Adventures in Moving, Part III: Moving Sucks

I was doing ok after the SIL left...until Mika got sick (later found out it was a virus). I had so much cleaning and packing to do and the poor baby wanted to be held all day and night. I had a breakdown Tuesday night and texted Paul the next morning ordering him to come home immediately because I just couldn't handle it anymore. He got home Wednesday night and we really got down to packing and cleaning with the help of our neighbors and their free babysitting. Our goal was to leave Saturday at 10 a.m., get to Denver, and check into a hotel for the night. We left at 4:30 p.m. and dragged our weary bodies into the hotel at about 2:30 a.m. (and we STILL had to wait in line to check in, go figure). 

Bob the praying mantis kept us company. He sat behind Jackson the whole time (he's the small green blob on the black thing behind Jackson).

The drive wasn't too bad. Well, for me it wasn't bad because I didn't drive ;) But the beauty of leaving so late was that the kids were taking afternoon naps/asleep for the night for most of the drive so there was minimal whining. We couldn't fit everything in the Uhaul, so we had to cram the Sequoia full of stuff, right down to the whole floor of the second row where I was sitting between the kids. Paul looked in the car and asked how I was going to sit there. I told him not to worry, I'd make it work :D I had to keep my feet up on the center console for the whole trip.

Pictures from our apartment today:

A view of half of Jackson's room and of his funny sleeping position this afternoon. There is a long, low bookshelf along the opposite wall with his toys and books. We started moving things in a little before 11 Sunday last week and I had his room done by 3 for his nap.

Dining area and our bookshelf that we use for a pantry because we don't have a real one.

A decent kitchen for an apartment (although they skimped on the fridge-see how much space is left on top?? Geez.)

A view of the living room from the front door.

A view of the living room from the hall.

Both bathrooms look like this.

Night view of downtown Denver. Beautiful!

the loft

Our apartment is 1170 square feet, two bedrooms, two bathrooms, with a loft that we use as storage/a guest room. We live on the third floor, so we get a great view of downtown Denver, and you have to live on the third floor to get the loft in this complex. We had a hard time finding a place because we needed at least two bedrooms, at least 1.5 baths, and a washer and dryer had to be in the apartment and not just the hookups. And it had to be an easy (15 minutes or less) commute for Paul to work because the traffic can be as bad as LA. So it was hard to find a place we could afford that wasn't in a bad area.

This is what the apartment looked like on my first day of school this semester.

We've only been here 12 1/2 days and we've mostly unpacked, had a visit from my dad, and we've gone to three parks, the Children's Museum twice, the library, the Butterfly Pavilion (a small zoo), and a mini vacation (Paul had a business trip to Steamboat Springs, so the kids and I tagged along). Whew!

Adventures in Moving, Part II: Sister-in-law Saves the Day

My SIL totally saved me when Paul was gone. I only had to go five days with no help, then she came Friday night and stayed through Sunday afternoon. Then I had three days of no help and Paul came home Wednesday night. My SIL is so awesome, she hadn't even brought her bags in before I put her to work putting Jackson to bed so that I could do laundry and mind Mika. She minded both kids, did the dishes, and got me out of the house to eat twice. It felt like a vacation had ended when I watched her drive away (how sad that not washing dishes for two days is my definition of a vacation now).

I got a lot of weeding done. I really wish I had taken a before pic of this one, but here's the after.

It looks simple and boring, but it took me five hours, I bagged five bags of weeds, and I put down thirteen bags of mulch. Imagine this space totally covered in grass, weeds, tiny trees, about fifty small branches (from when I pruned LAST YEAR and didn't clean up all the branches---LAZY!). I also got the front beds done while the SIL watched the kids.

In other news, our house is done! Here are before and after pics. The tan paint turned out a little brighter and bolder than I thought it would (I never thought I'd use "bright" and "bold" to describe tan). But I like it a lot more than the gray. I HATED the gray and have been itching to have the house painted since we bought it, we just didn't have the money until now. If I had gone one or two shades lighter it would've been perfect, but I still really like it.

Before:

 After:

 The moving is going ok, we have most of the stuff boxed up of moved to the basement. Our awesome neighbor comes over to watch Jackson while we pack, so we've taken her and her husband out to dinner twice to thank them. Poor Jackson doesn't understand what is going on and gets upset when I box up his stuff. Mika and I are sick, so that's fun. I have a sore throat, but I feel fine otherwise. Mika had a runny nose and now she has some kind of rash on her face. She can't feel that bad though because she is still happy and always smiling. I am exhausted and really stressed out, but I can't wait to move and explore a new city. SO excited because Colorado is beautiful and there are a lot of family-centered activities in the Denver metro. Plus my dad is only ninety minutes away, so that is awesome if we need help (and date nights!).

Adventures in Moving, Part I

Paul moved to Denver on Sunday and won't be back for 11 loooooooong days. He left at 11 Sunday morning and is planning on getting back early two Thursdays from now. I was really upset at first because it's so hard to handle a new baby and a rambunctious toddler all day, every day, with no help and no breaks. But I'm trying to have a good attitude about this because military moms and single moms do this every day, and if they can do it, so can I. The next time he comes back, we are packing half of our stuff up and moving it to Denver. The other half is stuff we're keeping in the house. We are cramming the stuff we're not taking into a few rooms and the basement so our house sitter can have most of the rooms. Paul just took his office stuff, clothes, and an air mattress to get by until we move. He crammed everything in the Corolla and is flying back, then we are all driving together in the Sequoia hauling the U-haul trailer.

I'm staying busy because between dealing with double diaper changes and such, we have a lot of house repairs that we have recently completely and others that will start soon:
-fixing our front steps
-staining the deck
-repairing the rotten siding and painting the house
-new garage doors
-new inside door that leads into the garage
-having the shower in the master bathroom cleaned
-fixing the gutter
-fixing a shelf in the laundry room
And then after we pay off all the above, we need to replace our water heater. We have been trying so hard to do the whole Dave Ramsey envelope system and stay out of debt, but when we found out we were moving, we HAD to get this stuff done and just deal with the credit card debt later. We have no idea when we'll be back and everything except the shower and laundry room desperately needs to be done. We have the cash for the house painting, everything else is just "magic money" (credit card).

At first I wanted to paint the house tan with white trim. Then I changed my mind to a light/medium green. Then I changed my mind back to tan because our house sits on a hill and it would be green overload to see a green grassy hill with a green house on top flanked by green trees and bushes. It would've been nice if I had realized this before I bought 9 sample cans of green, but I guess that was money well spent.

Imagine the house green too. Blech. You can see where I painted green on the bay window and the porch.

This is the tan I chose- "tatami tan"

it dries a little darker than that

the darker spots are the dry parts

So my house is now 10 different colors until the painting people get here. Don't hate on my painting skills, I was frantically tearing through the samples while Mika slept in the car and Jackson was trying to touch all the paint (he got some on our new, white garage doors). I literally painted until my hand went numb.

Mika at 3 Months

My "little" baby weighs in at a hefty 13.5 pounds and is 24" long. She is a solid six-month size, but can wear some three- and nine-month sizes as well.

It took both of us to get on her bib- one of us had to lift up her chins while the other fastened the back.

She looks so goofy with all that hair. I get stopped at the time in public by people asking to touch her hair because they can't believe it's real. A lot of people say it looks like she's wearing a wig.

yep.

She is really social and smiles and gurgles at us when we talk to her. She looooooves Jackson and is always watching what he's doing. She sleeps basically from 9:30ish pm-9:30ish am with one wake-up for a diaper change and feeding around 3:30. She takes a short morning nap and a loooooong afternoon nap (today was 5 hours, but it's usually 3 or 4). Sometimes she'll take a second afternoon nap, sometimes she won't.

She is just like Jackson at that age- wants to be looking at what's going on, her head is always turning this way and that way looking around. She loves:
going outside in the stroller and looking around at the trees and the sky
playing with Jackson
"flying" in the air
peekaboo and other baby games
swinging in the baby swing at the park
looking at her book of baby faces

Daddy letting Mika fly around at the Cheesecake Factory

Mika's milestones don't make any sense. She's not even close to rolling over, but she can sit. Paul got a record fifteen seconds out of her today, but that was a one-time deal, she can usually only do it for about five seconds. I don't think she'll be rolling over until she's four or five months, probably because I almost never have her do tummy time (she HATES it and will just cry).

She goes in the potty almost all the time for #2's (she gives lots of warning farts, so I have plenty of time to get her on it) and when she's on it I sometimes accidentally get pee pee. Just as I hoped, this has completely changed Jackson's hatred of the potty and he will sit on it willingly now. He made the connection of getting "gummies" (gummy bears) after peeing. So now he loves to sit on it and try to pee, especially after seeing Mika go on it. He started taking his boy bits out of his diaper and I thought he was just scratching or playing with it, but Paul realized that he knows he is going to pee and is trying to tell us to get him on the potty. So pees are going well, #2...not so much. Sometimes when I KNOW he is going to go #2, I will make him sit on the potty and fight him when he tries to get up and leave. Then I'll give up after five or so minutes, put a diaper on him, see him immediately go hide in another room to go #2, and have to do another diaper change.  All in all, we're not pushing the potty too hard, my goal is to have him potty trained by his third birthday so he can just go at his own pace.

Jackson is getting really good at puzzles and can almost do twelve-piece jigsaw puzzles by himself. He knows to take off his shoes and put them under his bench when he comes in the door (he can put his shoes on himself if he tries but usually wants us to put them on). He likes to clean up his toys and books and gets really upset if we try to help. He likes to climb into his car seat now (a big feat for someone that little since we have a huge SUV) and he does the buckles across his chest. He is starting to use the "big boy swing" at the park, but is scared of it most of the time and prefers the baby swing. He just learned how to use the "big steps" and the ladder at the park.

We've been encouraging Jackson to make more decisions-about what he wears, where we go, what he eats, etc. He likes to pick out which diaper he is going to wear next. There are two parks that are close to our house and he decides which one he wants to go to. He knows to go to his room and select an outfit if I say we are leaving the house. He can also put away his clothes almost by himself. I put the laundry basket in front of his dresser and he puts each item away in the correct drawer almost every time. He doesn't fold them, I'll probably start showing him how to do that in a year or so. I used to put his clothes away and fold them, but gave up once he started picking out his outfits. He will dig around in the drawers and mess up everything I folded, so what's the point?

a Jackson-selected outfit at a Jackson-selected activity