Well...

It's been awhile--again! Our friends from Albuquerque are visiting right now and we are having a great time! K and D, their 1 yr old, are inseparable. We have gone to the zoo, Little Lambs at church and the Wildlife Museum. Tomorrow we are going to hang out at home, maybe walk to the park. K and I are sick AGAIN! Dumb colds--maybe it's allergies-who knows! But my friend, A, who is visiting has a sore throat now too. UGH!

Next week is the closing for our house in WI! Things are looking great so we are hopeful it will all go as planned! We are starting the house hunt here. It's fun!

The flowers are blooming here and it's so pretty. Each day more and more cacti are blooming and it's such an awesome sight! I will post pictures as they get more colorful. It's been warm though--high 80s. I'm not too excited about that, but it's better than snow and 30s! :)

Here are a few pictures of the past few weeks...


Planting flowers

Yum--vegetables!

First mini golf experience

In the ferret house at the Wildlife Museum

What a blessing!

On Wed we got a call from our realtor letting us know we had an offer on the house. A low offer from a really interested couple who really liked our house! On Thursday we submitted a counter-offer and heard by that afternoon that they had accepted it! YAHOO! We are cautiously excited as we wait for the closing date of March 26th. We've had a sale fall through on closing day so we know this isn't a sure thing, BUT we are praying that God would allow the sale to happen! We (okay, I) have been looking at houses online since buying a house this summer is becoming more of a reality now! Our lease on our current residence is up in early July so we'd love to be able to purchase a home by then and stop throwing money away on a rental home. So, we are asking for many prayers...
*prayers that our house sale goes through
*prayers that God would lead us to a good realtor and loan officer
*prayers that we are able to find a new home by June (if that is the Lord's will!)

On another note...K has been sick with another cold that has turned into breathing problems. I took him to urgent care on Sunday. They gave him a nebulizer treatment and found an ear infection in his right ear. He never complains when he has an ear infection so of course we didn't know he had one. On Monday I made an appointment with a pediatrician to talk about asthma. He doesn't want to do any testing on K until he's at least 5, but the Dr. said it sounds like K has mild intermittent asthma. He only gets the breathing issues when he has a cold. So, we are to continue using his inhaler when he gets a cold. I figured that was what the Dr. was going to tell us, but I wanted to know we were doing the right things. I'll probably still have some sleepless nights when K experiences his breathing issues, but at least I know that we are doing all we can for him at this point!

Things have been crazy and hectic around here as usual. Thankfully, Mike will get a little break next week. There is no school on Thurs or Fri because of Rodeo Days in Tucson. Now, no one actually goes to the rodeo, but it's two days off so who's going to complain? :) Mike's parents will be coming in next week to spend a week with us. It'll be fun to show them around Tucson and share our favorite spots with them! It's supposed to be in the 80s!

Serious.Life Magazine

(I found out about this magazine b/c of Abby--a little girl who was adopted from Guatemala who is battling Leukemia.) Read on...




I wanted you to know about this publication I’m a part of called Serious.Life Magazine. They just published the February issue today, and I am in their Featured Blog Directory. It’s a very high quality magazine… you’ll really like it.



The magazine includes a lot of great content from bloggers you’ll appreciate, as well as great features, photos and other content. The magazine is owned and published by a family who have seven kids, three adopted and one who has Leukemia (www.riggsfamilyblog.com). The magazine gives away a bunch of ads to charities and ministries. Besides great articles on interesting people, there is a lot about family, adoption, personal finance, spiritual life, humor… all sorts of “life” topics.

Fireproof

You have to see this movie! It was really good--funny, encouraging, warm, religious, hopeful...
Mike and I both enjoyed it. We want to get the book "The Love Dare" that is used in the movie. They used the book to save their marriage. Our marriage is strong and secure since we are united in Christ, but I think every marriage can be made even stronger and love can grow even more. I think it'd be fun to have a "daily assignment"! :)

Rent the movie!!

Twilight

What can I say? I'm addicted. I am on the 3rd book and will most likely be up all night reading it. I NEVER thought I'd enjoy this type of series, but I'm hooked.

This 'n That

Not much is going on around here. I have been pretty busy with transcribing which is awesome! There has been extra work the last few weeks and I am so appreciative of it! Tomorrow I get to sub in the 4 yr old room so K is excited to go to school with me. I really enjoy working with that class.

Mike and K's latest fun is making a K'Nex creation after supper most every night. They have made the Taj Mahal, bridges, helicopters and lots of other fun things. It's a nice quiet activity for K and it gives them quality time together.

Since last May, when we decided to make the move to Tucson, K has been struggling with bed/nap times. We figured it was due to all the chaos in our lives and things would settle down. Well, things were still pretty awful even after living here for 5 months. We had tried EVERYTHING, but nothing was working. Then I decided to make a chart of all the things he needs to do at nap/bed time. If he did them well, without sassing, he would get an X. Once a whole row was filled with X's he'd get a sticker. 3 stickers=surprise! Well, FINALLY we found a way to get bed/nap times back to happy times! It only took a few days and he was going down without incident. After a few weeks he was so into routine again (which, BTW, has never changed!) that we don't even need the chart anymore. OH, the other thing we do is have "quiet time" from 6-7pm each night. He only does calm activities the hour before bedtime. That really helps too! Of course, there are still the occasional moments of sassing or whining or tantrums, but he gets a time-out and then we go on. I am SO THANKFUL that bed/nap time is peaceful once again!

K made us laugh so hard the other day when we realized that he thinks he'll be driving himself to preschool in August!! :) We have been talking about how he'll be going to preschool alone when he's 4. (Right now he just goes with me when I sub.) So, he somehow thought that "alone" meant driving himself! Too funny!

The weather has been cool the last few days--only getting into the high 60s and low 70s. I enjoy that weather, but the mornings are rough. It's been in the high 30s so we've been cold. We don't know where our winter coats are so we just wear a sweatshirt and turn up the heat in the car. We refuse to turn on the heat in the house (it's about 58-60 degrees in the morning) since we are paying a large heat bill in WI. I know I sound like a wus, but if I'm cold, I'm cold.

We're going to a big Super Bowl party on Sunday! Should be fun!! GO CARDINALS!! :)

Two songs...

I love Christian contemporary music! It's pretty much all we listen to these days. There are two songs that I just love! The first one, "Happy", I don't hear as much anymore, but it makes me smile EVERY TIME I hear it! It reminds me that I have no reason for sadness, worry, etc...when I've got God! :)

A new song I've been hearing on the radio a lot is "Free to Be Me" sung by Francesca Battistelli. I need the reminder from this song that my life is in God's hands--he's got it all worked out for me! I love it!

Take a listen--I guarantee you'll be smiling! :)