Christmas in Cincinnati

Well yesterday was a fun day. Emily was SO excited this year. She was wound-up from the day we put up the tree until yesterday night (when she started to crash a little). On Christmas Eve Emily and I made and decorated sugar cookies and also popcorn balls (My aunt sent us a really cute kit.) Pete relaxed and napped and tried to take it easy after a 96 hour work week the week before. After he and Abby woke up, we went to see a little nativity in Mt. Healthy that had real animals. There were goats, sheep, and donkeys. It was really fun.

This is a picture of them waiting on the stairs to go down and see what Santa brought.

Abby was so funny. She wasn't very interested in unwrapping presents, but she loved picking them up, chewing on the bows, and getting into trouble! Santa brought Em a doll house and Abby a ball station (with the air that blows the balls around), plus grandmas and grandpas spoiled them, as did aunts and uncles. They also spoiled Pete and me. :)

Pete in the U of U scrub cap for the O.R. I bought him for Christmas.

Vinyl Cutter!

Yea! I am so excited! I finally got my vinyl cutter. I bought it with the intention of starting a small business out of my home. Vinyl hasn't quite hit Cincinnati by storm like it has in parts of the West, so we'll see. ;) I'll post some prices in a little bit, in case someone you know is interested. Here are some pictures of some little neighbor gifts I did. I put chocolate dipped pretzels inside most of them. I found pretzels that were Christmas shapes, so I was extra excited.

A Brown Thanksgiving

I love the Browns!! I was so excited when they said they would join us for Thanksgiving. And they came bearing St. Louis treats like toasted rav, peppermint Joe Joes, and Chris's delicious homemade raspberry jam. I had so much fun with them here. It was great to be reunited with good friends. We were all sad after they left. It made me miss St. Louis and our friends and Stonecrest... But alas I guess we must move on with life. Anyway, we had a great weekend eating, shopping, watching movies, and they were so nice to help me with the kids. I sure hope they'll come again, stinky cheese and all... :)

Halloween

Here are some pictures from Halloween. Emily was a scary witch and Abby was a giraffe. We had a Halloween party at my mom's house a couple of days before and it was really fun! We had lots of spooky food including eye ball cookies, mini mummy pizzas, spooky severed fingers made of peanut butter (Pete's specialty), mummy sausages, a graveyard cake, homemade apple cider from my brother, and more. We did some games for the kids, which was so cute. Man, I just love my family! Then on Halloween Pete had to fly back to Cincy, and the girls and I went trick-or-treating with my brother in Farmington. It was so much fun. The kids were so cute and really enjoyed themselves.

Too Long

Alright. Sorry I have been AWOL for so long.

Over the last couple of weeks, we have been sick. I think I've had it all, and so has everybody else: sore throat, sneezing, stuffy nose, runny nose, headache, fever, chills, cough, sinus pain, ear infection, Bronchitis, eye infection, throwing up, and diarrhea. Yuck. I think we're done with being sick for now. I am so ready to get back into life. Hopefully there is a bright side to all of this and we will avoid all of the sickness during the holidays, right? Abby is getting another tooth in and has a fever and is grumpy. I am ready for her to be my smiley little thing again and stop waking me up 4 times a night! Blarg!

The enchiladas are burning so I had better run, but I promise to post pictures soon.

Yea buffet!

My kitchen here is kind of small, so I needed some extra space to store dishes, etc. I got this new buffet and I love it! It is a little smaller than what I had in mind, but it was half-off and they shipped it to my front door for free. Can't beat that! I love furniture. But even more, I love getting good deals on furniture. :)

(These chairs aren't usually there. We were having a get-to-gether for Pete's b-day, so I put them there for extra seating.)

Our house

A couple of people have asked to see pictures of the house, so I thought I'd post some.

Here is the family room. When we moved in, it was some really funky colors, like lemon yellow and bright, dark pink. Pete and I painted the family room, dining room, and hallways.

I had to show a close-up of the end table because it was my latest bargain. I got it for 5 bucks on craigslist, replaced the glass and added some screws for a grand total of 12 bucks!

Here is the dining room.

These are the main floor rooms.

Upstairs: Here is Emily and Abby's room.

This is a nook in their room where we keep their toys. Messy right now. :)

Our room.

The basement. Pete and I redid this. Here are the "befores":

After:

Well, that's the run through, except for the backyard. I'll have to take some pics and post them. It's pretty wild back there; lots of grass, bushes, trees. But it is really green, so I'll take it!

Mandy's blog

So my cute cousin Mandy was asking on her blog what people wanted to accomplish in the future; what are their hopes, goals, etc. I have been thinking a lot about this since I read her post. It just keeps popping up in my brain. I decided that most of the things I want are a state of mind... not so much things that I want to do, but rather a certain way I want to think or certain realizations that I want to come to. I want to remember that money doesn't equal happiness, and that we were probably as happy as we'll ever be when we were living in the Meacham Park ghetto in St. Louis. Or even now in Cincinnati, driving our old cars, watching what we spend, clipping coupons, and living in our cute, old house, just trying to stay afloat. I want to always remember that I don't need to keep up with the Joneses, and doing so is stupid. I want to grow old gracefully and embrace the wrinkles instead of being swayed by the Botox generation. I want to remember that we are all beautiful, regardless of our jeans size or bra size. I want to enjoy my kids, but not beat myself up when I don't. I want to be forgiving of others mistakes and give the benefit of the doubt. I want to be able to laugh and not take myself too seriously (luckily I have a good husband who will continue to help me with this. ;) The list could go on, but I think this is good enough to start with.

Pete was on call today so it was just me and the girls at church. I was trying to get Emily to be reverent and think of Jesus during the Sacrament. She said really loudly, “I already know everything about Jesus and I don’t want to think about him right now!”

Dogs and my mom's visit

Well I doubt we will be getting a dog any time in the near future (not that I wanted one). Pete is on the Plastic Surgery service right now, and you wouldn't believe the number of dog bites he's had to sew up in the last week and a half! It's not wild, neighborhood-roaming pit bulls either. Lots of family dogs. He just got paged in to sew up another pretty serious one on a kids' face. Hearing all of the things that can go bad for a child (like crashing on a bike, "falling" out a window, getting bit by a dog) makes me want to keep my girls locked up!

My mom was in town for 2 weeks, which was so fun! She is so easy-going and fun to be with. I appreciated all of her help with the kids and just having her there to talk to. Here are some pictures of some things we did together and of Emily and Abby.

Groceries

Alright. I am trying to figure out how much is a reasonable amount to spend on groceries. How much do you all spend a month??

Pics!

Here are some pics of the kids...







Sorry for so many at once! It has been awhile.

It has been really fun having Pete home these last few weeks. We have been able to see some of the sites of Cincinnati and spend some great family time together.

Church and random thoughts

We had a pretty good sacrament meeting last week. It was a testimony meeting, so it's always interesting to see what you're going to get in a new ward. Before the meeting, there was a couple sitting 2 rows in front of us. He is an intern pastor who is going/moving to Utah to preach, so he came to our ward to see what the Mormons were all about. During the meeting, a new convert who is a tall, old black man with gray hair, stood up and bore his testimony about how great the gospel is and how glad he is that he found it. Then a Latina lady stood up and talked about how her eye sight had been spared from a genetic disease (long story ;), then our high councilor stood up (another older black man with white hair, who's name is Brother White ;) and talk about how it had been over 30 years since the announcement that "a person of color" as he put it, could hold the priesthood. He talked about how awesome that is and how wonderful the church is. It was one of those moments where you feel so overwhelmed by the spirit and have such a strong witness that the gospel is true. It was a great meeting. We have an interesting, diverse ward. I had to teach a RS lesson yesterday, which I was nervous about. It was on redeeming the dead, which is pretty unique to our religion. There were a few investigators there, so I wasn't sure what kind of response/questions I wold get. But luckily it all went fine. One of the investigators came up to me after (she's a southern baptist) and said that she thought it was beautiful that you could get baptized for someone who died and didn't have the chance to. I'm glad she caught the essence of the lesson.

Yesterday a family who had recently moved out of the ward came back to visit. He was an ENT resident at UC and just finished and got a job in Colorado. I saw her in the hall and asked her if I was going to survive the next 5 years. She said, "You're the one who's husband is doing ENT!" And then she just hugged me. I asked her for any advise and she said, "It is going to be really, really hard. But don't get a divorce because it would be hard on the kids and not make things better." I jokingly asked for the name of her therapist and she said in all seriousness, "Well I'd give it to you, but I'm sad to say that he moved away." Hmm... Med school was hard on all of us. Really hard. Am I up for this? I just wonder if I'm strong enough to do it alone. I guess this is the time to prove myself to myself...

Sorry for the rambling. I can't get my pictures off the camera for some reason, but I promise to post some as soon as I can. I guess I had better run to Lowes. I am supposed to be hanging blinds today and finishing painting the girls' ceiling. I don't think I'll want to paint again for a long, long time.

I'm back

It's been so long since I've posted anything that I started to feel like the next thing I post should be spectacular. But I don't have anything spectacular to say, so then I got intimidated and have been putting if off. So I thought I'd just do it and put up a post. :)

We are here in Cincinnati now. Things are going well. We have most of the boxes unpacked and are just trying to get organized. It has been great having Pete home during this time of transition. The kids are doing well. Emily has made a couple of friends in the ward and is enjoying her new house. Abby is so cute and chubby. I just want to squeeze her!!! The move was crazy/stressful/icky, but things are looking better now as we start to get a little more settled. Moving and not knowing anyone, not knowing the city, missing family and friends, is always the worst. I've decided it takes a good year before you feel acclimated and make good friends. Some people in our ward have reached out already, though, which has been really great. I'm worried about Pete starting up work. Everyone keeps telling us to gear up because I'll never see him again (at least for a year or 2). It's making me nervous...

I have some pictures to post, but our computer blew up, so I can't get to them. Right now we are borrowing the computer of someone in our ward, which is very nice of them to loan it to us.

Emily and Abby are awake now, so I had better run. But I will do a better job of keeping things updated now that we're semi-settled. :)

The long awaited day...

Today is the day!! The LONG,LONG awaited day. It is finally here. After 9 years of school... Peter graduates from medical school today!! Hip, hip, HOORAY!!! I am so excited to have made it through alive! I'll post some pictures after the big event. :)

Cincy

This last weekend I took at trip up to Cincinnati to look for a house. I left the two girls home with Pete. He did a great job with them, which I knew he would. It's nice to know that I can turn things over to him and everything will be ok. My trip was pretty productive. We saw about 20 houses, 2 of them twice. It was a whirlwind trip and I am still exhausted from it. We have an offer pending on one of the houses, so we're just waiting to see what the seller has to say about some of the things we want fixed. What a pain. It seems like all of the houses in our price range are old and falling apart. ;/ I saw some real pieces of junk this weekend. One house smelled like smoke so bad I couldn't breath and had a huge bar just filled with liquor; another house was in such a scary neighborhood that once we got there, we didn't even go in. I told the realtor I wasn't sending my child to school in that neighborhood, so we turned around and left. Another house was super dark and scary and had the family room sliding glass door smashed out. The backyards of 3 different houses opened up to storage units, a mall, and a gravel parking lot. My favorite, though, is the house that claimed to have 1 and a half baths. Here is the picture of what they considered a half bath...