Domesticated Diva

 
So... Last year at this time I was wretchedly sick.  I got this little cutie out of it, but things were pretty bleak and dismal for over 4 months.  And the weirdest repeat is happening.  All of the seasonal smells and foods and even decorations of October THIS year are making me nauseous yet again just because they remind me of being pregnant last year.  Double ugness.

In a big push to pull of at least a few incidents of domestication between being super sick after the arrival of Baby Eye-let and heading back to work work work, I made these fabulous cookies.  It's the best recipe ever.  Walnut-oatmeal-chocolate chip cookies dipped in milk chocolate and coconut.  We ate them in lou of real food for days.

 I also stole a project idea from my best friend at Yellow Pear Photography and crafted these back to school kits for all of my nieces and nephews. 
We sent them off in the mail just in time for the first day.

 I cannot get enough of this snuggly delight.  I often think she is the baby I was expecting to get when I got Annie.  Annie is my insatiable obstinate spitfire. Ollie {as Annie has now coined} is quite the reverse.  She is mellow and timid.  I still am elated beyond measure that I get to have 2 girls in a row!  Annie and I run around the house saying, "two girls, two girls," over and over again as I repeat every action twice from one girl to the next.  Don't you think a third would be even better?!

 And finally-my last attempt at domesticity until I don't work next summer:  I wound up the banners I made on card board rolls so they wouldn't tangle.  Whoop de do.

 Work is sucking the life out of me.  I think I am in need of some sort of role in my life in which I am NOT the one in charge.  Not the mom, not the teacher, not the instructor.  I need something where I just show up- someone tells me what to do- I do it- and them go home.  But alas- something tells me I wouldn't be satisfied with that for long.  In one last push to finish our yard and basement, I remember daily that these girls and this awesome house are worth it.  It's a good life and it is certainly good to be busy. 
I shall continue to contribute to society yet.

It's 1:35 am!  My house is a disaster, I have 100 essays to grade, and I'm so exhausted my hair is literally falling out.  What on earth am I still doing up?!?!

Need a laugh at my expense?

The other night I was so tired that I put Desitin on my tooth brush instead of toothpaste! It's moments like these that have me panicking about the coming school year.  I've been having a large bit of anxiety over just how we are going to survive it.  I hate feeling so stretched all the time.  So today I decided there is no use in fretting.  In fact, my days need to be done blaming busy schedules for grumpy dispositions.  It's one day at a time for us and being happy with being busy.  I shall not sew or craft for another year.  I won't keep a spotless house.  My baby will cry and cry because she doesn't want a bottle.  But I will be a good mom and play house when I can.  I will be an awesome teacher and get the 8th grade to write amazing essays and appreciate Ayn Rand.  And I will be happy and joyful to be around.  It is my conscious decision and I am determined to be a better me.  I'm also determined to never brush with Desitin again!

And so, with great reluctance, I give you my photograph.

About Quinn:  He is pretty terrific.  But you probably already knew that. We are enjoying the good life now... well maybe not Q this week.  He is working like crazy, but as for Annie and I- we are seriously catching up.  Yesterday I took her to a park for the first time and we had so much fun, we went again later that evening.  Nearly every night we sit outside on our front patio and eat dinner while we watch cars and people go by.  It is so awesome to have a front yard.   I think Q would rather be doing yard work than extra work at the parlor, but I'm sure he is glad to have a break from yard work for a bit. Right now he is down to the last decision.  We have $60 of yard money left and he is debating between one more landscape rock or a nice outdoor light for the patio.  In the meantime, we are gearing up for Meg's wedding this Saturday and then it is the single digit countdown to baby.  A good respite in life indeed.  Here are a few photos from May's final front yard completion:

Q's family lives in our basement apartment.  We see them almost every day and eat dinner together a few times a week.  Meree is having another baby.  That will make 11 people living in this amazing house.  Sometimes I pat the walls and tell my house, "Way to go house, 11 people. Look at you go!"

Annie's has two little cousins who live with us.  She is pretty competitive with Owen who is her age, but idolizes Porter.  She loves to be near him and follows him wherever he goes.

 Annie also really loves juice.  She is so good not to spill and squeeze too hard.  She loves sitting on the front steps and sipping her juice but usually requests company as she sits and sips which means lugging my huge tummy up and down.

The grass is so green, which is so much better than looking out at dirt all day.  Annie says,"green grass grow go dad!" as we admire it daily.  I've also noticed a huge decrease in dust... at least in the front of the house.  There are still a few spots to reseed but overall, considering the slope we started with a year & 1/2 ago, it's coming along nicely.

I requested this Flamingo Maple and it is still alive [which is more than we can say of  more than a few things we have planted].  We have 3 shares of irrigation water which is awesome, it means we can afford all this grass, but it also means one more obstacle in the way of some of our young plants from making it since the Ph or something like it isn't as perfect as culinary water.

And so, with great reluctance, I give you my photograph.  You know it's bad when your tummy even pops out of your hubby's T-shirts.  Although, might I add that I just ordered some terrific and stylish hospital gowns online and I'm kind of excited about it.

We are so proud of our house!  We couldn't be happier if it was the Taj Mahal.  Actually, that isn't a good comparison because India kind of scares me.  Anyhow, it's getting closer and closer to our vision every few months.  It is super fun to see our hard work proove results in reality.  We can hardly wait to paint the outside and start on the back.  Alas, we must.  We've got to buy a baby and a new car this summer. So  my advice is GO for the fixer-upper.  You have to be patient and work forever, but you just might fall in love with your house and the process of molding it into your vision like we have.

If ever anyone took this gig away from me...

So here I am- having survived what I hope is the worst of us being sick, and the worst of grading essays at work, and the worst of dancing hard hard hard with a big belly at my other work, and the worst of winter. At least I hope survive can be a past-tense verb tonight. It's been a while since you've seen me probably- and now I know why! I'm positively HUGE and with 3 months to go. Plus my hair is seriously polyg long. No need to focus too long on that. Moving on. Here's the latest:


Annie and I were so sick for Q's B-day and I felt horrible that I could scarcely get myself out of bed to kiss him. Turns out that kissing was good to avoid since I had strep and gave it to Annie in the form of a severe strep diaper rash that she still has in an atrocious way, plus a full-body rash from her anti-biotic to kill the strep. Will it ever end?! The worst part was having to work most of the week despite us being so sick. Aunt Michelle, GPo, and my mom took pity on Q and threw together a quick B-day dinner I would never make him because I can't stand sloppy joes. Q seemed fine especially since he loves a good S.J. and I promised him a postponed B-Day celebration.


Here is just one of the cakes I made him later to redeem myself!
A fabulous pumpkin applesauce cake. Hope I bookmarked that recipe somewhere.

Just before we got sick, Annie and I took a quick trip to SLC to see Meg pick out a wedding dress. My camera fogged up in the cold so this was the only photo I managed. 4 little girls all the same age- it was a dream come true for Annie.

And in bigger life-events, we are pinching and squeezing every penny in sight to get our front yard in. The first step was finally getting a landscape guy to fix and wire our valves, then we managed to get half our cement plans for the front yard in. I just have to stop thinking about how many papers I have to grade to get this yard and keep reminding myself that once it is in, it is in and we don't have to keep scrimping to pay for it. Oh- it will be fabulous when it is done. I love our yard... or at least its potential. Q promised a front yard this spring and we are hoping to plant grass in April. In the meantime, feast your eyes on our expensive day of cement!

If ever anyone took this gig of motherhood away from me, I am positive I would cease to exist. I may be some shadow shell of a person walking around like a zombie, but make no mistake- it would be simply that, because there can be no Nicole without Annie and Q. I count down the days until I can stay at home full time and do the thousand mom things I dream of when I am at work. We have decided that our yard is a need, not a want, for our kids and so to work I must go one more year. But I sit on the edge of my bed in those rare moments when Annie is sleeping and I am home, and I stare out our window at our gigantic back yard and I know that another year is going to be worth decades of memories with Q and our kids running through sprinklers or having backyard camp outs and baseball games. I am proud that we both work so hard for what we have and the life we are building. I love molding our house, however slow, into something unique with our touch in every space and corner. This is it really, what life is about. And we are tired and exhausted, and working much too much... but we are happy, and we have Annie, and, someday, we will have an acre of grass.

Annie's kisses are the best in the world!
Even when they are accompanied by a face full of whipped cream.

Spinning Spinning Spinning

Quinn and I are exhausted! Ever had so many to do's on your list that your head is spinning spinning spinning and the very thought of writing them down in some sort of workable list makes you want to cry? We have had two particularly swamped work weeks in a row and on top of it all {ARE YOU READY FOR THIS} we are in the middle of buying a house. I cannot believe it! Needless to say, we've been super stressed. Q has taken an extra weekend on call and I think work is naturally more busy and crazy for him because one of the main guys quit in January and they aren't hiring anyone new. This is always a high-pressure crunch time for me because the clog competition and end-of-level testing is right around the corner. This year my students are particularly chatty and I have the greatest stratification I have ever seen so I've got my work cut out. Add to this Annie deciding to get bigger and change right before our eyes. I can tell she needs to eat real food but she won't and she requires some serious sleep training and schedule adjustment but I haven't had the time or energy to do it. Her long bought of sickness sent us backwards a few steps and I don't have all my ducks in a row to really work with her. Quinn is super anxious about Annie's progress- I'm more laissez-faire. If she's happy and it's working for me, I'm super fine with the midnight to 9 am sleep schedule. Alas, Q's anxiety may be stressing me more than Annie's progress so I guess it's time to dedicate myself to getting Annie going. Admission: She's not quite able to sit on her own yet because we never put her down. Just so you know, I'm chalking that up to a good thing.

She is an absolute dream. We still fight over who gets to hold her.

Yep, you guessed it: This is another of my dresses. It was hand crocheted for me 30 years ago and it's my favorite dress of all time. The work is immaculate. When Annie wears this dress to church the Relief Society ladies can't get enough of it.

A few weeks ago Annie discovered the joy of playing the piano. Now she sings whenever Ydnic starts playing. Meggie also made this amazing orange cake worth documenting and remember forever, I keep begging her to make it again but she says it's too much work. We told her she was wife-worthy after a cake like this and she should send a picture to Braden on his mission in Brazil to show him she has killer domestic skills now.

How sad:

It happened. Annie did something amazing while I was at work.
Isn't it awful?! She started holding her own bottle.
Q sent me this picture from his phone while I was teaching
and I told my students they had to be good that day or I might cry.
The good/bad news is that I have decided to teach school again next year.
Word out on the street is that my job is safe, which is a blessing,
but still- it's work. It's away from Annie.
Q and I were talking a few nights ago about how awful it was
for me to go back to school for that 2nd degree
and how wretched those first few years of teaching middle school were
...and how worth it, TOTALLY worth it, it was and is.
I'm finally to the point where I can show up a few minutes before class
and leave right after the bell rings.
Now- if I could just figure a way to get out of grading essays.

And about that house:

My amazing artist and architect brother painted this rendering of what it will be, someday, after we've put in a million hours and found some extra money somewhere. It's a foreclosure so there will be a TON of work on it. We bought for space, built-in-equity, and location. Yep, we learned our lesson big time with our last real estate mistake. We are completely and totally lucky to have gotten this place. We will never make a ton of $$$ or be rich so we had to get a deal, but THIS (says our realtor and everyone we have come bid the house) is a SCREAMIN' deal! Foreclosures are quite competitive, and we still have to jump through hoops to secure the deal. Thank heavens for THE BEST REAL ESTATE AGENT EVER! Seriously, if you are buying in SGU, you need her. We wouldn't have even stood a chance of getting it with anyone else.

The skinny is: We were not planning on buying for another year but... short version: here it is. We can't pass up a deal like this nor will we find another one this good. I cannot believe the peace of mind I feel about this place and that, for the next 30 years, I get to wake up thinking about what an AMAZING deal we got and what a brilliant VALUE we purchased. We truly made our money stretch as far as it possibly could. I'm so proud we were able to work hard and save and make this happen for ourselves. Anyhow, expect dramatic before-and-afters but don't expect them until July. Yep, it's a piece of work. We will close on March 4th but our goal for move-in is by Annie's first birthday. I cannot wait. We are going to have thee biggest party! Finally, a legitimate reason for my HGTV addiction. I already have so many plans for the renovation (Q is groaning about it -as well he should be, he has to do the hard stuff, poor guy- I'm afraid of power tools).

A few stats:
5 bedrooms 3 bathrooms
huge bonus room in basement
library/office
wood burning fireplace
mature pomegranate, pistachio, and pecan trees in the orchard
awesome back porch
Dixie REA (cheap utilities)
central vac
breakfast nook
secluded back yard
horrible master bathroom
3 shares of irrigation water
secret passageway to my parents' house
all the room we will ever need
...
seriously 6-months worth of renovations

I just look at the holes in the walls and the filth and the ugly curb appeal
and thank my lucky stars for it because it means we got the house for the price we could afford!