The good the bad and the ugly.

What you're about to see is my week in reverse because the stupid picture loader loaded them backwards :)
So to end up this week I had mad gastrointestinal problems. This condition is aggrevated by eating greasy foods and stress. . . So I know what you're asking yourselves, what on earth would cause this problem for me? I eat perfectly healthy foods (like a bowl of ice cream on Wednesday night, and Mac & Cheese with Nuggets and Corn on Saturday)
Plus, what have I got to stress about? (Like the financial worry of whether or not my husband will get enough hours to make our rent payment every month, or where we're going to live . . .)

Well, despite all of those things probably helping to build the mountain, the straw that broke the camel's back was on Thursday evening. My mom needed to work from home so Alisabeth and I decided to meet Jason at the Mall to play in their kid's area. . . and if we happened to pick up a Cinnabon on the way, well that would just make it all better :)

We got almost there when we decided not to go the last 100 feet. :)
This is a Saturn advertisement by the way. . . even though they're going out of business.

This is the other guy

They moved my car so that traffic could get through and put it in a nearby parking lot.
Both airbags deployed, much to my annoyance. It was gone before I even realized I'd been hit :)
Not only that but I got out, got my baby out, and limped away. As always I was worried about explosions, but there wasn't even anything leaking from her!

Poor baby. I have a strong feeling she's not coming back from this one.

For those of you on facebook you've probably had a chance to read my poem, for the many of you that see this but not that I'll repost it:
Ode to my baby:
You have carried my family for a long time,
To see you thus seems such a crime.
In serving: you were the example most fair,
It's hard to see you with such a tear.
You gave us your all, your everything!
Even when in mud you were wreathing.
Over hills, dams, streets, ice, snow and dirt roads,
Always you returned us to our humble abodes.
We can't thank you enough for giving your life,
Your loss will forever cut me as with a knife.

This marks the 4th accident in 4 years of marriage. . . Can we please be done now?
Just as an update - there were no serious injuries. Alisabeth came out with a slight burn from the car seat's straps and I came out with a jammed thumb and some cuts and bruises, but that's it. The other side seemed to fair the same. The little boy's hand was a little sore, but he was tired of the ice by the time the police reports were finally written.

As for the gastrointestinal issues, I'll let you know if it gets any worse. Worse would mean the need for surgery . . . Let's hope not.

Now, backtrack more in time: I feel like I already told you about Lissa's new swim suit, so I'll just post this picture. . . If I didn't say anything then I'll post a comment :)

Previous to this: We made the deal with our new LandLord. We'll be moving in the 3rd week of June. That gives him enough time to do the major repairs and then we'll be finishing up the minor ones. It's a large place. I forgot the camera last time we went to look at it, so maybe next time I go :)

On the up side, if they do end up totaling the car it could be an answer to an unspoken prayer. The money for the car would allow us to pay off some of our student loans and lower our monthly payment a significant amount. Meaning that Jason wouldn't have to stress about getting tons of hours each week. The other benefit would be that the insurance and gas reduction would also help us significantly. Besides that I could take a little bit of the money and get material for curtains, a new shower curtain cover and a couple other minor decoration items for the new place. I'm really excited about the new house. It's pretty big and the yard will give me a project to keep my busy while Alisabeth plays outside. :)
It's been a good week. Sunday topped it all off when we were able to go to the dedication of the newest temple. It is located in the Gila Valley, which is still 2 hours from us, but it is nice to have another temple so close. President Monson was here as well as President Eyring and they spoke, along with a few others.
It was a very cool experience.

Craziness

This week has been a busy one, but at the same time I don't feel like I accomplished anything!
Alisabeth and I spent two full days looking for houses/apartments. I hated them all. No backyard, and no washer dryer, both things that I can't live without. So we bumped up the price range, thanks to a generous monthly donation from my mom and looked again. . .
Finally on Friday my mom suggested that we "have some fun" and go look at apartments/houses.
At that point I had given up on life, but I scrounged up some potentials and made some phone calls and set up 5 places to go look. Jeeze I should have started by taking her.
Every place we went to had a yard or great amenities. The worst, at the top of our price range was a town-home, all utilities included with a wading pool and covered play area. The only thing lacking from them was an in-unit washer/dryer, but that was easily overcome by everything else they had to offer. The other three potentials included a secluded little red-brick place behind a 1st Chiropractor. My mom and I felt a little nervous about that because there were at least 10 "Private Property" signs and all the makings of an abandoned trash yard behind it, however the yard was amazing, they had naturally growing grass, shade from some huge trees and enough room that my little girl would get exercise.
The next was another small home set FAR back from the street and surrounded by a few quiet neighbors. This one sported an even larger yard which wrapped almost all the way around the house. It also had the largest kitchen/living area, but the rooms were a bit small.
Finally we came to a young woman's house. She appeared to be a graduate student who was going overseas for a research assignment and needed to rent out her place for a year. The best part besides a yard: she had chickens. I was in love, however there was a lot of cactus and the yard wasn't really well maintained so there would be a bit of work involved.
Mixed in with all the house hunting was taking a friend's dog to the pound for their free spaying/neutering clinic and falling in love with the little homeless kittens. I want one so bad! Jason's mean though and says we can't afford a kitten. . . but a puppy would be nice.
Finally on Saturday I took Jason out to see the top three choices and we narrowed it down to 2.
Monday night we went and took Alisabeth to one of the two and met the owner. Apparently the junk area we were nervous about used to be an old tile factory that they were slowly working on, but kind of gave up on. There is no one else on the property and only one entrance, so we don't need to worry about anyone coming from the back side of the property (about 3 acres in total). The other house that they are going to be renting was in need of a few more repairs and we worked out a deal which will get us into the bigger of the two units with the same rent cost overall. Plus he has some other projects he wanted to get done, but hasn't had time to do. He seemed quite willing to negotiate for rent or payment, whichever we preferred.
Yesterday I called the other place to schedule a showing and it was already rented, so it looks like our decision was made for us :)
The best part is that the rent for this place is within our lower bracket, so we don't have to kill ourselves to pay rent. It will be tight, but it's doable, especially if Jason keeps improving in speed and the company can get him enough work to keep him busy!
That was my week. Jason's was a bit different.
He's still getting the ropes down at his new job. He enjoys it a lot, but apparently they don't have a lot of work and he's been struggling to find projects to keep himself busy. Not only that, but because he's on flat-rate he only gets paid for what it SHOULD take regardless of how long it DOES take, so he's lost a little bit of time when things haven't gone smoothly. He also found out yesterday that they have some rules that don't work in his favor.
He inspected a used vehicle and made suggestions for work that needs to be done. The policy he was told is that if you do the inspection the work comes to you, however, there was one part that he couldn't do, so instead of splitting the jobs and letting him have what he could do they shipped the whole thing over to a main-line tech. Then on top of that they don't pay him for the inspection time, so he basically spent an hour of his time and got nothing for it. That frustrates me a little bit. I think it's better that he's the one working there instead of me, because I wouldn't put up with cr** like that.
As for Alisabeth, the world still revolves around her. We are going to be starting swim lessons the first week of June, so we had to get her a new bathing suit (I looked at the tag and hers was a 24month tag, but most of her clothes are already 4T.)
And, I had to get a new suit too, because I don't know where mine is packed and it was 12 years old anyway. So we went SHOPPING!!
Can I just say that I was highly disappointed with the selection? I swear there were 10 racks of two piece things that didn't look big enough to wrap around me much less cover the important parts, and only 2 of real bathing suits! Not only that but the real ones were questionable as well, as if they were trying to save of fabric and weren't sure of the best way, so they just cut as many gaping holes in the suit as possible. Finally I found a couple of cute ones and we headed to the toddler section where I was astonished to find the same predicament. My two year old already had the option of a two-piece bathing suit, or one that had holes everywhere. It really made me shudder.
Jason also grabbed a kiddie pool that has been the delight of our little girl from that day forward.

Last but not least I was able to attend a Pampered Chef party this last week. Let's just say if we cook in Heaven, I know what kind of pans I'm using.

We also set ourselves (my mom and I) up to be hosts for a "Death by Chocolate" party in a few weeks, it's going to be a blast. My mom wants to dip anything we can find in chocolate, and really, how can that go wrong?
That's our week in a nutshell. I'm glad I finally got all this up here, I felt bad that I hadn't done it yet!

Fun Pictures

As a follow-up to the last post I figured I'd add in all the fun pictures Jason has been taking these last few weeks: Isn't she gorgeous?

She loves wearing daddy's hats. . . and she looks so grown up in them!

She has just started this recently, they go in color order and all of the holes have to be filled. Silly girl.

Daddy told her to make a frowny face.

She has Jason's smile. Big and all teeth.

Jason's idea

She did this without any prompting! She was just sitting in the bath and got bored with playing I guess.

We painted toes this week. Now when she sees new people she sticks out her feet and says "I have toes!"
Normally she's got socks and or shoes on so they have no idea what she's talking about and simply nod their heads and reply "Yes you do!"

She's almost a pro at her bike now. She's even learned what it means to coast and not have to pedal downhill . . . lazy little slacker.

Gotta love the cute girl with the baseball cap.

10 things I've learned from Snow White

So my daughter's favorite and only movie is Snow White right now. We watch at least part of it daily. Here's what I've learned by watching it over 50 times:
1) Animals can sense evil, even in disguise . . . but they're also willing to break into people's homes, so can they really be trusted?
2) Raccoons are really good at washing clothes, but squirrels and turtles aren't.
3) Even at a young age a woman will boss around any men she can find.
4) Animals will allow, and even encourage you to ride them as long as there is a young maiden in trouble.
5) Talking mirrors will say whatever it takes to cause contention.
6) It doesn't matter how long your wish is: if it's your time to go, it's your time to go.
7) It's okay for animals to walk all over your food as long as they're making it look prettier.
8) Hard labor will always bring excessive wealth, and a lot of jewelery.
9) If you're the most beautiful one in the land you can break whatever laws you like and no one will mind.
10) When going up against mythical creatures, never go where they excel. The queen would have never died if she had stayed away from rocks. They're DWARFS for heaven's sake!

These last two weeks have been a bit rough for me. We battled hard to find a good job and ended up with one that didn't pay near what I was hoping for. So I scaled back our home search and focused on cheap foreclosures. We finally found one this last week that was 33K. That right, 33K for the whole home. I set up an appointment to go look at it, and I also started contacting a few more loan officers to prepare and ask questions (the one we had been working with was giving a lot of restrictions that I didn't understand and I wanted a different opinion). While asking questions the loan officer happened to ask how Jason was being paid and upon being told that he was paid flat-rate (similar to commissions) she let us know that their company would need 2 years worth of income at flat-rate so that they could average it out and see an average amount of monthly income to verify the loan. I called the other loan officer back and asked if the process would be the same for him. After looking it up he said they might be able to do it on as little as six months, but yes, they also needed to average income.
So in frustration our home search ended. Now, instead of a $350/month payment for mortgage, fees and taxes, we're looking at a rental fee of about $575/month. Needless to say I was quite depressed.
I still am really bothered by it, but we're going to give ourselves another few months and then see where we're at. Jason is also looking for a second job or a better job because the company he's working for has failed to keep him busy for 6 out of the last 7 days, so even if he works as hard as he can he won't be getting enough work to get what we need to pay rent. All in all this graduation thing isn't working as well as I expected it to.

On the other hand Alisabeth is doing great. For some reason she's still really clingy and we spend part of every night convincing her that shadows aren't moving unless you move the light that is causing them. She is learning a lot more phrases and we've stepped it up on the counting side. We still haven't quite figured out letter sounds, but I want to get some flash cards to put up and hopefully that will help. We also went out ans splurged on some clearance dresses at Sears. (All of Alisabeth's are getting too small).
Here they are:


I'm going to put up a few more fun pictures from this week in a seperate post because I hate trying to get the pictures in order on this thing. :)