Life is a Journey

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Slacker, slacker. January.

I know, no one probably noticed. :) Blogs aren't as big of a thing anymore. But I still really like reading them and I miss people blogging instead of doing everything on Facebook! (guilty.) I like to read what people are up to and hear what they think about it all. So I'll try to keep blogging, but I may not get everything written down. And that's okay. Some record is a lot better than no record!
First, some documentation of the week the flu overtook the Kerrigan household. I wisely didn't allow any pictures of myself, and also wisely agreed not to post any of my darling husband.

We rang in the New Year in style. Only recently recovered from the plague, we opted for a quiet evening at home. Sparkling cider and scrabble. It doesn't get any more exciting than that.

January is a bit of a blur. One of our good friends watched our kids one evening (Jeremy was working) so I could go to my "little" brother's surprise birthday party. After being shut-in for most of the last two weeks, it was so nice to get out! It was actually really funny because they had given us a big room and it didn't look that full when Phil and Sophie were showing up (he was blindfolded) so her brother asked a full table of people visiting from Kansas to come in and yell surprise with us. And they were all in front, so when he came in it was to a room of virtual strangers wishing him Happy Birthday! Pretty entertaining.

Katy enjoying some of the ice cream cake I brought back from the dinner.

All through the month the weather oscillated (it's always fun to use that word) between super cold and really nice days. We checked out our local library for the first time (Main Street is an interesting library experience compared to what we're used to in VA and back in IA...) and used on of their "Culture Passes" one cold January morning. With the Culture Pass you can get two people in free to lots of the attractions in the area (even the Phoenix Zoo, but you have to be in line pretty much 1st one morning when they're handing them out!) The day I happened to be there at the right time the zoo pass was already gone, but I got one to the Arizona Museum of Natural History, which is pretty close to us. Jeremy and I went to it once back in 2007 when we ended up staying in Scottsdale (instead of at Disneyland) for our 2-year-anniversary. I was unexpectedly pregnant and rather sick, and we decided to stay closer to home and find interesting things to do. This museum was one of them.
Jeremy had the morning off and kept Katy (who would have semi-enjoyed it, but mostly I would have been chasing her) and I just took the older kids. That was fun! They don't often get my attention without Katy in the mix. They enjoyed the museum, especially the craft/activity room. A fun visit for $6. At $22 (without the culture pass) I would have been underwhelmed. It took us a little less than 2 hours, which was perfect for getting Reilly to school by 12.

Just a week later it was really nice outside one afternoon and I walked with the kids over to the little fenced yard with a swingset. We somehow ended up doing an impromptu photo shoot and I got some real gems. :)

And I'll change my background soon, too. If I'm not slacking again.

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Christmas Time (was) here...

The week before Christmas was busy, busy, busy! The kids and I made a few treats to take to the few people we know in the Valley (it took us like 2 hours to drive the half-dozen plates around, and we were only partially successful finding people home). It was fun to make them, and they LOVE helping with stuff like that! (one picture is in the post below)

The weekend before Christmas my family all gathered here and we spent some time together, even having our own 2-day Christmas party, complete with a park trip, a crazy Girls' night out, a cousins' present exchange, getting a babysitter for the kids while all the adults went to Jump Street and dinner, and watching some old family videos (1995) that I recently found and edited. (They were thought to be lost for the last 10 years) All of it was awesome!

Some of these pictures are presents from Phil & Sophie when I inadvertently left my camera at their house...

As soon as my family cleared out (Emily and Jason and their boys had been staying at our house), Jeremy's parents and Chloe came to stay with us for 2 days. Chloe wasn't feeling well most of the time, but we still had a good time with them, and got to go out to eat, check out the temple lights, watch some family movies from Jeremy was a kid, and do a mini present exchange. It was so nice to see everyone and have some fun together!

Christmas Eve we sang some Christmas carols together as our little family and read Luke 2. The kids were so excited but went to bed pretty easily. We were up a little later than we should have been. We told them not to get up and come in our room (and barricaded the living room with some chairs and a blanket, so there would be less chance of peeking!) until there was a "6" on the clock (as in 6 AM). So when Jaina saw a 6 on the clock, apparently she woke Reilly up and designated him to come tell us it was 6. The "6" she saw was on the wrong end: 5:46. I guess I should just be grateful it wasn't 3: or 4:46... I had started getting a cough and drainage the night before, so I was mostly just grateful it was time to get up and I could stop tossing and turning. Jaina and Katy got a "Princess Castle" from Santa, as well as some little Disney princesses to play in it. They're the new ones with dresses that clip on (think of a chip clip in a dress shape) instead of the little rubbery silicone ones. Mommy is VERY happy that she doesn't have to help dress the princesses! Jaina also got a carriage to go with the castle/princesses and Katy got a Dora backpack with a flashlight, pretend cell phone, and a beanie Boots to carry in it. Reilly got two different Angry Birds games, one of which was a Star Wars Angry Birds set. He was pretty excited! Here are just a couple pictures.

You can find quite a few other Christmas pictures here -
Facebook Album: Holidays 2012
You might have to scroll down towards the bottom.

I was feeling kind of icky most of Christmas. We had invited Phil & Sophie over for dinner, but thankfully they ended up not being able to come at the last minute, because I started running a fever that evening, and over the next 6-7 days I'm pretty sure we all had the flu. Like influenza. Maybe not (we never got it checked) but it was a nasty little virus, even if it had another name!

Sunday, December 30, 2012

Post-holiday Blahs

Well, Christmas is over. I love Christmas, but good riddance! That sounds awful, but Christmas Eve I started coughing, and neither Jeremy nor I felt very good on Christmas day. By Christmas night I had a fever and was pretty miserable for the next several days. I'm still not feeling that great between interrupted sleep and this lingering icky cough. I'm so thankful for the existence of Tylenol and Motrin, which I finally started taking so I could feel functional even though I wasn't completely yet. The flu has been making its way through our whole house and I am tired of being sick! Also, Jeremy has missed several days of work, which isn't something we can afford right now. Such is life. I am ready to move on though. Bring on 2013! I'll keep trying to update sort of chronologically though...

The last week of November was mostly filled with lots and lots of packing! You wouldn't think there would be that much to do, but I guess we -had- been living there for 4 months. (Which is longer than we lived one or two places...) Plus my parents are thinking about selling their house sometime in the next year or two, and they were ready for us to take all the stuff we had been storing at their stuff since we got married. The nice thing was that some of our kitchen towels and pot holders had gotten pretty scary-looking, but I found some brand new ones from our reception in a few of those boxes. :)
Between all the storage boxes, all the stuff we had been using to -live- since August (including my computer set up) and the several pieces of furniture we were taking with us, we filled up a medium-sized enclosed trailer, my Dad's truck, and my van. (Well, it was mostly full of kids, but all the extra spaces were filled too). My parents took the big load down and the kids and I followed an hour or two later. I wanted to be there when everything got unpacked, but really, my timing was perfect. We got there just as they were finishing up, and we weren't in the way...
The first two weeks here were pretty chaotic as we tried to find all the essentials and unpack everything. I'm so grateful that Jeremy is an efficient unpacker or we'd still be living out of lots of boxes... (instead of just a few) Within a couple days I got Reilly registered in a charter school here, and so far he loves it! He was sad to leave his first kindergarten class and teacher, but excited to be in school period. This kid needs stuff to do! Here he is at his school in Pima on his last day there, and with his teacher, Mrs. Ruland. Sometime soon I'll try to get pictures of him at his new school...

Our house has come together over the last several weeks, and we rushed to get our Christmas stuff up so we could enjoy the season. I'm not much of a decorator, especially when it's not actually our house, so we are usually happy with homey and somewhat clean!

These were all taken about 2 weeks ago, so some strides have been made in the boxes. Also, the girls' room is still rather under construction. I'll try to take a picture of that soon. We've really been enjoying living together as a family again, and as much as I love the Christmas season, I'm excited to put the decorations away and try to get some good routines (and chore charts!) going...