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Tuesday, January 22, 2013

We are getting there!

 We are so close, can almost see the finish line....well, we can see the finish line, but it's just right at our noses!  Less than two weeks and we can finally start using this little beauty!


 Nick and I had our walk-thru/orientation for the new house last Friday.  There are so many cool, new things that these new houses have these days.  Tank-less water heaters, better A/C units, pest control unit that is outside that just shoots the insecticide throughout pipes around the house, so they don't actually have to come in and spray the inside of the house anymore, pretty cool!
Our walk-thru took quite awhile and but I think everything should be ready to go to close Friday.
Friday was a gorgeous day and I just had to take a picture of our backyard.  Nick and I are so thrilled that we picked the lot we did.  I know the dogs will bark their brains out but I love not having anything behind us.  We are also the only house on our little street that chose to put in a gate so we can access the walking path.....best decision, I think!
 See these lovely chandeliers?  Yeah, we didn't pay for those :)  We paid for just the basic chrome light fixtures but they accidentally installed all these nice oil-rubbed bronze light fixtures in our house and they asked if it was ok to just leave them because it would save time.  Uh....gee, sure you can leave those much nicer light fixtures in our house...we'll let you :)


Pretty much our whole first floor of the new house is wood floors, which we are so excited about....but wood floors means area rugs....which means, $$$$$$$!!!!!!
I had been looking for nice, inexpensive area rugs for the longest time and finally came across rugsusa.com.  Right after Christmas all their rugs were 65% off.  We got these three rugs for under $300 and are so thrilled with how they turned out!  I am so excited to use them!

 Saturday mornings are our "family day" at the chiropractor.  The kids and I always go together and Nick goes at different times during the week but we go all four of us on Saturday mornings.  The kids were so excited, as usual.


 I have been feeling amazing the last week or so, a little sore after the first couple adjustments but I haven't been feeling like an old lady with arthritis anymore.  I feel so healthy and have more energy.  Now the kids.....wow!  Again, after Finley got adjusted while she was sick, she immediately started acting like her normal self.  She has been so happy, goofy and it just seems like there is this new pep in her step and same with Cole, just seems happy, more compliant....I can just tell that my kids feel good.  Makes a mom happy!

 Saturday evening we headed over to Beau and Stacey's for dinner.  Stacey is ready to deliver baby Walker about yesterday so we took them dinner and hung out for the night. 
I really don't know how that baby fits on Stacey's body but isn't she the cutest pregnant girl!  Just this little women's-sized basketball.

I don't know what it is, but when Cole and Grayson get together, they are absolutely hilarious.  They always want to have pillow fights and wrestle.  Usually Cole doesn't do stuff like that but him and Grayson play so well together and even though they are wrestling, they are pretty gentle and have so much fun together.
 From the time Cole was itty bitty, he has always loved being at Beau and Stacey's house and even asked the next day if we could go back. :)

I didn't have school yesterday so the kids and I ran a few errands.  Had to go buy 23 gallons of paint so Hector can paint the inside of our house next week.  I'm not even sure how we are going to fit 23 gallons of paint into our car!
We ended the weekend with some yummy milkshakes and some happy kids!

Thursday, January 17, 2013

Happenings

 So much has gone on in our household the last couple weeks, I've been horrible at documenting it!  We've had major sickness, then healing, then black eyes, then houses almost getting finished, new doctors, whew!!!!
First off, I had to post this picture.  This is just our typical Cole.  He loves to wear my sunglasses and he must get his mama's sensitive eyes because he's always complaining about the brightness.  My poor parents had to replace all the lights in their house when I was younger because I'd always complain that they were too bright.  So I totally get it, Cole!!!
 What a diva he is!!

 Speaking of black eyes....these pictures don't really show it too well but a couple Sunday's ago, we were headed out the door to church and Nick and I were running in different directions and all of a sudden Finley is crying.  Normally she falls, cries for 2 seconds then is fine.  Poor thing cried the whole way to church so I knew whatever she fell on was pretty bad.  Nobody saw her fall or what she fell on so we had no clue how to help her.  When we got close to church I finally started to see her shiner appear in the corner of her left eye.  Good thing she didn't get hit IN the eye!
 This also shows how sad she was because she never has her paci anywhere but in her bed and that is the only thing that would console her.

Hate Sick Babies:
A couple weeks ago, Finley started getting a runny nose...no big deal.  She was happy as could be!  Well, a week ago Sunday, she woke up at midnight and was crying.  Usually I can just go into her room, lay down with her and she'll go back to sleep.  She wasn't going back to sleep.  Next thing I know, she threw up (yes, on me).  With how congested she had been the last few days I really thought it was just drainage.  She continued to throw up a few more times that morning.  
I was so thankful to Tracy for staying home with Finley those couple mornings because we just started back at school after Christmas break and there was just no way I could take off.  Between Tracy, me and Nick we had to tag team a lot that week.
This is what I did all afternoon for a couple days....poor baby!!!  Nothing worse....
 I decided to take her to the doctor just to make sure it was nothing serious and to make sure that it's normal for them to throw up when they have drainage like that.  The doctor looked at her throat and was pretty certain it was strep but the test came back negative but she gave us an antibiotic anyway because she was pretty convinced it was strep.  I gave her a dose of medicine and she couldn't keep it down so I stopped giving it to her and she was just getting worse.  She then started getting high fever, was so lethargic, wouldn't eat or drink and I was so scared she was getting dehydrated.  I was about 2 seconds away from taking her to ER to get fluids.  I'm pretty certain she had the flu but we never checked for it.
This is what she did all week.  She'd sleep, wake up for about 15 minutes and cry, then go back to sleep.  It was absolutely heart-breaking!
 I think Thursday afternoon she finally started to turn the corner, woke up in a little better mood and actually walked around a bit.  She had not touched her feet to the ground in almost 4 days, she had to be carried around.  She was even in a good enough mood to put some accessories on and play with her toys a little bit.  My heart was so happy that day!!!
 She still was not eating and drinking much, had very little energy but was definitely getting better.  

Friday evening, all the guys in our life group headed to Austin for a guy's weekend and all the mom's and kids decided to spend the weekend together.  Friday we all met up at California Pizza Kitchen and enjoyed a nice dinner. 
Cole and his bestie Reece
 Some of the moms and kiddos
 Friday night, Finley still was not herself, still very weak and tired, very cuddly (which I love!) so I was getting kinda nervous that our Saturday plans were going to fall through.  All the mom's and kids were going to get together at Jen's house and have a big slumber party.  It was going to be so fun but if Finley was still feeling crummy, I wouldn't have taken her.

Our new "Power's On" chiropractor:
Earlier in the week, a friend of Nick's recommended that we try out their chiropractor because he really thought it would help Finley.  I was willing to try anything at this point.  Finley and I had a consult with Dr. Krystal, gotten xrays and by Saturday morning I was pretty desperate for Finley to get an adjustment.  I had a school competition so I was unable to take Finley to Chiro so Tracy was nice enough to take her for me.  I hated to miss her first adjustment but I'd rather her go than not go.
She had a morning appointment, she came home and took a nap and when she woke up.....no lie, Finley woke up a completely different child.  She was starving, thirsty, happy, running around, sassy...I loved it!  I could not believe it!  I definitely attribute it to our new chiropractor.  More about that in a minute.

So since Finley was so much better, we all headed over to Jen's for the night and boy did we have a good time!  The kids were in heaven!
We just put a giant table cloth on the floor and all the kids ate on it.  Way easier to dispose of everything that way!
 Finley and Addie playing with baby Berkeley
 Cole, Finley and Zachary
 James and Katie...pretty sure he was trying to pick his nose :)
 Morning mimosas :)
 Even though we had 13 kids (8 and under) and only 6 moms, we still had such a good time.  These women are such a blessing to my life and none of us can believe what a great group we have.

Dr. Krystal:
I have been going to a chiropractor for years.  It has always helped during my pregnancies so I've always been a believer in chiropractors.  So when I heard about Dr. Krystal and their beliefs, I was excited to give it a try.  She isn't your typical chiropractor, she's part of a organization called Maximized Living.  It's a Christian based organization and they really promote healthy living and she is actually a neuro-chiropractor.  They do more than just crunch your bones, they do therapy, strengthening, talk about diet, toxins, etc.  
I'm one of those mom's that hates vaccines, hates medicines, hates anything foreign going into the body and they practice a lot of that so I knew this was the place for us.  
Plus, I have never seen so many kids in this office in my life!!!  I was laughing so hard yesterday when I was doing my wobble ball exercises and I was the only adult in this room, with about 8 kids....I loved it!!  Cole is even able to do some of the therapy and he and Finley love going there!

Finley, look excited, will ya!!!

 This is what Dr. Krystal walked in on the other day...we both laughed :)
 Right now, Nick and I and the kids are going 3 times a week but after a couple months we will take that down.  Eventually we will just go every other week.  
I could go on and on about the science behind all this but I won't bore you with that but I truly believe this will keep my kids healthy and keep their nervous system functioning properly.  We are excited!

House news:
 We have landscaping, a fence, appliances...woohoo!!!  We have our walk-thru tomorrow, then we close the following Friday, the inside of the house gets painted right after we close, then we move shortly after that!  Cannot wait!  Plus, the kids are getting so excited, they absolutely love going to see the house and running all over the place!
It will be here before we know it, yay!!!

Thursday, January 3, 2013

House Update

 Yesterday Gigi's house was getting cleaned so the dogs and I took the kiddos to Ms. Sheryl's for the day and then we headed up to see the house.  We had a couple hours to kill so I thought that would be a good time to go take a good walk-thru the house.  Usually we go up there when we have the kids in tow and it's hard to really get a good look at everything when they are there.  So, yesterday was the perfect time.  
It was a little messy and muddy trying to get into the house and I know the guys working next door were getting a kick out of this girl trying to get into a house without getting her feet muddy....:)
We are so pleased with the way things are coming along and I finally took a few pictures of the downstairs.

Here is the kitchen...remember how the cabinets were stained a lovely coffee color awhile back??  They finally got them to where they are supposed to be and I love the way they turned out.  
 They installed the granite a few weeks ago but the backsplash was new and it's perfect!!!
 The backsplash
 This is looking from the kitchen into the family room
 The little desk area by the kitchen...I love this!
 Standing in the breakfast/family room area looking into kitchen
 Family room

 Yesterday during my day off, I also spent an hour at Ace Hardware picking out our paint for the house.  That's not even the time I've spent online looking....sheesh it's a big job!!!  We are meeting our paint guy at our house this weekend so he can let us know how much it's going to cost to get certain rooms painted.  Like I've said before, Nick would rather poke out his own eye than paint but we have to cut costs somewhere so we will have the professionals do the harder rooms like the kitchen, etc.  We are going to try to get everything painted before we even move in...hopefully!!

As of now, we are closing January 22nd but this is also after about 8 date changes so we won't be surprised if it gets pushed back again.