Happy 2014!

HELLO again! I haven't posted a blog since October! I've decided I'd like to try to post a blog on the 11th of every month because 11 is my favorite number. I enjoy typing updates but I'm not a great blogger.

Most people that keep up with me on Facebook would probably already know most of what's going on but it's easier to look back at what happened in a blog. I also really need to try and limit Facebook. Most of the time is just causes me extra stress that I don't need.

Let's see where to start?!... I always feel like I have so much on my mind.

We're moved into our "Forever Home" I say forever home because we literally will not be moving ever again. Of course I'm sure things could change but I don't think things will. If you don't know we moved from our house in Kent City (miss the house but not the land) to Bailey. The house we moved into is Josh's parents house. Jill and Jerry remodeled the downstairs and are living downstairs. Josh and I did some updates upstairs and are living upstairs. We live totally separate but live in the same house. We each have our own entrances. Everyone loves Jill and Jerry's new home. They love it and it's perfect.

Our old house is still in our name but will probably go into foreclosure. We still have some things to get from there as well.

To be honest I'm still at the I (like) our new home stage. There still something to me that still doesn't make it feel quite like home yet. I like that we have no neighbors. I like the laminate flooring, I like our new toilets, I like that we have more square footage, I like that we have a bigger laundry room, I like that the girls like it. I like that it seems cleaner than at our old house.

The things I "don't like" or just things that need to be done to make things complete.- We need more home décor to make it feel more cozy. We need some blinds and curtains for the windows. We have mice in our kitchen. I have to get use to the dryer - sometimes I have to dry clothes 3 times. We haven't figured out the perfect temperature for the heat. Our bedroom always gets too hot if it's too high or some of the rooms in the house are too cold if it's too low. We need to get a new knob thingy for our master bath tub before we can use it and it's a big tub that we'd really like to be using. I think it's a cheap fix but not sure how easy the part would be to find. Our master shower is pretty small so we've been using the girls bathroom for showers. We are using Josie's room as storage until we can get the downstairs storage opened up. We have 2 living rooms, one that we're calling our living room and one we're calling the girls living room. I wish the set up was a touch more "company friendly" so it didn't feel so separated. I'd like our living room to feel more cozy but not sure how to "correct" the layout. So nothing major just still don't feel quite at home yet.

I'd really like to have some sort of open house but I just don't feel like the house is ready yet.


Josh - Josh is loving his job at Auto Value on 14 Mile in Rockford /Cedar Springs-ish. I am so glad he is happy there. He has worked there long enough to be able to get insurance now. I'm thankful for that but that takes a huge chunk out of his paychecks. I know God will provide and I'd much rather him be happy than worry about money but I just wish insurance wasn't so expensive. Pretty soon he's going to be checking with his insurance to see if they would cover any type of Weight Loss Surgery (I'll get into that when I share my update). He has a great boss. Like yesterday I got stuck in a long driveway in Howard City. She let him drive her vehicle to try and help me and he still got paid for the entire time he was gone. He works hard for us. I love him infinity.

Abby (7) - Abby continues to improve at school. They've had such a long break but her reading is improving. I made a chore chart on their new dry erase board from Christmas so I wrote Daily: Read - to remind us all that they need to read daily. I'm not much of a reader myself so I often forget. Most of her chores include cleaning her bedroom, doing laundry, dusting, vacuuming, and cleaning their bathroom and living room, and making her bed. She is doing a great job with the chores. She did great on break now we just have to figure out a better schedule for after school. She has free time then homework with Grammy at 4:30 - then I'm hoping chore time until Josh gets home and before we eat dinner. Then bath, read, bed at 8 or 8:30. She is the best sister to Josie. She is a huge help. She's a second Mom and is a great babysitter. She loves her so much. The other day she was holding Josie while she was sleeping and she said Mom, I feel like I love her so much I just want to squeeze her. =) She lost another tooth last night. I swear it seems like that's her 15th tooth she's lost. She already has all of her permanent front teeth so this one was on the side. (I posted a pic to fb).
She got a bean bag chair for Christmas so she enjoys sitting in it and watching TV. We also just got her hair cut shorter. It's so thick and gets snarls easily so it's the perfect length. She has an American Girl doll baby that she enjoys dressing - plus she goes to an American Girl doll club at school. I love her infinity.

Jasmine (6) - Jasmine is reading faster everyday. She enjoys learning new words and try's sounding them out by herself before she asks what the word is. When she gets homework on Friday nights she likes to do it immediately when she gets home. She loves the new dry erase board. She likes to act like a teacher and play school. She also has the same chores as Abby and does very well with them also. She's a great cleaner. I keep telling her one day she'll be my sidekick on my cleaning jobs. =)
She is also a great big sister to Josie. Josie is a touch heavy for her so some times it's cute to see her kind of dragging her in her arms to get to the next room because she really wants to bring her. She has only lost 2 bottom teeth so far and one of her top teeth is loose. She was pouting this morning because Abby got a dollar from the tooth fairy. She's also been constantly wiggling the top one in hopes it will soon come out so she can get a dollar. She has an American Girl doll too and goes to the American Girl doll club at school. She's always been into playing with dolls. One of her favorite Christmas presents was her Bible from Grammy. I love her infinity.

Josie (9 months) - Josie is still our smiley sweet girlie. Our schedules change daily so she hasn't really been on that great of a schedule. As I said before her room is being used as storage so right now even though I've tried putting her in her crib we've stopped until we can clear out her room. When she was a newborn she slept great sometimes up to 6 hours straight. She slept in a co-sleeper or her rock n play. Then as she got older she got up about every 3-4 hours. She then moved into her pack n play to sleep. We never used her crib at out old home. Now she gets up every 2 hours and the only thing that puts her back to sleep is if I nurse her. I know she can not be hungry. I've been so tired some nights I end up just letting her nurse while I'm laying down. Of course I'm sure most of you are saying - this is why she nurses is because every time she gets up you nurse her back to sleep. Could be - I don't know. Sometimes she sleeps better if she's sleeping with us. So some nights I just say forget it, put her in our bed. I feel like hey if we're all sleeping who cares where is it?! I don't really like that though. I'd love to say I put her in her crib at such n such a time and then she only wakes up once. I know Abby and Jasmine both use to sleep with us and now they don't unless we let them have a sleepover. But even sleepovers now, they sleep on the floor. Another thing about getting up every 2 hours -- If I'm cleaning she'll go the entire day up to 10 hours without nursing and she's totally fine. Or like the other day Josh watched her and she wasn't fussy once. She's not really fussy with me but I can't get anything done without her wanting me. I'm sure all this will pass and she'll be sleeping in her own room and I'll miss it like crazy. I'm not sure how much longer nursing will last so again I'll miss that too. I know things could be much worse so I'm thankful to have my 3 healthy beautiful girlies. Josie crawls really well and she walks near furniture but she's not walking yet. I remember Jasmine walked at 9 months. I just got my tattoos updated with Josie. My wrist I had a heart symbol with 4 heads to represent Josh, Me, Abby, and Jasmine so I added a head. Then I tell the girlies I love them infinity so I wanted to add an infinity sign. Then on my leg I added a teal heart, daffodils because those are the March flower, and her name. I'm going to get her name fixed to look more likes Jasmines name. (posted pics on fb). Josie will drink out of a straw sippy cup but that's it. She says a lot of ba ba ma ma and mostly daddy dada etc. =) I love her infinity.

Me - Can I just leave me off? ;)
First off I want to say I feel extremely blessed to cleaning for wonderful families. I am now to the point of thinking that cleaning is what God wants me to be doing. It's going very well and I enjoy cleaning for people. I'm cleaning for 5 families and one business. The families are all so generous, caring, kind, the list goes on. I love them.
I'm also trying to loose weight. AGAIN. I don't think there's ever been a time when I haven't wanted to loose weight. Josh and I are going to go to a weight loss surgery seminar on Jan 23 and see if we'd qualify for surgery so we'll have to see where that leads. I have a new very special friend who means the world to me. Her name is Shannon. I knew her before I went on a ladies retreat with Church but we walked together and since then have kept in touch regularly. She has been a huge encouragement to me. She is helping me loose weight. I'm down 19lbs since Sept. I haven't had any pop except Vernors when I was sick. I still have my bad days but she helps me during the tough times too. I'm so thankful for her friendship and help. Its means a lot to me that someone is so willing to help ME... some times I think WHY ME!?
Speaking of why me?! Some days I feel so depressed. Maybe it's the weather, maybe it's the house stuff, could be our finances are horrible. I don't know. Maybe all combined.
God is Awesome and He loves Me and I fail him daily - I don't want to be depressed. I have everything I could possibly need. He always provides and always will. I still worry too much, think too much, etc. I do feel loved most days though and I love love. =) <3

This is pretty long and I've reached my - I don't know what else to say point.
Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and Christmas. HAPPY NEW YEAR. Anxious to see what God does for us in 2014. I'm sure it's going to be great.

Family Updates

Josh -

Josh got a NEW job! He is now working at Auto Value in Rockford and really likes it.
He was working at Dan Pfeiffer Auto and was really dreading going into work everyday so he decided to try and find something new. He didn't feel respected among other things - he especially hated the long drive. He said the other day he put $25 in his gas tank to get to AV and made it a whole week without getting gas again.  He had interviewed at VanAndel & Flikkema (sp?) and Auto Value. Auto Value hired him and then the same week VanAndel wanted to hire him as well but he had already accepted at Auto Value. So proud of him. He's doing a great job.

Lately we've had this joke going around where he says "How's that for your handyman?"
One day when we were talking about remodeling at his parents house I had said that guys are different. Some are mechanics, some are tv guys, some are handymen, some are sports guys, etc and I had said that maybe he wouldn't want to work in the basement because he's not really a handyman...or something to that effect. Well I didn't actually mean that he is NOT a handyman I just meant that he doesn't do construction type stuff - he's more of a tv / sports guy. So now everytime he does a "handyman" type "thing" or if he fixes something - he'll say "How's that for your handyman!" LOL
He's getting better hahahahahahahaha  LOVE YA INFINITY babe.

Abby - 2nd Grade

Feeling like a horrible Mom lately. I'll explain in a minute. Abby is doing much better at school. Here's why I'm feeling like a horrible Mom... I'm still trying to come up with a schedule of some sort for after school where the girls can both do school work / read but --- ok DUH moment...
Ever since we've been reading more with Abby she's doing better in reading. IMAGINE that??!!
So I just feel awful that we didn't read more often before and maybe she'd be farther along by now. I don't feel like all of her learning "issues" are our fault - but hello she's not going to know anything if we don't teach her or help her. I've never been much of a reader my self and I'm horrible and math  but I do not want her to end up the same way. Right now it's been free time after school until 4pm, then homework, then reading. We are a tv watching family which sometimes I wish would change but it's Josh's release after work/dinner. The girls also take a bath at night so I should read after their bath. If you have any schedule ideas - I would greatly appreciate them. She LOVES her teacher (so do we). She still is an amazing big sister and second Mom. Love her infinity.

Jasmine - 1st Grade

She is doing wonderful on her homework. She always wants to get it done on Friday right when she gets it after she gets home from school. She is so quick and just "gets it". I'm anxious to hear how they both are doing at conferences coming up in November. She is my cleaning mini me. I think since she was born she's had a little of my OCD which I've never professionally been diagnosed with. I'm just sure I've got it in some ways. We call her Miss. Detail and she's always been a fan of patterns. The funny thing is though is that her room is not clean most of the time BUT if she cleans it - she cleans well. I can remember ever since she was little she'd put things in a pattern or in a straight line. If something belongs to someone it's got to be in it's correct place -but yet her room is a mess. Weird! LOL. I'd have to explain my OCD in a whole blog post hehe. She's going to be our "tough" one I think. You should hear some of the things she says. Miss Detail Stinker. She also has her very sweet side though, every morning she remembers to give me our infinity sign before school. I want to / need to try to spend more one on one quality time with both Abby and Jasmine.  Love her infinity.

Josie - 6 months (will be 7 on Oct 26th)

How is she almost 7 months already? Crazy. We started giving her some baby food. She's had bananas, oatmeal with breast milk, green beans, squash, apple/strawberry/bananas. She does better eating those foods when Grammy feeds her while I'm away. Otherwise when I feed her at home it's a little after she's breastfed so she's not as hungry. Grammy uses it as a substitute while I'm away. She's been going longer between feedings now so I've been cleaning at homes that are farther away. She still seems to wake up every 3 hours at night. Some days I'm more tired than others but I love nursing so since she won't be doing that her whole life I'm enjoying it for now. I'm sure I'd get several comments on this but she's still sleeping in her co-sleeper. We've tried her crib a couple times and she stays in their well but then I've just put her back into her co-sleeper. Occasionally she'll sleep next to me in bed as well. But most of the time she sleeps in her co-sleeper. My opinion is that if she's sleeping (not in our bed) then why does it matter where. Obviously we'll have to move her permanently  because she won't fit in the co-sleeper soon but I'm thinking we'll start once we're in our new home. She's sitting up well and so close to crawling. She still smiles all the time and the women in our family are her favorite. She also has this new cheesy / teethy grin that is adorable. She's my punky punk at the moment. I've been calling her Punker. I used to call her baby cakes. Funny how nicknames start. Not sure why Punker. LOL Hoping to nurse until she's 1 so I don't have to buy formula. Love her infinity.

Me - I'm going to be the big 3-0 on 11-11.

How am I going to be 30 already? Crazy. LOL I'd really love to go to Freighters restaurant for my birthday. It's a new restaurant. Maybe a ship would not sail by though because it will be November. Anyway google it if you haven't heard of it. I always hate when I want to update about me. I'm a horrible writer and always feel so negative about myself. I've got so much on my mind lately that I never feel like I can really adequately explain it all. I guess I'll just post random facts.
1. I wish I would have grown up going to church more often. I read blogs and the posts are all about reading the bible or bible verses or how God is working in their lives and bible stories etc and I feel like I don't know anything. I feel like I don't pray enough, I don't know enough, I don't read the bible enough, the list goes on. I recently started a prayer journal to get in the habit of praying more but even that I haven't updated in a while.
2. I still think way too much about past places I've worked / people I've worked with. Drives me nuts. I just want to forget the past and move on with it all.
3. I'm still struggling with loosing weight and that is also driving me nuts. I keep telling myself I need to loose weight and then I eat and eat and eat and eat and then feel guilty. It's a vicious cycle. I hate it.
4. I love cleaning for people. You'd think my house would be spotless - NOPE. Drives me nuts.
5. I think I'm going crazy ;) (drives me nuts)
I guess those are the main things on my mind. I'm anxious to be settled into our new home so I don't feel so stressed.

Cleaning -- I got 2 new jobs this week... super excited. One is a business.

This is my cleaning schedule

JR - every other Tuesday
MC - every other Tuesday
JE - every Thursday
SL - every Thursday / flexible
SC - every other week (day flexible)

I'm blessed with amazing people to clean for and I love it. I'm also still subbing when I can.
I'm also cleaning with a friend at the 2 new places and she's great. I'm so glad she was willing to help.
I'm thinking if I found maybe 1 more home I'd be full.

This is long - but it's all I can think of at the moment even though I know I'm forgetting everything. My mind races when I'm trying to type these.

Much LOVE to all who read.
I now have my blog public again - so if you do read this please LIKE my facebook post so I know or COMMENT. OK ?? =)