Almost TWO Years??!!

As I am sitting here on Christmas Eve I realized with a jolt that I still have a blog!! Apparently it's been close to two years since I have last posted. I am going to do my best to catch everyone up as much as possible then do what I can to keep it going.

Me:
I am no longer with the City of Vancouver, I took another position with Clark Public Utilities. I quickly realized that customer service isn't my niche so I applied for another position and got it! I am the administrative assistant for Fleet. I work with a great group of guys and my schedule is M-F 8am-5pm.

Dan:
Dan left his job and WaferTech after he accepted a position with BNSF. He has been there since May 2013. In July, he left the Air National Guard in favor of spending more time with family and staying on this side of the globe.

Liam (13):
Liam is well into his seventh grade year and is loving all of it. He still procrastinates a bit (don't we all?) but his grades have gotten better and he even received an award for Student of the Month! Since Dan and I are both working full time, Liam is home before/after school. He still spends about half his time with his dad.

Pippa (2):
Miss Pippa is fully potty trained now and we are having a blast with her. I'm astonished at her vocabulary on a daily basis. You can have a full "normal" conversation with her. She surprises me every day. Pippa is in daycare at Nancy's again (Liam's previous daycare) - she's like family to us. She misses Liam when he is gone and is annoyed with him when he is around. :-)

Our family has had some huge changes this year, 2013:
Dan's father, Dewey, passed away in January
We both started new jobs/positions in May
My grandmother, Florinda, passed away in July
We bought a new house (and moved) just last week!!!

We are fortunate enough to be able to afford both houses for while. Our hope is to clean up the "old" house and put it up for sale early in the New Year. Even if we make no money from the sale of the house, it will be so nice to not have to worry about it anymore.
We found a new house in Ridgefield still (same school district - I promised Liam) that is on acreage (4.45) and has chickens and a creek! We spent our first night there on Thursday and we are in love. We knew we wanted this house the second we saw it, it was perfect for our family.
We have been on a warpath to pay off all of our debt (starting last May). Most all of our debt is student loans, then we have my car and our homes. We have been plugging away as much as possible and are down about $20k in 6 months!

Pippa at our family photo shoot in October 2013

Liam at our family photo shoot in October 2013

Pippa and Liam swinging on the beach in Seaside

Big brother helping out his sister at the Esther Short Park fountain.

Okay, that was the quick and dirty update to bring you to where we are today.
This Christmas Eve my dad is coming to visit and we are having our big dinner. Dan is at home right now smoking a turkey and we will have scalloped potatoes, sweet potatoes, veggies, rolls and pie. Tomorrow we will open gifts and Liam will go visit with his dad. I hope to take lots of pictures of the kids, present opening, chickens and house to get everyone up to speed.

Where Does the Time Go?

I know it's been a long while since I posted and we have had so many family changes I don't even know where to start!

First, my job was cut from full-time (40 hours) to half-time (20 hours). While it may sound like I now have a ton of extra time on my hands...I don't. I'm busy looking for a full-time job and/or working to make our ends meet. We should be okay but I have a tendency to stress about money more than I should. We've made less than this before, had more debt and were fine. However, I have been able to claim a partial unemployment check and sell quite a few items on Ebay - who knew it was so easy?

Receiving his Arrow of Light before crossing over

In February, Liam crossed over to boy scouts and has been camping several weekends since. It's an entirely boy-run program so it's a big change for us. We are not allowed to tell them to do anything, they have to figure it out on their own. Hopefully it will help make him a more responsible person overall. He's really enjoying it too. Last week was his first band concert (he plays the trumpet) and the entire group sounded surprisingly well. Also last week, he had his "Math is Cool" competition and his school team took first place! My favorite part of all this is that these are activities he asked us to do! We never told him to do any of these, he wanted to do them. It makes me so proud.

First Place Team!

Miss Pippa has recently started walking, sort of. She takes a few steps here and there. With the camera on they are tentative but when nobody's looking, she walks from place to place with ease, it's pretty funny. She also finally broke through tooth #8! Now she's an even four on top and four on bottom.

Next up for us? We are just plugging away right now. Dan is working some mandatory overtime at work right now (60 hours last week). He will be on active duty for a while starting April 9th. Pippa will be ONE year old here in just a few weeks. She still feels like a little baby to me so it's hard to imagine. Not sure what our plans are for her party yet but we want to keep it small.
The weather was beautiful yesterday and we spent some time outside.

Outside with my gorgeous girl

Her new favorite thing! Showing her tongue. 03/18 - 11 months

Growling like a bear!

Family Updates

Pippa had her 9-month check up on Wednesday. She now weighs 18 pounds and 15 ounces. She's a lanky 2' 4.75" tall. It's funny how she went from being 99% in weight at 10 pounds 4 ounces at birth to merely 50%. The doctor is not concerned and neither are we. If you see her eat you would question where the heck it all goes!
Currently she is still just cruising and crawling but braving it by climbing up on things a little more and by taking her hands off the furniture to play with a toy.
We had a dog behaviorist visit us last Monday because Scooby has been showing some anxiety toward her and we have implemented his few suggestions. I'm happy to say we have completely different dogs. Scooby still avoids her but you can tell he is much more relaxed about it. I feel better allowing her to play on the floor when the dogs are around now.

01/18/12 - 9 months old

She's been teething for a while now and her upper tooth finally came in! Yay for a good night sleep. Then, as I was taking some pictures of her in the tub, I noticed tooth #4 popping through too! I can't believe how fast she is growing up.

Why do they love to chew on washcloths?

Notice her bottom right, another tooth barely popping through!

Liam has one more month of cub scouts until he crosses over to boy scouts! He will receive his badge and arrow of light next month. In a couple of weeks we are going to take him to a boy scout pack meeting so he can meet all the new kids. He also started participating in "Math is Cool" sort of a math bee type club that will compete sometime before school is out in June.

Dan is still adjusting to working the day shift but we all enjoy having him around on Sundays and he is much more awake and aware during any day. He has a great time with Miss Pippa while I'm at work.

I'm still waiting to hear the details of my job. Starting to have a bit of anxiety just not knowing and not being able to plan (as usual) but there's nothing more I can do. We should know in the next couple of weeks.

...and a Happy New Year!

Pippa turned 8 months earlier in December, we celebrated our first Christmas together and she is crawling faster than I can walk!

Pippa G at 8 months

Things have been good (and busy) in our family. Dan is still working the day shift and enjoying spending his days off all alone with his little girl. I am still telecommuting on a part time basis. There are some pretty big job cuts coming so for the first time in 12 years I am applying for other jobs. I'm not too concerned about my job getting cut but it's much better to be prepared just in case. Liam is enjoying every minute of his winter break. We have been to G6 Airpark with friends twice and he's done a LOT of sleeping (I'm jealous). Pippa loves having her brother around during the days. We had to put up baby gates because she discovered the stairs a couple weeks ago. She is exploring lots of foods and prefers to feed herself. My favorite is giving her sliced bananas and when she can't pick them up, watching her bend over and suck them off the counter. I should video that!

Opening Christmas Presents

 

Check out those pearly whites!

It's Almost Christmas

I know it's been a while since I've blogged. SO much has happened in our lives.
Thanksgiving was another fun weekend. Papa Don came over and we had turkey, potatoes, veggies, rolls and lots of assorted sweets. He watched our puppies (again) while we went to the beach to visit the other half of the family for the traditional turkey-stuffing-potatoes dinner.
Around that time, Pippa started crawling. You'll have to trust me because every time I try to get it on video she stops to stare at the camera. I do have a video of her standing (she pulls herself up now) and cruising - albeit slowly. I also have another video of her and Margeaux. I met Maggie's mom, Amber, in my "new mom's" group through Kaiser. We have done some mommy/baby yoga together but we recently met for brunch at one of my favorite places, Laurelwood Brew Pub. In the video you can see that Margeaux and Pippa are having a good time talking to each other.

Dan started day shift last week so I am now working in the office for the first half of the week while he is home with Pippa and then I'm home the last half of the week while he works. I can't say yet whether or not it's better, we have both been very sick this week with colds. Pippa had a bit of a stuffy nose on Monday but has been fine since.
Liam is still doing well in school and scouts. He's been the driving force for us getting our decorations up for Christmas and he is the first one to plug in the tree in the morning. Pippa just loves her big brother and is all smiles whenever he is around. We are reading "39 Clues" right now. I'm interested in the book so he's reading it aloud to me and I'm sure it's slowing him down but I think Pippa likes it when he reads too.

Christmas is coming up and we are hosting the whole family over several days.I need to start cleaning soon. :-) Happy Holidays!

Weekend in Bend

Thanks to Travelzoo we got a great deal on a weekend at Eagle Crest Resort in Bend. All four of us made the 3+ hour drive on Friday and stayed until Sunday. We went to the Petersen Rock Garden, another quirky garden/nursery place and spent a lot of time walking around Redmond and Bend. We had some good breakfasts and some fun days. The weather was cold and windy but Pippa loved being outside so much she didn't care. Liam had fun swimming in the resort pool and Dan enjoyed some hot tub time. I got a much needed massage. We had a great family time. Thanks to Papa Don for watching our puppies and making it possible for us to leave our home for a few days.

Just wanted to write all that really quick because I have some of the cutest pictures you will ever see...right...here...

Also, for all of you family following along, Pippa is still not crawling. She's very close but she can now get to a sitting position on her own. I went in her room the other day to get her out of bed and she was sitting up and waiting for me. We have lowered her mattress so once she starts standing, she won't be able to get out (yet).

Pippa at Kids' Club - waiting for Liam to get done with swimming

Pippa and Liam on Veteran's Day - stars and stripes swimsuit

Pippa and Mom at Petersen's Rock Garden in Bend, OR

Check This Out

Thought we would shoot a cute video for you since she didn't notice I had turned on the camera. What you get is her very first "ba" syllable (check out the tongue action) and her trying to crawl. She's getting better but as you can see she's even closer to sitting up from an "all fours" position. Here she is hamming it up for all of you!