Family Day out

Adam and I took the boys out for a nice day of togetherness yesterday. We started off checking out the SanTan Village mall where we did some window shopping and just hanging around, then we went to Chick-fil-A for lunch. The boys had a great time at the little playground, and Adam and I got to relax for a while. After lunch we went to see the movie Coraline. Both boys loved the movie, and the parents enjoyed it as well :) Zander sat still and quiet through the entire movie, and would have been happy to stay for more. It is a half hour drive from my in laws house where we are temporarily staying to get to anything, so we thought we would do it all yesterday! After the movie we headed home and planted the patio tomato plants that I just could not live without. Life has been very hectic lately, and we all really needed a day of rest, and the bonding time is always a huge plus. I love it when Adam can spend a day with me and the boys and see that Zander is not always whiny and that Aidan is not always argumentative, and that I am still the same little small town girl that he fell for so many years ago.

We have been very busy and are making progress in life. Adam got the court hearing that has been a huge hold up out of the way. The judge was fair, and I think everyone involved walked away happy. Adam finished his LSAT prep course, and took the big test..... he also submitted his application to I think 7 schools, and the schools are now waiting to get the results from his test (we are anxiously awaiting that news as well)

Zander really loved the "GUY" in this car, he kept hugging him and patting his head.

I am still doing well in Algebra (despite my own expectations) and I am still homeschooling Aidan, and he is doing great. Today I had all of his lessons written out, explained his reading, and I started working on my Algebra. Aidan worked faster than I expected and without interrupting me he went on to do his math. When I checked on him he had read the math lesson I had laid out, looked in the book to figure out the problems, and had solved the square root on about 10 problems correctly. I was so proud of him!

On Saturday Aidan sprained his wrist at the playground. He jumped off the swing and landed on his arm. We all thought it was broken at first, but after ice and ibuprofen the swelling went way down and the pain subsided quite a bit. We never got around to the ER to get it X rayed, but it is healing up very fast. The day before that I was taking multiple trips from the house to my car for some reason, and Zander was playing in the front yard. I came into the house to get another load of whatever I was getting, and when I came back out Zander was in the middle of the street crying his little heart out. He had climbed into the golf cart that my father in law had parked in the driveway, and I guess hit the gas on his way in, that apparently releases the parking brake, which considering the slope of the driveway was a very bad combination. Zander and the golf cart rolled right out into the street. He was terrified, and so was I. Thank goodness there were no cars on the road!

Adam and I have both been going to the gym a lot and enjoying this down time while can. As soon as we find out where he gets in to school life will be a whirlwind again!

Zander's grandpa told him once to pee on the rocks, now when he has to pee the underwear come off wherever he happens to be and get thrown on the floor to run to pee on the rocks.... I am working on correcting this problem, but he is kinda cute with his "Packpack"

Love at first sight...

Is it possible to fall in love with a car? Well if so I am head over heals about the car we just bought. To be understood I have to back up a long way..... In Feb of 2008 we traded in our beloved Nissan Armada for a minivan... the payments were half the size, the gas mileage was much better, there were expensive things that we knew were starting to go wrong with the Armada, but dang it I loved that car! I went to the car dealership with a pretty heavy heart... I DID NOT want to drive a minivan, I know that is just stupid, but I just never liked mini van's in general. As we pulled up we saw a line of minivans and I said to Adam "you pick the best one, Just not red" Of course the red one was the only one on the lot that had any extra storage or features, so we got the red one :( I actually cried when I handed over my set of keys to the Armada.

I actually got used to the van over the next couple of months, and even started to like it a little bit, then one day out of the blue a young guy who was not paying attention slammed into me at a stoplight. The van was totalled, Zander and I were both injured, and I was (still am) M-A-D!!! So after months of dealing with the insurance policies that we had, we are still dealing with them, we found a old used van on craigslist that we could pay cash for. It was very basic, and the guy lied to us like crazy when we bought it. For instance I told him that we had 5 kids, and that we were going the next day to get all the kids, and this man, who was a child case worker for the state, sat there pretending he cared, but knew that we would find out the hard way, when we put the kids all in that 1 pf the back seats was completely broken. This was only 1 of the many things we found out about this car. I drove it for a few months, but could never shake the feeling that the car felt so breakable, like it would not protect me at all in a crash. I have been a bit paranoid since my life was shattered by some guy not paying attention, and there was nothing I could do to avoid this accident.

So, finally last week we sold the van (after fixing it up and showing the new buyers exactly what was wrong with the seat) and traded Adam's big gas hog diesel truck in for my new best friend....... a 2005 GMC Yukon! It is in perfect condition, the miles are low, it is still under warranty, the seat all work, and it has seat belts for 9 people! I am so happy with this car. It is hard to go down to 1 car, but it is so worth it for this car! The first time we took Adam's parents out for a ride they said "hey look, room for 2 more kids" It was funny how we both gave them simultaneous looks of death and said "not on your life" It is such a great feeling to drive something that feels "solid" like if someone hit me it would not crumple into a little ball of metal....... maybe I am being a bit paranoid, but hey, can you blame me!?!? Oh, and an added perk, the front row has a bench seat, so I can slide over and snuggle up to my sweetie while we are driving..... I am certain that front row bench seats are good for a marriage!

Here is the inside view, complete with a cute sleeping baby :)

The waiting game

You would thing that after the last year I would be pretty darn good about waiting things out but unfortunately I am not getting much better at this.
Adam finished his classes and re-took his LSAT. We don't know the score yet, but he feels very confident that he did well. To apply to law school you have to register with a centralized center, you submit all your information and fees to them, and which schools you want to apply to and they do the rest. So Adam has been working on that and has officially applied to law school! Now we just have to wait. He is applying to 6 schools I think, so now we wait for acceptance or rejection letters from each of those schools, then we can look at all the factors that are important to us and make a decision as to where we spend the next 3 years. We are still staying with Adam's parents house, with as many visits up to see my parents as we can manage, and both families have been so nice and accommodating in letting us and our loud, insane boys stay with them. It has actually been really good bonding time for the grandkids and grandparents. Both sets have gotten to know both of the boys very well, and everyone is pretty attached at this point.
We are also waiting for a decision on a court case from last week. It should be a simple thing, and we are feeling very confident about it, all we are really asking is to be allowed to keep our current rights and to move to allow Adam to get in to law school.
We are waiting on our insurance company to process our change of address so that we can go see new doctors down here..... I need to do this pretty quickly because I have had some serious complications from my Chrones disease. It turns out I have an infected Polyp in my lower intestines and will need to have that removed after we get the infection under control.
We are waiting for an MRI on my neck because I still have a pretty abnormal amount of pain after my car accident, and we can't settle with the insurance until I know for sure what is going on and how or if it can be fixed.
Good things have also come to us the last few weeks. We traded in our truck, and sold the van that we deeply regretted ever buying and got a much nicer, very awesome Yukon. I have not liked a vehicle this much since we got rid of the Armada that I used to drive, and the payment is much lower than our truck payment was, so that is an awesome feeling.
Finding out about the infected polyp was a huge step for me, I have a hard time with unknowns, especially when it comes to my health. I lost 13 pounds over the course of 10 days. I could not eat at all. I think I had 2 yogurts and 1 string cheese during that time frame. If I could find a way to eliminate the pain of Chrones Disease I could market this fabulous weight loss program and get rich quick!
I have looked deep and assessed the fact that I have been very emotionally unstable lately. I still have a long way to go, my biggest problem right now is forgiveness. I have ALOT of anger and hurt feelings to a very few number of people. One of these people not only printed off pages to my blog to use against my husband in court, but also seems to have called hotels we have stayed at over the last year, and according to the hotel security and management pretended to be me in order to get detailed breakdowns of all of our bills to use against us in court. We were not really hurt by either of these things, but I feel violated and angry. I also struggle with anger towards another person who I counted as a close friend who has had some serious mood swings lately and one day is my best friend, and can't live without me, the next day acts like they don't even know my name. I think the solution here is to cut the toxic friendships out of my life and focus on the good ones that I have. I am lucky to have friends that love me and will stick with me through anything..... I need to focus on those people. I am pledging to go the the gym at least 3 times a week because I feel so much better about myself when I do..... it helps the mind, body, and soul.
I am going to be sure to not only tell, but show my husband every day that I love him and that he is my world. Sometimes I get caught up in the drama of life and forget to show him just how thankful I am for him.
I am sure that coming to terms with how I feel about religion and how I feel like I have lost god's presence in my life will be another thing I have to work on, but I can only work on so many things at once, so that is coming up on my list :)

Future blackmail material!

Zander is in a Dora the Explorer phase, he just loves Dora and everything about her.... also we are making small steps in the potty training area, so when I took him to the store recently and told him he could pick out his own panties he of course could not be swayed from the Dora ones... I tried everything, but that is what he wanted, and I think the theory here is to get him something that he really doesn't want to mess up.

So, I searched for the package with the least pink and purple, and as few sparkles as we could get. We ended up with some that he loves, and I think are fine.... Daddy is not that amused about his son wearing girlie panties, but I think he is accepting it......

Before getting these panties Zander would use the toilet any time he was naked, but is just lazy so if he had a diaper or pull up on he would just use it. Since getting the panties he has done pretty well... he has peed on the just a little a few times and always gets upset and says "I'm sorry Dora!"

Today he said he wanted to put his clothes on himself, he came out looking like this......

Very nice!

So after taking a few pictures because come on, it is just too cute I helped him out and he wanted to "smile for me" in his dora panties, so here is Zander in his favorite outfit.... the dora panties and nothing else! This is such great ammo for when he eventually gets a girlfriend!

Also here is one of me and him snuggeling up this morning watching..... yep you guessed it, Dora :)