Sweet Life in the City

I should be sleeping. It is 1:30 in the morning and I am exhausted, but my mind tonight has decided to think about every Christmas I ever had as a kid. So the only way to hopefully get any sleep is to write some of these memories down.      Christmas as a kid was either traveling to TN or MI for my mom's side of the family or MO for my dad's side of the family. We would always open our gifts a few days before we left and I can still to this day picture my gifts under the tree. Christmas in TN was all about seeing my Grandma and Pawpaw. They would have a tree in their living room. Sometimes by the window and sometimes in the corner. There would be lots of presents and we would always talk Grandma into opening a few on Christmas Eve. It would involve sitting on the scratchy orange couch and listen to my Grandma tell story after story and we would laugh until we cried about all her crazy adventures. It was also a given that one of our gifts would be the flower scented bath...

Things have been a little crazy around our house for the past week and few days. Most of you that read my blog also follow me on FB and are aware of our newest addition, a beagle named Minnie. I am aware than many might think that we are crazy for getting a second dog. I also know that those thinking that think we are crazy for even having one dog :). Jeremy and I have been married for 15 years and 14 of those years we have had a dog in our family. We both grew up with dogs, but they were always outside pets and so neither one of us were super attached to our family's pet. After our first year of marriage we got Maggie and I think part of us wanting a dog had to do with the fact that our moms never allowed inside pets and since we were married we could do what we wanted :). That decision to get Maggie would later be  pivotal in our emotional state. We know many people who are not "animal lovers" and we have heard many comments through the years and lots of rolled eyes whe...

We are in a weird part of summer break. I am loving the lazy, do not need to be anywhere days, but I am also longing for a routine again. Since we sold Jeremy's car the kids and I are basically home every day and I think the kids are in need of the routine of school and being with their friends. I had a cool opportunity happen today. My old principal contacted me and offered me a part time job back at the school. It was with a great deal of reluctance that I turned down the position. The hours would not interfere with the kid's school hours, but the time frame and the distance from our house would basically have me gone all day. I was super honored that he thought of me and offered me the position, and I have to say that it was not easy to turn down. Just trusting God that being 100% for my family is still the plan. Most days I am loving staying home and getting all the things done around the house and having every thing done when the kid's get done from school, but some da...

It looks like time got away again and it has been a while since I posted. We have had a good, but challenging at times summer. The girls and I went went to camp for a week and we had such a great time. It was overwhelming to see my girls experience God and experience Camp Hope the way I remembered when I was there age. After camp we came home for the weekend and then the kids and I headed back down to my parent's house. Samuel went to camp with my dad the next week and the girls and I stayed with my mom and I was able to work at my dad's company for the week. Jeremy came down to pick all of us up at the end of the week and I was once again overjoyed by the camp conversations going on between the girls and Samuel. I was afraid that I would have to pull every detail out of Sam, but he talked for three days about every detail and it made me so happy to hear how God has spoken to his heart.  July 1st had passed and Jeremy was officially without a job. He was applying at every ope...

We have had a great day celebrating Jeremy. Words cannot begin to describe what a wonderful husband and daddy Jeremy is to us. I am very thankful that in our unique journey to become parents that we have been a great team. I am thankful for how hard Jeremy works and even at the end of a long day he takes the time to play catch with Sam or play on the Wii with the girls and read with the kids. We are very blessed to call him ours. I do have to admit that I had a little bit of a break down this morning during church. You know when you let a few tears run out and then all of a sudden you are crying and you can't stop crying and then you realize that you are just crying and you can't tell anyone why you are crying? Samuel was extremely worried about why I was crying but the more he asked me why I was crying the worse it got! A week from today I am supposed to take the girls down to Camp Hope for the week. We have been planning on going for several months. A few weeks ago Jeremy...

"It's night time in Korea." This phrase was said or thought many times in our adoption processes. Those five words meant that work at the agency and work at the Korean government would not be taking place anymore that day. Nothing was being done to bring our babies home. During the week we would also know that after a certain time we would not be hearing any news from our agency in MI and we knew once the mailman came we would no longer be stalking him or our mailbox. There would be a few hours a day that we would just let the worry go because we knew nothing beneficial for our adoption would be going on. Then night time in the USA would fall and every adoptive parent is up through the night praying that as business opens for the day that their babies paperwork will move to the top of the pile or that the approval we are waiting on will finally be approved or we think more about the milestones and every day activity that we are missing. The end of business day comes on Fr...

We finally made it to the last day of school! This school year went pretty fast even though there were times (like the month of March) that it felt like this day would never come. Chloe was up early ready to go, but Samuel and Emma were not easy to get moving this morning. Emma said that in honor of the last day of school we should just stay home :). They brought every thing home yesterday, so I am not sure what they did this morning. This afternoon they all have class parties so their day should go pretty quickly. Although I am eager to pick them up at 3:30, I am trying to enjoy my last day of a quiet house, doing chores in silence, and enjoying my lunch without interruptions. I had to get some groceries this morning and I am going to have to get a new routine this summer so I do not have to take the kids with me to get groceries. I stocked up for the week hoping that I do not have to take them to the store this week, even though I have concluded that I do not care for grocery shoppin...

The kids woke up this morning bouncing off the walls excited about field day at school today and the anticipation of tomorrow being the last day of school. It was really cloudy this morning and when we got to the school it started to pour down rain! Thankfully for the kids (and the teachers) the rain moved out about 8:45 and it looks like field day will still be going on. I feel a little guilty not going to field day, but I learned last year that hundreds of kids running around outside at the end of the school year with little structure is not something I enjoy. In fact it drives me crazy! The kids are at an age that they would maybe like me to be there, but are totally fine if I do not go. My goal for today is to get the basement back together and get caught up on laundry. So I mentioned the other day that I was hesitant about posting our situation with Jeremy's job. One of the reasons I was hesitant because I feel like some people will judge our decision to buy a house. Just th...

Our plan Monday night was to have a great evening hanging out as a family and cheering on the Blackhawks in game 6 of the Stanley Cup Finals. The weather had other plans. We knew we had a place in our basement that sometimes leaks when it rains. We had lived here about two weeks when we first noticed some water coming in the basement after a few hours of rainfall. We had some guys come out and they dug up the ground outside where the water was coming in and sealed up the side of the house with tar and whatever else was needed to seal the outside wall.The weeks following them "fixing" the leak it rained several times and the first few times no leaks. The third time it rained we once again had water. It is not a lot of water and we can manage it by putting a towel down when it rains and once again it doesn't leak every time it rains. It is leaking at the downspout outside so Jeremy is going to try and reroute the water to see if that helps. Anyway, while we were gone this p...

I guess you have noticed that I took an extended break from blogging. There have been several times the last few months that I had ever intention of sitting down and catching you up on our life, but it just did not happen. We have been in our house 3 months and we are LOVING it! It is so nice to come home now. It has added extra housework, but I actually do not mind cleaning because it is so easy to clean and it actually looks clean after I have spent the time cleaning. I have come to realize how dire my laundry situation was in the apartment now that I can do laundry whenever I need or want to. I still hate folding socks, so not everything has changed :). We have been busy with kid's activities and we have had some difficult situations that we have had to work through with all three kids over the last few weeks. Our kids are in a new stage of their life (especially Samuel) and we are learning new ways to parent. The kids have a busy last week of school (yes, we are still in school...

Our Easter morning started out a little on the stressful side. We were all ready to go to church so I thought I would get some pictures of the kids in front of our house. We took some pictures and then the kids went inside but I was still outside looking at some new blooms that were coming up in our front flower bed. Emma decides to open the front door as wide as she can and out runs Lucy. Lucy is really not a dog that tries to dart out the door every time it is open and I thought is she ever did run out she would run to our vehicle thinking she was going somewhere. Nope, that dog took off down the street. We are 4-5 houses off of a pretty busy road and I was bracing myself for what was about to happen because she was running right towards the busy road. She got to the end of our block and turned the corner. I am running after her in my Easter clothes and yelling like a crazy lady for her to stop. I would get close to her and then she would dart off again. She turned up another street ...

Wow! It has been am amazing, exhausting two weeks. I have been meaning to post for a while now, but I have been so busy and when I have had a minute to blog I have opted for resting. We closed on our house three weeks ago yesterday. All that stress I was doing over the extra money they were saying we needed at closing turned out to be nothing to worry about at all (I know, I know that is why it is useless to worry!). Our final amount we needed to bring to closing was over $4000 less than what we were told. The closing went smoothly (well, except our lawyer was 45 minutes late) and both lawyers were delighted how easily the closing went. Since we had some money left over we purchased a new bedroom suit for our room and we got new mattresses. We have had the same mattress for almost 15 years and trust me, it was not the best mattress when we purchased it 15 years ago. We have both been sleeping so much better and I am not sure if it is the mattress or we are at peace being out of that ap...