Day 3

Well, day 3 started off as a hard start. Russ and I woke up to Penelope coming into bed with us at 4:30 in the morning saying she had a bad dream. Within about 10 minutes we realized it was much more then that. If some of you guys don't know my daughter has had some kind of stomach problems from time to time. It started when she was about 1 1/2 years old and after holiday meals only. She would be puke-y the following day like clockwork. After talking to the pediatrician it was decided it was most likely heartburn, from the holiday meals, that her small body didn't know how to handle. Over time it has come and gone. But is now less often after holidays and more spontaneous. Still about 3 times a year, maybe 4. The poor thing. She hates throwing up. She will deny that she feels sick until she can't hold it back anymore. All the while showing all the other symptoms of being ill. I'm not quite sure what it is that is making her sick. Personally I'm still praying and hoping that she will grow out of it. The only thing that has been tossed around now is that it might be allergies, but it isn't consistent. If it is anything else more serious I would hate for her to have to have surgery. So I go back to hoping she will grow out of it. She stopped being sick (sparing you the details) by early morning. But her appetite, I guess, was a little poor. She kept saying all day "I feel fine, Daddy." Ahhh, my little girl.

I officially signed up Penelope for Preschool. And the start date is February 14th, she is going 2 days a week on Monday/ Wednesday until they have an opening on Tuesday/ Thursday. Tomorrow we have orientation, we will go as a whole family before I have to run off to work again. She is going to be so excited her first day of school. My little girl is growing up. Russ and I keep joking around about her entering 1st grade, as she states to us.

Austyn took another spill. I haven't seen it yet because he is sound asleep by the time I got home. But supposedly he was running and stopped his feet before his body was ready to stop and down he went. He has a little rug burn under his nose. Right when his other bruises were healing he's got another. I guess I will have to get use to it. Hopefully he doesn't end up a dear devil and give his mommy a heart attack in my later years. LOL.

I went running today after work! I'm so proud of myself. I've done a work out video after work but not gone running. It felt so good though. I've been thinking a lot about turning 30 this year. I know it still is 9 months away. I think it has something to do about not celebrating the last 2 birthdays much. I feel like I should really celebrate this one. And then I think maybe I should get more face creams or start taking vitamins. (I did order vitamins.) People laugh at me when I talk to them about it. But I want to do something "to keep my youth" (for lack of a better word). And I want to celebrate somehow nice. Any ideas? What would you do if you could do something special?

Russell again wants to be not to verbal about his day. He states he's tired from the day. I set up doctors appointments for each member of the family this month. Very excited about the things I crossed off my to-do list today. Did I tell you I also ordered a camera? Our camera has been lost for about a month now. And I need pictures up on a blog. It makes it so much more interesting. Don't you agree? And of course we have to capture Penelope's first day of school!

Day 2

Today we went to another preschool to check out before I went to work. It was very nice, but I think the other preschool is going to work better for our family. So we will be enrolling Penelope in Bright Beginnings Preschool maybe tomorrow to start soon. The start date is to be decided still. I want to be there for her first day of school. But looking at the other preschool the church that it is located at is doing a 3-6 year old T-ball! It looked so fun! Russ and I are still debating it a little, because that would be a lot of taking the kids around to take Penelope to things. T-ball has an afternoon practice and Saturday game for every week for 8 weeks from April to May. It's only 8 weeks. But I'm not the one taking the kids.

I went off to work after that and Russ took the kids to the park. According to Russell, the kids got dirty and wet. Austyn likes going down slides head first. And Russ is informing me that he went down by himself. Oh boy. Well, either way at least they had fun today. Russ had fun disciplining Austyn about messing with the water cooler. Well, that is what I got from Russ about his day with the kids.

I had a good day at work. I met a patient who was a runner. He could run a quarter of a mile in 71 seconds (or something close to that), and he said he has slowed down with age. I asked him for some pointers for training to run faster and longer distances. He really inspired me. I was thinking about getting off of work and going running. And then I got off work at 9:30 pm and my feet and my legs hurt from being on them all day. Maybe I'll go running tomorrow before work. :/

I am thinking about letting myself have a pedicure if I stick with eating right for 2 weeks. I'm like a kid I do better with rewards. LOL.

All Russ is giving me for himself is "He is working on himself"

Blogruary

Well here we go...I've always somewhat considered blog-a-day things that I've seen my other friends do. But never have actually committed. With moving away I feel like I should post more. Plus this month is the shortest month, so that makes it easier on me.

Today was my day off, and it seems that I try to fit everything I possibly can into a day off that I can. We are adjusting well enough. I miss being home with the kids. The kids seem to be just fine now with me leaving for work. It took Austyn about 2 weeks to adjust to that. After tossing up whether to enroll Penelope in dance class again or preschool, we decided to ask Penelope what she wanted more. She stated and begged to be in school. And then continued to say that she is going into 1st grade (her cousin, Emily, is in 1st grade). Russell tried to correct her to no avail, so we left her thinking she's going into 1st grade. I have 2 in mind, I toured one with her today and she loved it. I feel a lot better about preschools then the feelings I got from day cares. So we will have to wait till Austyn's 2 1/2 years old before he could go to this preschool.

Austyn climbed out of his highchair today and ended up with a big bruise on his forehead. He got a black eye from tripping while holding a cup and the cup lip hit the under part of his eye. He looks like he has been in a bar brawl. LOL. My poor baby. He sure is a toddler. But I guess he's a boy.

Russell is doing well. He is doing pretty good with the kids all day and taking care of the house. We recently got a program that goes over "fast carbs" and "slow carbs". If anything it will teach him more about a true diabetic diet. Hopefully we can start his schooling summer or fall at latest.

I am enjoying my career. Trying to work hard to loose the holiday weight plus maybe 5 or 10 more pounds that I didn't loose from last year. But I have a while before I hit the pool in a bathing suit. At least that is what I keep telling myself. I started a women's bible study today, Esther by Beth Moore. I've done it before but I don't mind doing it again. It's always tough being a women (the theme of the study). : )

Russell and I want to take our kids to the snow since it is so close to us about 1 hour away. Plus they got some snow outfits from my mom from Christmas. We went to Sports Authority today and got some awesome deals on some essentials we needed. The whole family still needs snow shoes, Russ still needs a jacket, and of course a sleigh. Plus I told Russ we needed some chains for our tires. And at that point he stopped in his tracks. LOL. I guess we will conquer that road when we get there. We still have to do more exploring of the area. There is a lot to do here. We are starting to remember more names of streets and their relation to one another, which helps a lot.

We most likely can't qualify for a home loan until I'm off the probation from being a new hire at work. We are still looking at listings. Now we have more time to save some money and get our bearings on the area. Of course in the meantime we are drooling over houses that we see.

We found a church that is slowly feeling like home. The people in the church have really welcomed us in and befriended us. Slowly we will find our nitch in the church in the mean time we are being blessed! :D

Off of us, I have a friend who gave birth today. Congratulations to the Loper family! They have entered into a family of 4 like us. So happy for them.

MMXI

We met some friends and they introduced us to some other friends. Anyways, we were actually invited over to someone's house for New Years! Yay! We had a good time hanging out and playing games before the clock hit midnight. At which point Penelope turned into a pumpkin and was in desperate need for her own bed. LOL.

Here are some pictures from that night.

Penelope playing with some of the kids at the beginning of night a board game called Sequence. I took another picture of Penelope but she just kept telling me to "go away". By the way, we played the adult Sequence and it was fun. The women beat the men 3-0. Just sayin'.


Russ enjoying the game with the guys. Don't ask me who was playing. But I know it was football. And I learned at this point that there are a lot of different bowls. In my defense Russ doesn't remember which bowl it was either. LOL.

Paul and Kimberly

Robin and Gary (Robin is my co-worker in the OR)

Russ and I. Below is the best picture I have of Penelope. Sadly I just noticed I didn't take any of Austyn. He was asleep in the pack 'n play in the guest room by 8 pm. And I don't think I remembered my camera till after that. Poor guy, he's the second child. But there are going to be many more years to take pictures with him.

Family portraits

I have a wonderful friend who took some amazing pictures of the family! She took some great candid shots too that I included. Some of them aren't in the right order but you can get the point. I highly recommend hiring her if you ever need a photographer.





















We are doing pretty well adjusting in fresno. I made a friend at work who works in the OR at my work and she invited us to her church. Afterward we hung out at her house and the guys went and played Basketball. It was a lot of fun!

I really enjoy my work. People are really nice there. One of the hospital educators, who isn't into the Christian religion, stated she could tell there is a Christian spirit at this hospital. And then she stated, "You can tell the difference between people who believe in Christopher". She thought Christ stood for Christopher. I loved it! Right now I have been in a room a lot of the time studing and policies and procedures that I have to learn. Tomorrow I get my feet wet for at least half the shift. Woohoo! I have been burning the candle at both ends. I get up early for work and have several moments throughout the day where I am exhausted. My last time is right before the kids go to bed, but I am in need for the bedtime routine. And just as they fall asleep I get my second wind. Oh well, I'll get some sleep, hopefully....

Russell is adjusting to staying home with the kids. We are still waiting for his transcripts to come in the mail so we can get him on a waiting list. It will help the more we get out and get into a routine. We haven't quite figured that out yet.

Christmas time is here

We got our tree up! See isn't it pretty. Yes it isn't exactly like the trees I have done in the past but this maybe took all of 1 hour to put up and together with of course the help of a little girl who put the decorations at only her eye level, no higher and no lower. It is a little more then the 3 foot tree I wanted to get that already had the tinsel on them. But those trees were really 1 foot at best and had a total of 3 decorations on them. So instead I got this. It made a little girl happy. Who, by the way, has been talking about a tree all this season. We might have to do a new Christmas tradition now that she seems to be old enough to help out. Austyn has been asleep so he hasn't seen anything yet but the lights, which he of course wanted to hold so we couldn't place them on the tree. At which point we took them from him to decorate the tree and he cried hysterically.







Penelope posing before the tree! LOL.




Here is the official picture of the tree:


Not a whole lot to report. We still have a little bit to unpack. But it's not been unpacked more out of procrastination then anything. We both love the new apartment. I think it is slightly bigger then our old place by maybe 100 or so more square feet but it seems bigger because we are all on one floor. Fresno has been treating us well. They are really nice here. The people I've met at the hospital are really nice. I'm just doing hospital orientation so far, but I'll start getting my feet wet on monday when I get to start orientation on the unit.

We tried to go to church wednesday, but the service was canceled for the holiday time. We ended up stopping by another church but haven't really found our new place to call "home". With the holidays around the corner it's going to be hard to get an idea on whatever church we "try out". Oh well....

In the mean time, Russell is learning his way around town a little. At least finding the grocery store, home depot, best buy, target, stuff like that. I am just learning my way around the hospital and probably just as confused as I was before going to the grocery store. Though I did find a Fresh and Easy. I love that place!

Journey

I am recently reading a book called "One in a Million: Journey to your promised land" by Priscilla Shirer. At least reading several pages a week when I am have a moment of careless activity where I can just put my nose in a book with nothing else I can accomplish at the moment. However every time I pick it up it resonates within me. In one of the passages she elaborated about how God had promised a land of milk and honey. She thanked God of course for the milk. One of the choice "drinks" that could sustain infants and toddlers. Something that has so much nutritional value in one tall glass. However she was glad that God didn't stop there. That He didn't leave the promise land to simply a description of "milk". Because there are a lot of joyous things that honey bring. Honey, though it does carry some nutritional value isn't taken for its supplement to the diet. But merely for the outlook of flavor or enjoyment. He promised both a sustainability and a enjoyment. Bounds. Overflowing milk and honey.

With that said, as I enter into this new phase of my life. New town. New job. New people. New church. I follow God's leading to a place that He has for me. That from this vantage point seems as if the land I am to enter is flowing with milk and honey. The idea of all it has to offer I am holding onto with both fists. But when it comes to the 12 spies that went into the promise land. I would like to think that I am like Joshua or Caleb, firmly planted and sure of that providence. No wave in my faith. However, I fear I am not that firm. I don't think I am cowering away like the other 10 (which, sadly, for the most part are known as the other 10 spies). But somewhere in the middle. Somewhere in the middle, moving forward but all the time scared of the unknown and then scared of losing the unknown. So here I come LORD. The wavering one of little faith. The one who seems too scared sometimes to move forward but too scared to move back. Let me have faith like Joshua and Caleb. Let me be sure. Make me remember that one more assurance you already gave me. The so many answered prayers. The clear lighted path I am still scared to trot upon. Let me move forward, without being scared of the unknown or scared of losing it. Not in the middle, but standing firm like the two did that got the promise land for all it was, flowing with milk and honey.