Messy Halloween!!

You know that mess that I didn't clean up yesterday?? Yeah. It got worse :S I was gonna come home and clean today, but I got sick last night. Wonderful. I did break down and take the kids trunk or treating at the church a couple blocks down. They loved it! They especially loved the candy afterwards. And I have pictures to prove it. *Please, no judging ;)

Lucas unwrapped himself shortly after we got home...

My messy ghost

My messy floor... Don't worry. It got worse.

...See?

Lucas apparently doesn't like peanut butter cups. He spit his out into the bucket. Joy. At least it made it to the bucket...?

Trunk-or-Treating

Yes. That's a sucker stuck to her arm. 

Apparently he didn't want to be a mummy at all anymore. He wanted to be a moose :)

And here are our costumes :) I loved my tutu! 

Happy Halloween, everyone!!  Hope yours was great!

Some Days I Just Don't Care...

The house is a mess, and the laundry is still not folded. Meh. At least I actually made dinner tonight. We'll leave things how they are for now... That, of course, includes the dirty dishes as well.

I knew I wouldn't be great at this working mom thing. I love being able to work and helping provide for our family, but I don't get off work until at least after 5. If I have to pick the kids up from daycare I'm usually home around 6 or 6:30. By then I'm just beat. We do nighttime routine, and I'm ready for bed shortly after the kids are in bed! So that's my excuse for a messy house all the time ;) I can't do much when they go to sleep or they will wake up. I can't do much when they are awake 'cause... Well, they're awake. So nothing really gets done :S

I'm supposed to be off work early tomorrow, and I might just leave the kids in daycare for a bit so I can clean the house in peace! (And I'm not ashamed at all!) I was making dinner tonight, and I turned around to find Via chewing on the white Halloween face paint. Yeah. It was everywhere... Including my couch :( My poor, poor couch. It has already been through so much with these little kiddos. No worries. The face paint came out for the most part. But you can image what my stomach did when I saw a white baby painting my couch white. It was bad enough that I even forgot to take pictures first ;)

Some days I really do care that the house is a mess and the dishes are piling up, but not today. Today I paid rent. And my kids were happy... And that meant that I was happy. And everything else can wait because it's 9:30, and I'm going to bed :) Goodnight, messy, happy home!

We Will Make It Trough November!

We paid tithing yesterday. And today I am a living testament that paying tithing is followed by blessings! Our financial struggles for the month have been solved. Graciously, miraculously solved :)

I think I'm due to bear my testimony... I love this church. Heaven knows I don't follow it to a T, or even closely sometimes; but I know where I would be without it, and I know I don't like it. I know that when I am closer to Christ and my Heavenly Father I am happier. I know that we are blessed in so many ways when we live the gospel. Like today. I don't deserve the blessing we received today, but I'm so grateful for it. I'm grateful for a church with a living prophet. I'm very grateful for personal and family revelation. I wouldn't have much direction in my life without it. I'm grateful for my little family, especially my wonderful husband. Poor guy puts up with so much that I know he's probably the only one that could survive being married to me. Heavenly Father blessed me with an amazing, patient man, and I am truly grateful for that :) I love that He knows us so personally and knows exactly what we need - whether we think we need it or not. I'm very grateful to be a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Just for fun... What to take away from this:

1. Pay your tithing!

Happy November, everyone :)

If I Can Just Get Through November...

You know the song, "Wake Me Up When September Ends"?? Well, I need a "Wake Me Up When November Ends" song right about now... Can someone just wake me up for Thanksgiving dinner, and then again around the first of December? That sounds great, thanks!

Seriously, though... People think college kids are poor and have no money and blah, blah, blah. Well, we had money. It was loaned, but we had money. It's how we paid rent and bills and a few fun things, but... We SHOULD have had no money, but with two kids, it's a little harder to do. Well, NOW we have no money haha! I finally will start getting paid tomorrow, but I found out that we only get paid on the first of the month at the clinic :( I'm not good enough with money for that! Don't they know that?? ;)  Levi is amazing and is working so hard for us - and hopefully this week will change things - but I know he's not working a dream job of his, and the money is hard when we are suddenly, actually paying for rent and bills and a few fun things (sorry, gotta get me some Chick-fil-A when we are in Idaho Falls).

I did get some good news from the clinic: I just have to give them my receipt for registering for my CMA exam ($125), and they will reimburse me for it! I just don't know when they will do that. And I should have 3 days on my paycheck for November... Can you tell I'm trying to type myself into knowing things are gonna be okay?? Haha! We will be just fine come December, but I'm not quite sure about November yet ;) Jk, we'll be fine.

I don't mean this to sound like a pity party or anything. I'll just put it out there... I'm not great at all with money. I've always been horrible about saving. If I've got three bucks, I'm getting a sandwich or something, ya know? Horrible. I keep thinking that we just need to learn how to be better and live without before Levi gets a great job. We really didn't live without in college. Our apartment came with internet, cable, washer/dryer, dishwasher, city utilities paid... We had scholarships, grants, loans, and Levi worked part-time at least through most of college. Well, now we're paying rent, internet, cable, all utilities, and no dishwasher (which does save on water, but you aren't allowed to see how high my dishes get stacked!).

I know. You're thinking, "Why did you take out loans?" For some reason I feel like I should explain myself, but the truth is... We shouldn't have. Not nearly as much as we did, anyway. We should have scrimped and cloth diapered and whatnot. (If you know me, though, you know I was way too lazy to cloth diaper two kids with school full-time. I'm not Supermom, and I wasn't gonna try to be!) And then you're thinking, "But you were posting on Facebook about making you're own laundry soap and whatnot." Yep, and ya know what? I literally HAD to make it when we recently ran out because I couldn't buy more, so I'm very glad I learned how! Really, though, in college, what we saved on making our own laundry soap would be spent somewhere else... Sad, but true.

A friend of mine that blogs does "Things To Take Away" from her posts. My posts are usually just rambly-on kind of things with pictures at the end, but I will add a "Take Away" to the end of this one!

1. Don't take out student loans if you don't have to! You really can live without a lot, especially in college. Most our stuff was in storage the last few years, and it's amazing how much crap you can live without.

2. Use credit cards only in emergencies!! True emergencies. Or, if you are very structured and responsible, use them and pay them off immediately.

3. I don't want to say "don't have kids in college" because I get mad when others tell couples when they should or should not have kids, but it's tough. It's tough on the relationship, it's tough on the wallet, it's tough on the kids. There's a reason we had originally planned to wait. BUT, with that being said, I love my kids to pieces. They can be little terrors, but I love them and they bring us a great amount of joy! Side note: notice I said "couples" before, and I would add mature adults, but I work at a place watching 14- and 16- year-olds come in pregnant. I really think people shouldn't have kids that young, but that's a different post :)

4. Budget. And stick to it. Whenever I budget, it's the sticking to it that is the hard part, as I'm sure it is for most of the world. Economic downfall, anyone? So, at least I'm not alone, I guess.

Lastly, being rich or poor really isn't about the money. It's a mindset and a spending habit. We're really not "poor," we just need to learn to spend more wisely! Now that we're being forced to - without the fallback of loans and credit cards - hopefully we will be able to actually apply some common cents to our finances! Here's to a Happy November!!

So Much Stuff!!

So much to do these days and hardly any motivation. I do okay on the weekends with getting things put together with the house, but during the week? Pshh. 9 hour days are not conducive to my homemaking abilities. I did get a little decorating done this weekend, so I guess the rest can wait until the next one. Seriously, how did we acquire so much stuff?!?

On another note: Last week of externship!!! I will actually start getting paid next week. Yay!! I am learning so many new things each day. Not so much with medicine anymore but things like... where the ultrasound request forms are, when you should fax a prescription instead of eRx-ing it, and that you should check the expiration dates on collection tubes so you don't have to call a pt to come back in and redo an unpleasant test :( Oops. In my defense, I wasn't the one that collected it... that was the midwife ;) I still get to call, though haha! Good times...

Kids: Lucas is talking up a storm and is actually saying his whole name, Lucas, now. It's super cute. Love that kid. Via is just all over the place, into everything, and putting anything in her mouth. I'm surprised neither of my kids have seriously choked yet. Really. I don't know how those kids are still alive sometimes! They are into everything! They are quick, too. One makes a mess, I go to clean it up, and the other has made another mess. They did a little of this before, but now that we have boxes strewn about the place, it makes it 75% easier for them to get into pretty much whatever they want. If I could have high shelving for everything in my house, I totally would. I would leave a few dust bunnies on the ground for them to play with. That's it.

My girl, T. Swift: So sad. Her new album, Red, came out today, and it's just different. It's all pop-y and doesn't seem as sincere, I guess. There are a few singles I like from it, but I mostly just miss the old stuff. Where did that Tim McGraw inspiration go??? I still remember the first time I heard that song, her very first single on the radio, and I fell in love. Apparently the working mother with two young children doesn't relate as well to the 22 year old gorgeous superstar that dates other superstars. We're just not that close anymore, Taylor...  ;)

My husband: <3 my Levi. In this respect, I am so glad I don't relate to Taylor Swift! After I took the kids to daycare and left for work, my dear husband did some laundry, put the dishes away (after helping me wash them last night - no automatic dishwasher), he fixed the closet, picked up the front room, and still went to work all day :) Levi's mom was talking the other night about how her fiancé was going through things, cleaning out the basement, and how it made him so sexy to her! Levi didn't get it. Women, you get it, right??

Well, enough info. Here are some pictures of my work-in-progress home:

Not sure if I will keep this wall like this. Don't know if I'm feelin' it...

New family pics (with Via) coming soon-ish

See? Boxes everywhere still...

This is one of my absolute favorite features of this place... I can toss dirty diapers straight out the window into the dumpster!!!! If you have pants-crappin' kids, you know how exciting this is!!!

And Via at dinner last night. Just for fun. 

Missionary Moment

Do other people have those Missionary Moments in church or in seminary?? We do. I feel like I never have one. I'm not usually the outgoing, talk-about-the-church kind of person missionary work usually requires. Scares me to death. But there was a time when I wanted to serve a mission... I was at my all-time "high" on the gospel my last two years of high school. I wanted to serve, and it fit into my plans back then. But, as I'm sure everyone knows, plans change...

So, I'm sure you've figured out where I'm going with this if you heard about the new age limit for Mormon missionaries. I know there are young 20-somethings out there like me thinking, "Would my life be different now if I had been able to serve when I was 19??" I was 19 before I even graduated high school. Of course this question crossed my mind. But, as a friend of mine on Facebook put it so eloquently: Heavenly Father has a plan for MY life. I've chosen to leave it at that :) For any others around my age doing the "what if" game, or even resenting the new age for women missionaries, Heavenly Father has a plan for you. If we are doing what we know is right and trying our best to follow Christ, we can rest assured that we are where we should be :)

The very next thing that crossed my mind after I heard the new announcement was, "Wow! That's kind of young for boys!" No offense to any young man, but I still feel young and immature at 24; I can't imagine going at 18! Going off of this thought, though, is what I think this means for parents: WE must make sure that our children are ready to go at these ages if they wish to. (I know they didn't advise every young man to go at 18, but are simply now allowing it.) We must raise our kids to not only know the truths of the gospel, but the be able to articulate them as well. We must raise them up strong and stable. We must give them a foundation they can build upon. This means we must show them how to be missionaries in our own communities and families. I know, I know, easier said than done. I'm still trying to work on simply calming down when the kids are screaming! Missionaries don't scream at people screaming at them ;)

For me, this new change is not only a call for more full-time missionary work, but also a call to parents to make sure those missionaries are ready. Let's get them ready!

Spinning Floors and Surgical Robots

The floor is spinning tonight. And it did the same thing last night. What an exhausting couple of days! I've never been so tired that the floor spins. Spinning from drugs (the medical ones...)? Yes. But from utter exhaustion? Nope. Not until now. Here's why...

Yesterday morning we got up and got the kids ready. We went up to Rexburg, got the moving truck, and finally took all of our stuff out of storage! Yay!!! My grandma and sister were a huge help in watching the kids while we moved, and my uncles, Blake and Steve, were also awesome helps in the actual moving part! They were troopers. Seriously.

After loading up the truck, we headed back to Pocatello. (We were moving out of Levi's mother's house and into a place of our own, still in Poky.) While we were first looking at this basement apartment that we eventually signed the contract for, we wondered if our bed and things would fit in it. The front door barely cleared the wall right in front of it and then there were stairs straight down to the right with a slopey ceiling. The landlord told us he thought they had fit a queen sized bed down there before. Wrongo! Neither our box spring or two-piece couch would fit down the stairs. When the box spring wouldn't fit, I figured we could just put two twin boxes together or something; but when the couch wouldn't fit either... my stomach turned to knots. To throw another fun wrench in the mix, Levi had gone to do something very important, so I was supposed to make the next move (pun intended, you'll see why) on my own. What?! I have no idea what to do at this point!! So, what did we do?? We went to lunch. Yeah.

During lunch the landlord called and mentioned this other rental they have. Side note: the landlords are friends of Levi's mom, and we knew about this other rental they had, which Levi's sister and her husband had actually rented previously. Other fun fact: this other rental used to be their office for their newspaper business that Levi worked for after his mission :) Anyway, back to the story. We didn't originally want to move into this other place because it is a little more expensive (but I totally see why), and we were trying to keep expenses low. At the point where none of our stuff would fit through the door, though, the $150 difference was a no brainer! Other side note: the basement apartment apparently wasn't up to code according to my grandma, and it had a lot of spiders :( Yuck.

So, after I had painted all the bedrooms in the basement apartment trying to make it feel more homey, we ended up moving to an entirely new place :) It's an actually house, 3 bedrooms - and our room is between the kids' so they won't be waking each other up! - a tiny kitchen, huge living room, w/d hookups, and.... (wait for it) a fenced in back yard!! Worth the price difference? You betcha! Why didn't I think about this one before? No idea. I guess I thought it was occupied? No one has actually lived here since Levi's sister and her husband moved out last year, though. Anyway, things ended up working out for the best. Thank you, Heavenly Father!!

So, now that we have ALL of our stuff into our own place, this is what it looks like...

I don't know how we acquired so much crap in the last 3 years, but we did :/

This is the chevron wall I painted in the other place in what would have been V's room :( Oh, well.

By the end of last night, having moved 2.5ish times (from storage, to the basement apt, to here...) the floor was definitely spinning and I was out cold soon after the kids were in bed. Tonight, I'm slightly less tired than last night, but still so exhausted. I woke up and left this morning to watch some Da Vinci robotic surgeries and spent 6 hours doing that, which was awesome of course! But cold. ORs are cold. Then I worked a few more hours, picked up the kids, fed them, packed the rest of our stuff at my mother-in-law's house, we loaded it up in the truck after Levi got off work at 9:30 tonight - and I'm very thankful for Luke, Levi's brother for helping us with this part!! - , then brought it back to our house to unload it all - with Luke's help :) And the kids were tired and screaming, and their mom was tired and screaming, and it was overall just a very crazy week. Good times! 

*I swear I'm not moving for the next three years. 8 moves in 3.5 years is good enough for me!