Being a young mom means we met a little early, but I get to love them longer.


Here are some links to helpful posts I have done in the past :)

Learn about car seat safety HERE!

Need breastfeeding advice? Click HERE for lots of helpful tips!

Lilypie Fourth Birthday tickers

Lilypie Second Birthday tickers

Lilypie Breastfeeding tickers

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

We made our decision.

We went forward with it and signed the lease. We got the keys today!
After we got the keys we wet back to the apartment to really check it out for ourselves without anybody staring over our shoulders. We both really like it.
I can really see us staying here until we are ready to buy our own house :)
It is in such a nice area, and I love the apartment.

Here are some pics.

The living room from the door.

The living room from the kitchen.

The kitchen.

The back deck.

What will be our bedroom.

The laundry closet.

What will be the kids' room.

Their walk-in closet.


Once we get everything set up, I will post more pics.
Now we just have to move lol.

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Hope we aren't making a mistake...

So we called the apartment guy yesterday fully expecting him to tell us that the apartment had been rented to someone else. Instead he tells us that we were always first in line, and that he must have gotten mixed up when we call him and thought we were someone else.
I was thrilled! He said we could call him today around 1, and we would set up a time to do the paperwork/pay the deposit.
So we have 2 numbers for him, and we didn't know which one he wanted us to call. He didn't answer either one the first time we called at 1. So we called both of them again at 1:30. Still nothing, so after 2 we called both of them again, and he answered the second number we called. I handed the phone to Chris, and the guy pretty much went off on Chris. Telling Chris he was in a meeting, and that we were calling him back to back. Then he HUNG UP on Chris!
Chris was FURIOUS. I thought for sure that we were not getting the apartment now, and I wasn't even sure if we wanted to.
Chris tried to call only one number a few hours later, and there was no answer, so Chris left a message asking him to just tell us one way or the other, but we never got a call back.
So about an hour later (just a few minutes ago), I called him from a different phone number, and he answered. I explained that we had no idea he was in a meeting and that we called both his phones back to back because we didn't know which number to call. He was nice to me. He apologized, and said he just didn't understand what was going on. That doesn't excuse his behavior earlier, but I expected him to hang up on me too. He actually listened to me, and said that he understands now, and that we could call him tomorrow to set up a time again.
I asked him which number to call, so that we can avoid this problem. But now, I'm thinking, do we even want to live there if this guy is going to be such a bi-polar jerk?
I really do think that it is the best place for our kids to live.
I just hope we are making the right decision here. I mean we really won't have to deal much with the guy except to pay our rent, and if we need any maintenance. I don't know. This is the most stressful time we have had with moving :(

Saturday, February 25, 2012

Outfits (as requested)!

I put the babies in some of their new clothes today when we went to eat with my dad.

As usual, Grace would not stand still, and she had a purple bow on that she took off. But you get an idea of the outfit from these lol.



These pictures also show Brentley's first time drinking from a sippy cup. It was just water, but it's still the only liquid he's had besides breastmilk. He did really well with it!



So there is a look at just one new outfit each. Tons more to go lol.

Friday, February 24, 2012

The babies are set!

My uncle and his wife (I call her my aunt) live in Florida. I have talked about them a few times on here before because they always send us all of their daughter's clothes. Their daughter was born in Oct. of '08, and Grace was born in Nov. of '09, so they are just a little over a year apart.
Well, my aunt's sister had a little boy about a year before I had Brentley, and now her sister has been nice enough to send all of her son's clothes to Brentley (on the condition that I pass them onto my cousin for her baby when Brentley outgrows them, which I have no problem doing).

They have such nice stuff! Stuff we could never afford, like some of it is Ralph Lauren! There is also a lot of Children's Place, Carter's, and Gymboree. And it all looks brand new. Grace got two big bags of clothes and eight pairs of shoes! Brentley got two boxes of clothes and a pair of shoes! 
Brentley got some super cute outfits, and Grace got some adorable dresses.

We are so blessed to have them in our lives. I never ask for anything from them. They just send it out of the goodness of their hearts. I've even offered to pay her for the stuff on several occasion, but she never will let me. I am so thankful for them! I mean, we will always make sure that our kids have clothes, but we wouldn't be able to afford such an expensive wardrobe for them.                                                                                 

Thursday, February 23, 2012

:(

Well, apparently this guy with the apartments has just been toying with us. He calls and tells us that he has rented out the upstairs apartment, and that he has a downstairs one that will be ready in three weeks. He says if we come pay him the deposit, he will hold it for us, and he asks us when we can come pay it. Chris was the one on the phone so he turned to ask me when we could pay it, and apparently the guy got another phone call, so he asked Chris to call him back. We wait 30 minutes and call him back to say we could make it there in an hour, and he says there is another applicant in front of us that he has to check out first??? So this applicant just magically appeared?? Because he was offering it to us not even an hour before? I am so confused. He said that if their application didn't check out, then we would be next in line, so we have like a 50/50 chance of getting it, and that he would let us know Monday. Well, I'm not counting on that at all. To me, I think he is just trying to get us to give up. He doesn't want to rent it to us because we have two little kids, but there is nothing on our application that he can legally deny us for, so he is just trying to get us to give up. I know that is what is going on.
I mean, we are still going to call Monday, and see what he says, but I'm not getting my hopes up at all for this. Why does he have to not like kids?? It would have been ours because like I said, there is nothing he can legally deny us for.
Sorry, I know this is all over the place and a bunch of rambling, but I'm just so frustrated.
We are going to keep looking. So far we haven't found anything else. We have a list of all the apartment complexes in our area, so I am going to give Chris that list tomorrow and let him see what he can find.

In the mean time, I am actually getting some stuff done. I went through all of the kids clothes and got everything together that they no longer fit in, went through my clothes and got everything together that I no longer want, organized my bedroom, organized a lot of our papers, and packed up some of the things we don't really use a lot. At least I'm being productive I suppose.

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Stressed and frustrated...

We put in an application for an apartment... the one I talked about in a previous post. Well, that was Saturday. We left him alone the rest of Saturday and Sunday, then we called on Monday when we hadn't heard anything. He said it was President's Day, so he hadn't been able to check our references and stuff like that. So we called back Tuesday, and all he said was that he wasn't in his office. Now, we have called again today, and we got no answer or call back.
There is no reason why we shouldn't get this place. However, when we were looking at the apartment he was like, "Well, I don't usually rent upstairs apartments to people who have children, but I do have some upstairs ones that have children." Which that really confused me because he's basically saying I don't, but I do.
Grace was all excited to be in a new place so she was being loud, and I'm afraid that he's not going to rent it to us because of that. I'm pretty sure that is illegal, but there is not much we can do about it if he does deny us because of that.
I wish he would just let us know one way or the other!

School is not going as well as I would like either...
I don't have any grades in my American Lit class because of the whole professor being arrested thing. We are taking our first test on Monday, and I am stressing about that because I know it is going to be hard.
I am making a B in my Pre-Calculus class :( I am trying my hardest to bring it up, but I just don't have enough time to study as much as I need to. I know a B is not the end of the world, but I have never made a B, so it seems like the end of the world to me...
I'm making an A in my weight training class, but that's pretty much a given. It ends next Wednesday, so that will give me some more time to study at least. The downside is that today I hurt my arm in there. I was trying to lay one of the benches back, and it got stuck, and then slammed down on my wrist and hand. I caught it, but it still hurt pretty bad. If I hadn't caught it, it would have broke my wrist! My wrist and my hand are pretty bruised up. I could barely finish my workout today. Hopefully by next week it will be better.

I'm making a 90 in my Education Psychology class. Teetering on the edge of a B... trying to bring that one up too.
I'm making a 96 in my Critical Issues in Education class, which I brought up from an 88! That took some serious work.

I know it sounds like I'm stressing over nothing, but my two education classes and my pre-cal class are hard! It is all I can do to keep up with everything. Sometimes I can't finish all my reading, so I just have to bullcrap my way through my assignments. Every week I have to read at least one chapter for my Critical Issues class, and at least two stories and a poem for my American Lit class. That's just the stuff I have to read. I am supposed to read a chapter a week for Education Psychology as well. And I am supposed to do pre-cal homework for practice.
And I'm only half way through this semester... I can't wait for summer break! Expcept I will only have about 3 weeks of summer break because I have to take a summer class :(
Oh well, gotta do what I gotta do for my babies.

I just wish this guy with the apartment would let us know something. That would take off a lot of the stress.

Friday, February 17, 2012

Mixed feelings...

Well, our place we were wanting to move to didn't work out, so we have switched to plan b. It's not exactly ideal, but I'm getting used to the idea... moving back to a two bedroom apartment. We really have no other choice. We've been looking on craigslist and in the paper for months, and out of all of that we saw one potential place, and it wasn't in our ideal area. So now we have started looking into two bedroom apartments in the area... well, one specifically. I have a friend who already lives in this one apartment complex. She says that they are safe, the landlord is on top of the maintenance, there are no bug problems, they have a dishwasher, there are no bug problems, they have washer/dryer hookups, the landlord covers water and garbage, the electric is never over $100, the list of pluses goes on and on.  The only thing I didn't like is that it's a two bedroom, but after talking to her, I found out that it's actually more square feet than where we are now.  I think the kids would like it better if they had more room. They are too young to really notice what sharing a room is, and it wouldn't be that way forever. I'm not a huge fan of them sharing a room, but I honestly feel that this is the best thing for them. Brentley is about to start crawling, and then walking. He needs room to do that.

Basically, my major requirements for our new place are:
  • A good size living room
  • Bigger than where we are now
  • Room for a kitchen table
  • Washer/dryer hookups
  • No bugs/mold/etc.
  • In the same county we live in now, which is the county I have lived in most of my life. It's a nice, safe place to live, and it has great school systems, which is very important to me.
This apartment has all that plus more! It has a back porch that we could put the kids outdoor toys on instead of having to keep them in the house taking up space right now.
It's really close to my mom and two of my friends who both have kids, and it's a lot closer to my school, which will save us a lot of money on gas (it costs me $40 a week to drive to Dalton State right now). 


We plan on giving the kids the bigger room if we do move to a two bedroom.  Really it won't be much of a difference. The only things that Brentley has in his room are his crib, his changing table, and his plastic bin drawers. It really won't be much to put them in the same room.

We are going to meet the landlord at this place tomorrow to fill out the application. I really hope we get this place because if we have to go to a two bedroom, then this one is perfect. I really think that we can make this work. We want to find a place where we don't want to move again until we are in a position where we can buy a house. With everything we know about this place, I think this could be it.

Thursday, February 16, 2012

Omg it broke my heart...

Brentley has always been asleep when I leave for school in the mornings. Well, this morning he woke up about 5 minutes before I had to leave. He was rolling around on the bed and smiling all cute and happy, but then it was time for me to leave... I started walking towards the door and he was smiling at me. Chris told me to shut the door, so I told Brentley I loved him, and I shut the door, and he immediately started crying. It was so pitiful. He's never done anything like that before either. I guess he is aware of me leaving now :( And so the attachment phase begins. It just broke my heart. I started crying because I could hear him crying as I was going out the door.

Okay, I'm done with the sad stuff... I'll give a little update on my big boy. He weighs over 23 lbs now! He will be 6 months old in 10 days! I cannot believe he is already almost 6 months old. It just blows my mind!
He has two teeth now! The two bottom middle ones, and boy does he use them :( OUCH! And he doesn't understand when I tell him to stop biting... it's become a bit of a struggle with him.
He is also on the verge of crawling! He gets up on his hands and knees and rocks back and forth. He scoots himself too. He just hasn't quite figured out how to get those hands and knees to work together. So, in the meantime, he rolls EVERYWHERE. If he wants something he rolls his little bottom to it lol. We are going to officially start him on baby food after he turns 6 months. He has had some applesauce already, but he didn't like it. He made a face like it was the most sour thing he had ever tasted. I guess technically it was though lol.
He's also is addicted to rocking. If we are rocking in the rocking chair, and I stop rocking he will rock himself back and forth until he gets the chair going again lol.

Here are some pictures of him taking his first bath in his big boy bath seat :)






Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Happy Valentine's Day!!!

Chris and I agreed not to give each other gifts this year because we need to save up all our money for when we move.
But we still got the babies some little things.

We went to eat at a little Japanese restaurant down the street for dinner, then we came home and let the kids open their presents.


She's so silly!







Brentley's stuff.
 .

Grace's stuff.

Friday, February 10, 2012

If it's true, I hope they put him under the jail!

I'm not sure if I mentioned it on here or not, but one of my professors just disappeared one day. He was replaced by another (harder) professor and there was no explanation of where our regular professor went. Just that he wouldn't be back.

He seemed like a nice guy, and his class was going to be an easy A, so I was mad...

Then I saw it on the news... "Dalton State College professor Monte Salyer Ph. D. arrested for child molestation."

It blew me away. He seemed so... well, normal. When you think of child molester, you think creepy guy driving his big white van around the playground. Not a professor with a Ph. D.

I've been following the story, and now he has been arrested again, not just on counts of child molestation, but also on counts of statutory rape and forced sodomy! Three different girl have come forward... One is only EIGHT years old. The other two are 16 and 20, but they say it happened when they were about 11-12. The 16 and 20 year olds were family friends whom he befriended at his CHURCH, and the 8 year old is RELATED to him!

What sick, disgusting man! I can't believe that I was in the same room with this man, breathed the same air as this man! It makes me sick! I've never been around anyone like that before. How can a person be so messed up as to do something like that to a child??

One of the first things I thought about was if he had seen any pictures of my kids. I couldn't bare the thought of him possibly seeing a picture of my babies and thinking about them like that. Luckily I can't think of anytime where he would have. I don't have any pictures on my binders this year. Only on my phone, and he never saw my phone.

My heart breaks for those poor girls. This man stole their innocence from them. Such a shame :(

If you want to read more about it and/or watch a short video click here.

Today was my first day of student teaching!

I was sort of nervous because I have never actually taught before. Not mention I had never met the teacher or the kids, but when I got there one of my friend's mom was in the room. She is the assistant teacher for that classroom. And the other teacher is really nice! She's young. She look about 25, and she is gorgeous. They both made me feel very comfortable.
For the first hour I just observed her teaching, then at 10am it was my turn to teach. I have a poster of a community, and that is the basis of my lessons. For today, I was basically supposed to get the kids acquainted with what a community is.
I figured that I would be really nervous once I was on my own, but I wasn't at all. It just came naturally! I explained the community, and talked about things like businesses, volunteers, and different types of jobs. I had some of the kids come up and show me some of the workers on the poster, and had them explain what that worker's job is. They were all very eager to participate. I actually felt bad because when I would pick one kid I could hear some of the others sigh or say something like "aw man." I didn't have enough people on the poster to pick every student though :(
After that, I passed out there work sheets, and showed them an example of how they were supposed to match their stickers to the spots on the worksheet. Then I just walked around and helped anyone who needed help.
That was the end of my lesson for today. The kids really seemed to enjoy it, and I did too. I even got a couple of hugs on my way out :) I had a really good time. I can't wait to go back next week!

I got my placement for my other school. It's at a different school, for the 4th grade, and it's only observation, so I'm not as excited about it. I don't want to teach anything over 2nd grade.

Thursday, February 9, 2012

My plans for our new place...

Our lease is up at the end of March, and believe me, I am counting down the days!! We still don't have much of an option though. All of the apartments around here that have 3 bedrooms have a waiting list of at least 6 months. Most of the houses are out of our price range. So that leaves duplexes and trailers. We don't really want another trailer. We are willing to do another trailer if it is on private land, not falling apart, and is at least 200 sq. ft. bigger than where we are now, but we would rather have a house. And there aren't many duplexes we have seen with three bedroom. They get taken fast. There is one option... it is a big maybe. I don't want to say much about it because I don't want to jinx it, but it is pretty much our only option, so I really hope it comes through.

Anyway... I have lots of plans for when we do get a new place.

My first plan is Grace's room. It is probably the room that needs the most attention. Her dresser is falling apart (cheap wood). My mom has an extra dresser that she is going to give us when we move, so that is the first big change. Then I am going to take her book case down off the dresser and drill it into the wall so it won't fall over on her. Then, I'm going to move all her breakables to the top of the bookshelf, move all her books to the top two shelves, then I want to get storage bins to organize her smaller toys in and put on the bottom three shelves. That way she can reach them. I would like to get the plastic kind that have lids on them, so that she has to have me open them. That way she can't pull them all out at once. I also want to get her one of those larger plastic circle tubs with the handles on it. That would be for her bigger toys. And I am going to put her giant foam ABC puzzle that she got from my mom for Christmas in her floor.
I also need to go through all her clothes and get rid of the ones that no longer fit her.

For Brentley's room we don't need to do much. Pretty much all I need is a plastic tub with a lid, so that I can put all his clothes in it that don't fit him, but I want to keep, then I need to get rid of all the clothes that I don't fit him that I don't want to keep. Oh, and I am going to put Grace's toy box in his room. It's brown so it would fit in his room better. That will take care of most of his toys. And I want to put up his toy net in a corner of his room so that we can put his stuffed animals in it.

For our room, my dad is giving us the bed, mattress, and box springs out of his garage. It is all brand new. So we are going to store our old bed in his garage until one of the kids is old enough for it. We also need to store our Christmas tree, Christmas decorations, TV box, and Chris old car seats in my dad's garage (he offered to let us store it there). That will de-clutter our room. You can barely move in there right now because of all that stuff. And I need to go through mine and Chris' clothes to get rid of anything that doesn't fit or we don't wear. And I want to go through all our papers (bills, birth certificates, etc.) and organize them, so that when I need to find something, I will know exactly where it is.

For the living room, there is not much. Basically I just want to change out some of the pictures in our picture frames. They are all of Grace because I have never gotten around to changing them. I want some of Brentley in them as well.


For the the kitchen and bathroom I basically just want to organize the cabinets completely. They are cluttered too much. Also, if we have room, my dad has a kitchen table that he is going to give us.

And the last couple of things are that anything we have that does not have a place now, I will find a place for it in our new place. If I can't find a place for it, I will either donate it or sell it (depending on what it is). And anything that the kids don't use anymore (Grace's old stroller, Brentley's bassinet, Brentley's swing, etc.) will be going to my mom's because she prices everything for the consignment sales.

Some of this I am going to start doing now.. like taking the things to my dad's that we need to store, going through the kids clothes, going through our clothes, getting rid of unused items, and taking the kids old things to my mom's. That will give us a jump start on moving because I won't have to worry about all that stuff then. The rest of it will have to wait until we move.

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

My bucket list.

When I was a sophomore in high school we had an assignment to make one of these. I was looking back at it, and it is amazing how many things I would never put on their now lol. Plus, there were a few I could cross off already, so I decided that I would make a new one. It is in no specific order. Just things I want to do/accomplish before I die...

  1. Get married
  2. Plant a tree
  3. Go to the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade
  4. Visit the Mall of America
  5. Read the entire Harry Potter series
  6. Find a church where I actually feel like I belong
  7. Donate my hair to Locks of Love
  8. Own a home
  9. Pay for a stranger's tab at a drive thru or restaurant
  10. Go on a cruise
  11. Graduate college
  12. Find a four leaf clover
  13. Take my children to Disney World
  14. Write a book
  15. Decorate my home the way I (and my family) want it
  16. Swim with the dolphins
  17. Become a teacher
  18. Watch my children graduate high school
  19. Plan to have a baby (MAYBE, we still aren't sure on this one. We both like the idea of planning and being excited about a pregnancy, but we don't know if we want more kids or not)
  20. Read the entire Bible
  21. Have a nice newer car (by nice I don't mean BMW. I just mean one that I can trust.)
  22. Have a day out once a month with each of my children (each child gets a day, and they pick what we get to do)
  23. Have a date once a month with Chris
  24. Have a family dinner around the table every night
  25. Watch the sunrise
  26. Visit another country
  27. Get dressed everyday, even if I have no where to go
  28. Have a garden
  29. Have some sort of fun fight with my children (food fight, water balloon fight, etc.)
  30. Take my children to the beach
These are just the ones I can think of right now, but they are definitely my main ones.

Sunday, February 5, 2012

This is so neat!

Let me start by saying I have no idea how much these cost, since each one is a unique creation, I imagine that the price is different for each one.

However, I can imagine that the price would be well worth it...

The lady at this blog takes your child's drawing and turns it into a plush toy!

 


Is that not adorable?? And she does such a great job of capturing the drawing perfectly.
I cannot wait until my babies can draw cute little things so that I can have one made for each of them!

My birthday and a little more...

On Thursday night we went to eat with my dad, and then to his new house for a little while. It was a nice evening. Both the babies did really well at the restaurant. Also, my dad got me a new Nikon camera. It's pretty nice. The battery case on my other one was broke, so it wouldn't hold the batteries in.

Friday afternoon we went to eat with my mom, sister, and nana. It was a little more chaotic, but I still had a good time. My mom got me a cake, some balloons, a bride and groom rubber duck (for our wedding), and a book of pictures from all throughout my life. It's really neat. She had it made on Walgreens.com. From that book, I realized that Brentley looks almost just like I did as a baby! Some of the pictures of me could seriously be Brentley.









Then, when we got home Chris pulled out the cake that he got to surprise me. This is the most amazing cake I have ever had. It's a layer of cake, then a layer of cheesecake, then a layer of sliced strawberries, then another layer of cake, then a layer of whip cream, topped with chocolate and strawberries. YUM!


 I had a very nice 20th birthday :)


Today it felt great outside, so we decided to take the kids out.
Grace got to ride her tricycle, and she did really good for it being her first time ever!



I had two videos, but of course the won't load. I'll keep trying.

Thursday, February 2, 2012

I get to teach!

Okay, so I am super nervous about this. I have never actually taught a classroom before, but I am excited about it at the same time! I think it is going to be a lot of fun! I got my placement. I am going to be in a second grade class. I have never worked with second graders before, so this should be interesting. I contacted my teacher, and I think we have decided that I am going to go in at 10 am on Fridays. Luckily it is at the same school that I have interned in before, so I know my way around.


I got my kit too. It looks like this...
Except the theme of my kit is "Our Community." We have fun activities like matching the job stickers with the building they go to, and making donuts (not real donuts, but still fun lol).
I'm not sure yet what Friday I will be starting. This is not a job or anything. Just some training that is part of one of my classes. I will keep you all updated as I actually get to complete my lessons.
I have five different lessons that I get to teach. I think this is going to be really fun!