Big week

Life is good.  Malea and I are enjoying life in town these days and this has been a really big week for us.  This week I turned 28 on Monday and my mom discovered that Malea is getting her first tooth!  Malea also got her second round of shots on Tuesday and the same day she discovered that she can grab her feet.  It's pretty cute.  She's getting bigger every day.  The doctor said that she is now 14 pounds (60%), 25.5 inches long (90%) and her head is in the 25th percentile.  So she's pretty well proportioned and Matt is stoked that she is in the 90th percentile for her height. :)

We feel very blessed and I have been so encouraged lately.  I am loving living in town and it's so nice being only minutes away from everything.  I feel like God has blessed me so much and I can't wait to see what the near future holds for all of us!

It's Christmas Time!

I LOVE Christmas time! I love everything about it, the trees, the lights, the cold nights, Cousin Bake Day, family gatherings, tons of Christmas parties, opening gifts, but most of all being thankful for Christ coming and being born here on Earth. I'm sure I'll have a lot to say about Christmas in the upcoming month but for now here are a few of the pictures from the night that Matt and I put up our tree. I just love this stuff!

Matt putting the star on the tree.

Me putting my pregnant ornament on the tree :)The finished product!
In love :)

And to top it off we had ANOTHER turkey dinner with the Browns! Matt cooked the turkey on the BBQ and it was AMAZING--way better than the ones we had on Thanksgiving!

Too many directions

Work, Thanksgiving, class reunion committee, planning the family Christmas drawing, planning our Christmas party, attending weekly Financial Peace classes, weekly childbirth classes, coordinating all of the work/church Christmas parties, the list goes on and on and on! I feel like I'm being pulled in 20 different directions right now and that doesn't even include trying to keep my house put together!!! In the last 3 weeks Matt and I have had a total of 2 nights with no plans and time to relax together, it's seriously CRAZY!!! Hopefully the month after Christmas--and before Malea--will be a little more relaxing. Oh I can only hope...

Nesting

Everyone says that the "nesting" phase of your pregnancy doesn't kick in until the very end. Well I know that every one is different and I think mine kicked in a little early. Yesterday I had had it with the grime on the inside of our windows from all of the smoke this summer, so armed with a bucket of soapy water, a squeegee, and a roll of paper towels, I set to cleaning ALL of the windows. The job ended up being much longer, and grosser, than I had originally thought it would be. First of all I realized that the smoke had left a lot more grime than I had ever imagined. When I would squeegee the windows at the end of cleaning each window there would be puddles of--literally--black water piled on the window sill. SO disgusting! I even had to change out my water between the upstairs and downstairs windows because it was SO black!!! Honestly it just made me angry at the fires all over again. That was a bad couple of months for me. Secondly I realized that we have a TON of windows in our house. You don't really think about how many windows you have until you set out to clean them all. After I was finished I counted that I cleaned 21 windows and some of those are those big pictures windows--it was a lot of work!

My second task in the "nesting" phase was to wash all of my drapes. So first thing this morning I pulled down all the drapes and began running them through the washer. Now the only problem is that some of them actually shrank and they are a little farther off the floor than they were at 7am this morning... annoying! I'm not sure how I will fix that problem. Maybe I'll tackle that on another day.

Hmmm... wonder what will be next...

YIKES!!!

Yesterday I was drying my hair getting ready to go to our first labor class. I was excited because I was using my new hair dryer for the second time and it is so much nicer that my old hair dryer... or so I thought. I was about 2/3 of the way done drying my hair when all of the sudden sparks started flying out of the hair dryer and out on my hair... no exaggeration!!! There were literally sparks shooting out from the hair dryer. I immediately pulled it away from my head and checked to make sure that my hair wasn't on fire, then I turned it back on and looked at it and spark were flying out the back too! CRAZY! I tried running it a few more times but every time I turned it back on there were more sparks. So I guess I'll be taking that hair dryer back.

On another note here's a picture of Matt and I headed off to our first class:

We had to watch this totally lame movie that was about an hour and it made you want to rip your eyes out. The hair, clothes and poor acting were all straight from the 80's--woo-hoo! Other than that it was pretty interesting but I have a feeling that we will probably learn more in the future classes. Luckily there were a few normal couples in our class so we had some people to talk to. The crazy thing though is that there are 5 babies all due w/in 1 week of Malea and they are all girls! It's going to be a busy week for the maternity ward. :)

Randomness

A lot has happened but I have had little time, or motivation to write blogs lately.

1. Matt's grandpa and mom were here last weekend. There were good times had by all. I did some fun shopping with Mimi--for Malea--and I am excited about the new outfit and letters that spell out her name that Mimi purchased for her. Mimi also gave me a couple very cute maternity shirts that her and Marty picked out for me. They are both winter items which is awesome because I don't have very many long sleeved winter items.

2. Yesterday I FINALLY started writing in a journal that I bought 2 months ago. I have been wanting to journal all of the memorable things that have happened, and will happen, in my pregnancy but I haven't known how to start writing in it and I haven't had a lot of time to do it. So yesterday I made myself just sit down and start; I ended up writing for 2 1/2 hours talking about the day we found out, the smoky summer, how we told our families, etc. I got caught up all the way to the day that I felt Malea move for the first time, September 22nd. I still have a ways to go but it feels good to have at least 3 months out of the way.

3. Today I FINALLY got my fat, lazy, pregnant ass back on my treadmill! Hip-hip-hooray! Matt and I try to take walks in the evenings and on the weekends but it's hard with a busy schedule; so today I finally got back on the dang thing, I even lifted weights and did some leg lifts afterwards. Take that mid-wife that told me I was too fat already!!! Ha! Here's how well my workout tank top fits me:

4. Also here's another room update. Yesterday the canopy that I ordered, for Malea's room, got delivered so Matt hung it up for me. I love it, now Malea officially has a princess bed. :) I think I'm going to get some orange and/or yellow flowers to tie to the hoop part of it so that it decorates it up a little.

Goodbye Olympics

It's bitter sweet saying goodbye to the Olympics. Matt and I love watching them but it will definitely be nice to have our lives back. We have watched more TV in the last 2 weeks than I think we have watched all summer combined! But thank the Lord for DVR because it could have been a lot worse!

Things I will miss:
1. Lazy Saturdays with the TV positioned directly in front of the TV for optimal Olympic viewing.
2. Yelling, jumping up and down, and hi-5's cheering on our favorite teams and athletes
3. Watching 8 hours of events in about 3 hours every night after Matt got home
4. Swimming, diving, track & field, beach volleyball, and gymnastics
5. The spirit of the Olympics that brings world-wide peace for 2 weeks

Things I will not miss:
1. Cursing the judges for all of the rigged scores
2. The stress of wondering what's going to happen in our favorite events
3. Not having a life for 2 weeks because we were glued to the TV in anticipation of what was going to happen next
4. Fighting over who is best at fast forwarding with the remote and having to settle it in ways I can't write on my blog
5. My hatred for the Chinese divers because they are just so damn good it's ridiculous

So all in all we really enjoyed the Olympics and we had a great time watching them together but I think that we are both glad that it's over. We both figured we had to watch as much as possible this year because for the next summer Olympics we will have a 3 1/2 year old running around!

Offerings

Most of you know our cat Pip. Pip would make a great outdoor cat, he's all boy--that's for sure. He thinks he's so tough and sometimes he can even out wrestle you.

Well every night after we go to bed Pip is on the prowl. He walks the halls and roams all the rooms looking for unwanted and unwelcome guests. Matt and I have come downstairs many mornings to find spiders squished into the floor, spiders missing limbs, and all sorts of fun bugs that have been demolished by our hunter. One thing Pip hunts really well are mice. We don't have any real mice in our house but I have a plethora of stuffed mice for them to play with. Many mornings Matt and I will wake up with offerings of mice at the foot of our bed or at our door. This is what was there this morning:
Poor mice, they didn't even stand a chance!

We think it's so cute that Pip instinctively knows that he is supposed to kill mice and bring them to us; he's amazing and full of surprises! :)

We finally broke down...

We finally broke down and fired the kid that mows our lawn. For 2 1/2 years now we have paid this cute boy down the street to mow our lawn. Just recently Matt and I decided to put ourselves on a strict budget to save for all of our upcoming traveling and what-nots and paying the little kid $48 a month (plus the cost of replacing all of the sprinklers he broke) didn't make the cut. Matt did not want to have to mow the lawn, understandably because look at what happened the last time when we were given a lawn mower...

but when it came down to it he decided to give in and do the thing that all guys end up having to do at some point. So a week ago I searched all the ads and found a decent deal at Sears so we headed down and bought ourselves a shiny new red lawn mower. So hear is Matt mowing our lawn for the first time in 2 1/2 years:
He did a good job and the lawn looks great but he was super frustrated because he broke a sprinkler head in the process and so when he was done with the lawn he had to dig up the sprinkler and replace it! I felt bad for him out there in the sun mowing the lawn so, being the good wife that I am, I drove down to the market and bought him a 6-pack so that he could have proper relaxation after a hard days work. :)

Our love fern

A couple of years ago our good friends Chris and Deborah, from San Jose, came up to visit us in our new home. We were so excited for their visit and I was even more excited when I found out that they brought us a plant for our new house! I have no idea what kind of tree it is but Deborah told me that it was our "love fern" (for those of you that have seen How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days). It's not a fern, I know that much, but I have always referred to it as such and it always makes me laugh and think of Chris and Deb. Over the past couple of years our "love fern" has flourished and has survived cats chewing on it, shady corners, and a crappy pot. All this to say that the other day I noticed that it wasn't looking too good. I had just watered it so I knew it didn't need water but I noticed that a bunch of it's leaves (or leaf type things) had fallen off. Over the next couple of days I kept and eye on it but it kept getting worse. Finally I moved it to a more sunny place in our house but our poor "love fern" kept looking worse and worse. At this point I don't think it's going to make it... what does that say about our love? Hmmm... how sad.

I love my husband!

There are many things I would like to say about my husband, but for a lack of time, I just want to praise him for his latest wonderful-ness.

As I mentioned before, my birthday was this weekend. Matt was so amazing; he went to Kreations (all by himself) and picked out two adorable tank tops for me, he also planned a fabulous party--at which I felt very special. Then on my actual birthday we skipped church and went on a walk and then came home where he surprised me by giving me a massage!

And that's not all... yesterday was a super busy day for me. Starting at 6:15am I worked a full 7 1/2 hours for work and then I still needed to clean the bathrooms, the floors, dust, etc. So I called Matt and asked him if he would go grocery shopping with me after he got home, but instead he said he would just go by himself on his way home. I agreed and emailed him my grocery list. So after he had worked a full day my wonderful husband went to Wal*Mart for me and got every single thing on my list, he even turned around and went back to the store because I had left him a message to get a couple more things. (I would never have done that, I would have been like "forget it, I'll get it later!") I have to say too that he got all the right things, all the right brands, all the right sizes, everything was perfect! He's amazing. :)

So thank you Matt! You are a wonderful, thoughtful husband and I am so blessed to have you as my husband!!!

Panic at the Moseley's

Yesterday I was rushing around getting ready and as I was about to leave I pulled out my ring box to put my ring on... it wasn't there. I quickly ran to the dirty clothes to check the pockets of the jeans I wore Sunday night... not there either. Out of time I raced out the door and called Matt in a panic. I asked him if he had taken my ring (I don't know why he would have) but I was really hoping for a "yes". Of course he said "no" and I quickly explained to him what happened. I was totally frantic and he calmed me down telling me that we would look for it last night after we got home from small group.

When we got home last night we spent about an hour looking for my ring. We looked high and low, through ALL of the dirty clothes, checked every pant and skirt poket, we even looked under the couch. No ring. What the heck? I always take my ring off at night because my fingers get too fat when I sleep and it really bothers me, but I always put it back in my ring box! Where could it possibly be? I laid in bed last night thinking about if for a VERY long time, I thought through everything we did Sunday night and I couldn't come up with any answers for where my ring could be. I feel so dumb and so irresponsible. I know people misplace things all the time but usually not their wedding rings that are worth thousands of dollars! Matt said he's not mad and even if we never found it he wouldn't be mad but that is not an option for me. So if you see this ring anywhere please don't take it to a pawn shop for the cash, I would really like it back. :)

Our pet fox

Last night Matt and I were watching TV and both of our kitties were fixated on something outside. After about 5 minutes we got up to see what they were looking at. We couldn't tell what it was but it looked like a small kitten so Matt went outside to check it out. It turned out to be a little fox. He was so cute and he followed Matt around for about about 10 minutes until we decided that we should go back in the house so that he could go look for his mommy. It was seriously the cutest thing! Here is a short clip of the video I took: (thanks Billy for putting it on You Tube for me!)

Buyers

We had 2 sets of buyers come look at our house yesterday. They both really like the house and 1 of them came and spent another 30 minutes looking at it again today. We are biting our nails waiting to hear from our agent! I'll let you know what happens but please keep praying for us. Thanks!!!

My day off

Today is my day off. I finished all my work early this week so I could enjoy a day of no work. Funny thing is I've done more work today then I ever do on a work day! This morning I woke up 6:30am, just woke up, no alarm. Weird. Since it was nice outside I decided to wash the car, then I swept out the garage, I watered all my plants outside, came in unloaded the dishwasher, cleaned the kitchen, watched Ugly Betty (okay that wasn't work) and then I hopped in the shower! I feel so productive today. I still have a lot to do today but I am looking forward to hanging out with my friends Beckie and Liz this afternoon.

I'm off... to enjoy a busy but fun day in this blistering 100+ weather. I dread this time of year when it gets this hot; this year it came a month too early. I think the lake is calling my name... :)

Relax!

I think that we all learn things from our animals and our children (whichever you might have). Silly enough I have learned a lot from my kitties. I have learned patience, how to clean things out of the carpet that I never though would come out, etc. But the one thing that I always admire about my kitties is how they relax. I hope that someday I will learn to be as good at relaxing as they are.

The Wall

This is the wall that my amazing husband, my brother-in-law, and our friend helped us build on Saturday. The wall turned out so much bigger and better than I had imagined. If it weren't for Chase's landscaping genius I don't think that it would have turned out this well. That's not to say that Matt and Billy couldn't have done it but they definitely couldn't have done it without one of them getting injured, and I'm a fan of no injuries!
Being that I know nothing about building walls I thought this project would take no time at all... well I was wrong. The guys labored from 10am to 3:30pm only stopping to eat lunch for a few minutes. When Heather and I arrived around 1:30pm Billy had concrete dust in his eyes, Matt's shoulders were bright red from the blazing sun, and Chase was in charge. The three of them worked great together and because of their hard work we now have the makings of a backyard!
Today I am ordering 10 yards of dirt, which is a lot of dirt for all of you that know nothing about landscaping. This weekend we are going to level out the dirt and then !voila! in only 2 weekends we will have created ourselves a backyard. Glad we put the house on the market so that we could get done all the stuff we've been putting off for 2 1/2 years!!! :)

No more green!

Today was the first day in 4 days that I have not blown green, alien-like snot out of my nose! Yay for getting better! I'm not totally better though; I am still coughing and my voice is still in that low, sexy tone that you always get when you are sick. I'm ready for my voice to be back because with my new job all I do is call people and I think that the low, sexy voice is a little weird.

On that note... I'm sorry for the blogger silence. I have been super busy the last couple of days so I haven't had much time for being on the computer for non-work related stuff. Here's an update on my life to get you all caught up:

1. Matt and I signed papers yesterday for our house in Redding so now we are all locked in at a great interest rate! (yippee)
2. We are still praying that our house in Cottonwood will sell. We just dropped the price today so now it's a steal! We dropped the price $19,000 because we want people to know that we are very motivated. (PLEASE be praying too!)
3. I am really enjoying my new job. So far everyone at ESA keeps telling me that I am doing a really good job so that makes me feel more confident and in turn I enjoy my job more. Today I scheduled 14 appointments in just over 1 1/2 hours. Needless to say my supervisor was loving me.
4. I just got my new work phone today and it's very cool. Now I have a headset which will make calling, and typing at the same time, much much easier.
5. I am super excited about Kool April Nights but I still need to find someone to go with me to the parade because Matt is working in Chico until 6pm! :(
6. Matt and I booked tickets to go see our friends in Louisiana in September! We are super excited and can't wait to get out there to see them.
7. We are also considering going to Jamaica for a late anniversary trip this October (because we got married smack dab in the middle of hurricane season). We haven't bought the tickets yet but I think we might in the next day or two unless we suddenly feel like we aren't supposed to go. (I'm going to be so freakin' excited if we end up going!!! Neither of us have ever been to Jamaica, or anywhere even close to there).
8. Friday I am taking Pip to the vet to get shaved! It's going to be so nice after he is shaved because I won't have clumps of hair floating around on my wood floors. It's also going to be friggin' HILARIOUS!!! Don't worry I will post a picture for you all to enjoy but don't tell Pip. :)

Well I think that about sums up what's going on this week. Hopefully I will have more time to blog in the days to come.

1 BIG cat = 1 BIG mess

This is Pip. As you can see Pip is one BIG kitty.

I have to share about my morning with Pip because it is too gross to not share. Earlier this morning I was on the phone with my sister when I heard Pip in the other room using his potty. Well after I got off the phone with my sister I went down stairs to eat because I was starving. I thought I smelled poop so I looked over at Pip who was devouring his breakfast. I walked over toward him and I noticed something wet-looking on the floor, so I kneeled down only to realize that it was a poop smudge. Gross. Well it gets better. So I go over and grab the Mr. Clean wipes to clean it up and then I think to myself "maybe I should check Pip's feet to make sure he didn't step in it." So I look at his feet and then I notice that there isn't any on his feet but that there is runny poop and some blood all over his butt. Yuck! So I wiped him down with a Mr. Clean wipe and then a wet paper towel. After cleaning him and the floor I poured my cereal and headed over to the fireplace to enjoy my breakfast. One my way over there I noticed that there was something on the rug by the french doors. So I kneeled down to look at the rug and I almost threw up. There was blood/poop smeared all over the rug in quite a few different places. Yuck Yuck Yuck! So since I hate soggy cereal I sat down to finish my bowl of cereal, trying not to think about the bloody/poopy rug, the whole time I was trying not to lose my stomach and hurl my breakfast back up. Once I was finished I threw all of the rugs in the washing machine and luckily the blood/poop came out!

Since the episode this morning I have been watching Pip to see what his problem is. The theory I have established is that he just isn't good at cleaning himself. It's pretty funny actually because he is so big that when he lifts his leg up and folds himself in half (like all cats do) his weight pulls him backwards and he just ends up rolling over. It's so funny! I think he gets frustrated and so he just decides that he's not going to clean himself. But that doesn't make me happy because now I have to run around the house with my Mr. Clean wipes wiping down his butt! Now there's a visual to make you laugh! Ha!