We are still alive!

Wow, I haven't posted since the beginning of December. I would like to say we have been super busy, and we definitely were for the end of last year.

Somehow it seems like we are always busy when we really don't do a whole lot. I feel like I am always trying to get into the groove of things, and should probably accept the fact that things are always changing and so our family dynamics are always going to be changing. Every time we get into a nice routine something always happens and changes things. Our latest changes, Desi is rolling both ways now, and is all over the place. I don't know if he is having a growth spurt or what but I feel like he is always nursing and sleeping.
Other things our family (or mostly just me) is up to:
-Making "green" home cleaners. I now use vinegar and baking soda for everything. I have one cleaner that is vinegar, baking soda, borax, and water, and another one that is vinegar with orange peels in it so that it smells yummy and fresh.
(insert picture of our cleaners in spray bottles with borax, baking soda from Costco, and vinegar in background)
-Using cloth diapers. I have several different brands that we are using and I love it- more about that in my posts on my Karimom blog. My next step with that is to start using cloth wipes too. I have a bunch that I have cut out already (and 4 more burp rags I have ready to cut up) I just need to hem or serge around the edges so they will be ready and make a solution for them and buy the ingredients for the solution.

(insert picture of cute diapers)
(insert picture of some of my cut out wipes and the blankets I need to cut up)
-Being inspired by pinterest and having intentions of making some freezer meals (cook and prep ingredients beforehand so we all have to do on busy or hectic nights is heat and eat) and using my crockpot more, and making freezer crockpot meals. I just bought some great stuff grocery shopping this week to start on this but I sadly missed a great day of Wednesday only produce deals because I was just too tired to make it to the store with the boys.
-Staying up way way too late on Steve's days off playing video games. We are currently playing Lord of the Rings: War in the North and it is really, really fun. If you like LOTR it is really cool because you get to see another side of the story and see what other things were happening in Middle Earth besides the goings-on of the Fellowship, and we run into various members and get to meet all of them during the game. We have been renting it for two weeks and will probably just need to buy this one when the price for it used drops a little.
-Donating breastmilk. (If you haven't noticed I may be becoming just a little bit hippie/earthy/weird or whatever you want to call it) Desi doesn't really take a bottle on the days he goes to daycare (Vovo's house) when I work, so we were getting a lot of extra milk in the freezer that I knew we weren't ever going to use up so I looked into donating to a milk bank. There aren't any around but I found a group on facebook for Nevada called Human Milk for Human Babies, and they have pages for every state. I met up with a lady that lives somewhere in Northern Nevada and have been donating milk to her for her adopted baby that can't have formula because it makes her sick. I have been trying to pump every morning and sometimes in the evening as well as my breaks at work on days Desi goes to his Vovo's house to get a little extra milk to help out this family. When she came by last to pick up milk she left us this cute little Lovey for Desi. It's a little crocheted bunny, and is so adorable!
(insert picture of bunny lovey from Kat)
-Working at Graples. I am currently just working one day a week. Like I mentioned before Desi still isn't taking a bottle, so I am bringing him to work with me. On days that we get inventory I still send him to Vovo's house because it is kind of hard to open up boxes and do a lot of bending and moving things when you have an almost 20 lb baby in a front carrier. I am very lucky to have bosses who will let me bring my baby with me to work. Sadly I only get to set up the store, and don't actually get to work right now on the days we are open. I wish I could work Thursdays still but I just can't go to work and leave Desi with someone when he won't really eat. It is so frustrating too because he will eat rice cereal for me, but not for other people. He is very much a mama's boy and if he can see me, he wants me to be the one holding him.
-Working on not holding Desi so much. I am very much a believer in attachment parenting so this one is difficult for me. I love holding Desi and playing with him, but I also have another child who needs some undivided attention, a husband who needs my attention for the 20 minutes a day we have to spend together on the days he works, as well as a house to run. So logistically speaking, I can't hold him all the time. I would also like to be able to make it through one shower without him crying and maybe even him being happy with whatever he is doing while I am in the shower. We are slowly getting better at this. He is normally pretty happy in the Bumbo while I am cooking especially if I give him some form of food or a spoon to chew on, and he will sometimes last about 30 minutes playing on the floor which I normally spend playing with Simon.

-Getting organized. I have been watching a lot of hoarders and sometimes it frightens me, and I get scared that will be us one day. Really our main problem is laundry, I can just never keep up with it. Well, laundry and that fact that we are a family of four living in a tiny two-bedroom place. I can't wait til we can get a house (hopefully at the end of this year) and actually have space for us and all of our belongings. I currently don't really enjoy having people over just because it is so cramped in our tiny place and this is really sad because I love entertaining and having friends over for dinner, and whatnot, but we just don't have the space for it right now and I feel it is kind of uncomfortable for other people when they do come over. I don't want my house to be uncomfortable, I want to be nice and relaxing and enjoyable for people and them to want to just hang out and linger. Another getting organized project I have been gradually working on is going through my magazines, cutting out recipes and putting them into my recipe binder, not just sticking them on the shelf, and cutting out pictures and ideas from magazines that I like and making a binder of ideas for different things. 5 pages from a magazine is alot better than having stacks and stacks of magazines hanging around.
(insert picture of recipe binder, pages from magazines, magazines)
-Dreaming for the future and vacations (we want to get a truck and travel trailer maybe in a year or so, I also want a really nice DSLR camera). We also have a National Parks pass for the next year that we intend on using lots and lots this year. Places we have gone this year- Death Valley. Places we want to go- National Parks in Hawaii, Yellowstone, Yosemite, Redwoods. We are going to wait until after Desi turns one and then hopefully go on another trip with no boys to somewhere out of the country!
-Paying off student loans.
-Saving for a house downpayment.
Well I feel like that is a pretty good look at what we have going on right now. I currently can't figure out how to get my pictures off of my memory card and on to the computer. Normally the prompt comes up automatically when I put the card but it isn't doing it and I can't figure out how to do it without the automatic prompt. So hopefully I can figure that out soon and put up the pictures I want with this post. So check back again for the pictures that you already know the descriptions for!

Happy New Year

Happy New Year! I know I am a little late on this, but New Year's Eve was spent sleeping in the San Francisco Airport. (We did get to see some fireworks though!)And as many of you know, the next two weeks were spent in Belize having an awesome time! (Pictures going on facebook as I type- but only the first batch so far.) So I must say I am looking forward to this year more than any year I have recently. I really feel like things are finally coming together for Steve and I as individuals and as a family. We have a lot of really big things going on this year and this month already! I am just so excited for all of these changes and looking forward to all that the year has in store.
Some of the main things I am excited for this year (in no particular order)
1. We finally went on a trip outside of the country!
2. Steve is a nurse and started at the VA (technically he still has to take the NCLEX)
3. I no longer work at Ashley Furniture.
4. I get to be a stay-at-home mom!
5. I am starting a part-time job at a new store called Graples Home Decor.
6. We are trying to expand the size of our family.
7. We have the potential to start looking for a house later this year.
8. Steve will be home every night for dinner and home from work in time to have breakfast with us!
9. We get to go "home" this summer for my cousins wedding and take Simon to the property.
10. I get to stay home with Simon. I know I said that already, but I am looking forwward to spending so much time with my super sweet Simon-son!
That's all for now, gotta go run some errands.

Life

Today while I was at work I stepped outside to make a couple of phone calls that I didn't feel comfortable making at work, some things you just don't want people to overhear, like trying to get a new job. So I stepped outside to call Steve to find about the two job offers he got today, and he accepted one of them! Yay! He interviewed at Renown today and they told him they would give him a call back within the next three weeks, he got two different calls about two hours later- two job offers the same day! He accepted the better one- an internship with a two year contract. I don't remember all of the details but the gist of it is that he works in almost every unit of the hospital for about 4 or 5 weeks and at the end goes back to the first one he worked at and stays there for the remainder of the year, and then for the second year he works in whichever one he wants. He will also get to be on some committees which means better positioning to get into better jobs. I might not have all of that correct- but it's how I understood it from Steve explaining it to me in his very disjointed don't give all the information at once kind of way. So yay! A JOB! Did I mention he graduated on Saturday? Yep- done with school and has a job, he starts on January 24th!
Oh, I am so relieved, we I was really starting to get worried about if he was going to get a job, most of his other classmates from nursing school already had jobs so I was getting kind of panicky because I've had big plans for the next year that all depend on him getting a job. You see, I have been the main breadwinner the whole time he has been in school, and frankly, I am so tired of it. It is so hard to be a mom and to be a working mom at that. The hardest part is probably the guilt- but that is a whole 'nother post on its own. So yeah, getting to spend about 3 1/2 to 4 hours a day with my son has been tough. I love him so much and he is just the most incredible little boy, of course I am a little biased (what mom isn't), but my son is just so cool and fun and exhausting. After working and driving all over town everyday, by the time I get home with him I am tired, and I still have to make dinner and play with him and it gets very stressful because once I am home with Simon he wants my undivided attention so sometimes we don't even eat dinner until 8 because I am doing things like spending time with him instead of making dinner for him. So back to my original point... I have been the breadwinner for all this time (4 years) and I am tired of doing it. I am ready to stay home and be a full-time mom, to play with my son all day long, to be able to teach him things, to want to pull my hair out because he is driving me crazy all day long instead of for just 4 hours a day, to be there for my family mentally and physically and emotionally, because lately I haven't been.
So if you caught the little comment up there about me trying to get a job, you might be wondering why I am talking about wanting to stay home and getting a new job in the same post. Well, that is because, frankly, I am a little scared of being a stay-at-home mom. So one of my co-workers told me about this home decor store that is opening soon in Reno and it's only open one day a week, Thursday, and the store gets set up every week on Wednesday. They are planning on opening in January, but it's looking more like it is going to be in February. Perfect! I love decorating, I love accessories, and I still want to work a little bit, and two set days a week would be awesome. Just for the sanity mostly, not for the money. I just want to feel like I am doing something else, that I am contributing to something, and I want to have time around other adults still (I am in nursery at church so I don't even get a lot of adult interaction at church). And it also gives me a break from the stresses of being a stay-at-home mom, it gives Cindy time to spend with her grandson every week still, and gives him a chance to play with other kids. So about a month ago I interviewed for a position at this store, and it went really well, and the guy called me back this morning about it. I am going to meet with him again this Saturday. Pretty sure I have a job, he just wants to make sure we both know what it is going to be like. I am so excited! This all works perfectly. It coincides so well with when Steve will be starting his job and be bringing a REAL paycheck! My anniversary with my work is Dec 15, so after that I get 2 weeks paid vacation to take sometime in the next year. I am planning on using it in early January so Steve and I can FINALLY go on a trip to somewhere cool. We have always planned on Malta, but we realized it is winter there- in the 60s, but if I am flying to the Mediterranean I want to swim in it, and you can't really go swimming there when it is cool outside. So we are thinking its going to be something different, but I don't want to talk to much about that because whenever we do it never happens, and I am sure our families are both thinking something along the lines of "Oh, that Steve and Kari, they keep talking about traveling the world, but who are they kidding? They make all these plans, they buy plane tickets, but they're never going to go anywhere." But this time we are, and it's going to be for two weeks, and it's going to be awesome!
So yeah, today has been the best day I have had in a while, I came back in from those two phone calls (with Steve and the new job guy) and I had the biggest smile on my face, a smile I never have on my face while I am at work, and one of my coworkers knew something was up and since he is the one that first told me about the new job opportunity I told him what was going on, and it just felt so good to be able to say that all these plans that Steve and I have been making for a while now are finally becoming a reality. I just can't wait! Less than three weeks to Christmas, and then about two weeks after that is our 4th anniversary, our vacation, and our plans to start trying for another baby while on said vacation. Life is good, and I can't wait!