Things are "Workin' Out"

The first thing that's working out is ME! Yeah, I finally did my Jillian Michaels workout DVD yesterday. I woke up pretty sore today, but it felt good finally having "gotten around to it". The next step will be doing it consistently... We'll see how that goes.
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Next on the list of things that are working out, is our car situation. We bought a new (used) car today! It's a 2001 Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited Edition. It has power everything, sunroof, cruise control, leather seats, and a 10 disc CD changer! We love it! And yeah for me, this is my new car. Justin will be graciously taking over the role as driver of the 1994 Mazda. Good thing he's a good sport about it, because sometimes being "the dad" is a bummer. You get the older, less dependable car. Hey, at least we have two cars! (We're so spoiled, it almost sickens me)

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Tonight, we got to go to my parents' ward Luau. It was awesome! We had yummy rice, teriyaki chicken, and fruit salad for dinner and then were entertained for about an hour and a half by real professional Polynesian dancers! A Polynesian family in my parents' ward and their family and friends performed. After some professional Hula, they invited the "moms" in the ward to go on stage for a mass Hula lesson. It was pretty funny to watch (no, I didn't go up there). They also had the yelling, chest slapping men dancers, some cute little younger boys dancing and to top it all off.... a parking lot show of fire dancing! Overall, a very fun, yummy, entertaining, tiring night. Now it's off to bed!

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Playing Outside

We spent a lot of time outside today. First, we sat for about an hour on my parents driveway with our new craigslist couches and my mom's carpet cleaner/upholstery attachment. It'll probably take one or two more times of cleaning to finally be really good. At least we have time (and my parents' garage to store them in). Since a few of you have asked, here's a couple pictures of the couches. (Some of the spots you can see are wet spots from me cleaning today)
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While the couches sat out drying on the driveway, we took a walk across the park to the playground.playground. We did the slide and swings, both of which she loved!

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Checking out the leaves at the park on the way

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Sitting at the top of the slide. This is the only picture I could get. After this, Carrie got REALLY brave and the second I would set her at the top of the slide, she'd scootch herself forward and slide down all on her own. Yeah!

We had so much fun! I love mommy-daughter playdates!

Pictures Galore and Feeling Crummy

I usually poke fun at people who post oodles of pictures from the same sitting. Well, sorry. Today I'm one of those people. One picture couldn't capture the minutes of fun going on, so I posted several. I also had to "show off" her new cheesy grin. It's actually a little scary looking... Good thing she's cute when she's not making this face. One picture though, finally shows Carrie's teeth! That's right, I said TEETH, as in plural! She's had her one single little tooth for almost two months, but the second one finally decided to show up just a few days shy of 13 months! My brother Jake had said that Carrie looked like the babies in cartoons - you know, they always have only one bottom tooth? -
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Onto the second part of the post title. It seems like Justin has been sick on and off all winter. This week early early morning Tuesday, he started throwing up every 20 minutes for a few hours. I had to go to work, but a friend took him into Urgent Care when they opened at 8. He got an anti-nausea med and came home to rest. The nausea subsided, but a nasty cough, sinus pressure headache, sore throat, super stuffy and runny nose set in to take its place. Over the next few days he kept getting worse. He missed work Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. On Friday, he finally said, "Ok, I have to try to go into work because this is ridiculous, I can't keep missing work!". He lasted the whole day, but came home feeling worse than before.
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Finally Saturday night, about 10 minutes before closing, we went back to the Urgent Care. His little virus bug, has blown into a nasty bronchitis infection. We got an antibiotic, a lung corticosteroid, and super-cough medicine. He is now taking a nap and hopefully will be feeling significantly better by tomorrow morning, for a full week of work. Man, I hate sickness. I guess if it weren't around though, I'd be out of a job. :)
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Can you see those two little teeth? (Barely, I know)

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Yes, she is walking all around the apartment with the strainer on her head. She thought it was sooo cool that she could see through it. This game lasted a full 5 minutes...

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And a video of another one of her favorite games... collecting things, making piles, filling a bucket... stuff like that. She methodically picked every single toy up out of the toy box, walked across the room and stuffed them into this bouncy chair. After this video, she then took all the toys out of the seat and put them all back. Maybe it means someday she'll be an awesome helper at "clean-up" time. (Sorry for my monotone narrating)

New Tricks and House Pics!

Carrie's newest trick... When asked "where's your nose?" she responds with "sniffle, sniffle, sniffle" and an adorable nose crinkle! It's the best. It's the only body part she'll do correctly so we're savoring it for a few days before we try to teach her other parts.
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And on to a few pictures of the house. Ok everyone, I warned you last time that inside, there's not much to look at because there's no furniture, but here goes. My dad does have the video where we walked through the whole house. I'll try to see if he can post it to YouTube so we can post a link here. For the quickie version though, here's a few pictures.

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From the Living Room looking up to the railing in the upstairs hall. (Striaght ahead is the Family Room)

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Kitchen, already complete with kiddie-locks on the cabinets, yeah! (taken from the Family Room)

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Family Room (taken from the kitchen)

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Family room on the right, Kitchen on the left (taken from the dining room)

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From the upstairs hall toward the front door

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The whole house floorplan. This is what happens when my workday is EXTREMELY slow. My architect brain and restless fingers doodle.

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So there you go! We're already getting a slow start on furnishing it. On Saturday we bought a couch and loveseat set on Craigslist for $150! They need to be cleaned, but other than that they're awesome! They are currently sitting in my parents' garage (thanks mom and dad). I'm excited to be able to move them into OUR house in a couple of months. I feel like we're neck deep in paperwork, but I'm sure there will be plently more before we're all done. :-D

Sweeping, Slumber Parties, and Other Stuff

Here's my super-helper, sweeping the entryway. I love that she picks up on stuff like that. She knew exactly what to do with the broom. I tried to get a video, but two seconds after I thought about it, the batteries died. Oh well.
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Tonight, Carrie and I had a slumber party. Justin is off at his last basketball game of the season, so Carrie and I moved the coffee table and settled in to watch Project Runway (the one show Justin absolutely refuses to watch with me).

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Just the girls. (That includes the baby dolls too. They are apparently more interesting than the camera.)
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And now onto "other stuff". Our tax return was deposited today, yeah!! We got the inspection done on the house and the biggest among the reported problems were a broken doorbell, and an electrical outlet wiring that's switched. Peace of cake! We'll take that! We are planning on going back to the house this weekend to measure things (especially windows) so we can plan furniture, window coverings etc. I'll try to take a few pictures of the inside, although right now it's pretty boring because it's totally white and totally empty.

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I've been happily chugging along working two days a week. I'm glad I've finally figured out my balance. Two days a week brings in a little money without making me feel like I'm going to go crazy. **Thanks to Libby who babysits for us! You're awesome!**

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I'm sorry to say, blogging is the only one of my New Year's resolutions I've actually kept up on. Temple - sadly, not yet this year. Working out- I think twice. Running- not at all. Justin did find the DVD remote yesterday (behind the couch), so now I have no excuse to not do the Jillian workout DVD, other than getting sweaty and my whole body aching afterward... for days... I need a jump start... :)

Party All Night

Carrie decided it would be fun to be awake from 1am to 3:30am last night. ???? She wasn't sad, hurt, sick, or anything. In fact, she was just the opposite. Wide awake, jabbering, giggling, clapping... ready to play. Since Justin has to get up at 5 to go to work, he got to shut our bedroom door and go back to sleep. I layed on Carrie's floor half-asleep while she wandered her room in the dark playing. All of this, of course is after trying all the regular things. She had a clean diaper, a full tummy, a binky, even soft music after a while. Nothing worked.

I felt dumb letting her play around in the dark, but she didn't seem to mind, and I got to at least rest a little. She finally fell asleep around 3:30 next to me on the floor. And I finally got to go back to bed. I had hoped that her little middle of the night adventure would mean she would sleep in, even a little bit. Nope. Rise and shine at 7:15 :)

To try to boost my energy and wake up a little more, I decided to workout while she was eating breakfast. Last week, my grandparents were in town and my Grandma invited me to do her workout video with her. My Grandma, who will be 70 in a couple weeks, was doing "Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred" It's insane!! And we only did level one! Anyways, she bought me my own copy of the DVD so I popped it in this morning. And all for nothing. Carrie has "misplaced" the DVD remote control. I couldn't get past the menu. So much for getting up and going.

I thought for sure I'd get a small break this morning during Carrie's morning nap. Hah! What morning nap?! She was wide awake! I don't know how, but she never fell asleep. She just whined for about half an hour until I got her back up.

Fortunately she's been in a good mood. We got to spend a few hours with a couple of my friends from high school and their little girls. It was a fun playdate. On the way home, I decided we needed to go get Carrie's lab work done (standard hemoglobin and lead check). I've had the lab orders for 2 weeks and keep forgetting to do them. By the time I pulled up to the lab, Carrie had fallen asleep in her carseat. The mean mom that I am though, I got her out anyways. I figured if I went home instead, the second I took her out of the carseat to go inside she'd wake up anyways.

Now labs are done, we are home and Carrie is sleeping. Finally!! I think I'll try to grab a short nap while she's still down. Whew!

Total Loss & Total Gain

Good news, the car wreck insurance mess is over! Bad news, our car did end up getting totaled. Back to good news; the insurance company paid us way more than we expected for our totaled car. So for now, Justin will be driving my mom's car until we find a new one. We have a friend who is a car broker and is working on finding us a deal. Luckily, with the insurance settlement check, we should hopefully be able to avoid a car payment on a "new" car.

So, that was the "total loss". And now for the TOTAL GAIN. Drumroll........... We put an offer on a house and it got accepted!!!!! WE'RE GOING TO BE HOMEOWNERS!!! (We're super excited, in case you couldn't tell)

It's in Maricopa, Arizona (about 30 minutes south of Phoenix)

4 bedrooms

3 bathrooms

2528 sq ft (big, I know, but we'll grow into it)

granite countertops, loft, vaulted ceilings.....

Overall, awesome :)

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Quick story about how we found it. Last weekend we made a trip to look at houses. We had us, Carrie, my parents, my grandparents, and my little brother with us. It was a slightly exhausting trip. We spent a few hours looking at houses that just weren't for us. I felt like the day was wasted. I was bummed. We had to skip a few that we had planned on seeing because we had to get back to town by a certain time. One of the ones we had to skip was this house.

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So Monday, we decided that my dad (our realtor) and I would just go see a few houses by ourselves. It was getting tiring to try to coordinate schedules so everyone could go (at least both of us and my parents).

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We took a few minutes of video on my dad's phone walking through the house. So far, this is all Justin has seen. I was sooooo excited about this house when we got back home, that we wrote up an offer that night. We just "bought" a house that Justin has never been inside of before! How trusting of him :)

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Anyways, we've been sitting on pins and needles since Monday night waiting for a response. My dad kept in pretty good contact with the selling realtor, but the news just kept on being, "It looks like it's going through, we're just waiting on someone higher up"... When 5:00 came today, I thought, "Oh no... now we have to wait over the whole weekend to hear anything official..." Well, the selling agent called my dad at 5:15 and gave us the good news! Hallelujah! What a long weekend it would have been!

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Not that we necessarily need anything else to smile about at the moment, but just because we can, here's a few pictures of Carrie from yesterday. She's learning to turn and pose/smile for the camera now.

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Her favorite place in my parents' kitchen, playing with the plastic utensils.

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Helping Great-Grandpa Joel unload the dishwasher... Good thing she's a featherweight ;)