He Did It!

Finally.. after a crazy, busy, season of life, Jon has finished his Master's Degree in Business Administration!!!  The structure of the program has been the major exhaustion on us - he has 3 weeks off total during the year - and the other courses overlap throughout the rest of the year - and these are 7 week and 3 week long courses.. blah.. but HE IS DONE!!!  I am so proud of my man, and so excited for him to have a break for himself!

He is such a great husband and dad.  I have been so blessed by how he has made the time everyday to spend time with us - from when he gets home from work until the kids are down.  He has worked until midnight or later many nights - sometimes because I simply needed him, and he was willing to place his school work on hold.  He is my hero, and such an awesome example of a man who loves his wife and kids more than his own academic progress and even sleep sometimes.

Jon and I have really found ourselves challenged in our marriage - especially with adding Lina to the family at the peak of his travel season and crazy school work almost a year ago.  I have learned how selfish I can be, and how hard it is to communicate my needs - and to even know what I need!  I have been challenged to sacrifice more - even though I feel like I need to sleep in every day since Lina has regressed and doesn't sleep through the night.

All in all, the past 2ish years have been incredibly hard for us, but as I sit at the end, I see how they hold their own sweetness.  Their own challenge.  Their own insanity.  Their own laughability.  I wouldn't trade them.

Now we enter life without school work, and Jon's crazy fall travel season.  I already know we are prone to bicker and fight a lot - reentry is hard for us.  Hopefully, with God's grace, love and guidance, we will grow more in this new transition period.  Thankfully, through having to go through reentry many times, and simply being honest with one another, we have a taste of our propensities.

This House is beginning to feel like a Home

We have been in our new house for over a month now.  We have been slowly unpacking, fixing things that break, and working on house projects - like putting in the backsplash:

 

The projects never seem to end... I think I am getting a flavor for what infinite means in the home-owning-project-world :)

We just discovered that our washing machine drain pipe (the one attached to the house) has some leak in it that has been draining between the wall in the kitchen and the utility room.  If we didn't need to do laundry, we could put this project off, but we know we can't.  The wall that is being ruined is the wood-paneling in the kitchen.  So, we now have to consider whether we should just rip out the wood paneling period and drywall the 2 and 1/2 walls that would need to be replaced.  The lovely owners before us only redid part of the walls.  Yes, decisions, and $.  Gotta love it!

But, you know what made this house start feeling like a home?  Well, it began with simply putting together the bedroom set my parents bought for us.  Once together, we had an extra dresser that needed to be put somewhere - guest bedroom/office it was!  Well, we had empty drawers in it, and extra space in the new dressers.  Since we lack closets, I decided to put the guest sheets/towels/blankets/pillows into the old dresser, and to put blankets we use in our room into our dresser.  For some reason, this small task made this house feel like a home.  I wonder if it has to do with the feeling like we have a place for people to come and visit us, and not be squished into our front room.  I wonder if I just felt maternal/homey in this bit of organizational love.  I really don't know.  However, since then the little steps we take to organize and unpack things are just making things feel more homey to me :)

Yesterday, Jon and I bought curtains for our bedroom.  They are up, but we are going to hang a few things on the wall before posting pics.  For my own sanity, I have needed just one room to be 99% complete - this is our bedroom.  The only thing that is really left is the molding between the ceiling and the wall, and repainting the molding around the floor and the door frames.  I'll post pics when our decor is on the wall :)

Anyways, off to just rest.  Lina has a mean fever that began last night, and she is actually napping now - poor girl!

Mommy's Get-away...

Last night my tutoring session was cancelled.  Thanks to my loving husband, I was shooed out the door to have some "Tamryn-time."  I have been aching for this for awhile.  Sure, I have some space when the kids are down for a nap... but there is a difference in the quiet when they are napping, and my ears are still attuned to their cries, and the quiet of Starbucks, or some other place, where I don't have to even think about their waking up and wanting to play.

My first stop was an errand-stop - Lowe's - our new best friends.  I then went to Starbucks.  I didn't noticed how many women about my age were there.. all by themselves, like me.  One was reading a book intently, the other was just sitting with headphones on, and I was journalling.  I imagine these women were also having some alone time. 

Target was my last stop.  I love the coffee at Starbucks, and the ambiance, but my activities there are limited.  Target is my go-to for some refreshing time by myself.  Surprise-surprise, more moms by themselves :)  I actually got to look around as slowly as I wanted.  I came up with 2 amazing deals after coupons - 2 shirts for myself totalling 74 cents!  I also found some tights for Lina for this next cold season for 74cents each!

When I was younger, I didn't always like shopping with my Mom.  The trips that I look back on with bad memories are the ones where it seemed like we were in a store for hours while my mom combed each aisle.  I know I loved many of the shopping trips my Mom took my on... but now I have a little more sympathy for my Mom on the trips that I disliked so much - she must have been needing some space!  I guess there was no one to babysit me when she needed the space the most :)  I never thought I would love combing each aisle as much as I do at this stage in life.  Obviously, a lot of moms feel the same way (and maybe some daddys too?).  Sorry I gave you such a hard time Mom!

So, now that I have had some space I am more rejuvenated, and I look forward to my next outing by myself.

It has been awhile....

Since I last posted, we have added a beautiful little (chunky-monkey :)) girl into our family, and have purchased our first home!  It is not like we haven't been busy or anything :)  We have until the end of May to move our of this current home.

I have to say, I am a bit sad.  Yes, the commercial ceiling tiles, brown linolium in the kids room, yellow hexagonal kitchen countertop tile, lack of insulation, etc... are not exactly things we will shed tears over when we move.. but, this house was the place we brought Ezzie and Lina home to for the first time (and our dog Kass).  The place where so many "firsts" have occurred.  I love sitting at the kitchen table and looking out at the neighborhood and up at the large trees as the wind makes their branches and leaves dance.  I love sitting on the porch and playing with our kids and the neighborhood kids.  Despite us living "in the hood," I have made so many wonderful friends, and will miss my neighbors dearly... especially our 2(am)oclock conversations over the phone about the gunshots and such.  I have teared up a number of times at the thought of leaving, and may shed a few more tears as we lock the door for the last time and say goodbye.  While I love an adventure, I do very poorly with endings.

As we update the house we will be calling home in just 3 weeks, I'll try to do better with posts :)

Here are some fun pics for now :)

 

Our Old House

Our New Home (My panoramic attempt :))

Our kids when they were both 7 months old!

The BEST Mother's Day ever.. well, so far :)

Meeting out needs...

Over the course of everything concerning our new home, we have been so blessed to tangibly see and experience how God has provided for every need, and even desire.  Today I experienced another blessing.  I received a call from our contractor informing us that our dishwasher was just a bit too tall for our counters.  He did the leg work for us at Lowe's and found one that would fit in the space.. problem was, it was almost $200 more than what we paid for the other one.  I hit my stress point yesterday over this... one more thing to go wrong.. one more thing to elongate how long all of the contract work is doing.. one more thing before Jon leaves on his trip tonight at midnight to put us behind schedule.  Well, after doing some research I found that Lowe's matches advertised prices that are less than their cost, and then gives you 10% more off the price.. so the 699 dishwasher came down to 485.. yes, you see the right numbers.  When I went in to Lowe's to speak with the man who has been so helpful, everything was set up.  We even have the dishwasher being delivered tomorrow night.

This is just another of the many ways God has provided for us in ways we did not expect.. sometimes His answers of providence have required us to sacrifice, and sometimes He has provided in simply giving to us.  Just wanted to share :)