First Day of Preschool

Well, another year of preschool is upon us. Olivia has been talking about going back to school since the last day of school last year. I hope her love of learning continues throughout her eduactional life. She was so excited to go on Tuesday that she was up bright and early at 7:00, ready to eat breakfast, get dressed and leave. There are 16 kids in her class, 14 of which are new to her. A couple kids that were in her class last year are also in her class this year so that is nice. She goes from 9-12 M, T and Th. They have the option stay until 2:30 but she doesn't stay very often. Last year, she would stay 2 days a month when they had special lunch for the kids. Well, this year I was going to follow that same routine. Except today when I went to pick her up and she realized she wasn't staying for lunch, she started crying hysterically. I am sure all of you are asking, if she wants to stay why can't she. It is relatively costly for her to stay in extended care 3 days a week all month, so last year Daniel and I made the decision that she can stay for special lunch days which occur 2 days a month. But after today, I realized how important it is to her for her to stay and eat with her friends. So after talking to the director, I think I am going to start letting her stay 1 day a week, which is still costly but I think we can swing it, especially since I know how important it is to her. I took her after school today to buy a lunchbox because if she is going to stay 1 day a week she has to take her lunch those days. Luckily, Target has all their school stuff  50% off so she got a super cute Hello Kitty lunchbox on the cheap. And on a side note, CJ got a lunchbox too because she feel in love with a pink monkey one, although she doesn't know what she is supposed to use it for, she just likes to put it around her neck.

When we went to meet Olivia's teachers last week, I didn't get that warm and fuzzy feeling I was hoping for but I am hopeful that as the progresses I will warm up to her teachers. I am encouraged about the school year and I hope that Olivia's continues to be excited to go.

Baby It's Hot Outside

I thought living in St. Louis area my whole life, I thought I understood what hot was. Midwestern humidity is nothing to joke about. But I didn't have to slightest clue what heat was until I have experienced the last month plus in Texas. The heat here is oppressive. Today marked the 35th day in a row of 100+ temps. and the 275th day of no measurable rainfall. This past weekend, Houston set a new record heat-109. It has never been that hot in Houston, EVER.  I have talked to several people who when I tell them we are from St. Louis, the first thing they say is "I'm sorry about this heat, it is not usually like this." I hope they are right and this summer is just a fluke. We could really use some rain and some heat relief.

*According to the local weatherman, starting Thursday we will rain and cooler temps through the holiday. Please cross all your crossables that this actually happens.

A little of this and a little of that...

Whew, it is has been a busy last couple of weeks.  Nothing has really been going on but is seems that we have been super busy. Daniel's mom and sister were here at the end of July-beginning of August. We had fun when they were here. We went to the Museum of Natural Science, or the Dinosaur Museum as Olivia calls it and we also went to Moody Gardens in Galveston. It was a lot of fun. Then my mom, dad, sister and nieces came for a few days after Daniel's mom and sister left. We didn't do much while they were here except for veg out in the house, partly because it was hot and partly because Cameron had 2 days of diarrhea and my nieces weren't quite feeling up to par either. Even though we didn't do much of anything, it was still really nice to see everyone. It made our house feel more like a home.

Since we have been company free we have been working at unpacking, finding a home for and throwing away stuff, lots of stuff. Today we cleaned out our garage and we have so much trash, I am afraid that the trash men are going to leave a nasty note. But we got the garage cleaned out enough to be able to put our cars in there, so HOORAY for that!!!  Our next project to tackle is the dining room and study and finding some sort of workable toy storage for all the kids toys. But all in all, we have been making good progress.

We have our dogs back now as well. I forgot what it was like to take care of a dog and it is taking some remembering. I love them and they have fallen right in sync but the amount of hair Cooper produces is unreal. We have to keep our furniture covered because otherwise, I would have to take a lint brush to it several times a day to stay on top of this shedding. Daniel went out yesterday and purchased the Furminator from Petco. It was like $60 bucks, but it may well be some of the best $60 bucks we have spent lately. It gets the real fine downy fur of Cooper's and not only helps keep him cool I am sure, keeps him looking svelte but it seems to maybe, just maybe cut down on the shedding.

Let's see, what else. After much debate, we have decided that we need to find a babysitter for rare occasions that we would need one. My friend Misty is more than willing to help out and watch the girls, but I don't want to take advantage of her kindness. So, we found a girl in our neighborhood and "interviewed" her yesterday. She seems like a good girl and I am excited, if not a little afraid, to have a babysitter watch our girls. I say afraid only because we have only ever let family or friends that we consider family as babysitters, so this hiring a sitter thing is new to both of us.

A few weeks ago one of the neighbors from up the street stopped by to invite us to a happy hour at their home. Daniel didn't really want to go, but I convinced him that it would be a good time. So, we went and it was a good time. There were kids for our girls to play with, everyone there was very welcoming and we all got along really well. That is until CJ was sitting on one of the fabric kitchen stools and decided it would be a perfect time to puke all over the place. I guess that was a make it or break it in the introductions department. We have been invited back to their house, so I guess they were telling the truth when they said it was no big deal.

I think that is really all that has been going on with us, like I said nothing to really speak of but we have been keeping ourselves busy.

Finally!!!

Sorry for the delay in posts. We have had a busy couple of weeks. We closed on and moved into our house. We hired movers to move our stuff and all in all, they were good. I have a suspicion that they might have helped themselves to a few unopened toys that were in our garage but I don't have anyway to prove it so I just hope that I find them when we are cleaning out the garage in the next few weeks. I believe that while they were moving our stuff in the house, they had the doors open and a lizard wanted to make a home within ours. Luckily I found it on the wall late last week and caught it in a butterfly net and put it back into it's natural habitat.

We are slowly but surely getting through the mountain of boxes. Our office is full of them as is our garage. Our next project to tackle is the garage so we can get our cars in there and get them out of the heat.

We have family coming this Friday and will be here until next Saturday. We are so excited to have family down and even more excited that we have a place for everyone to stay. A little icing on the family visit cake is that we get our dogs back. I can't lie, I have kinda liked not having the responsibility of taking care of the dogs only in the respect that we can leave and be gone for hours and not have to worry about coming home to let the dogs out, cleaning up the endless amounts of hair that Cooper sheds and Lucy's fickle ways. But I do miss them, I really do. Especially after meeting our neighbor last night and his yellow lab Foster. Olivia misses the dogs so bad it hurts I think. My mom has been more than gracious to keep them and take such loving care of them as long as she has.

Here are a few pics of our house-the walls are sparse and the floor is littered with toys but you get the idea.





Pity Party for One

Disclaimer-this post is not going to be cheery and upbeat. So if you don't want or don't care about my momentary complaining, don't read.

I try and not put a lot of complaints into my entries as this blog is meant as a way to keep up with what is going on with our entire family and who really cares anyway, but today that is exactly what I am doing. I have a lot on my mind and don't really have another outlet to vent.

Today is a really hard day for me. My best friend is having her baby today and as over the moon happy for them that I am, I am so very sad that I can't be there to celebrate with them. This is just another celebration or milestone that I am missing out on. I missed both my niece's birthday parties this year and I am sure that there will other things that I am unable to attend due to the miles between us. It sucks, it totally sucks.

Another sore spot is how much Daniel works. When we made the decision to come down here we were under the impression that there would be a few months(March-April) that he would have a few long days due to the shut down that was taking place at the plant. Well, that doesn't seem to be the case. It is the middle of July and just since last Friday he has worked 24 hours of OT. Monday and Tuesday night he didn't leave work until 9 pm.And this is every week, he works late at least 3 nights a week. So not only am I left with no friends and no adult contact all day but then I am left as the solo parent to do all the dinner/bath and bedtime routines as well. That gets old real fast. I keep hearing that this situation(the long hours) is temporary but I have been hearing that for the last 7 months. I usually end up eating dinner by myself and I am sick and tired of it. Don't get me wrong, I am so thankful that he has a good, secure job that allows me to stay at home but I honestly don't know how much longer I can deal with it.

Living here is another unfixable situation I think. We made the decision as a family to do what we viewed was best for our family in terms of allowing Daniel to advance at AB. I never in a million years would imagined how much of a test it would be. I am SO lonely here. The walls of this craptastic apartment seem to close in a little bit more everyday, I have no friends, well 1 friend but I think we are only friends because of default, I have no way to doing anything for myself because Daniel works so much and if he is off, he is so tired that he can't keep his eyes open. We close on our new house on Friday but that is a whole other source of stress. I haven't been sleeping at night because I lye awake worrying about how we will make all our bills due to the increase in everything, mortgage pymt., water, power, property taxes, the list goes on. Now the rational part of me knows that we will be just fine, we may just have to cut back on luxury things(which we need to do anyway). People keep telling me that once we move I will make friends and blah, blah, blah. I am not so confident. Like I said earlier, I have 1 friend, who actually lives right around the corner from where we are moving, but it is not her job to make sure I get out and make friends and with Daniel working all the time I don't see us standing out in our yard socializing with our neighbors like we used to back in Illinois.

I just don't know where to turn anymore. I can't talk to Daniel because as hard as he tries to understand, or even say he does, there is no way he can. He has adult contact with people his own age, he gets to go out and eat lunch everyday with people whom he doesn't have to cut their food up or make sure it's not too hot and he has a list a mile long of things to keep his mind distracted from what is going on at home. I feel as though he is under so much stress at work that he doesn't have time to listen to me, so where does that leave me? I will tell you, it leaves me being bitter, resentful and angry most of the time.

I could go on and on with my random ramblings but if you have read this far, I am sure you are sick and tired of the complaining and have probably tuned out. And honestly, I wouldn't blame you. As most people have politely told us, we decided to come here so we have to deal with the consequences.

A Whirlwind of a Week

Sorry for the delay in posting. We have been busy little bees. This past week our very good friends John and Kendra and their boys Logan and Sam came to Houston for their summer vacation. We were so looking forward to seeing them all and Olivia was more than excited to see some old friends. They arrived on Tuesday and stayed until Sunday morning. They arrived late Tuesday afternoon, so all we had on tap was to go grab dinner and then hang out and catch up. On Wednesday we planned on going to Space Center Houston and then to the beach. The Space Center was fun but not very kid friendly for kids below the age of 10. Logan and Olivia had a really good time though, so that it was worth it. After that we headed to Galveston to go the beach. Thanks to Kendra doing some research on the best beaches in Galveston, we found the perfect beach. Not crowded and a little off the beaten path. There was a tropical storm out in the gulf that made for some really good waves. Everyone fully enjoyed the beach. Cameron was fearless and would have spent all day in the water had we let her.

On Thursday we went to the Children's Museum and the Downtown Aquarium. Both of these attractions were nice except the Museum was overran with Kid's Camps. That night we went out for John's Birthday. I won't tell how old he is, but for any of you who know John and Kendra, be sure to ask next time you see either of them ;-). 

Friday we went to the Houston Zoo. Daniel was unable to join us on the adventure because he had to work. We were only able to last a couple of hours due to the excessive heat.

Saturday we went to the Museum of Natural Science. We all really enjoyed it, lots of stuff to interest the kids as well as the adults.

We had a whirlwind week but it was wonderful to see "family."  In my infinite forgetful self, I took zero pictures of all our adventures. I got some video of the girls playing in the splashpad at the Aquarium. So as I wait on Kendra to send me pics, I will leave you with some video(s) of the girl at the Splashpad.

Houston We Have a Contract....

It seems like it has taken forever,but we finally have a contract on a house!!! We have already had inspections, negotiated the tre problems that needed addressed and had our appraisal today. So barring something unexpected, we are set to close July 15. I cannot tell you how good it feels it know that there is an end in sight and a new beginning right around the corner. We already have company planned to come down and we couldn't be happier.

Here are a few pics of Chateau De Regenhardt-

front of the house, has cute curb appeal.

living room

beautiful kitchen. too bad I am not much of a cook

cute backyard. not what we are used to, but will be big enough for the kids, both K-9 and human.