Medford, Oregon

Our big move happens in less than 2 months! TWO MONTHS! That is coming fast but still seems far away. Ben got a residency right outside of Medford, OR. I think it is amazing how Heavenly Father will direct you in your life and get you to the right place, at the right time, and in the right way. As we were applying for residencies we were only going to apply out here in Memphis. But then, during Ben's Christmas break when all he had planned to do was play xbox and release the four months of stress that had built up by killing zombies, Ben's xbox broke. The VERY day he got done with school. So there he was with time to kill and he spent it applying to residencies in Memphis and he decided to throw in a few in Washington. It was a new idea but we thought we'd just see what came of it. So we were done. We figured it was either here or there.

Then Ben interviewed and it sounded like he had a pretty good shot at the residencies because he did so well on his boards. All the sudden we went from thinking a residency was a shot in the dark to thinking we could be a little choosy. So decided to fast about which one we should put as our first spot. By the end of the fasting I had figured out that if we needed to move we could financially do it by selling everything we owned and only taking what could fit in the van. Our hold up with Washington was the moving costs but here we had an answer. So we picked Spokane.

Then the residency match happened and we didn't match! I cried because I just couldn't believe it! We had felt so good about the decisions and then it didn't work out! Ben had felt very impressed that he needed to do a residency so he began applying to the residencies that still needed filling. It was a long week of not knowing. First we thought Reno (sounded great) but it was filled before he even had a chance. Then he applied to another round of places and this was when I was so worried we would end up in the middle of no where. I told him we didn't HAVE to do a residency, just get a job, but he was convinced he had to do a residency. For a whole day it looked like we might be going to Kentucky. Yuck. I did not want to go there. When Ben called on the way home from work he said that Kentucky would be calling that night but he had just heard about another residency in Oregon.

Oregon? Oregon! OREGON! I ran to my room and prayed. I made Ben call that guy as soon as he got home. He was in the room for an hour while I got the kids taken care and made sure he had all the quiet he needed to get that residency and save me from a year in Kentucky (my mom was also depressed about Kentucky as you can imagine). Ben finally emerged. Said how the guy was nice, spent a semester at Butte College (of all places!) and that it was so convenient that the electricity was out in their building right then so he couldn't see patients but could answer the phone. (I don't think that was a coincidence). Within the hour he had emailed Ben back telling him the residency was his if he wanted it!!

The whole experience strengthened my testimony that Heavenly Father is aware of your life, intercedes on your behalf and that he knows what you need better than you. I keep thinking about how perfect Oregon is over all the other choices we had thought would be best. We are located right over the California border. We wanted to live closer to family but not in CA and this is about as close as you can get! Reno would have been a few hours closer but there was a part of me that never wanted to live in Nevada. We are 4 hours from home. Close enough to visit, be there at holidays and we are even on the way to my sister's in Washington. We are the perfect pit stop! We never would have known to go there if Heavenly Father had not directed us there.

And Oregon is best for us financially. It was going to cost us around $2000 to move (and that didn't include gas for two cars!) After 4 years of being students we just didn't know how we would afford that so we decided to sell everything. People think we're crazy but really I know it is the best choice. First, now we can save the moving money and just pay for gas. Second, we are only four hours away from home so now we have a place to bum around before his residency starts which was another financial worry of paying for rent with no job. Third, I'm going to spend that time at my parents going through their house and replacing what we sell with the extra stuff they have. They already have a bunk bed with dressers! So for relatively cheap I will be able to re-supply my house using my parents' old belongings. And even if we have to spend money buying new stuff I would rather spend $2000 buying new things than $2000 moving my old junky things that we've had for 9 years. A lot of our stuff was needing to be replaced anyway. Seriously this works out great! Heavenly Father was much more aware of our needs and how to meet them than we were. I love that. I love the way little things happen to make big things occur. Who knew that a broken xbox would lead to applying outside of Memphis? Who knew fasting would show us the way to financially move if needed? Who knew that NOT getting the residency was a tremendous blessing to get us to a better location? Who knew? So Oregon here we come!

Memphis Monday

Yesterday was a beautiful day in Memphis!! I love, love, love, LOVE living out here in the Mid-South. I feel like our move out here was moving home. This is where I have always belonged and I am really going to miss it. I've been sad about moving away since we first got here. I just love it. But we are also excited for our move to Oregon and who knows, maybe I will feel like that was moving home as well. I've never wanted to move back to California so this is great! We are as close to California and family as you can get without actually being IN california! We are super excited to head out there but I my heart will, for now, be left in Tennessee.

So this is a funny story. We had a yard sale to start selling everything we own and this guy stopped by. He lives a few houses down but we've never talked to him so this was our first meeting. He checked out some things, chit-chatted and then asked how old Daisy was. I knew this guys wasn't too bright but automatically I started to worry about why he was so interested in Daisy. I I told him all the kids ages and he goes to his truck and comes back with two dresses (See Below). He hands them to me and says that they were at Walgreens for a quarter! He couldn't believe the deal so he got some and they might fit the little one. This guy has no kids but he is buying kids clothes that look like THIS!!!

I didn't explain that there was a reason they were marked down for 25 cents. Instead I figured I made out pretty good for having a yard sale but still managing to acquire more junk. But they were just too tacky to get rid of so I texted Marissa, told her the story, and informed her that Emery was going to be sporting one of my free yard sale dresses. And because I love Memphis so much I was a little happy that I finally have some clothing that represents our time here. This is our ONE item of clothing that says anything about Elvis or Memphis so I'm keeping it and Daisy has a new pajama dress-hideous as it is.

To continue our Memphis Monday we went to the Mississippi River for FHE. It's flooded and Ben loves to see it when it's flooded. This picture below shows the tree line where the water doesn't normally reach. So, pretty flooded.

A cute picture of my family with the bridge in the background. That bridge is the state line between Tennessee and Arkansas. That's the bridge we'll drive over as we head back West (my stomach just dropped as I thought of that horrible moment when we will drive away from this place...I'm so sad about leaving.) And here's the kids hiding behind Ben because they were a little scared of the river, Daisy especially (she has a fear of pond water ever since her incident last spring).

Here is Blake touching the Mississippi for his first time! And here is Daisy freaking out about it. She screamed and cried because Heidi went to the water by herself to touch it and Daisy was just distraught. (We video taped some of it) Finally Heidi and Kaylee touched the Mississippi.

And because no post is complete without cute Blake pictures here are the most recent. He's a cute boy!

Blake

This was right after he was born

This was the day my mom left so I think he was about two weeks old.

This was his four month picture.

And this is our latest picture of us together! I love having Blake and I love that today is his BIRTHDAY!!

Now I'm not going to sugar-coat this...longest year of my life! It didn't help that as soon as 2010 hit I said "One more year" meaning school would be done in one more year when in reality we still have 18 months left. And it didn't help that I felt like once 2010 came I was going to have my baby when really it was going to be three months later. So that was my fault. But Blake did not make it easy either. Neither did Ben's work schedule.

One year ago today Ben had just finished his boards, come home for the night and we prepared to go to the hospital the next day and have Blakers. Since then Ben has found out that he passed the first part of boards, killed the second part of boards and is now stressing out for the third part of boards which is in like two weeks. And he also got a residency (YEA!!) so we are packing up and selling everything for our big move to Oregon! And I also threw a marathon in there so this has been one crazy year for all of us.

Even though Blake looks super cute and lovable in his pictures that was not how he behaved. For about six months he was just difficult. Cried a lot, screamed a lot, wanted to be held and all of it was difficult because Ben was gone all the time with work, came home exhausted and stressed and I had to hold down the fort with the other three girls. He's had a tough childhood as the fourth but he's also made me work at being a mom. This was just the other day...

BUt he has really improved lately and is just fun now. He plays in the cupboards, broke my blender, bangs the pots, slam the cupboards, climb on the kid table, walk with the wagon and drink his bottle. He LOVES his bottle and I love the instant happiness and silence it provides.

He looks really good in dark blue. I think it is just his color so I was really happy that his birthday outfits from the grandparents were dark blue. However he goes through his outfits pretty quick especially now that we play outside.

And these pictures below were all of Blake today, on his birthday, officially one year old! Look close to the first one and there is Daisy behind him. He's a pretty big kid. I like these pictures of Blake except that he looks more like Ben than me and I really loved having a kid that looked like me for a change. I get more comments about how he is starting to take after Ben than me and it makes me feel a little sad. Maybe it's because he started thinning out and if I chunk him back up he'll look like me again!

The girls made him a 'mud cake' for his birthday and sadly that just might be his only cake today. We've been super busy today and the cake is just not going to happen. Maybe on sunday we can have a little cake party for him. He loved his mud cake though. He loves to make a mess and that he did. I still haven't cleaned the mud up yet even though it's all over my porch.

Here are just a few close-ups as he played with his new toys he got today. Once again that dark blue just looks good on him.

This picture is from today and the other is when he was 4 months. He's so cute!

I like this last picture because I think he looks like my brother, Than. And if he looks like Than then he looks like me. (Yes!!) Unfortunately it's a little blurry but still cute and you can barely see his four teeth coming in on top.

Wednesdays

I love these pictures of Blake. I was trying to get a picture of him sitting because he likes to sit on his one knee. He even tries to walk with one leg and his one knee. He doesn't get far and ends up just crawling. He has taken up to 7 steps at once. He was timid at first but now he just takes off and ends up on his face because it's too fast. He is so handsome.

And then THIS happened!! He is much more active than my girls and so I had no clue that he was even able to reach the top of the table and even less of a clue that he could grab a bowl of steaming soup down on top of him. He's much better looking now. There is just two sores left on his face and his arm, which blistered up, is healing as well. My mom was freaking out about the whole thing but it didn't turn out to be anything much. He's going to look just fine.

I feel like I should put up a post about why I love my kids since last week was the result of a very hard three hours. I actually love being a mom. It was all I wanted to do growing up and so I love what I do each day. As I try to improve myself as a mom I've been trying new things. I've started with being better at hair. I want my girls to feel like they can ask me to do some cool hair style and I just do it! This was my latest attempt. She was almost late for school but it was green day for Dr. Sueuss and she wanted a clover in her hair. Good practice for St. Patrick's Day. It was pretty cool even though she had pulled it out by the time she got home from school (I was actually not happy that she had done that because it was SO much work!)

Then I have these two crazy kids that I spend all day with. Even though Kaylee is confusing to me she is also very sweet about things. I have a constant debate about her watching movies because that is all she likes to do. We have gone days without even turning the tv on but still her life revolves around movies. If she can't watch them she likes to find the soundtrack on itunes and listen to the 30 sec preview of the songs over and over. She will also sit and draw all the characters from the movies. She's pretty good at drawing too. But she just likes movies. What if that is going to be a life-long thing and she pursues a career in film? What if my TV ruling affects her entire future for good or bad and I have no clue what the right choice is or which way to encourage her? But when they watch movies I often find Daisy hidden under the blanket like so. Kaylee also loves to read books. She doesn't seem interested in chapter books yet like Heidi did but she loves to read the smaller books over and over. It's funny to see how your children develop and how they do things differently. Kaylee is always willing to sit and read books to both Daisy and Blake.

I do love hanging out with these kids. Most days are just relaxing. For some odd reason all my hard days where things fall down around me always happen on Wednesdays. I don't know why but let's hope this week goes a little better.

March Begins

We have been busy around these parts. So busy I haven't had time to even make a blog post. We've had a lot of good, a lot of crazy, and a lot of waiting. We have been waiting and waiting to learn what our future will be and we are still just waiting. We should find out soon about residencies but I don't even know what I really want on that so I don't know which way to vote for. Part of me wants a residency, part of me wants a real job. Part of me wants to stay here, part of me wants to move. But none of those feelings really even matter because for know we are just waiting. There is nothing we can do for at least two more weeks.

The good that we've had is that Blake took his first steps! He is getting his top two teeth. He got his first black eye (a sign of a real man). His collar bone is healed. He LOVES having a bottle and it will pretty much calm him down no matter how worked up he is. Daisy pees in the toilet and loves wearing her Toy Story pull-ups. She is still super cute and I love talking with her through out the day. She is just cute and that really helps. Kaylee (are you surprised she is mentioned in the good section?) is still just Kaylee who I don't understand one single bit but she has decided that she loves Megamind and colors him almost every day. She draws and cuts out cartoon characters all day long making her own collection of 'paper toys' since I won't buy her real toys. She is proud of her artistic abilities and so am I. Heidi is just Heidi and spent all night making me feel better and getting me Kleenex after my emotional breakdown.

That is where the crazy comes in. Things are just CRAZY around here. Blake still cries a lot but he's also developing a personality that worries me. He started hitting Daisy over a toy the other day and does not like to share with the friends who come over. Daisy will not, WILL NOT, poop in the toilet and every time she goes in her pull-up I either want to ring her neck or just give up completely and cry in frustration. Kaylee is a whole world of crazy in that she will tattletale, complain, whine, accuse people, disobey, talk back, etc. She's already a horrible teenager and she's only five. I feel completely hopeless when it comes to her. And then there's Heidi who is great except for those one or two things that she flips out about! She's also more sensitive so when Kaylee starts up on her "i hate you, heidi" kicks Heidi sits there crying uncontrollably and won't just ignore Kaylee. So that is life right now. Maybe I shouldn't make blog posts after a rough night but then again making a blog post helps me feel better. Plus I owe my mom some pictures since she listen to me cry for an hour. I don't have many pictures but I have a few of Blake dumping dirt all over the front porch. It's his daily routine. I have to sweep the walk about 3 times a day.