An Update - No Stress Involved

Believe it or not, we have been involved in things other than just taking strolls through Stressland.  I'm going to take a moment and report on those things.

The House

Tomorrow we are closing on our refinance!  When we bought this house, we acquired 2 lousy loans.  We knew they were lousy at the time, but I'm not sure we realized just HOW lousy.  ...  Anyway, the interest rates are low right now, and one of our 2 lousy loans will go variable in November, so we thought that now would be a good time to try to refinance.

The trick, of course, was to get our house to appraise for something manageable.  Because our 2 loans were lousy, we've essentially paid off nothing in 5 years.  Which is ... depressing.  And since we've paid off nothing, and the housing market has dropped since we bought the house, it was nowhere close to a sure bet that the house would appraise for what we needed it to appraise for.  ...  So we painted a little.  Made things look a little nicer.  And then prayed and hoped for the best.

And our house appraised $2,000 higher than we needed!  Hurray!  We passed the other tests, the credit scores and background checks and drug histories and Algebra tests.  ...  Tomorrow we sign our lives away AGAIN, but at least we'll be paying off the house.  Which is something we haven't done before.

Rob's Calling

Last weekend Rob was released from the Bishopric.  This has been coming for a while, and Rob and I knew it.  Rob has been pretty unavailable to the Bishop, since he's been working Tuesday nights since August 2009 (Tuesday is Bishopric meeting night), and is going to be working them through December 2010.

A month or two back, Rob came home from a Sunday afternoon Bishopric meeting and said, "Today we discussed the fact that it's time to release Brother E. as Ward Mission Leader."  Okay.  "Tim kind of half-jokingly mentioned my name."  And then it hit me.  It was sure knowledge.  I said, "Rob, that's your new calling."  Rob said, "Yeah, I was thinking that, too."  "So, did you tell the Bishop that?  Did you tell him that's your new calling?"  Rob said something to me about how it's not really his decision, but that he had hinted to the Bishop that he would be willing, if that call was issued.

A week or two later Bishop Tim called me for something unrelated.  We're good friends, and so when he finished talking about the unrelated subject, I said, "Tim, the calling you discussed a few weeks ago, you know that's Rob's new calling."  "What calling are you talking about?" he said.  As if he didn't know.  I told him that Rob and I both knew that Rob was supposed to be the new Ward Mission Leader, and that I thought Tim knew, too.  Tim said, "Tamra, it's going to be a busy calling.  Busier than the Bishopric."  And I shrugged and said, "When the Lord says "go and do," you do it."

Rob's excited about the new calling, and I'm excited that he gets to sit with us at church again!  The kids are also way excited about that.  Miciah shouted, "FINALLY!"  I guess 2 years is a long time.

Also, Rob will be able to grow his beard again.  ...  Actually, I haven't okayed that with Tim yet.  But if he doesn't okay at least SOME beard time, he's going to have a fight on his hands. 

Family Campout

The last of our Friday Family Nights in April was a family campout in the backyard.  It was a perfect night for camping, but Rob said, "It's supposed to storm."  I thought, "Whatever.  It's gorgeous!"

Here's our backyard set up:

Notice the log on the fire.  It's bigger than our fire pit!

Elijah brought it over to the fire pit all by himself, rolling it end-over-end.  So we had to burn it.  It burned for 6 hours.

Here's the kids, calmly getting ready for bed:

And, of course, it stormed in the middle of the night.  Starting about midnight it got gusty, but not awful.  Then, around 3 am it started getting REALLY gusty.  And at 6 am it started pouring down rain!  We ran with the kids, and all the bedding, into the house.  The kids finished the morning in sleeping bags on the living room floor.  And I took a nap later that day to make up for not sleeping much from 3 - 6:30 am.  

Miciah

marathon
Miciah ran the Kids' Flying Pig Marathon last weekend, for the 2nd year in a row.  They run 25 miles in the months coming up to the race, and then do the last mile at the marathon.  It was a little weird this time, because the day of the Flying Pig was when Miciah broke her arm.  Hard to believe it was a year ago.  Miciah will still not jump off the swings (can you blame her?), but Elijah will!  We'll tell Elijah to be careful (whatever.  Like we were careful as kids), and that Miciah broke her arm that way, and he'll come back at us with, "Yeah, but I didn't break my arm."  Good point.

bike
Miciah has officially learned to ride a 2-wheeler bike!  She wouldn't try for a long time because she was scared.  She is definitely like me:  not a daredevil.  It may surprise you to hear that, since I was a tomboy, but I am not, and have never been an adrenaline junkie.   Danger is for idiots, i.e. boys.

Shortly after learning to ride without training wheels, she rode her bike into the dust.  It was a beat-up, er, well-loved hand-me-down bike (thank you SO MUCH, Chiara!) that was really too small for her this year anyway.  So we bought her a new bike. 

bedroom
Also, we rearranged Miciah's room last night.  I've been frustrated with her room because it's always a mess, and that's partly my fault.  Her room has been 1/2 her room and 1/2 my room (it's a woodworking room turned craft room turned bedroom).  I decided it was time to change that.  So we moved her bed, gave her more wall space and another bookshelf.  Gave her the shoe bin so she could organize her shoes (she has lots of hand-me-down shoes) (and now we have no shoe bin upstairs.  But it's worth it).  Put up permanent hooks so she can hang up her jackets and hats.  And then cleaned.

And cleaned.

And cleaned.

About a million times she said, "Oh!  THAT'S where that was!"  Socks.  Toys.  Papers.  Books.  It was pathetic.

But it looks great now and I'm so happy with it!

(If you're thinking, "It doesn't actually look that great," then you obviously didn't see it before.  I'm sorry I don't have a Before picture for you.  Suffice it to say that I felt like throwing up every time I entered her room.  And no, that's not an exaggeration.)

Elijah

reading
Elijah is reading.  I'm still not sure when you can say a kid is officially Reading, but he's doing really good, so I'm going to call it official.

wii
He also is very proud of himself because he beat New Super Mario Brothers wii.  He did the last level all by himself because Miciah and Tank wouldn't help him.  They get scared and bubble (which means they're just along for the ride, and don't help).  He's been telling everyone he can all about it.

He also frequently gets grounded from the wii because he throws fits when I ask him to turn it off, etc.  Surprisingly, he doesn't complain about not playing while he's grounded.  

Jesus stories
A funny story about Elijah.  He was at Pen's house with Tank.  The 3 of them were dancing in the dust specks that you can see in the sun, when suddenly Elijah said, "Wait, guys!  The dust is good.  It's faith.  It's Jesus."

He's been really into Jesus lately, which is great, but can get a little weird.  He'll say funny things about what Jesus is or where he is or whatever.  ...  But sometimes he's so in touch with the goodness that is Jesus Christ, and it's inspiring to me.  He went to a Primary activity focused on Jesus Christ and prophets and when he came home I said, "Did you like the activity, Elijah?"  He said, in an awe-filled voice, "I LOVED it.  We learned about Jesus Christ."

His latest question about Jesus Christ is, "How can he be alive if he died?  And how is he alive if he's in Heaven?"  Good, good questions.  Most people, after all, are dead when they die, and if they're in Heaven, that means they're dead, too.  I'm glad he's asking the questions.

Tank

Tank is ... grumpy lately.  And hasn't been eating much of anything.  I don't know what that's about, but whatever.

bike
He graduated to a new bike at the same time Miciah did.  He only had a little trike (also a hand-me-down.  Thank you, generous people who love us!), and he was too big for it, but we were pretending not to notice.  But when we went to the store to get Miciah her new bike, he saw a bike just his size and Rob let him ride it in the store.  Which means you have to buy it.  Is there a parent who lets their kid ride the bike at the store and then walks out of said store without said bike?  Tank kept saying, "Look!  I can ride it!"  "It fits me!"  and "Look at me ride my bike!"

It was late when we got home, so the next morning he got up and said, "Put on my shoes, Mom.  I'm ready to ride my bike!"  He loves it.

Oh.  If you're wondering how it worked to take 3 kids to the store and give 2 kids a bike, ...  At the store Elijah said, "What do I get?"  I told him that he didn't need a bike, and that's true.  He has a great little bike that fits him perfectly.  He was okay with not getting a bike.  He proposed getting a $25 Hot Wheels set instead.  I said no.  Then I saw a bubble wand for the perfect price of $1.  I said, "What about this bubble wand?!"  And Elijah was thrilled.  Love the boy.  He really doesn't keep tally.  If it had been 6-year-old Miciah walking out without a bike, we would have had a MAJOR fit on our hands.

Rob is Home!

Rob came home last night to find 3 hyper-excited children.  They jumped all over him and talked non-stop.  You'd think he was gone for weeks.  But it's cute how much they love their daddy.

He came home with gifts for all of them.  None were Baltimore-centered because, ... it's Baltimore, blah.  At first he pulled out his Immunology conference book and said, "This is for Teancom!" and Tank lowered his head and groaned.  It was hilarious!  Actually Tank got a bath toy.  It's a battery-operated motor boat.  It's pretty cool.  AND it got Tank to take a bath.  That's something he hasn't been keen on doing lately.

Elijah got a boomerang.  After playing with it outside, and even though he didn't get it to come back to him, he ran inside and said, "Mom!  It's awesome!"

Miciah and I got these itty-bitty shirts:

Seriously, don't those look like doll shirts?  They're called Popcorn shirts.  ...

 When I first had the bag in my hands, and I couldn't tell what it was, and the outside said, "I love popcorn," I thought to myself, "Rob has seriously misjudged how much I like popcorn."  ...  But the shirts are actually pretty cool.  Here's Miciah with the shirt on:

They're fun shirts.

And it's good to have Rob home.

Come As You Are

This is a Come as You Are Household Photo Tag.  It figures that my friend Julianne would tag me in her post, since the whole time I was reading it, and looking at her pictures, I was thinking, "Someone should tag me on this tomorrow, after I have time to clean more."  Luckily, a lot of these areas I cleaned yesterday and/or have been in the process of organizing, as a massive Spring Cleaning / Home Improvement project.  So here they are, the pictures of my house, sans straightening up:

The Kitchen Sink (one of the areas on the docket for cleaning today, for obvious reasons):

The Fridge (looking like it pretty typically does):

Favorite Shoes (if it was winter, this picture would show my Asics):

Favorite Room - the living room, of course!:
view 1:

view 2:

(You can see the 1/2 paint job really well in these pictures, and the can of paint hiding behind the shoe bin.  Painting project is back on this week, so hopefully the living room will be finished soon.)

Laundry Room (good thing this isn't a scratch-and-sniff picture.  Laundry is also on the to-do list today):

(I just re-organized my laundry room this morning, actually.  But that's a different post.) 

Bedroom Closet(s):
Rob's closet (organized a week ago, by me):

Tamra's closet (still to be organized):

Bathroom (stripped bare for laundry purposes):

(And check out these 2 toothbrushes!:

Yeah.  They stick to the wall.  Didn't know that when we bought them.  They're cool, but they create all sorts of necessary rules about WHERE on the wall the kids are allowed to stick them.  Outside of a 2-foot area, and I throw them away.  The kids follow the rule.)

What My Kids are Doing Right Now:
The moment I was tagged, Tank was sitting on my lap sucking his fingers, like normal.  This is him and Elijah chillin' on the couch (I had to get up to get the camera):

Then they were riding bikes (which makes me look like a cool mom with active, healthy children):

And now they're watching TV (not even educational TV.  Dragonball Z):

And that's reality.

Self-Portrait:

(Dude, my hair is getting so long!)

Just so you know, I played the Nirvana song while I took these pictures.  ...  No, I didn't.  That was a lie.

I tag Liz, Rachel V., and Danielle.  If you want.  Only Rule:  No straightening up before taking the pictures.

We've moved!

A picture of Miciah with the little bitty fish she caught (and then let go again).

Our House

A hello to everyone out there. Some of you we've talked to recently, and some of you, well, it's been a while. But this is a hello to tell you that we've had a few changes in our life. We decided to buy a house! Well, we're not too excited about the financial junk that goes with that decision, but we love the house. It was built in 1947 and the last owners lived in it for over 40 years. So it's older, but it's in pretty good shape and we've been thoroughly enjoying living here. It's also 2 doors down from R & C, my aunt and uncle that are as much like my own Mom and Dad as you can get without actually being my Mom and Dad. :) And that's fun, too. And convenient: we get to borrow all their tools that we need for our house. Like a rake and a hole digger and a shovel and loppers (big clippers for the tree we cut down).

No other big news to report, thankfully. We'll take our "boring" life for now, cause boring means that life is going well. :) We're pretty settled into the house (we moved in on October 26th) and it feels so much like home that I'm forgetting what it was ever like to be in an apartment.

Miciah

Our kids also really like our house. Miciah, 4 years old, was so excited to see her play room downstairs (which will soon be carpeted) and she got a new big bed and life is good. Elijah was a little harder to convince that this was home, but now he loves it. Miciah is in pre-school and loves it. She talks and talks and talks. She really likes to role play and goes around like a director telling people what their right lines are (word-for-word), where they should be looking, who the other characters are, what they're doing, etc. It's funny. She also watches the same movie for weeks at a time. Hence, why she can tell people what their lines are verbatim.

Elijah

Elijah, 19 months, is addicted to 4 things: food, his blankie, his binkie (which we're weaning from him, slowly), and Baby Einstein. Thankfully we own like 15 of them, so I don't have to be watching the same one everyday. Elijah is the sweetest little boy and life is just good for him. He's always smiling and laughing and has started "talking." You know, saying mumbles that are consistent enough to be called words, even though they don't really sound like anything. He has a word for Baby Einstein, which is really more like a screech, but it's the same screech every time. I thoroughly enjoy the time I get with Elijah, though he has just figured out the whole separation thing and can get clingy at times, even when he knows we're not going anywhere.

That's life here. When there are other big things to report, we'll pass them along. We love you all and hope life is good for you. We have a lot to be thankful for this Thanksgiving, as I'm sure all of you do. Happy Turkey Day!

Tamra, Rob, Miciah, and Elijah

Well, it's about time for an update, isn't it. We moved into our new house on Saturday, October 29th. Miciah and Elijah had been with Rob's sister, M, for the week, so it was nice to have them back and be into our new house all in the same day. Miciah instantly loved the house. She was able to tell that I'd set up her room much like at our apartment and that seemed just fine with her. And then I showed her the play room downstairs and that was all it took for her to like the house.

When she showed up, her cousin, M, was with her. She proudly said to M, "Come on, I'll show you my new bedroom!" Then she looked at me and said, "Is it this way?"

Elijah was a little harder to win over. The first night was the time change. We gained an hour, but lost that same hour with how many times we woke up with him. I think he'd just wake up a little and then not know where he was. After the first week though, really the first few days, he was sleeping better and now he sleeps better through the night here than he did at the apartment, on the average. He's got a cold now so that gets him up a little bit with the coughing and stuff. Elijah's also been spending some time throwing fits when I tell him he can't touch this or that, but it occured to me, during one of those fits, that he's just figuring out our new house and our new rules, so that made things better for me. He seems to be over most of that now and has things figured out.

We are not completely "settled in" here, but I feel like I can sit down on the couch and relax without feeling guilty, so I guess that's settled in enough. Moving is work, work, and more work. But it's already been worth it. Most of the things are organized, or at least organized enough. We've had a lot of help from family and friends, and I'll have a whole stack of thank you notes to write real soon. R & C, of course, have been a big help. I've made a ton of trips over there to ask for something and then more trips than that to return it (I keep thinking I've returned it all and then find something else, and by the time I return that something else, I've borrowed another thing). They've been very gracious and act like it's all not a big deal. I guess they weren't using the stuff right that minute anyway, but it's still been very nice. I'm going to go rake their leaves today, since I borrowed their rake. :)

We've had a few adventures with getting this house working the way we want it to. Rob and R and V (Rob's dad) did the fence, and one side of it has to be re-done (there's a slope and we're going to need to dig a little trench or something). That's okay, since we had to buy 50 feet of fence to cover 10 feet of yard. We have enough fencing to re-do the fence another 98 times, so we're good. We also have been testing the washer and dryer down here, since we already had a washer and dryer that work fine. We've been trying to figure out which one to keep. Well, the dryer wasn't doing squat and took forever to dry. So we replaced the dryer hose to see if that would work. It was an old plastic hose. It was so full of lint that I don't think we could have even cleaned it all out. We just took it off and threw it away. And then, drying the clothes the same way we'd been doing (on high heat and for the longest time), Rob almost burned his hands off taking them out of the dryer. So I think we'll keep the set down here and give away the set we'd been using (or give them back to who gave them to us).

On Saturday we'll acquire a few more pieces of furniture, given to us by Rob's Mom and Dad, given to them by someone in their ward. We've been truly blessed in our marriage to have many things that we need, and even lots of things that we want, given to us. On this move we received an entertainment center (it's huge), a piano (from Aunt S), the old owners had left several things that were nice or at least useable, including random iron trinkets in our kitchen, and we're about to get more stuff in a few days. A bookshelf, a chest of drawers (so our clothes won't have to be in clear plastic bins in our bedroom), a weight lifting bench and some weights, and a few other things.

I remember now that I promised pictures of our house with our stuff actually in it so you could get a feel for how our house is. Those will come as soon as I get pictures from Dad of his bookcase that he made. No, I'm not bitter that I don't have them yet. :) We love you all.

Tamra, Rob, Miciah, and Elijah

Our house in the middle of our street

Well, we are officially home-debters. So that's exciting. We signed our lives away in blood on Wednesday and we've been packing boxes and moving things around and trying to pretend to stay organized for the last 2 days. It hasn't helped that Rob has a cold that knocked him out for the better part of today, but it's okay, I didn't mind the excuse to go a little slower. Moving is, needless to say, a drag. But it's fun to have our own house and think things like, "We need to mow the lawn [with the lawnmower we're going to borrow from R & C]," and, "I'm going to cut down that tree [with the tools I'm going to borrow from R & C]," and other such things. The unorganized part is a neccessary evil and will be over soon enough.

That's about all we've thought about for the last little while. Because it's enough to think about. Rob's sister 2 hours north offered to watch our kids for us and so they've been up there since Tuesday and we'll get them back Saturday some time. She's a gem, offering that. She already has twin 3 1/2 year olds, so now she has triplets and Elijah. I'm glad I'm down here moving instead of doing what she's doing. She has the harder job. :)

Umm, that's all. Not very exciting, maybe, but exciting all at the same time. We still like the house. There's a little bit more work than we were thinking to be done on it. Well, a few more projects than we thought, not a lot of work, maybe. But we really like the house. We like that we can turn the heat on and the house is insulated enough to make it warm in a few minutes and not feel like 3 different climates from room to room. We like that we have shelves and space for just about everything that we've been cramming into our little apartment. We like that the kids' room looks HUGE without all the toys in it because they have a play room downstairs. And, of course, we really like our neighbors. :) Being so close to R & C is going to be fun and eventually we will not be borrowing half of their belongings all at the same time. They've fed us dinner 2 nights in a row. Isn't that nice? We like them a lot.

Okay, that's life here. Rob sounds like he's getting a lot better and over his cold, and moving doesn't feel so overwhelming today. It feels like a project that's doable and like it's something I WANT to do. :) Of course, wait till the kids get back and then, ... Oh well.

We love you all.

Tamra and Rob

Family update (per dad's request)

Miciah's Pre-school: Arlitt

The more Rob and I learn about Miciah's pre-school (called the Arlitt Center) the more we like it. They attempt to teach the kids exactly how I think they should be taught. They play games and sing songs and let them use their imaginations. They let them paint (we have artwork covering our wall already) to figure out color concepts. They let them play simple dice games to learn math. They sing songs involving name cards of people in the room to teach them simple reading activities. The preschool (or rather people who teach at the preschool) actually has put out a whole series of books called things like 'More than Singing' and 'More than Magnets' and 'More than Letters' and things like that (you can find the books on Amazon, I just looked). It's a research center, too, and they're right now working with some federal grant thing to figure out better ways to teach and test younger children. I think it's all amazing. We chose the preschool because we liked how lax they are (they are out to let the kids have fun and learn through fun) and come to find later that they're super serious about what they do and they apparently are recognized as being really good at what they do. They were telling us about grants and things they have where they're 1 of 12 and 1 of 5 preschools in the nation to get the funding. Pretty cool stuff.

Miciah loves preschool, but she's really tired a lot of the time. She gets up earlier and goes to sleep a little earlier, but she can get pretty grouchy during the day after preschool. Makes me think we should have done afternoons with her cause then she could still sleep in. But, it's not bad to get up at 7:45, it's just a transition for her. We let her sleep in pretty late on Fridays and Saturdays and it seems to help come Monday. So we often spend a lot of our time at home watching movies and doing things less intensive. Her good friend Norene at preschool that I mentioned last time, is moving to New York. Miciah will be sad. But somehow I think she'll make another friend in about a day and a half. :)

Our House

We have told R & C about the house. They're excited. We went over there on Friday (we're usually over there at least once a week) and R said, "Did C tell you the good news? We're moving in 30 days!" We got a good laugh out of that one. But R did tell us that it was hunting season, so he'd rather not help us move if he can get away with it. :) It was about the cutest thing I've ever seen. R turned into this 5-year-old little boy pleading with his mom to let him do what he wants. :) We told him we have no intention of getting in the way of him hunting. We like the venison he brings home too much. He was much relieved. You could tell, he'd help if we asked, but we're not going to ask for that very reason. It's bow season right now and Thanksgiving week is the start of gun season. R will be gone every weekend from now until December. ... I met someone else today who was all dressed up to go hunting and was able to hold my own about hunting, which surprised me. Rob's going to go with R one of these years when we have $1000 to blow on hunting equipment that we'd have to buy. :) Maybe that'll be never. But I wouldn't mind not having to buy meat for a year.

Kay, that's life. The house still is not final, but they've brought up no problems to us. Just more paperwork. I feel like I'm selling my soul.

And I'm glad, Pop, that you mentioned that you owe me pictures. I was thinking last night about how you've never sent them off! And I really am anxious to see your handiwork. I send you ten or more pictures of a house I don't even live in yet and I can't even get a picture or two of a bookcase you've had completed for over a month. :) Not that I'm bitter.

Tamra and family

Exciting news

Well, now's as good a time as any to announce some exciting changes coming our way. Rob and I are really excited about what this means for our family. And as Miciah nears 4 years old, and Elijah is 18 months, it's about time anyway. So we're going to be pretty busy in the near future, but it'll be GOOD busy, and that's okay with us.

We bought a house. (I wanted the previous paragraph to sound like we were going to have a baby. The two changes are pretty similar--baby and moving--but we're not having a baby any time soon. Just in case you were wondering.) Everything's signed and rolling and unless something unexpected comes up, we'll be moving into the house October 26th. Inspections are clear, so we're just waiting on financing to pull through, which it should just fine.

It's a cute little 2 bedroom house 2 doors down from R & C (who don't know yet). It's about the size of our apartment upstairs, but it has a nice useable yard and a basement. The basement isn't "fisnished", but it's wonderful and will suit our needs well (it's the best unfinished basement I've ever seen). One of my favorite features of the house is the old school retro kitchen and basement tile. Neither of which will be changed while we live in the house.

We have a ton of pictures of the house, most of which aren't very good pictures (I have no idea how to take pictures of a house), but I'll send a few your way. If you'd like more, you know, just let me know.

So now our secret is no longer a secret, at least to you guys. You can share this news with whomever you'd like, minus any Cincinnati people. Take care!

Tamra