We are M-O-V-I-N-G!!!!

I've waited a long time to write this post. It's no secret that I haven't loved Illinois. I've tried. It just never happened. When the opportunity came for my husband to take a job in Louisiana we jumped on it. We get to go home!!! The hardest part about moving here has been missing my family. Now we'll be back in a place that I can see them every single day if I want to.  I am thrilled that Noah and Emily will be able to see their grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins on a regular basis. I will never ever move away again. I'm done with moving! It's so much work!

My mom is currently here with me. Joey has already gone to Louisiana to start working. The movers couldn't come until almost the end of June so it's kind of craziness here right now. I'm so glad my mom is here to help me and also to make that long drive with me. There are boxes EVERYWHERE. We are almost done packing. We are packing everything ourselves but a moving company will load a truck and drive it all down for us. That at least takes some of the stress away but man is it expensive!

I'm praying all day everyday that our house sells quickly. We can't buy a new one until we sell this one. Please let it sell soon!!!!

The only drawback to the move that I see is that I am going back to work. Trust me there will be a super long post all about this later. I feel guilty, excited, and sad all at the same time about it.

I'll probably be absent from the blog for a while, at least until things settle down.

Now I must go grab some tape and start boxing more things up! Louisiana here we come!!!

8 Months ~ The countdown continues

People we are FOUR months from Emily's first birthday. I'm already losing it! Surely there is some kind of special time control device made specifically for mothers who just can't handle the thought of their sweet baby turning one? If you know how to get one message me ASAP. I NEED it!



Nicknames~ Little Ogre (She's always making grunting grumbly sounds.), Little Patti (Her middle name is Patricia. I don't know how this started.), Emmy...of course (I think this one will be around forever.)

New Things~ She can move a round a LOT. She doesn't stay in one place for too long. Her method of transportation is rolling. We're still waiting for her to crawl. I'm fine with waiting! I know once she can crawl she will get into EVERYTHING.
She can sit up really well and only falls occasionally.
She has two bottom teeth now. She bit me once last week. I screamed because it hurt and it scared her a lot. I hope she doesn't do it again. The lats two weeks of her working on those teeth were awful. She was crying, always grumpy, and waking up every 2-3 hours at night. Several nights she was up from 10pm-2am just crying. I took her to the doctor thinking this couldn't be normal. As soon as the teeth came in she was fine. I hope the next tooth/teeth are easier on her.
I think my favorite thing she does is press her forehead to mine and giggle =)

Food~ She eats everything we give her. She LOVES eggs and pancakes. She's also a big fan of yogurt and cheese.

Sleep~ She was sleeping great, then teething happened. In just the last few days she's been going to bed at 7, waking up at 11, again at 3, again at 5, and finally awake for the day at 6:45. I'm not a fan. I'm tempted to sleep train again since we're over the teething for now (cue dramatic scary music), but with us moving in approximately 2 weeks (Post coming soon!) I know I would just have to do it all over again once we get to my moms. For now I'll just ride out the long nights. At least she naps really well. She currently has five, yes FIVE, pacifiers in her bed. This way she can always find one if she wakes up. We call them her treasures. She likes to pile them up and sleep on top of them. How this is comfortable I don't know. I usually wait until shes asleep and move them.

Dislikes~ New people. Stranger Danger!!! She clings to me and hides her face in my shoulder when she's unsure of someone. Once she spends some time with you she warms up though. She might even let you hold her! lol
HATS! Mostly baseball hats. She's even afraid of them when they aren't being worn by anyone. It's really strange. I hope she grows out of this quickly!

Likes~ Watching Bella, Books, Watching her brother do silly dances, Putting everything in her mouth!


She's just so cute I can't stand it. I had to buy de-tangling spray for her crazy hair. She hates hates hates when I pin her hair back. If I don't then it's in her eyes all the time. She doesn't like to snuggle very much. She'll sit on your lap and play but no snuggling =(
I guess she has better things to do like explore the world. When it's time to sleep she'll sit in your lap to read but then just wants to be put in the crib. No rocking allowed mom! She wants me to hold her all day and carry her around. I admit that I give into it. I know I'm creating a bad habit, but she's soooo cute!!!!

Fun things:
Going to Noah's soccer games
Aunt Tiffy came to visit

Co-sleeping ~ Sometimes it's not pretty

Co-sleeping can be a beautiful bonding experience, it can also be crazy. When Emily was a teeny baby She'd lay beside me in bed and we'd sleep happily for the most part. After a while I was ready for my own space again and she began to play at bedtime rather than sleep. She took to the crib pretty easily. Now she returns to our bed in the morning around 6:45 where she plays with us as we fully wake up.

Jump to last night....
Emily wakes up over and over again. It is now 1am. Joey is on the couch because he stayed up super late watching tv. I've had a cold the last few days. Stuffy nose. Sore throat. Small cough. When I go to check on Emily she is furious that she can't keep her pacifier in her mouth because she can no longer breathe through her nose. She has my cold.

I give up on trying to get her back to sleep in the crib. I feed her and give her Motrin. I bring her to my bed. I build a giant wall of pillows for fear that she will roll off the bed. She finally calms down and rests. Now she sleeps but fidgets a lot, I'm sure this is due to her discomfort. Although there is plenty of room on the bed there are hands in my face. Then feet are kicking my chin. Then her butt, in my face. She toots. Of course she does.

It is now 2am and I've pretty much given up hope that I will sleep as she continues to move around in her sleep. She wakes again around 3 and although I know she's not really hungry I feed her anyway because it's all that will calm her down. She now lays on the pillow next to me. I have no idea how I fit into the small space she has allowed me on the giant bed. She finally sleeps peacefully. No fidgeting. Just sleep. I watch her smile as she dreams. I haven't seen her smile in her sleep in a long time. She's been in her crib for so long. I watch her and enjoy every moment. I barely sleep at all. I can't really relax when she's in my bed. This is why she began to sleep in her crib. For now she isn't feeling good. She is small and sweet. She needs me, so she can stay. She'll be better soon and will return to her bed. For now I love watching her smile and dream.

This came out so blurry. That tiny space next to Emily is where I slept, or tried to sleep lol.

The Cradle Will Fall

I read this as part of the Summer 2014 Book Challenge.

This book was for the category: "Read a book that was written before you were born."  It was written in 1980.

How have I never read a Mary Higgins Clark book? This was awesome! Let's start with what the book is about. 

Prosecutor Katie DeMaio is admitted to the hospital following a car accident. During the night she thinks she sees someone carrying a body and stuffing it into the trunk of a car. She's not sure though. It could have been a dream. It could have been the medication. She also seems to recognize the dead woman's face. 
The woman is found dead in her own home the next day and is thought to have committed suicide. Katie sets out to find the truth about what happened. 

Katie has no idea that as she's looking for answers someone is looking for her. I'm not giving anything away by telling you Dr. Highley is the woman's killer as well as the one hunting Ms. DeMaio. You find that out at the very beginning of the book. You won't believe what Dr. Highley is up to. He's doing some serious experimentation with his patients. He will avoid being caught no matter how many people he has to kill to cover his tracks. 



I LOVED this book! I needed one more chapter and then just one more after that. It's very suspenseful and highly entertaining. You see all the players. YOU have all the information but they DON'T! It's exciting watching all of the bits and pieces fall together. You're trying to figure out just what Dr. Highly is doing to his patients as well as hoping that they catch him. It's very well written. I thought all of the different characters would be confusing but they aren't. It's very easy to follow. I'm glad Mary has so many books! Now I can read a ton of them. I can't wait to get my hands on some more.

How quickly I fall

Quick recap of Sunday night. Noah puked EVERYWHERE in his room. I have never cleaned up so much puke in my life. I spent a good 3 hours cleaning him and his room. This all after a day of listening to him tell me how mean I am. Apparently when he does something bad and gets in trouble it's MY fault when he gets grounded. Why wouldn't it be? His biggest problem is simply not listening. I tell him to do something and he doesn't do it or half does it. I tell him he has 10 minutes before he needs to brush his teeth for bed and 20 minutes later he's trying to negotiate staying up longer. I MAKE THE RULES! YOU FOLLOW THEM! It really isn't that hard.

After restoring his room to it's previous non smelly state and telling him goodnight again he tells me how much he loves me. He tells me thank you for taking care of him. I let him stay home from school just to be sure he was over his yuckiness. All day he was very kind and helpful...until.  UNTIL I told him he had played the computer enough for the day. You would have thought I'd told him to remove all of his fingernails. Immediately I went from loved and cherished mommy to evil mean lady. How quickly I fell from that pedestal. Now I'm under it. I'm being squashed by it again.  Seriously?!? After all the crap I do!


It really wears on me. I'm so tired of him acting like this. He has rules. He knows the consequences if he doesn't follow them. I feel like I've written this same thing over and over again. I try talking calmly about his behavior. I yell, which I know is bad. I try everything I can think of and still I come out the bad guy. If he behaved he wouldn't be in trouble. Our rules aren't even that strict. I talk to my sister a lot about this. My nephew is the same age and we both have problems with the boys. I really hope this is just some defiant phase. When he's mad he says he'd like to go live somewhere else. Sometimes I'd like that too. Sometimes it's just too much. I'd never actually make him go anywhere. I love him too much. I just need him to stop. I need him to listen. I'm not asking to be up on the pedestal. I just don't want to be underneath it. I'd be happy to hang from the edge. Happy to just not have him tell me how awful I am.

Conjured - Book Review

I read this book as part of the Summer 2014 Book Challenge.

This was my book for the category "Finish reading a book you couldn't finish the first time around. (You must have at least 150 pages left in the book to use it for this category.)"

I started reading this book and put it down because It wasn't really grabbing me. Plus I had Gone Girl waiting on my end table and I REALLY couldn't ignore it.
Synopsis from Goodreads:

Eve has a new home, a new face, and a new name—but no memories of her past. She’s been told that she's in a witness protection program. That she escaped a dangerous magic-wielding serial killer who still hunts her. The only thing she knows for sure is that there is something horrifying in her memories the people hiding her want to access—and there is nothing they won’t say—or do—to her to get her to remember.

At night she dreams of a tattered carnival tent and buttons being sewn into her skin. But during the day, she shelves books at the local library, trying to not let anyone know that she can do things—things like change the color of her eyes or walk through walls. When she does use her strange powers, she blacks out and is drawn into terrifying visions, returning to find that days or weeks have passed—and she’s lost all short-term memories. Eve must find out who and what she really is before the killer finds her—but the truth may be more dangerous than anyone could have ever imagined.

Review:
I didn't love this book. I didn't hate it. It was just okay.  I really wanted to love it. It had potential to be a great story, but it fell flat. The beginning of the book is pretty boring. You are fed just enough new information about the case the keep it mildly interesting. It really only picks up towards the very end. The last chapters are fact paced and keep you turning the pages. They don't make up for the long drawn out beginning though. I did enjoy all of the magic in the story and even the scary nightmares Eve has. Eve has a lot of visions throughout the book. She can't tell if the are memories or dreams. These were very confusing for me sometimes. She is sometimes herself in the visions and sometimes sees herself as other people.  Maybe they were supposed to be confusing to us because they are also confusing for Eve? I didn't feel connected to the characters in this book. That's something pretty important to me. I need to feel like they could be real. I want it to seem as if I could actually know them. I didn't think the magical worlds were fleshed out enough. The descriptions seemed too rushed and didn't help me "see" the settings of the story.  So while I had hope that picking up this book again would find me a new favorite. It didn't.

Cleaning... I need magic!

 I feel like my life revolves around cleaning. I have a cleaning schedule, but it still feels like the house is always a mess. I clean the floors and 10 minutes later there are paw prints and specs of dirt everywhere.How does this happen!!!???!!!

Just this morning I mopped the floors. Noah puts his shoes on that he wore yesterday WHILE IT WAS MUDDY OUT. He then goes on to walk around the house looking for his homework folder. Thank you Noah. Our floors are very light colored wood. We have a no shoes rule because of this. You can see how well that rule is followed.

I think laundry is the worst though. There is always laundry to do. I've contemplated joining a nudist colony but I don't really want everyone to see me  naked so...  Wash the clothes. Dry the clothes. Fold the clothes. Let the clothes sit on the table for a very long time before actually putting them away. Repeat process until the end of time. 

Noah has a habit of not even putting his clothes in the laundry hamper. He can get them right next to it or sometimes even right on top of the lid but never inside it. There seems to be a force-field around it that just repels his clothes.  He also likes to take his socks off wherever he is and leave them there. I will do the laundry and wonder why he doesn't have any socks. Later I'll find them in the couch cushions, under the bed, even under his pillow.  Why?

Cleaning becomes ten trillion times harder when you have a baby. If I napped when she napped my house would look like a tornado hit it. I can't clean when she's awake. It's impossible.

Maybe someday I'll have a cleaning lady. I'd prefer magic fairies though. I probably wouldn't have to pay them. Then again I have heard that all magic comes with a price...