June's 4th Birthday

After a nearly forgotten Christmas (we didn't buy one single gift for our kids for that holiday but did go to a water park hotel with the other Fays in mid-January), I figured June's birthday would be a similarly forgotten day. However, we actually did make it a special day. The kids and I were in Davenport so we spent the morning at the family museum for June's dance class and then I dropped the kids off at Carol and Lee's house for some special grandparent time while I ran errands (like buying birthday gifts for June). We had planned a special Skype birthday party since Dad was in Palatine, but he surprised us all and drove home for the evening. We still had Nana and Papa, Aunt Betty, and Uncle Brad and Aunt Susan on video chat. June got a lot of neat gifts including her first video game from Nana. She also got water colors and a puzzle from mom and dad but her favorite gift was a simple Hello Kitty coloring book that she talks about all the time but doesn't have much interest in actually coloring. For dinner we had pancakes with blueberry syrup and cake left over from Dad's installation for dessert. We even got to snitch bites with our fingers before we cut the cake. I'm a few days late but I even managed to interview her just like I did last year.

1. What is your favorite color? purple

2. What is your favorite toy? barbie

3. What is your favorite fruit? banana

4. What is your favorite show? Dora

5. What is your favorite thing for lunch? peanut butter and honey sandwich

6. What is your favorite outfit? a dress, a long dress from Nana

7. What is your favorite game? A dora one

8. What is your favorite snack? cookies, animal cookies

9. What is your favorite animal? Elephant

10. What is your favorite song? a Dora one

11. What is your favorite book? I love my Barbie book

12. Who is your best friend? Hallie

13. What is your favorite cereal? I like Cheerios

14. What is your favorite thing to do outside? play in the snow

15. What is your favorite drink? milk

16. What is your favorite holiday? Christmas

17. What do you like to take to bed with you at night? my babies. Them sleep by my side

18. What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast? I like pancakes and eggs

19. What do you want for dinner on your birthday? Pancakes

20. What do you want to be when you grow up? princess

Where have you been!?

I promised myself when I started this blog that I would try not to feel guilty when life got in the way of posting. However, I am my mother's daughter, and I feel guilty that I haven't updated anything about our family on this blog for the last 2 months. I could come up with great excuses. Time- I haven't had time to blog because between cleaning the house to put on the market, raising two kids (three if we're getting technical), house hunting, house selling, and general life upheaval, I haven't had time. Overloaded with computer time - Since we're moving out of town, I've spent too much time looking at real estate online, researching mortgage rates, looking up random facts about Palatine, and watching the Wonder Years on Netflix. I know the last one isn't really an excuse, but seriously fun to watch an old sit com. Emotionally overloaded - Being pregnant and saying goodbye to all your friends is pretty much a sobfest. Creatively worn out- There are only so many games you can play in a house that you're trying to keep clean with a 2 year old and 3 year old.

So guilt makes me come up with excuses for not blogging. Those are my excuses. On to bigger and better things.

So much has changed since November. Karl received and accepted a call to Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Palatine. It was a really hard decision and one that we didn't take lightly. We've only been in Davenport for 3 and a half years but extricating ourselves from the community has been painful and much more difficult than I anticipated. At least with people at church it is public knowledge, but community spreads so much further than congregation members. Friends from the Y, the neighborhood, family museum staff, and regular Hyvee shoppers all need to be informed as well. The call process is hard enough to explain to a lifelong Lutheran. The Holy Spirit guides this process. It is not a promotion or a financial decision or even a geographical decision. Although I am looking forward to seeing more family in the Chicagoland area (I have to include that since I'm sitting at Kory and Cara's house right now using their internet and eating their M&M's).

Alright, call accepted, congregation informed, community informed. Now on to explaining this to the kids. When we first talked about moving, June had some serious questions that she asked while on the edge of complete breakdown: "Will our new house have rooms or will we have to sleep outside?" then "Can I take my bed?" then (actually crying now) "I really want to take my pink baby!" Every few days we get another question about certain items coming with us when we move. I think she was genuinely excited to see our new house this weekend and pick out her new room (she tried to pick the master bedroom, but was vetoed). She cut a picture out of a magazine of a room decorated completely in pink hello Kitty stuff and pulls it out every once and a while to remind me that she really wants a kitty room for her next room. We still need to jump the hurdles of leaving dance class, Sunday School, and Hallie (really not looking forward to that last one), but I think she's excited to live closer to Lucy and Vera and we're all hoping that helps us survive the Hallie withdrawal we'll be feeling shortly.

Ruben seems nonplussed about the whole thing. He loves the sharpe markers I use to label boxes and enjoys hiding in the newly cleaned out closets. His world still revolves around meals, toys, and parents, but the amazing male influences from church will be greatly missed. What would church be without Matt, Merle, Bill, and Grandpa Lee? Men of Palatine, beware, Ruben will need some new men in his life to teach him important things like how to tackle properly, general farm knowledge, and dog care.

So now we've covered the kids' reactions to the move. Now for the actual logistics of moving. First, find a house to live in. Avoid moving into temporary housing because seriously moving pregnant and then moving with an infant sounds like a recipe for a mental breakdown. Back in early December we put in an offer on 1327 E Sanborn, a raised ranch that reminds me of the house the Sarno's live in (old friends from Woodridge - I lived there until I was five). We just missed the house as the bank accepted a different offer the same day we put our offer in. Darn. The kids stayed in Davenport with adoptive grandparents and friends, and we were back in Palatine to look at all the other houses in our price range. We found one a block from church we loved. Put in an offer, a little negotiating and we're under contract. Awesome. Karl goes for the inspection. Yeah a lot to fix up but good bones until they got to the attic. Mold and very little insulation. Now we're asking the seller to actually fix some stuff because that's just not livable. If you're keeping up with the timeline we've not run smack dab into Christmas so expect some slowing of the process. What we got was a complete standstill. The seller hadn't turned on gas or water for the inspection and was majorly dragging his feet. Thursday January 9 we heard for at least the fourth time that the water was still not turned on because he had not showed up for the scheduled appointment. This is after weeks of drama about an unpaid water bill. Really. Oh, and that mold mitigation that had been scheduled for the first week of January...oh yeah, he's not going to do that unless he's sure we're buying it so....time to cancel the contract. Even if the house was nice and had four bedrooms and was spacious and close to church, we didn't trust the seller farther than we could throw him. Back to square one. Thankfully earlier that week we heard that the Sanborn property was back on the market because the last contract fell through because of financing. So we had put an offer in above asking price (which had dropped $22,000 since we last offered) and prayed. Prayed a lot. And two hours after we canceled the contract on the slow property, our offer was accepted on Sanborn. Oh, and we need to have a cashier's check and original paperwork in Palatine within 24 hours. Guess it's time to pack our bags again. How do people with full time jobs manage to buy a house, it took all day to do the paperwork. Really only 15 minutes at a time with large breaks in between to hear back from the bank and selling realtor. That was yesterday. We rolled into Kory and Cara's house by 8 p.m. after having left our house at 7 that morning. Oh and did I mention that we had to leave our house ready to be shown for an open house, find someone to watch Nova (thanks Schmitzers), and remember to pack the kid's suitcase in the car (that's a whole other story). Today we've spent the day bouncing at a bounce house while it was 50 degrees outside, playing at the park after it had dropped to 20 degree,  driving back to Subway to find Aunt Kendra's purse, investigating a Craigslist scam where someone was trying to rent our property, and enjoying quality time with family. Tomorrow we'll finally get to worship with our new faith family at Prince of Peace and then drive home to meet friends for dinner. It would also be really cool if some of these people who are seeing our house at the open house could put in an offer and we could buy and sell a house in the same weekend. Here's hoping.

That was the housing rant. It has really consumed a lot of our time and I hope future home purchases will go much more smoothly, but we're really excited about the house on Sanborn. The backyard overlooks the bike trail and a "lake" and there is an amazing playground 7 houses down the street. Oh, and it is a really awesome house.

The next challenges to tackle will be meeting and approving the OB I've selected. Figuring out what we're going to do for June in terms of classes or preschool. Living without Karl in Davenport until the house closes. Actually moving. Meeting hundreds of new people. Figuring out where to go grocery shopping. And having a third child. Hopefully in that order.

Birthday Number Two for Ru

Well the birthday has come and gone. The extra toys have found room on the shelves while old toys are now comfortable at Goodwill. We've eaten cake, popped the balloons, and almost stopped singing "happy birthday" every single day. In fact, now we've started talking about Mommy's birthday which is coming up in just over a week. But first, Ru's 2nd birthday...

October 27, 2012 was a busy day - Karl had a marriage workshop all day and Nana and Brad were presenting at the National IM conference, so poor Ruben was forced to celebrate his birthday for an entire week. We started the festivities on the 26th with Matt, Hannah, and Hallie, birthday presents, and homemade cake. Hallie provided the entertainment with the aid of her extremely loose tooth. Matt and Hannah held her down while the Fay crew cheered Hallie on and Matt extracted the loose tooth from a very traumatized six year old. Karl cut himself and Matt enormous hunks of cake that would have kept them fed for a week if they were lost in the wilderness. I was nauseated.

The next day Jan brought over her gifts, homemade pillows and blankets as well as a John Deere tractor toy. The rest of the week was spent playing with new toys because what could be better than new toys. The second round of presents happened a week later in Topeka as we prepared for Starla's wedding. He even got cake at the reception. But that's a story for another post.

Almost two

When people ask how old our kids are, I tell them June is three and a half and Ruben is almost two. However, I've been saying Ruben is almost two since he was 20 months old so now I feel like he might never actually turn two. We only have 16 more days of a one year old. And yet, for some time now, I have regarded Ruben as a two year old. I mean, he talks like a kid who is two and a half, he runs like a two year old, and for goodness sake, he gave up his nap three to four days a week without any negative side effects (as of yet). If my one year old no longer seems like a one year old, what will my two year old be?

All in all, Ruben is a delightful kid. He speaks in full sentences about what he wants or why we're doing something. "one car take with me outside." "big bite too hot; blow." "Dudie take my choo choo. **sniff sniff." Dudie is how he says Junie right now and I've never thought anything of it before, but when we were in Topeka this weekend, more than one person sniggered because it sounded like dog doodie. Never heard it that way before. He sings full songs like "I am the church" and "I will sing unto the Lord" (which has big words like victoriously and exalted and he attempts it all) and of course, "the snapping prayer." He can also recite the first four lines of Yankee Doodle all on his own. He can also recite June's bedtime prayer. We only know this because June was being stubborn one night so Ruben just piped in and said it for her. Huh. Guess he's been listening. He loves to read but more than anything he likes to find Goldbug. Uncle Paul bought him the book "Cars, and Trucks, and things that Go" for Christmas and now Ruben can find Goldbug on every single page without even looking at the page. Seriously, it is amazing.

Overall, this kid is a mover and a shaker. Tonight he discovered he could take the big wheel bike to the top of the driveway, pick his feet up, gather speed until he dumps himself out into the street (or when dad catches him before he dumps into the street). He lives for speed. Also, this afternoon he decided he wanted to go visit Charlie, who is a cat who belongs to our next door neighbor. The first time, he took June with him, but later on, I hear June yell from the front door, "Ruben is going to see Charlie." By the time I get outside he has already gone down the sidewalk, up Bob's driveway, and up onto their porch. Thankfully, I trust Bob and Judy tremendously, because I feel like this isn't the last time I will lose Ruben to Charlie.

As Karl and I consider having a baby in the house again, we start to consider what Ruben might be like as a big brother. Ruben loves babies and loves to kiss and hug them. But when the baby is in our own home, I wonder what kind of boundaries Ruben will attempt to cross when it comes to manhandling this poor child. Sorry Fetal Fay, start preparing now for life on the outside.

The Girl, the Boy, the Yet to be Known

The last 13 weeks have been filled with a lot of really good things that I would have loved to blog about, but I've been tired. It seems that the third child from the start reminds me that we will soon be out numbered and we should start getting used to the feeling of permanent exhaustion. For a few weeks I managed to nap during Ruben's nap, but times have changed and now I just make it through the days any way I can even if that means I go to bed at 9:30 (like I did last night).

So an update is long overdue, so we'll just cram everything into this one blog post and find out who really reads this blog and who just reads the posts with pictures.

June is 3 and a half and really starting to find her voice in the family. She's detail oriented and is starting to get the hang of being in charge. "Mom (serious face), I think this is a good plan." And then she launches into the plan which is usually something incredibly mundane but that includes her getting a vitamin or a snack (I bought gummy vitamins a few weeks back and we haven't missed a single day of vitamins since). She loves to be helpful and I try to let her help as much as possible even if that means not actually getting the task accomplished up to my standards. Her favorite way to help is to take the spray bottle and rag and spray the front window and wipe it. It is about 80% spraying, 5% wiping, and 15% telling me what she's doing. Tomorrow is her fourth week of dance class. She loves it and starts asking Tuesdays when she gets dance class again. Next week I get to peek in on her progress and they do a little show and tell at the end of class. June also had the opportunity to be a flower girl in Aunt Kristen's wedding. She and Lucy looked adorable in their dresses, but when the time came for them to walk down the aisle, June got a rock in her shoe and cried the whole way and Lucy held one flower petal in her hand as she smiled at everyone, put the flower petal at the bottom of the stairs, and came and sat with me and June who had stopped crying once the stone was out. Five minutes later, Lucy asks when she gets to throw the petals. Oops. Not well rehearsed, but like I said, they were adorable.

On to Ruben. Ruben is a motor mouth and a motor fanatic. He spends the day echoing whatever he hears and coming up with his own adorable conversation as well. Already he's pretending with toy animals. It's crazy. He also is obsessed with motorcycles, trains, boats, cars, trucks, and anything else that moves. He's never without a toy car in his hand, preferably Lightning McQueen. If he can't find a car, he might just turn a piece of food or a scrap of paper into a car or boat. His favorite book is Richard Scary's "Cars and Trucks and Things that Go. " Uncle Paul bought it for his for Christmas last year and it sat on the shelf until a few weeks ago and now he reads it 2-3 times a day. He can find goldbug on every page almost as fast as I can. As a child I didn't realize how little plot that book presents. I'd love to read something that had fewer cars and more character development, but those are my preferences, not his. 

We've struggled with sleep with Ruben off an on since he was seven months old. He's cutting his last two eye teeth and we've hit another stretch of fighting sleep. Naptimes were fine as long as he fell asleep in the car, but if we try to fall asleep at home, we're talking an hour of fighting before he gives in or I give in. I've tried letting him read books in bed until he falls asleep - an hour of reading books and still no sleep. I've tried bribing, I've tried punishing, I've tried crying. No avail. Night time is the same, except Karl is usually around to be the buffer and enforcer. He is more effective than I am, but it still was taking nearly an hour of cajoling to get him down. We're tired of all the fighting. This week we're trying no naps and a super early bedtime. The daytime is generally fine without a nap although when he's hungry there is no messing around. Food immediately is what he requires. Last night Karl took them on a bike ride in pajamas in our new kid trailer and Ru fell asleep on the trip. Tonight I took them on a walk in pajamas, and Ru fell asleep on the trip. I'm willing to keep this up as long as the weather holds if it means less fighting the bedtime routine. 

Here are the kids at the wedding. Ruben had his fingers in his mouth the whole time and look, he's got a binky in his mouth. He's not sucking on it. He uses it just for chewing. We have not been conservative with the tylenol.

Baby Fay # 3 was first sighted Monday at our midwife appointment. Karl and I were able to go to the appointment together without the kids. We bypassed the initial ultrasound to save money so were excited to hear the heartbeat together. After hearing the little heartbeat (154 bpm), our midwife very kindly offered to do an in-office ultrasound with their new little gadget. It was from Star Trek and looked like a flip phone iPod. A little chilly gel and 3 seconds later and we caught our first glimpse of Fetal Fay. All curled up in a ball, we saw all the little arms and legs and our third child was all the more real to us. Yikes! We're having a baby!

June and Dad do art. Part 2 of "a lot of times"

June and I did some art today. We started by painting and worked our way over to drawing.
Today, if there was a "lesson" it was "relationships in space."
June is sitting in my lap right now and really wants to type: ytytytttyrrytttytttttttttttttttyygjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj

(Resume relaying conversation from earlier)
"What do you want to paint, June?"
"A bridge!!!"
"Do you want to paint it like we're walking on it or like we're seeing it?"
"I wanna paint it like we're walking on it AND seeing it!"
"What color is the bridge?"
"RED!"
(We walked on a red bridge two Mondays ago at Credit Island here in the Quad Cities.)
"What is under the bridge?"
"A river!"
And so we painted the above picture together.
June really wants to type again:
jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr (june, mom, dad, ruben)

Here dad drew a shape and colored it in with the marker. And then June drew the shape and colored it in on the other side of the paper. At first she wanted me to draw dots so she could connect the points of the shape. That worked okay, but THEN we tried a little blind contour drawing. I drew the shape and then she drew the matching shape by looking at the shape I drew instead of what she was actually drawing. Her heart in the upper right corner was the coolest one; her flower on the bottom was a close second. So embarrassed when I really praised her about the heart, she buried her head in my shoulder.
Again, June would like to share: ghhgfghhfgfytyftyytttytyrtrutryutryuryyryuhgttghytgyttttutguhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggttttttttttttttttttttuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuulllllllllllllllllllllllllllllkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkknnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqwedffgghl

There were some toys laying around so we collected a little "still life." At first dad just set it up but then June really took off and enjoyed arranging the dog in funny ways. She'd step back and hold her hand in front of her mouth as she giggled to herself and then nod to me like "Isn't this hilarious, Dad?"

By now, about 2 hours have passed and June is ready for snack, while Kendra and Ruben are just waking up from a little quality quiet time. Always a good afternoon when I can have a little right brain geek-out with my daughter! More to come sometime...

Oh and our kids are amazing too

After writing so much about my fun time canning, I figure I should mention that our kids are amazing as well. They hung out with the Casad's two daughters the whole time and played beautifully (it helps to have such great girls to hang out with). Then tonight when we got home they sat on the bottom step and read a book together the whole time I made dinner. No fighting at all. Then we had popsicles. They are super cute with chocolate all over their faces.