Kiersten’s Blog

It’s 9:20 p.m.  The kids are both asleep, each in their own rooms.  For the first time in almost 9 months, I get to sleep in my own room without a baby in a pack and play next to me.  Of course we’re not moved in yet.  But this is the first night that all of us are staying here together.  (Taylor and I spent the night once last week.  We couldn’t find blankets bigger than throws and we froze all night.)  I’m “borrowing” the internet from a neighbor.  The floor’s not quite done.  I have some touch-up painting to do.  We have baseboards to install.  I still need one more toilet installed and somehow to fix the two leaky toilets that are already installed.  I have some major cleaning ahead of me in the coming days, or maybe even weeks.  But I can’t tell you what a major feat it will be when we’re finally done.

Let me give you a rundown of things that have been done.  We spent the first few days trying to rid ourselves of the previous owner.  Then we had to rid ourselves of his junk.  First up was scraping and re-texturing the ceilings.  Then came the paint.  That has been a major undertaking.  We painted all of the ceilings (some of which are vaulted) and all of the walls.  I feel as if I’ve been painting nonstop for the last 2 weeks.  I hope to never have to do it again, but I know that won’t be the case.  We will soon have all new floors (new vinyl in the bathrooms, carpet upstairs, laminate downstairs).  The fireplace has been re-done.  It was a really ugly stucco.  It’s now partly dry-wall.  We’re going to add tile and a mantle.  We added track lighting and ceiling fans and changed some ugly light fixtures.  We have all new baseboards.  We have all new appliances.  The fridge hasn’t arrived yet, but the range, microwave and dishwasher are just fabulous.  Someday soon I will paint all of my cabinets, but that’s a job I’m willing to put off for at least until we get settled.  As for now, we still have most of our stuff stored in our garage.  Miraculously, I found everything we need to sleep over.  I can’t wait until we’re done.  Anybody want to visit?

P.S.  Pictures will come.  Someday soon I’ll find the cord to connect the camera to the computer.

P.P.S  I can’t forget to mention all the help we’ve received!  Taylor’s family has been irreplaceable with all of the help that they have given us with the kids and also a place to sleep for the last 2 weeks.  Also, I don’t know what we would do without the help from my uncle Jack.  I’m sure most of the stuff we’re doing would not have happened without him.

Yesterday we closed escrow.  Everything was done.  I was really excited.  Until this morning.  My feelings changed from excitement to frustration when I pulled up to our new place and the former owner still had his junk all over.  I got more and more angry, the more time I spent there this morning.  We were supposed to start working on the place today.  Instead, we spent the day trying to figure out how to get the guy out in record time.  I turned livid when he called me and told me that he would be out by 4 or 5 but for sure by 7 a.m. TOMORROW!  Finally, at 5 we went over to change the locks.  Lucky for the guy, we were unsuccessful.  Sometimes I feel sorry for the guy.  He has a whole bunch of junk and nobody at all helping him.  But then I think, he just pocketed a bunch of money.  He could hire movers.  He could at least rent a truck.  He gave us this sob story about how he didn’t have any money to get a truck until this morning because escrow didn’t pay him until today.  He has a lot more sob stories than that but I’ll spare you all of the annoying details.  The point is, none of these things are my fault.  We have had a long, frustrating escrow, so for the last 2 months, he has known that he should be out soon.  In fact, he expected to be out a month ago.  Why things weren’t more organized, I don’t know.  The point is, it’s my house.  It’s time for me to start working on it so I need him OUT!

Here are some pictures to give you an idea of our situation.  As you can see, I have my work cut out for me.

This is what the kitchen looked like at 10:30 this morning. He was supposed to be out 3 1/2 hours earlier. Not even close.

Ashton's bedroom

Now for the moment we’ve all been waiting for.  Okay, now for the moment I’ve been waiting for.  Behold, the keys!

I have to admit, I don’t like poetry.  If it doesn’t rhyme, I don’t get it.  London asked me to read a book today that I bought from the 10 cent rack at the library and have never read.  I thought it would be good to expose her to some poetry and I didn’t think that 10 cents would break the bank.  The book is called “Cornflakes” and is a bunch of poems by James Stevenson.  Here’s an example from the book.  It’s called Junkyard.

When the wind blows

Through the junkyard

You can hear the hubcaps

C l a n g.

Really?  I don’t even know what to say.  I just don’t get it.  What’s so amazing about that writing?  I did find one of the poems a bit amusing.  This one is called Paint Box.

I’d like to make

One painting

Half as nice

As my paint box

Left alone.

I think that is kind of cute, but I don’t get the lines at all.  How in the world did Mr. Stevenson decide where to start a new line?  I guess it’s just not my thing.

Ashton and London in their Christmas outfits

I love the Christmas season.  I love the decorations.  I love the baking.  I love the shopping.  I love the friendliness of people around me.  I especially love the traditions I set with my family.  Hopefully I’ll remember all of those traditions for next year because they’re not happening this year.  Usually at the beginning of the Christmas season, London gets a new nativity to use as part of our Christmas decorations.  They don’t do much as far as decorating goes, though, because she’d rather play with them.  I haven’t decided yet what Ashton’s yearly decoration will be.  I’m open for suggestions.  Anyway, she doesn’t have a new nativity this year.  And I’m not sure if she’ll get one.  A tradition we have always had in my home growing up was counting down with the advent calendar.  I was so excited last year to make a lovely advent calendar, but that hasn’t even re-surfaced this year.  In fact, the only Christmas decoration in our apartment this year is a tea light holder that’s been on the piano all year because we forgot to put it away with the Christmas decorations last year.  Of course, London still has her nativities (or as she calls them, her “baby Jesus”) that she plays with.  She would never let us put those away with the rest of the Christmas things.

This year is different from most.  We’re moving right before Christmas.  In fact, we’re moving this Saturday.  We’ve been putting off buying Christmas gifts because we don’t want to pack them.  Because our escrow has been pushed back so much, we’re moving our stuff on Saturday, but won’t move it into our new place, since we won’t be finished with the repairs yet.  So we’ll move our stuff into the garage and spend Christmas with Taylor’s family.  Santa will have to stop at Granny and Papa’s house this year instead of ours.  Taylor and I will be back and forth between his parents house and our house, working on painting and floors and ceilings.  So much for time spent with family.  Next year Christmas is at my house.  I’m going to get a tree and put up lights and bake and bake and bake.

I can’t believe my baby is 8 months old today!  He had a checkup with the doctor, who confirmed that he is, in fact, a huge baby.  He weighs 21 1/2 pounds and is 29 1/8 inches tall, putting him in the 80th percentile for weight and the 90th percentile for height.  How we got such an enormous child, I’ll never know.  I love this age.  He has become so much fun!  He hardly ever complains (except a little lately because his third tooth just broke through).  He loves to smile and will give the cutest grin to anybody who will pay any attention to him.  He rarely laughs and it’s pretty much only his big sister who can get him excited enough to go into hysterics.  He thinks she’s the greatest thing on the planet.  She thinks he’s pretty cool too.  I hope it stays that way.

He’s just learning to crawl.  He thinks his time in bed is supposed to be spent practicing crawling.  He’s a pretty good little scooter, although he goes backwards much of the time.  Mostly he wants to just move his legs and not work his arms.  Lately he has decided that the changing table is a really cool place to explore.  As soon as he’s set down, he tries to roll onto his tummy and heads straight to the wipes box, where he proceeds to push the button for a wipe to pop up.  Luckily he hasn’t learned yet how to get the wipes out of the box.  I’m sure that time will come soon enough.

His favorite toy is his exersaucer.  That thing is a life saver for me.  I can put him in it and he is as happy as can be, playing and jumping for at least a half hour.  His other favorite thing to do is eat, hence the hugeness.  He has made vast improvements in eating solids from when I first started feeding him real food.  Now he doesn’t make a mess at all.  He puts his hands out to the sides, twirling and gripping them as he eats.  In fact, he’s so non-messy that I often feed him without a bib at all!  This is a huge turnaround from when I had to strip him down to his diaper and bathe him after every meal.

He has finally started to sleep through the night, giving me some much needed sleep.  He still gets up around 11 for a bottle but then won’t eat again until 7 or so.  I can handle that.  Sometimes he still wakes up, but only long enough for me to put his pacifier back in his mouth.

Oh, and one more thing I forgot to mention.  He got one shot today: a booster for his seasonal flu vaccine.  He didn’t cry.  At all.  Not one tear, or even a wimper.  What a tough little guy!

Ashton is such a fun little guy and I’m so happy that I can be his mother and watch these changes as he grows.

We had our ward Christmas party tonight.  Last year London went home crying because Santa didn’t show up.  When we found out that Santa wasn’t planning an appearance again this year, we weren’t happy about it.  Neither were our friends.  I have a good friend who did a lot of campaigning in favor of Santa.  And he showed up!  We were so happy, as were the kids.

The party was a success.  I do, however, have a few complaints.  First of all, it was too late.  It supposedly started at 6, but we didn’t really start eating until closer to 7.  By this point, the kids were all running around, chasing each other because they were BORED!  Then, of course, they didn’t want to settle down to eat.  When Santa finally showed up, it was around 8:30 or so–way past bed time for most kids.  I was surprised at how well-behaved Ashton was.  He was so tired the whole time, since he is usually in bed no later than 7.  I spent the majority of the evening trying to get him to sleep and the rest of the time chasing London around.  But the food was good and it was fun, as always, to hear the primary kids sing.

They also had a nice little program, which I missed, because I was trying to get a baby to sleep.  I will say that this years party was a definite step in the right direction from last year.  Now if it would have just been a couple of hours earlier…

I thought I would write a little update on the home-owning situation.  We’re still in escrow, in case you were wondering.  It started mid-October.  We were hoping to close before Thanksgiving.  Then it was the end of November.  I’m hoping now that we’ll be in our new place before Christmas.  It’s a good thing the government extended the first time homebuyer program or I’d be $8000 more mad right now.  We’ve been waiting on a number of things.  Apparently we should have loan documents by the end of the week.  The problem is, we’re getting a loan from the city and they require certain standards to be met before we can occupy our new place.  Some of the repairs are the responsibility of the homeowners association.  They went in to repair some things and weren’t able to, because the seller had his stuff in the way.  Of course, the seller won’t move out until we close.  I don’t know why that keeps him from moving his stuff out of the way.  He’s just kind of a mess (and a slob).  So we’re kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place.  Supposedly the HOA is going in to do repairs tomorrow.  We’ll see if they get done.  For now, I’m frustrated, but happy that I can see a light at the end of a LONG tunnel.  Who ever said buying a house would be fun?  Oh, nobody who has bought a house.

On a brighter note, if you haven’t seen our new family photos, check them out here.  I love the way they turned out.