Jen news, I just had a Bday. Celebrated by eating Chipotle and making a cake with Josh. Both were yummy. I got an IPod case and I don't know the name of it, but a media center type hard drive device so that we can digitally put our movies on it and scroll to the one we want to watch. I'm excited. It will be so nice, especially with Josh's shows. They are getting so scratched up that some of them we can't watch any more. I had a nice relaxing Bday. Things I'm looking forward to...fence, vacation in Aug to UT, family reunion at my brother's new house, 4th of July, Josh going to school, Josh's 3rd Bday, 3rd book in Hunger Games Series

Growing Up

My Cutie Pie

Josh's New Room

More new Room!

Well in the past couple of months a lot has happened. In Josh news he is talking a lot more. I probably say that in every post though. He knows his alphabet and his letters pretty well. Sometimes he amazes me and counts all the way to 20. He likes pointing at everyone license plates to tell me the letters and numbers. At Target or Walmart he will count out the numbers of the check outs or when leaving stops on the curb to say the letters printed there such as no parking or fire lane. Even though he is a slow talker the speech therapist said that it is advanced for him to know his letters already so I feel good about that. As far as words go right now my favorites are library and jazzercise. They just sound cute when he says them. The phrase "ride rides" is a bad word in our home. It something Josh does with GM at the mall and he asks for it at least once a day. It just gets annoying because the answer is always no unless GM is coming to take him there. At the end of September I finished painting his new bedroom...I did it all by myself I would like to add... and we got Josh his new toddler bed. The migration was pretty easy. The next day he even put himself down for his own nap. I was amazed. I am still yet amazed that he does not come out of his room until I come and get him or I yell where are you and then he comes out. I have the perfect child. In other family news, Jason is almost done with his thesis...professor says this will be his last semester. It will be nice to say we are finally out of college! and no longer have to pay tuition! As far as my life goes I jazzercise pretty regularly and work is going alright (not stressing about the end of the year yet). I finished my new room for Josh project, but now have to clean up the pile of junk that came from closets that I moved to the unused dining room. I am the queen of clutter and junk. It just seems to appear around me. Lately I have gotten into reading and/or listening to books. Finished Austenland (corny cute & predictable), Hunger Games (loved) , Catching Fire (loved), Twilight series (again-still loved), and 3 books in a series that Suzanne Collins wrote (its more of probably Junior high level book but I like her style of writing). Some of my other hobbies have suffered. I haven't done scrapbooking or cross stitching or played games on the computer (I play WorldOfWarcraft) in awhile.

The Nightly Check

I have started a check list for myself for each day of the week. It lists what room I will focus on cleaning that day and personal goals like going to Jazzercise or reading my scriptures. There is also a check box each day for the nightly check (the downstairs is free of clutter before bed). My goodness. It works. My house has been clean since Saturday. It is such a nice feeling to wake up to a clean house. Josh does try hard to make it dirty for me, but if you stay on top of things its not that hard. Today was the day for the kitchen. It was already pretty clean. I swept and wiped off counters so then I had time to tackle the refrigerator and the left over experiments that were growing in there from dinners past. I gave it a good wipe down and I feel very accomplished for the day. The rest of they day I watched Cars (Josh's new favorite movie), colored, read The Big Hungry Bear several times, bounced a bouncy ball around the house, and during nap time started working (payroll). It was hard to sit down and get to work, but if I want fun money then I guess I must.

Anyway new things in Josh's life: We leave our shoes by the door. He likes to try them on and walk around in them saying shoe. My favorite shoe he tries on are my sandal like high heals. My new favorite word of the day from Josh is cocoa. I started calling chocolate milk...cocoa milk. I thought it would be easier to say (he doesn't try saying chocolate). Well he says cocoa. It just comes out sounding very demonic because he can't quite get the "Co" sound..it gets caught in his throat. So if you want a laugh and he is around make sure you ask him to say cocoa milk.

Terrible Twoes

So Josh has hit the Terrible 2s now. His head banging has come back when he is mad. It is so agrivating. He has also mastered opening doors & can play with the bolt lock. On the upside he talks a lot more. Still a lot of giberish but they are sounds. He repeated his first prayer (dad says 2nd...he did it without me) and it was so precious. Josh also sat through his 2nd fireworks show for 4th of July. He was a bit cranky but I think he enjoyed it once it started. In house news, I'm all geared up about moving our rooms around. I want to combine my work room with our office room and then I can have fun making Josh a toddler room. I want to paint and have a lot of fun, the only problem is Jason says he doesn't have time to move computers & the desks right now. I guess that is fine as long as he is busy working on his thesis. I instead fill my time with Josh, work, Jazzercise & Harry Potter at the moment (I'm rereading the books). Funny story the other day...I was babysitting at Jazzercise and a 4 year old asked if I had a baby in my tummy. I died laughing on the inside. 1. I'm not pregnant. 2. No one would think I look pregnant. 3. I know his mom is not pregnant so it was just weird that it came up.

Stuck in the Daily Poo

WARNING: lots of complaining ahead.....I feel sluggish and tired and stuck in the daily rut. I don't know what it is or how to get out of it. Yesterday was a full day of work & Josh. Most of work I got done the night before, but there was an extra thing they asked me to do...I did...then they didn't want it done...already submitted to the bank...it's kind of hard to undo after that even though I tried. I feel bad, although I shouldn't...they really should make up their minds...anyway that was hard to balance because it was after nap time...thank you Wall-E(Josh really liked the 1st 40 min of that show) and Ginger for help. Now lets talk about before nap time...for the past couple of days Josh will only drink milk & eat fruit = yucky slimey poo = messy all over pants...I ended up changing him in the bath tub after trying to take off his pants & getting it all over his legs & feet. After a good rinse under the facet, I scrubbed him down well. Now lets warp to later...Jason is home...dinner time. Josh will not taste anything. He needs to eat something. I don't want to go through another poo mess. We end up force feeding him some mashed potatoes. I just wanted him to taste some. He could reject later after he tried it. Well he showed us. He wouldn't swallow & then he started gagging on it until he vomited the contents of his stomach all over himself. Wonderful day. So here I am...work at the moment is not fulfilling/fun...not to mention I starting to worry about W2/end of the year returns that I have to do. I'm such a worry wart. At home Josh likes to see how far he can go with my patients. Plus the doctor has me half way worried that he is not talking yet...Although I'm not so sure I like my new doctor. And finally Jason is never home...work, thesis, gym, & seminary seems to be his life at the moment. So the next question how do I get out of this rut...Christmas music, a good house cleaning, or a day off...I don't know maybe I will try all 3.

The Missing Bling

Ok...so I will admit it now. My wedding ring was lost for about a week. I realized 2 Sundays ago after I gave Josh a bath that I wanted to put it back on. I swear I took it off that morning when I took a shower, but when I went to retrieve it, it wasn't there. I checked all the places I usually put it if I'm taking a shower, putting on lotion or cooking, but could not find it. I swear I put in on the bathroom sink so being the kind husband he is, Jason checked the pipes under the sink for me but discovered nothing. I decided today that looking in the places I thought it would be 10 times was not working so I decided to give the house a good clean. With a prayer in my heart, I started the laundry and then went to the first room I was going to tackle...the living room. While Josh sat content eating breakfast & watching his show, I picked up all the toys & vacuumed. Then I started the nit picky cleaning...organizing his toy buckets and vacuuming up the crumbs in the couch. It was the couch monster's fault my ring was missing. There it was wedged in the crack between the side of the couch and the arm rail. It was only exposed after I took off all the cushions. What a relief. Don't ask me how or when it got there. Yes, Jessica I too believe in gnomes. So does this mean I don't have to clean the rest of the house now since I found the ring?

I have this urge to go buy the book New Moon so I can read it. The waiting list at the library is about a month. I read the 1st chapter of it online and now I want more. Bella just got a paper cut..yummy blood for vampires and Edward is trying to hold off some of the vampires in his family that are not as practiced restraining themselves. Although if they did get her Bella would be happy as long as they didn't suck enough blood to kill her...she wants to become a vampire so she can live happily ever after with Edward. Edward on the other hand doesn't want her to become the monster that he is...I want more vampires!

Movin is So Much Fun!

So we are moved but not unpacked. I hate living out of boxes but I have just been so tired. We had a lot of people helping us move. Elders Quorums are great. It has been nice that Josh spent the weekend at Grandma Drapers (nice not to have to worry about him) and that my mom has helped out a lot with packing and cleaning the new house. I think we have a lot of junk and we will not be moving for awhile.

I've also had to work this weekend which has added extra stress especialy since what I'm trying to do for work is not working out the numbers don't match aaaa! An accountants nightmare. Anyway I guess I will finish it on Monday when I can talk to people and ask why those aren't matching. I just want to get it out of the way so I can just focus on my house and all the boxes laying around.

Today was nerve racking. It was our first Sunday in a new ward. I'm not one that likes to get out of my comfort zone. I didn't even have Josh to hide behind. Babies are such good conversation starters. Meeting new people is scary for me and new names never seem to stick with me. I haven't changed wards in 8 years. Friends have come and gone but I've always had a big group of people that I feel comfortable around some being closer than others. I guess I just feel awkward being in social settings where I don't know people because I clam up.

Anyway it is way past bed time so I will end this post with 2 words that I'm thankful for today.....Jacuzzi Tub