The end of 2009!!! A year in Review

Well, another year is almost over. This last year has had so much sadness, stress, happiness, excitment, sickness, the works. Since the past post, the kids and I have moved from Las Vegas, to Thatcher.

Derik is struggling in school a lot, but I'm hoping that he will catch up and not be held back.

Lexie is growing a lot. She's getting big and saying a lot.

We have added 2 new additions to our family, Dot and Dozer... 2 very cute (and very irritating) boston terrier/poodle mix puppies. What was I thinking.

I am still in school. I just finished my 3rd block of classes. 1 more block and I will officially be finished with my 1st year of school. YAY! I have a 3.22 GPA. It was a rough go for a bit, but I made it though. I start my next set of classes on Monday.

This year will bring about a lot of new changes for my family also. I'm going to plant a garden, get the yard fenced in, put in grass... just to name a few things.

We had a wonderful semi-quiet Christmas. Spent it at home alone in our jammies. lol. It was really nice.

School Excitement!

Tomorrow is the 1st day of school! YAAAHHH WHOOOO!!!! The only down side is now I have to start getting up again at 6:30 so I can take Derik to school by 7:40am. I have a feeling that I am going to cry like a baby in the morning. Last year I only took a couple of pictures of Derik and I now regret it. Tomorrow I am going to have a field day with pictures. I want to make sure to document it a lot better then I usually do.

Derik is so excited though. He has brand new clothes, even though he does have a bunch of uniforms that are still really nice. He now has new pants, shirts, underwear, socks, and shoes. He has his lunch all ready, to put into his brand new backpack in the morning. He has new pencils, pencil box, crayons, note book, and basically everything that he needs. It is going to be a good day. I really hope he gets enough sleep tonight and isn't a pill tomorrow for his teacher. I had him in bed before 8pm, and it was after 9:30pm before he actually fell asleep. As Derik kept saying tonight, "I'm going to have a good day tomorrow." I really hope so son! I love you baby!

I'm sure the school is going to do the school pictures in a couple of weeks, and it will be interesting to see how they turn out since Derik is now missing 3 teeth. Yup, that's right, 3. The first of course is the tooth he knocked out when he was 2. We are still waiting for it to grow back in. The 2nd tooth we pulled last weekend, and the 3rd, he pulled out almost completely by himself last night. His other front tooth is loose a little bit, so it should be on it's way out in the next couple of weeks. There is a good chance that he is going to be missing 4 teeth at one time. That should be interesting. I think I will get our Christmas pictures taken sooner rather than later. lol.

Ok, bed time. Gotta get up at the crack of dawn.

Christmas Excitement!

Yesterday was day 1 of my new set of classes. I have been looking over the syllabus's for each class and I'm really excited! These classes have more work involved, which is a good thing. It will give me something to do. I have been so bored with my life that I'm going insane!

I have been chatting on a message board for almost 2 years now, and one of the ladies brought up Christmas. I hadn't really thought about that before that thread had started, but now I am so excited! I am wanting to start making some new Christmas decorations, since the ones that I had previously made were lost in a move. I loved those decorations. Also, I have set up a budget for Christmas presents. I figure this next week I will spend my money on finishing getting derik ready for school. He doesn't really need much since I bought quite a few uniforms when I got my tax money. I'm planning on getting him a new pair of shoes and possibly 1 more pair of pants. Lexie needs some new shoes, dang girl out grew her shoes over night! Once school shopping is finished then I am planning on getting the kids their Halloween costumes. After Halloween is taken care of, CHRISTMAS HERE WE COME! I'm thinking that 20 a week should do me pretty good. I think I am going to either put the money on a gift card so I can do the shopping all at once, or use kmarts layaway option. either way, I would like to be completely finished by December 1.

I also want to start getting ingredients for my Christmas cooking. I found that last year, I'm a dang good candy cook! lol. There are several items that I want to make this year, carmels, toffee, peanut brittle, peanut butter cups, chocolate chip cookies, oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, brownies, and sugar cookies, and rice krispy treats. That should about do it. Anyone hear their blood sugar rising? lol

I don't know how much I am going to be able to accomplish, since I am going to have to do homework, but I think I can do it all... I just won't be able to spend as much time on the computer.

Summer Fun!

Since I was lazy and didn't post anything this summer, and today was a slow day, I thought, ok, I will go ahead and get caught up on what happened this summer.

Last year, Derik was put into "Track 5" which is bascially year round school. When his birthday hit on June 3 (btw Happy Birthday Cindy and Happy Anniversary Rick and Tammy) he was still in school. His school did a track and field day since June 4th was the last day of school for half the school. It was a lot of fun, but unfortunately I had some errands and stuff that I just couldn't put off, so I didn't get to see him run. Made me very sad. After my errands I went to the store and picked up a cute cupcake cake to take, and we passed out cupcakes to the kids at the end of the day.

Here's a slide show of everyone eating cupcakes.

We choose not to do the big birthday party until Saturday. He invited 5 friends, Alex, Xavier, Skye, Hunter and Jeffrey. Jeffrey was the only one that did not show for the party. We had it at Chuck E. Cheese at 10 am on June 6, 2009. I choose this time because it gave the kids double the tokens. We ended up with like 600 tokens. Besides the official party goers, the siblings of the kids also came and enjoyed the party. It was a lot of fun. All the kids had a cupful of tokens (Derik lost his cup a couple of times. lol.) Chuck E. sang Happy Birthday to Derik, and we had the most AWESOME! birthday cake. It was so yummy! It really was a good day!

Here's a slide show of the party.

The next summer event was Lexie's birthday. We choose to combine the official celebration on Rodney's birthday, July 4. I baked the cake. One thing to note, Do not try to do a shell edging with tube frosting. It just doesn't work. Here's the slide show

Our final summer activity was the day that Derik "graduated" from Kindergarten. I was so proud of my baby. There was a possiblity that he was going to have to be held back due to behavorial problems, and he was just having a really hard time with catching on to math. He was very far behind all the other students. After 3 months of stress and hard work, Derik did it! He passed! It was such a proud day! Here are some pictures of the celebration! They sang a cute song that had actions and helped the kids remember how to pronounce each letter of the alphabet. They sang "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" and also sang a song that helped them count to 100. It was so much fun! After the songs, his teacher Ms. Kitchens (yes just the way it looks) handed each child a certificate, and a dvd of important moments throughout the year.

Mommy Who???

When I was writing about our doctor visit on Friday, I forgot about the funniest thing Lexie did. I allowed her to walk all over the waiting room because there were just way too many kids there playing to keep her pinned in my lap. She was really enjoying herself too. She saw 3 babies (little girls her age or older) and she kept giving them kisses. One little girl just cried and cried and cried. She was really not fond of Lexie's "love". lol. Another little girl was sick, so I tried really hard to keep her away, but lexie was very adament that she slobber all over that one too. The final little girl was a little older, and didn't have any problems with lexie kissing her (man, I hope this doesnt' mean that my daughter is going to be a kissing fool. I just might have to go purchase a shotgun. lol) Anyway, as I was sitting there watching both her and Derik play, Lexie walked up the lady sitting next to me and just flopped on her, like she does to me at home. The lady was like.. ok, and stroking her head. I'm saying, Lexie come to mommy, but Lexie just kept laying there, like hugging the lady's lap, and she'd look up and then lay back down... did this for a couple of minutes. Then something made her turn her head towards me, and all of a sudden I got the biggest smile from her. It was almost like, "hey, there's my mom!" then she looked at the lady she was laying on, then back to me, and all of a sudden it clicked for her that this lady was not mommy! She didn't cry, but for a few minutes it was almost like she didn't care who mommy was. I was just laughing as hard as I could because her face was just priceless! It was a total shock that this other lady wasn't me. lol

Today, we got up and went to church. I don't want to make too many new changes, but I do think that this needs to be something that we continue. Derik is getting the interaction with other kids again, which I'm hoping is going to help the running off issues. (I don't remember if I've posted about this yet, but I will soon). I would also like to start practicing the piano again, too. I'm hoping next sunday Lexie won't freak out on me when everything is over and I can spend 20 minutes or so practicing. It's been a long time since I've played the piano. It will also give the kids time to run around and just have fun (I plan on using the Young Women's, Relief Society or Primary rooms for practicing. That way I can close the doors and just let the kids play. I wasn't able to really get too much out of the lessons or sacrament. Part of the reason I couldn't focus on sacrament is because the speaker is a really REALLY boring speaker. He use to teach the Gospel Doctrine class and would almost put me to sleep each week. That's pretty much what happened in Sacrament. Also, Derik and Lexie were attacking each other. Today was the first time she really started giving Derik kisses. I Loved watching it, Derik on the other hand, was not so fond of receiving her kisses, even though he gives her kisses all the time. lol. Even though I didn't get to pay too much attention to the lessons, it still felt really good to get out of the house and go to church. Next week I'm hoping the kids cooperate better so I can take some pictures of them in front of the Chapel.

After church I came home and put the finishing touches on my research paper. YAY! 2 classes done, a whole bunch more to go! I start my next set of classes tomorrow. I really hope these classes actually challenge me. Yes, easy classes are nice, but I really hate that feeling of unfulfillment. I expected these classes to actually have real assignments, nope. The only real "hard" part of the courses was that I had to make sure I had at least 2 substantial postings on 3 different days. The discussion questions consisted of 2 150-300 word responses each week, and then usually one assignment that was again around 300 words... not very hard. I was expecting at least a 3 page essay each week. I was prepared to write a 3 page essay each week, so finding out that the work wasn't that hard at all... was kind of a let down. Here's to hoping that my next set of classes are more fun. OH, and some of the discussion questions weren't questions that were easily converted into conversations. Many times each person wrote pretty much the same thing. So trying to respond to these questions and make them interesting, was really hard.

Derik

I have been going through my pictures that are on my computer that I have scanned or transfered from cell phones, and ran across several fun pictures of Derik. So I thought I'd share them.

Ok, note to self, go back and put titles on each of the pictures. lol. I'll be back to finish this.

Eureka!!! Struck Gold!

After almost a month and a half of wiggling and pushing and pulling and tugging, Derik's stubborn tooth has finally "left the building." Yesterday afternoon around 1pm, we checked his tooth, and it was so loose that it would get stuck in odd positions. I tried having him eat "Now and Later" candies since it was suggested that we should try it, but as I feared, the boy would eat them with his side teeth. I tried getting a wash cloth and pulling, and it was still a no-go. The tooth was so loose that it was ready to come out. Finally, my sleep deprived brain had a flash of inspiration. Why not try twisting? So that is what we did. I started twisting and turning the tooth in his mouth. I was afraid that he wasn't going to let me do it because he was really worried that it would hurt. In the space of about 30 seconds, the tooth was out! FINALLY! He is definitely going to have to go to the dentist and get braces at some point in the future. His new tooth that is already coming in, is positioned extremely far back in his gums.

After Derik's tooth came out he was so excited, until he saw the blood. With some fast thinking and talking on my end, his hysteria was soon forgotten with the ideas of $$MONEY$$. He was very quickly able to forget that he was bleeding and now focus on the money the tooth fairy was going to bring him. It was so very hard to keep him from playing with his tooth. I just told him that if he lost the tooth, the tooth fairy wouldn't come bring him money. That thought kept him on the straight and narrow.

Shortly after we extracted his tooth, (haha, love the big word? lol) it was time to take Lexie to the doctor. She inherited her daddy's sensitive skin. For the past week or so, we have been fighting a really bad diaper rash. At one point the rash had developed into a yeast infection. I had some left over thrush medicine that I use on her butt to get rid of the yeast. It worked, but before we got the meds on her butt, she had gotten 3 pretty bad sores. So the appointment was to see what can be done to get rid of the sores. The doctors verdict was that, yes, the yeast infection was the problem that caused the sores, but since it was now gone, the sores had now changed to a bacterial infection. She gave me a perscription for both, the thrush medicine, and also ointment to help the sores. I have a couple of errands that I have to run in a little while, so I will be stopping by Walmart on the way out and dropping off the prescriptions.

I also heard back from my financial aid worker about the status of my pell grant. He said that the reason my money is being delayed is because I switched from one school to another. That switch has to have 30 weeks between, so students do not defraud the government. They are still looking into trying to get my money to me faster, but nothing is guaranteed. So on August 24, Derik will start 1st grade at his old school, Paul E. Culley Elementary. We moved out of the school's zone in June, but I don't want him to go to the new school since we are going to be moving out of state soon. I know he needs as much stability as possible and it's going to be hard enough on him to go to another new school in a couple of months, so I would much rather keep the changes to a minimum. His school is about the same distance from our current apartment as it was from our last. It actually doesn't take as long to get there because I can avoid a lot of traffic since I am going a different direction. He is going to be in Ms. Gallegos class, in room 13. This year he has been assigned track 9, which is the 9 month school, not that it really matters since we will be leaving the area in a couple of months.

Derik wasn't the only one with exciting news, Lexie had 2 new breakthroughs. The first one was that she has finally learned how to blow kisses. It was really sweet. As we were leaving to go to the doctor's, I told her to blow daddy kisses, and I showed her by doing it myself. Then I put her hand to her mouth and said again, blow kisses. Then I said blow kisses one more time, trying to encourage her to do it herself. Lo and behold, she did! She put her pudgy little hand up to her mouth and said MUH AHH! It was too cute! Now of course daddy was busy doing something else, so he didn't actually see her do it, but we were able to get her to repeat the gesture, just not the sound. The other cute thing she did, was while we were waiting in the waiting room at the doctor's office, there were several small children there. She kept going up to these little girls and giving them kisses. LOL. The first little girl was so not fond of Lexie's love. LOL. She just cried and cried. The other little girl didn't care. I tried to get pictures of it, but she would do it at odd times, and my battery was almost dead in my phone so I wasn't able to leave my phone on camera so I could wait for that moment. It truly was sweet!

Over the last couple of months, I have noticed that my legs have started swelling considerably. The swelling has usually been in just my feet, but last night I noticed that it has increased up to my knees. I don't know what I'm going to do. I don't have health insurance, so it's not like I can just go to the doctor to see what's wrong. There is a very good chance that many many tests will need to be ran to figure out why my feet and legs are swelling. I'm afraid that I'm loosing the circulation in my legs, because my feet will be ice cold quite often. I really hope it's not my heart that is having issues. I think if the swelling is as bad tomorrow as it was last night, I will probably have to go to the UMC (urgent medical center) and have them check me out. It's just not normal to have feet and legs the size of a watermellon. It's not normal to walk and feel the fluid sloshing around in my feet. It's not normal to have indentations in my feet just from having them crossed.

Well, I guess my time is up. The kids have been very impatient waiting for me to finish typing. They just do not understand, that by not bugging me while I am working, I can actually get things done a lot faster, then if I have stop every 30 seconds and referee a fight between them, or answer questions that have been answered 300,000,000 times, or whatever else they are doing instead of listening...

toodles!

Reflections

Why is it that most good intentions seem to go undone? My plan was to get up early, get the kids breakfast, go run a few errands, take the baby to the doctor, then take the kids swimming. So far, none of that has happened. I did get up and make a doctor's appointment for Lexie. She has a pretty good rash on her hiney that just won't go away. My good mood from last night seems to have disappeared while I slept. Maybe it's because I only got 4 hours of sleep? The kids have been up for a couple of hours, and are already on my last nerve. How do I get out of this funk? Why do I not want to spend time with my kids? I feel like such a bad parent. I don't want to do anything. I just want to stay in bed, and sleep all day. Maybe if I could get a full 8 hours of sleep I wouldn't be quite so cranky.

I miss having a life. I miss knowing that I had to get up in the mornings at a certain time and go to work. I miss being able to know where my life is leading. I miss the structure. Not having a job and having no real life is really hard. The last time I was jobless, it didn't bother me. I was very happy not having a job when Derik was a baby. Why is it so hard on me this time? I feel like I am actually doing more with my life right now, I'm going to school (although right now I really would like to smack them... HARD!) I do have goals, and am working towards them. Maybe its the fact that I don't have any friends to hang out with, that I don't have any money so I can't go anywhere. That I really hate living in Las Vegas. I don't know. I do know that everything has been so much harder for me since I found out that I was pregnant with Lexie. I don't regret having her, but everything has just been super stressful!

I started scrapbooking a few weeks ago, hoping that if I was doing creative things, it might help me in my quest to find fulfillment. I don't know if it has or not. I do know that I am now broker then I was before because i keep spending money on supplies. :^)

I plan on leaving the house in twenty minutes to go to derik's school and make sure that he is registered and all set up for the new school year. School starts on August 24. Since we are going to be moving very soon, I figure I'll leave him in his old school so he can go to school with the kids that he already knows. He's going to have to adjust to being the new kid soon, why make him adjust twice. Hopefully once he is able to go back to school next week, things with him will start to settle down.

Inspiration

Today has been an emotional rollercoaster day. It is a day, that has been full of anger, sleep deprivation, humility, and inspiration. Over the course of the last few days, I have been extremely sleep deprived between Lexie having sleep issues; my downstairs neighbors having extremely loud fights in the middle of the night; stress about Derik trying to leave and possibly getting hit by a car, or worse, or taken away from me by CPS; relationship problems; moving problems; and just plain insomnia.

Because of the sleep problems, I have been in a really cranky mood. The kids want to be kids, and I'm not dealing well with it. Because of Derik's wandering off problem, I made the decision to move to Thatcher, AZ so that I can be closer to family, and the kids will have the opportunity to actually be kids again. I can allow them to go outside and play and have fun without worrying that something is going to happen to them. That dream of leaving this week or next was dashed to pieces by a simple phone call. When I called to check on the status of my Pell Grant Money, I was advised that I would not be able to get my money until at least October. This was not what I wanted to hear. My children need to escape from Las Vegas badly, and so do I. This news wouldn't have been so bad had I not been told I should have the money "in the next couple of weeks" and made plans for that money. Our plan to move has not been thwarted, just delayed. I know that moving is the right decision, and that everything happens for a reason. What that reason is, I do not know. Hopefully Heavenly Father will help me understand why it is that it is happening this way.

I was given a break from the kids tonight, my first real break in a long time, and it was wonderful. I could have stayed away longer, but doing things by myself has never really been something that I enjoy. I don't mind being alone, and going out, but if I have someone that I truly care about and love, I would much rather spend that time with them, and do these things together. I decided to go watch the movie "The Proposal" but missed the showing, and didn't want to wait. The ticket taker suggested I try "Julie and Julia" and that is what I did. At first it was really wierd that I was the only person in the theater, but I have been alone in theaters before, so it really wasn't that big of a deal. I arrived about 30 minutes before the show began, and after spending time checking my facebook account on my phone, and chatting with my niece Tiana, the movie started. It was a great inspiration. It made me realize that even though right now I feel like my life is very empty, it isn't. I have two wonderful children who love me dearly. I have a man that is standing by my side and supporting my decisions, even if these decisions are not easy for him. I also realized that only I can fill my life with happiness. Instead of waiting for life to happen, I need to take charge of my life and make life happen for me.

This is the last week of my first set of classes at the University of Phoenix. Taking classes from UOP may have been a mistake, but they are a mistake that is leading me in the right direction. As mad as I am with them right now, I will continue with my education and get my degree and become an Elementary teacher. I have a goal to be finished in 2 1/2 years. I will have to work very hard, but I do know that I can do it! I know it without a doubt! When the stress gets to me, I am going to come here and vent about my life, so that I will no longer be taking my anger out on my kids (not in the physical sense, but in the "I can't deal with you sense.") My life is mine and mine alone. I have to make it right, not just for me but for my babies.

Childhood Milestones

Our family has had several important milestones happen in the last couple weeks. Lexie got tooth #3 (upper middle/left on April 15, 2009 (tax day) the wednesday after Easter. After 4 months of having just the bottom two teeth since New Years, She finally decided it was time to get more. These were really hard on her though. She had a lot of teeth pain. Broke my heart.

Then on April 20, 2009, Derik FINALLY FINALLY FINALLY!!! counted to 100 for the very first time! YAY DERIK!!! It has been a very much uphill battle to get him there, but I think we have finally passed this major hurdle. He made a few mistakes, but even still, he was able to do it. I'm so proud of my boy!

Then on April 22, 2009 Lexie broke her 4th tooth. So now she has both of her middle teeth on both the top and the bottom. She looks adorable!

Easter 2009

The Easter bunny made his appearance and left a pile of stuff for both of the kids. He left a trail of Easter eggs from the kids's room to each of their baskets. Derik got a new basket that looks like a football, and Lexie got one that is a plush rabbit. They both got several toys and lots of candy. We have discovered that Lexie loves chocolate. lol