A lot has been going on with Josie too. Josie got baptized on May 27th with her Grandpa and Grandma’s and Aunt Chris and Kacie watching along. She had surgery on a blocked tear duct on June 6th. It went very well and by the next day we could tell a difference already. It was nerve racking none-the-less, but everything turned out okay. Josie now has 3 teeth and is working on her fourth. They haven’t been too difficult which is nice.

Yesterday Josie turned one. I took the day off of work so that I could be with her and Jayden and Kim. We went to the Jordan Creek area to get Josie’s 1 year photos and then went and hung out at the Jordan Creek Mall for a bit. The kids played in the play area and Josie got to make a teddy bear. After coming home we went to Big Creek State Park to play in the water and beach.

We’ve had fun building a sandbox for the kids. I think Josie was more interested in it at first, but now, they both seem to like it. It helps when Jayden’s friends come over and play in it too.

 Oh, and we reverted back to a minivan. We were so cramped in our Pontiac Vibe so we traded for a Chrysler Town & Country.

So, all in all we’ve had a very busy month. Hopefully the summer will get a little quieter, which I’m sure it will once the house is done being painted.

Aside from the kids being sick, we painted our living room a couple of weeks ago. We were sick of the poorly painted yellow that the old owners had. Funny it took us about 4 years to get it painted.

Update: Well, it appears that Josie has croup and Jayden has ear infection. At least Jayden already had it once so now we know what to do with Josie. Josie seems to be doing better after they gave her a steroid shot. Jayden’s at least eating some cereal now.

Speaking of painting and remodeling….after tonight, we can officially say we are DONE WITH THE WINDOWS!! We have been working on them since September, yes, September. What a pain! But after all the hard work that Kevin and others put into it, I can say they look rather nice. Next project please!

Jayden is getting bigger and turning into a little man. He’s so fun and talks all the time. (Don’t know where he gets that from) He’s our “little parrot”. He’s been a regular two year old out and about at stores lately. He tells us “I’m just looking.” Annoying, but cute. So then we have to drag him on and he still tells us, “I’m just looking.” Last night, while Kevin was working on Josie’s window, Jayden informed us that he needed his “own toolbox.” He’s Daddy’s little shadow and has to help with everything! We wouldn’t have it any other way.

Josie, Josie, Josie. Let’s just say, we love her to death. She’s growing like a weed. She still HATES her car seat. She LOVES to watch her brother and try and get her hands on him. She is sitting up. She loves to smile, especially at her Daddy. She loves bath time. She’s almost off her pacifier (thank God). And she’s still a lot of maintenance.

Jayden and Josie both had new years resolutions. Jayden’s is to get off the sippy cup, which he doesn’t have very often anyway. And also to hopefully potty train by summer. What a chore! Josie’s resolution is to get rid of the pacifier (it’s a love/hate relationship). And to crawl/walk before she’s one. At this rate, we hope she’s crawling.

Kevin and I have lots of resolutions, but we’ll see how many of them get taken care of. We’d both like to start working out again. We sure miss the exercise. And some days I feel like I’m paying for it. Have to work off these two kids!! We’d like to get more done on the house. Take a couple weekend getaways. And just be a healthy and fun family.

We also have been giving the church we had been going to another chance. It’s hard to go back and face what you don’t want to face, but we somewhat like it there and don’t want to have to change. We have put the past behind us, but we have to get over the hump and feel comfortable again. This seems like it’s taking awhile. Thankfully we have some friends that have been there with us. It’s amazing how some things can affect a person, but in the end, we think things will be okay. We won’t get back what we lost, but hopefully we can start anew.

Jayden has been busy being a big brother. He does pretty good with Josie, but at his age, just doesn’t grasp being gentle. He’s also showing his being 2 a bit more. He knows what he wants and can have the occasional meltdown if he doesn’t get his way. He LOVES the new Car’s movie that just came out on DVD. He sat through the whole thing watching it when we got it and now wants to watch it all the time. I think Thomas the Tank Engine is getting jealous as he’s starting to fade in the background. But, he still loves trains so Thomas shouldn’t feel too bad.

Josie’s been having fun in her bouncy seat. She just loves it. She’s also started to roll over on her own from her stomach to her back. It’s amazing to see how much different she is from Jayden. She’s way ahead of Jayden. She likes to try different foods and usually drinks her whole 6 oz. of milk within 15 minutes. She also has found her voice and likes to “talk”. I hope it’s not a sign of the future when she gets a cell phone.

Kim has been keeping herself busy (most of the time…but she gets bored staying at home) being Mom. She does a great job keeping everything ship-shape in spite of Jayden’s use of the living room as the play area. At least Jayden likes to organize his cars. He usually has them all lined up all straight and tidy. Kim’s also getting everything ready (shopping) for Christmas which helps keep her mind occupied. She continues to read lots of books. I think she reads one a week. Too bad I didn’t have more time to read. Oh well, maybe when I retire.

About three weeks ago I was driving our Focus in a parking lot and heard a weird noise coming from the front. Hmm. Brakes? Sure enough, the brakes were getting bad. I only heard the noise about 2 times and didn’t think they were that bad, but as you can see from the picture, they were almost metal against metal. So, Zach found me a good place to order them online and because he’d just replaced his brakes in his Focus, helped change my brakes this week. What a difference that can make. They are a lot better and shouldn’t make my wheels dirty as I ordered the ceramic pads. w00t!

Anyway, I made my way down to the courthouse bright and early Monday morning. I found a place to park and made nice to a lady aimlessly finding her way too so we could look lost together. We found where we were supposed to go, along with the other 100 people or so. I got settled in the “Jury Room”. And settled is the word. I always wondered why it took so long for a trial to get started. Man, it’s because picking the jury and getting that ready, takes HOURS. The judicial time clock is very slow. They may say, “We’ll be back in a couple minutes to get you.” That actually means, “Another 20-30 mins. and we’ll come and get you.” It was almost like sitting in church, but knowing you’ll be able to go home for an hour and not have to sit on the hard pew anymore. Well, that’s not the case. I managed to ride the pine for about 7 hours on Monday, three hours yesterday and another 2 and a half today.

It wouldn’t have been so bad, but there’s alot of sitting around and doing NOTHING! Alot of time wasted and alot of government money wasted. It was very frustrating and very overwhelming all at the same time. By the time I left on Monday my head was POUNDING. So, Tuesday roles around. I was to return for the jury selection on a trial, which I ended up not being on. THANK GOD. It was a sex abuse case. The victim: 11 year old girl. I don’t think i would have been very objective considering kids are my profession. I got told I wasn’t going to be on the jury and was relieved. Only to find out 5 minutes later, I’d have to come back on Wednesday. GGGRRRRR!!!!! So I went in today (Wednesday) and wasted another 2 and a half hours of doing nothing. I was actually told, along with 50 other people, that had better things to do, that we could go home. Man, it’s such a waste. Can’t they come up with a better system for jury duty?

So I’m relieved today to know, that my civic duty is done for 2 years. But there needs to be some change. Stop wasting people’s time. Get things going in a timely matter. Very annoying and very frustrating. I wouldn’t have minded doing “my civic duty,” but I also have two children to take care of and why would I pay for day care? Like the state is going to reimburse childcare costs. I even called Kevin’s mom down here today thinking I could be in the court room until Friday. So not only did this whole thing affect me, it affected Kevin, Jayden, Josie and Kevin’s mom. If I had a “real job” and didn’t have to worry about the kids it would have been a good experience. It was nice to see how some of the court stuff is done that you don’t see on TV. But change the system and make it easier for everyone. I don’t wish this upon anyone. But if you do get called, take a book, magazine, I-pod, and whatever else along, to keep you busy. You’ll need it. Oh, and a cushion for the pine!

Jury duty was only a small portion of Kevin and my great week. We ordered the wrong windows to replace Josie and Jayden’s room. We have to take those back and get the right ones this weekend. We got a storm door, only to get it home and find it was the wrong size that they had given us. And our fridge gave out on Saturday so we had to buy a new fridge. We lived out of a ghetto cooler until today! This week can be over any day! I’m ready for a new one.

Oh, but it’s not over
Saturday Kim’s Mom came to town so we could go pickup the windows we ordered two weeks ago at Lowe’s. We decided to also get a storm door while we were at it. “I need a 36×81 storm door like this one.” I told the helpful Lowe’s window guy. Took the thing home and was going to install it with the help of Tony…Opened the box and wouldn’t you know I got the only 32×81 door that they had. For some reason the Lowe’s guy gave me the wrong one. So, we took all the child seats out of the Vibe loaded the door up (Yeah, it can actually haul an 8′ article) and exchanged it. I’m kind of glad though as the windows that we got were designed for a “drop-in” replacement instead of a regular replacement. The replacement windows that I should have gotten have a flange around the entire window which is what I needed. So, this Saturday Tony and I will make another trip to Lowe’s to return these windows and order some other ones that will work.

It gets better
The highlight to all of this door not fitting, wrong windows, fridge done-n-gone broken, and Jayden doing a face plant is that Kim is on Jury duty for the week. That left me to stay home and take care of the kids yesterday and this morning. She’ll have an updated entry of her own to explain how wonderful our judicial system really is.

It’s okay now
I guess through all that has happened this week I’m just glad that everyone is mostly healthy (Josie had a cold Sunday and Yesterday, but is feeling better today) and no more things are breaking (hopefully). Thank goodness for Lowe’s interest free for a year get out of jail card. haha

Sunday, we decided it was time to clean the carpets so we rented a Rug Doctor from Wal-mart. Man, what a difference it made. Looking at the dirty water wasn’t a pleasant feeling as it was much less than clean! I’m almost ashamed we let the kids lay/play on it. haha

It was nice to be able to be just a couple again for a short time. Kim and I went to Jordan Creek Mall to do some walking around and I ended up getting a ton of shirts for cheap at Dillard’s on Saturday. First time I’ve actually even gone in the store. Unfortunately, Kim didn’t find anything that she liked. Then we went to Merle Hay Mall on Sunday.

We got him a Johnny Jumper for him to get started using his legs. He’s liking it more now and likes to jump up and down. Santa got him a Little Tykes Car for Christmas and we’ve already got him practicing for race day. More Christmas pictures will be added later, but for now you can see what Jayden got that Pioneer Hi-Bred will be proud of.

We now have a bird feeder and “Squirrel Sitter” in our back yard and the squirrels so far have managed to rule both. We haven’t seen a single bird eat out of the bird feeder and the squirrels manage to go through an ear of corn a day (at least). So far we’ve seen 4 of them at a time. I did have the bird feeder hanging from a bracket on a tree, but went out and bought a pole thinking that there’s no way a squirrel would climb a 1/2 inch thick pipe. Well, I was wrong, so now I’m going to have to go and get one of those contraptions that keeps them from doing their acrobatic movements up the pole.

I’ve decided to use a different photo gallery to display pictures. This one provides an easier upload interface and more customizations. Hopefully you won’t find too many bugs from previous image links.

Wood floors can be expensive to refinish. I’m in the process of getting everything around to refinish our Great Room” and dining area. Let’s just say that by the time it’s done we could have gone to some exotic island. Okay, so maybe not that expensive, but it’s still takes a few Benjamins to get the job done.

Kim had another baby-2-be checkup on Monday. Everything’s looking and sounding “A-OK”. She gained an additional 6 ponds in a month and a week so she’s right on schedule.