Reece Troubles

Reece is finally showing, what I assume, signs of distress of Jake being gone.

He uses the word "HATE" a lot. Jake and I constantly ask him not to use it. He hates foods that he always loved. He didn't want to go to school today, because he hates school. He told me he hates work, because he loves his daddy. I really don't think he understands the power of this word, I just think he picked it up somewhere, and it's the best way for him to express himself. I'm glad he expresses himself, I just really need to work on better ways for him to do so. He actually gave me a kiss when I dropped him off at school. How sweet, but so not normal. He doesn't want to go anywhere without us, because he says he loves us. It's like he's scared we aren't coming back. Hope we survive this next month or so, without Reece being too traumatized.

To All My Heartbroken KU Friends

click: Hitler finds out KU loses to UNI in tournament

This is so unbelievably funny!!

Hope everyone has my sense of humor!!

My Jayhawk Recruit!

I'm bummed I couldn't get this picture larger. 

I'm on a Mac at work, and it's very different from my computer. 

Meet Ava!

What a cutie!!!

I shipped her, and her mom and brother some KU gear. 

I did not for see the KU loss on Saturday,

but she looks so good in the Kansas stuff,

I'll have to continue to send her more.

Besides, Kansas will return to the top soon enough,

ROCK CHALK!!!

More Mario

A couple weeks ago, I was picking Riley up from school, and he rushed up to me to tell me there is a "Super Mario Galaxy 2." (He found this in his Nintendo magazine he gets at the school library.)

My response was, "Oh yay! Just what we need is more Mario games!"

He doesn't understand Mommy's sarcasm, because he gave me a HUGE grin and said, "I KNOW!!!"

I hope Mario keeps my kids off the streets. =)

Pictures of Riley

Basketball

Pictures were at 7am. Who does that? Needless to say, Riley was a little emotional that day. Not a 7am kind of guy...
And, his Spring picture. What a handsome boy...
My blog is officially caught up! Feels good!!

Spring: Day 1 (cont.)

What the heck!!??

AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

It's cold, snowy and KU lost in the tourney today.

The absolute WORST start to a spring E.V.E.R!!!!

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

Now that this is out of my system, I'm going to try to enjoy the rest of college basketball, because I will be missing it for the next 7 months......

Spring: Day 1 =(

BOO!!!

Our "NEW" Home

(Inspection permitting)

We had an offer accepted.

WARNING!!!

The pictures below show more wall paper than anyone should ever see, but Jake and I were able to see past this. Hopefully you can too.

The Living room.
Dining room looking into living room, and front door.
(removal of outdated curtains will be a first)
Dining room into nook.

The one and only bathroom.

This is a random, ugly storage closet, that will be perfect when turned into my master bath.

Unfortunately, no pics of the beautiful, completely updated kitchen.

Hope you see the potential in this home. It's SOOOO charming, and Jake and I will be having a ton of fun fixing it up!

Quarterly Birthdays

Last weekend we went to Wichita to celebrate birthdays. 3 out of 5 of the birthday kids live in Utah, so they didn't get to participate. The party was all about Colby and Camryn. (And KU basketball)

Camryn opening her gifts. She turns 6 next month.

Colby VERY excited about his Legos. He turned 8 in January.

Thanks to Joanna for hosting. For birthday dessert, she provided a brownie/sundae bar. I was terrible about taking pictures due to the college basketball that was on the TV.

Reece, Riley, Aidan and Colby, not really ready for the day to end...

Riley's Medal

Riley just completed his 1st basketball season. Up next is spring ball coached by his Uncle Shawn, with his cousin, Colby. Riley is really enjoying the game!

Our Home

Our house got it's "SOLD FAST" sign today. The inspection passed, so we are officially in a legal contract. She (the buyer) will take over the house on May 10th. Since our house is almost officially not our house, I thought I should document it.

17301 S. Ingrid St.

Gardner, KS 66030
The grand living room.

Our kitchen.

And dining room.

Hall bath

Bedroom #2

Boys room.

The master.

Master bath

The basement.

On Wednesday, we went house hunting in McPherson, and put an offer on this house.

It's 103 years old!!

But the charm wins hands down with all the other homes we saw.
It's flaws are....it has more wall paper than you've ever seen, and it has 1.5 bathrooms. Actually, you can't even consider the .5 really being half. That is being too generous. The boys will fit in it just fine, but I will probably never use it. However, the house has perfect areas to build and create a bathroom.

I fell in love with this house immediately. It's not perfect, but not much is in McPherson. It does have a brand new kitchen. We are going to have so much fun living and making this home ours. I'm not getting my hopes up, because our offer hasn't been accepted yet.

We had such a long day in the car, Reece passed out while reaching for the Twizzlers.

Another Good Jake Update

We went to Dr. Pollack today. Jake had his entire head and spine scanned. The MRI's are looking great! Nothing much has changed. She found a Schwanoma (sp?) on his esophagus, but we can't tell if it new or if it's been there, just never scanned. She just asked him to tell her immediately if swallowing or coughing becomes an issue. Jake is doing so well, that we will go back in 6 months to check the brain, then after that we will be able to go an entire year without seeing the Neuro. Yay!!

The Karate Robot II

Riley was feeling left out, so here is his performance!!!

The Karate Robot

Today at lunch Reece started to do a funny robot dance. We laughed, and this is what we got when we asked him to reenact it. ENJOY!!!

What's Been Happening...

Well, today I have some time at work to blog. Wish I could get pictures up, but that will have to wait. 

The boys are showing signs of really missing dad. They are so great with me, and never show these signs, but it's when I'm away. On Monday at school, Reece asked his teacher, Mrs. Alton, "When is my daddy going to come back?" Mrs. Alton didn't realize that Jake had already been relocated, so wasn't sure what he meant. She just thought that Jake was gone on business. I guess technically, she was right. Just more permanent business. This has been a long couple of weeks. When he first moved, we didn't see him for 5 days. He spent the weekend with us, and has been gone for 11 days now. He had Sunday off, but the poor guy is so exhausted I wanted him to take it easy, and stay in Wichita. Driving 6 hours round trip would just be too much on his tired body. So instead he went to McPherson to start looking for houses. He has today off too, but the same, he shouldn't come home on the days he only has 1 day off. More house hunting and maybe a relaxing movie for the hard working man.

Riley is handling it pretty well, but he just has these days where he is not himself. I ask what's wrong, and he can't put into words what is wrong. As far as he knows, nothing is wrong. He just can't comprehend what is bothering him. He is always saying how much he misses dad, and most of the time acting his normal self, but this has been a huge adjustment on us all. Jake is a missing link to our family, but we are all doing good. It must be hardest on Jake. I have the boys to hang on to, and he is on his own. My thanks to Jody and Kip for being so hospitable to Jake. We truly appreciate it!

I've been doing well. It's a lot of pressure keeping the house in tip top shape, but I'm doing a pretty good job at it. (Andrea, I'd still love to have you help!!) Each day gets easier for me. Although each day I'm excited to be one day closer to seeing Jake, I'm emotionally in a great place. I've been strong when I haven't wanted to, and I'm doing great. This doesn't mean I haven't been lonely. I actually have the boys sleep in my room. They take turns in my bed or on the floor. It's so nice having them close to me, while Jake is gone. I know they enjoy it too. It's so funny, Riley came up with a system for the boys. I thought they would just rotate each night, but Riley woke up with a fever the first night in my bed, so he thinks it was from sleeping there. So, Reece gets the bed 3 nights and Riley gets to just 1 night. Weird, I know! Reece actually hates the floor and wouldn't give me a kiss the night he was there. Riley being the best big brother ever, negotiated with him and is now giving Reece 4 nights in the bed. Tonight will be his floor rotation, so I hope I get a kiss.

Well the house was on the market for 1 week, when we got an offer. It was shown only 4 times. Hallelujah! However the offer was awful! We would've lost a ton of money. We countered, and they recountered. It still would've been a $2500.00 loss. Money we don't have. We were told it was a single lady, and she was at the top of her qualifying. My realtor was annoyed because she didn't feel our home should have been shown to her, if it was out of our range. She told us to sleep on it. Jake and I had mixed emotions. We knew the market was going to be tough, and if we had a crystal ball, we would've know what to do. The next day, the buyer went with another company, and got approved for more, and accepted our original counter. Putting us in the green, just a little. She really wants our home. How cool is it to know that someone really wants YOUR home. It's kind of touching. Ok, so I'm not emotionally attached to our home, but it's a big compliment to us. It's so weird thinking that Riley was almost 2 and I was barely pregnant with Reece when we bought the house. It was decorated tackily, but we saw through it, and eventually turned it into a beautiful home. (Thanks to Jody's great taste) A huge part of our life is in this house. So I kind of strayed here, after I signed some papers yesterday, I got a call that someone wanted to come look at the house for a 2nd time. Hmmm... Would they put an offer in too? Could we get more money if 2 offers took place? My realtor doesn't think so, so she is pushing us to hurry and have Jake sign papers, so we could be under contract by the end of the day. 

Saturday, Riley has his last basketball game, and then we are off to Wichita to see Jake, and celebrate 1st quarter birthdays! Then Jake is home Monday through Thursday next week. Woo Hoo!!!

My Girls

I'm feeling unsuccessful these days in raising manly boys. Nothing manly or even boyish about my boys. The lovely thing is that they truly are the nicest boys you'll probably come across, the horrible thing is I might be raising emotional, girly~boys on accident.

The incident that happened this week, and brought on this post, was so infuriating and embarrassing!!!

Thursday night, after a VERY long day of work in Harrisonville, MO (which is an hour away), I had to rush home, feed the boys dinner, and Riley had basketball practice. I was so tired, I asked Riley if it was okay that I dropped and picked him up from practice. He said it would be fine, but then Reece pouted. Reece loves to run around at practice, and was sad that he couldn't go. So, I sucked it up, changed clothes and off to practice we went. I took a book, and tried to focus on that, while Reece was sliding on the ground in front of me, like he was sliding into home plate. Within minutes, he came up to me and said it felt like he had an owie on his knee. His jeans were starting to get holes in the knees, so we carefully pulled up his pant leg. What we found was the smallest, barely there floor burn. I know these are annoying, but there was no blood and no harm. When he saw this, he said he wanted to go home to get a bandaid. I told him he would have to wait. This is not how he wanted his owie to be treated!!! Reece is so good at making himself cry and freak out. When I wasn't going to get him a bandaid, he began panic mode, and wouldn't bend or let me touch his knee. My family reading this, should remember his break down on Christmas Day with the hair splinter in his foot. Exact same reaction! He started screaming and crying like a 2 year old. All the moms were looking at us, like what did I do to the poor boy, or seriously, how old is this kid?? I grabbed all of our stuff, picked Reece up, and the tears stopped. We were out the door, and I dropped a shoe. I had to put him down, and pick it up, so Reece starts hopping on one foot. Heaven forbid he put pressure on his floor burned knee. I was so angry when we got home, I put a bandaid on, and told him to go to his room. The only reason he could come out, would be to go to the bathroom. He went in and fell asleep. I waited until practice was over, went in and tried to wake him up, but he was out. I let him sleep and went to pick Riley up real quick. When we returned he was crying. The garage woke him up, and he missed me while I was gone for the 3 minutes I was!! Oh the drama...Good thing I don't have a girl, because I'm not doing too well with the boys chaos!

Riley isn't as dramatic as Reece, but he is seriously the boy on the bench at basketball with his legs crossed. He is the boy that compliments girls outfits. He is the boy that is blowing kisses at me while playing sports. He is my sweet boy, but we need to toughen him up a bit...