She’s Pretty Chill
A couple of weeks ago I couldn’t find Savannah in the apartment. After a little hunting, I found her on our balcony, just hanging out.
Yeah, the girl knows how to chill.
What Happens When
What happens when you get home from the gym right at lunch time to discover that there are two maintenance guys in your kitchen, and all the wall outlets are off with wires exposed? What happens when your kids are really hungry and you don’t have access to your kitchen, and they tell you they don’t know how long they’ll be because they just can’t seem to figure out what the problem is?
What happens is you lunch at Chipotle.
What happens when all this transpires at nap time?
Well, apparently if you’re Savannah, you just don’t let that stop you.
Savannah’s First Haircut
As I mentioned on Facebook a couple of weeks ago, Savannah had her first haircut the week before Thanksgiving. She really didn’t NEED a haircut, but our friend Brianne had already cut my hair and Ben’s, so we just kept going. I wanted to get the straggly ends cut off so that it looked a little cleaner. As you can see in the pictures, she wasn’t a fan. Even giving her a cookie didn’t help. She was so upset she didn’t seem to know what to do with the cookie. However, once I started asking her to share bites with me, she calmed down. I guess it gave her something to focus on. Now if I could just get her bangs to grow faster so that her hair can be down without being in her eyes, I will be a happy mama.
Look at that face! When Micah gets upset he shows it through anger. Savannah makes faces that beg you to rescue her.
The almost finished product.
Thanks, Brianne!!
What To Say, What To Say . . .
It’s been a while. I just haven’t felt like blogging, and so I haven’t. I am not even sure that I feel like it now, but I’m going to do it anyway. Here is what has been going on in our lives.
I got a job! I don’t start until January, and that is even a tentative date because I can’t start until I am granted my temporary license (to practice therapy here), and I can’t apply for that until I apply for my actual license. I can’t send that application in until I get back all the forms that I had to send out to many, many people to verify everything that I did in MN to get my license there. Tomorrow I will go to get finger printed, and after that I am just waiting around for all the signed and sealed envelopes to return from everyone. This job, however, was a gift from God. I gave up a lot moving here, and honestly while I believed at the time fully that God wanted me to sacrifice that to be obedient to Him, I think I believe that it ended there. I believed that the giving up was what God wanted. I believed that it would follow years of working in jobs below my skill level and frankly below my pay grade to get my license here and be able to get a job similar in caliber to the one I had in MN. However, with very little work on my part, this job landed in my lap. With a small prompting from someone that I spoke to once on the phone here I started to look into what I could do to get around some of the licensing hiccups I was encountering here. I think I found a way that is honest and ethical, but will let me get my license with little to no extra effort on my part. Praise God! This job is in private practice with one other therapist who is looking to mentor someone. No kids for now, but I have been itching to expand my abilities and expertise. I am fully confident in my ability to work with kids and their families so when that returns someday, I will be able to pick it up again. The office is 8 minutes from our apartment, and she is looking for someone to work 10-15 hours a week, which is exactly what I did in MN.
I didn’t even blog or facebook about the job at first, because it felt so surreal; like a blessing that I didn’t deserve. But it all still does hinge in the boards favor, and “favor” is exactly the right word for it. While there are written out requirements and statutes here, the board is fickle, and can be arbitrary in their “rulings.” I am trusting though that just as God has provided this job, he will also provide the license that I need to do it.
In other news, we are making friends here, but I am having a hard time keeping up with them. It is the kids and the busyness of maintaining their schedules, but I realized that in MN by the time I had kids almost all my friends had been my friends for long enough that it didn’t take a lot of work to maintain the friendship. Seeing them once a week at church and every other week at MOPS went a long way to maintaining those friendships so that if I could only see them one other time a month, we still felt close. I am finding here though that as I work to BUILD friendships, rarely seeing people doesn’t work. Also many of those friends don’t go to LIFE180, and so I am not seeing them at church either. I am having to make lists of people that I want to see to make it happen, and it is still not going as smoothly as I would like. I think I need a social director. And a nanny. And a maid.
Our tiny apartment is decorated for Christmas, and I am still wearing flip flops to the store. Although I am wearing those flip flops with jeans now so you know that it must be downright frosty here 
I think I will adjust to Christmases with no snow, but right now it does feel a little weird. Maybe we’ll go swimming on Christmas day.
We went to Seattle for Thanksgiving, and it was great. The first couple of days, I enjoyed the rainy, cloudy weather, but then I was ready for some Phoenix sunshine again. The sun did shine one day, and we went for a family walk to celebrate. It was a short walk, however, because we all got too cold. Amazing how our wardrobes have already become inadequate for temps below 50.
Micah’s forth birthday is in two weeks. FORTH BIRTHDAY!!! Who told him he could get so old?! He is so smart, and so sweet, and so spirited. There are days when he wears me right down to the end of my rope, but even in those days there are such moments of pure joy. We are going to celebrate his birthday by going to Peter Piper Pizza (which seems kind of like a CiCi’s with a small arcade in the back). Whatever, it is what he picked. He also says he wants a birthday cake with garbage trucks in it, and I want to make him one so we’ll see how that turns out. If nothing else I can tell him that it is supposed to be a big pile of garbage if it looks bad.
Savannah is talking up a storm, and using two to three word sentences. It is so cute because you can see her forming them in her little mind sometimes before she says them. She is in love with Fireman Sam (from a kids’ show), but calls him “ams.” She copies EVERYTHING Micah does, which can be a good or bad thing depending on the moment.
That’s it. That is my update in a nut shell. Who knows when I’ll blog again, but if past experience can tell us anything it is that I have officially broken my writer’s block and will probably blog pretty consistently for about a month before I lose all momentum again and drop off the face of the earth.
When my mom was visiting at the end of October we attempted to get a good family picture for the Woodcrest Missions Fair that took place a few weeks ago. She literally took almost a hundred pictures. This is the best one of Ben and me. Actually most of them are pretty good pictures of us. The kids? Well, Savannah is not on board with having her picture taken. I love this picture though, because it so accurately captures Micah’s spirit.
Halloween – How The Day Turned Out
Last week at MOPS we had a speaker talk about making meal time memories. I thought it was going to be about how to control your preschooler and toddler so that meals are full of memories that you want to keep, but instead it was about how to make meal times special and fun for kids. I ran with that idea and whipped up a little Halloween themed lunch for Micah and Savannah. They thoroughly enjoyed their “mummy” hotdogs and their pumpkin mandarin oranges. I was especially proud of myself, because doing this kind of stuff doesn’t really flow naturally out of me, but I thought of the orange thing all by myself. That’s right. When pressed, I can really bring it.
After lunch I still didn’t have a costume idea for Savannah. I was planning on having her be a princess and Micah and I even ran to the store during Savannah’s nap (there are some advantages to having Ben work from home) and tried to find a cheap crown. However, we were not successful. Once she woke up I just started going through her closet keeping in mind that if I could get her a costume related to the Family Farm, then she could get us some very cheap Chipotle food. Are you ready to see the costume I created for her that didn’t cost me anything?!
What do you think? She’s a kitty, and if Chipotle asks (which they didn’t) she’s a barn cat. Last year after Christmas I bought her these pajamas on clearance from Baby Gap, you know because MN winters can be frigid. Then we moved to AZ, and I’m not sure if she will ever wear them at night. They did make a good costume, and it was chilly that night while Trick-or-Treating. Then I put her hair in little “ears” on her head, used my eye liner to put some whiskers on her face, and used some black eye shadow (yes, I own black eye shadow) for her nose. Everyone thought she was so cute!
Here is Micah in his costume. He had so much fun Trick-or-Treating. We went with one of our neighbors over to his mom’s neighborhood and Trick-or-Treated with his family and his nephews. His nephews looked like they were maybe 10 and 8 years old, and they were so great with Micah and Savannah. When I asked what Micah’s favorite part of the night was, he said it was everyone saying, “Look! Y0u’re a firefighter! You look so great!” He was a little hesitant at first, but by the end of the night he was running up to the doors with the boys and letting us stay on the sidewalk.
Here they are together. No, I don’t think that Savannah stopped drinking her milk the entire time I was taking pictures.
At the end of the night, her nose was rubbing off, but we went to Chipotle, got our $2 burritos, came home, and ate too much candy. Oh wait, let me clarify. The kids went to bed and Ben and I ate too much candy.
Halloween 2011
How else would you watch TV on Halloween?
Other plans for the day? Making these for lunch . . .
Ours probably won’t look this good, but I’ll take a picture.
Cobbling together some sort of craft for Micah to do while Savannah naps. We already have construction paper pumpkins hanging on the wall, and I don’t want to do anything like ghosts. Maybe paper spiders?
Hitting up Chipotle for their $2 burritos. Is this a bad idea? I imagine it could be pretty crowded. However, Chipotle doesn’t seem to be a thing here like it is in MN. There are too many authentic Mexican places around. I have never seen a line even during a time I would think would be busy. We have to dress up like things from a family farm to get the deal. Ben is going to be a farmer (which means wearing some sort of bandanna around his neck with jeans), and I am going to wear my apron and go as a farmers wife. I know, I know very stereotypical, but they didn’t say the costumes had to be good. Plus spending money on a costume to get some cheap food seems kind of counter-intuitive.
Then we are probably going to go Trick-or-Treating with a neighbor in his mother’s neighborhood. Our other plan is to go to a local church’s trunk-0r-treat event. As you can tell from the picture above, Micah is going as a firefighter. I found the helmet for $4 at Savers (brand new), and bought him this “firefighter” vest at the 99 cent store. It is really a construction worker vest, but with the helmet on it looks pretty firefighty too. Savannah? Savannah is dressing up as whatever I can cobble together from her clothing here. I might stop at Target and grab a cheap crown, then she can wear her ballerina skirt, one of my necklaces, and bibbety boppety boo, she’s a princess.
Of course any or all of this could fall apart. Savannah has been waking up super early in the morning and then her nap schedule is all wacky doodle. We have tried everything: filling her tummy before bed, putting her to bed earlier, putting her to bed later, letting her cry. You name it we’ve tried it. It is possible that this is just who she is: an early riser, but I refuse to accept that. By early riser I mean anywhere between 4:50 and 6:00. Six o’clock is okay, 4:50 is not. That is why we are home right now instead of at the gym. I know if I leave the house with her she’ll take a nap in the car, and then she won’t nap this afternoon and then we won’t get to leave the house this evening, because she will need to go to bed.
Wait a second, how did this Halloween post turn into my sleep troubles with Savannah? Anyway, I’d say Happy Halloween, but kind of hate this holiday. I am embracing it this year, because Micah is excited. Ah, a mother’s love.
Our Week
My mom has been visiting this week, which has been really nice. Weeks like this help me realize that the hardest part for me of being a stay at home mom is the loneliness. You wouldn’t think you could get lonely with two other people with you, but having another adult around makes all the difference, especially it seems another woman. No offense Ben.
We went to the Phoenix Zoo this week for the first time. We took pictures, but they are on my mom’s camera so I’ll have to get them next week once she is home. Basically Micah was scared of any animal that he thought could hurt him to the point of not being willing to stop at those exhibits. We skipped the lions, the cheetah, the rhinoserous. My mom did a good job of reframing that fear for me, since I was basically just annoyed with Micah. Despite the fear we still had fun. One of our favorites was the elephant, even though she wasn’t playing in the water, which Micah really wanted her to do.
Savannah is learning new words every day. This morning when we were having a disagreement about whether or not she had to finish her apple juice before I would ever consider giving her orange juice, she communicated her side with real words (and pouty lips) so well that I said, “Savannah, it is like your a real person!!!” In my defense I had just woken up. I know that Savannah is a real person, but her transition from babyhood to personhood has been fun to watch.
It has been cooler this week. So much so that on our date Wednesday night (thanks, Mom!) Ben and I drove from our restaurant at one end of an outdoor mall to the movie theater at the other end because I was too cold to walk. I think it was probably 60 degrees out. Yesterday when we were walking to the car in the middle of the day (temperature) probably in the high 70′s Micah said, “Why is it so cold?! This is Arizona, not Minnesota!! Is winter coming or something?” Yes, he is an Arizona boy already.
October Budget Challenge – $4.33
$4.33 – that is exactly how much money I had left as of Saturday night if I were going to master this months challenge of reducing our weekly spending by 25%. Considering I blew way past that yesterday, it is safe to say I will be coming to you next week with a post entitled something like “I SAVED 2%!!!!” Maybe it won’t be that bad, but since I haven’t bought groceries yet for this week, it could be.
Where did it all go wrong?! (she cried into the night sky).
Actually I know exactly where it all went wrong.
Last night was our first service for LIFE180 ever. It was surreal. After months and months (years and years for Dwayne and Michelle) of praying and planning, there we were; sitting in a gym worshiping God, hear about God’s unending love for us, and picking up our screaming daughter from the nursery because we could hear her all the way down the hallway. Oh wait, that last one was just me. I heard the official number was 77 people last night. There are kinks to be worked now that we have seen what the service looks like in the gym at that time of day, but it was a great night!
It was a great night, but the week was brutal. This is where things fell apart. I went into the week a little cocky. I didn’t make a grocery list. I thought I knew what we needed and just went to the store all willy-nilly and bought some stuff for the week. Then the week hit and it knocked the wind right out of me. Ben was working a ton. All day and a lot of the night. The stuff I bought at the store turned out to be fine snack stuff, but apparently I didnt’ really plan on us eating lunch last week. By Tuesday I was out of food for lunch and scrounging a little for dinners. Then my week got busy helping Ben run errands, and do other stuff for the church. That is when the eating out started. I think we ate out three times in a seven day period as a family and I ate out twice at lunch with the kids. All that eating out cost as much as feeding us every meal for an entire week usually does. It blew the budget.
In some ways it seemed unavoidable last week, and the true is that once we were in the week we went into major survival mode. Money that you don’t want to spend, but that you can spend doesn’t mean a lot of me when we are in the middle of a week like last week. However, if I had looked at the week ahead and realized what it would be like I could have planned ahead. I would have made a grocery list. I would have stocked up on frozen pizza and other fast dinners that can be made when no one has been home all day and everyone is tired and crabby. Lesson learned. My plan failed, because I failed to plan.
We’ll see if I can save any money this month. If nothing else, I am not giving up. I am going to give myself this challenge again next month, and use the lessons I have learned this month to see if I can make it a success.
How is your month going? Any great stories of ways that you were able to slash your budget? Any great stories of epic failure like my week was? Come on, you know you want to share . . .
Making A Difference – How You Can Help
These are exciting times around here at LIFE180 church. We have our first preview service this Sunday, and boy are we busy! What is a preview service, you ask? Well, we are not going to be officially launching public services until Christmas Eve, but we are having services every other week starting this weekend to do a number of things. First these services kind of serve as “practice” services. Here we can work on the glitches that come with setting up church each week in a gym, and start to get a feel for how things will go and how they should be set up. Second these services work to finish building our core team. We need to get to a team of 50 adults before we can launch. We are at about 35, so hopefully doing these services will help get us the rest of the way there.
We are so thankful for all the ways that many of you who read here are supporting us and the work that God has called us to do through LIFE180. We truly and honestly would not be able to be here without you. Right now LIFE180 is in an interesting position. We are going to start meeting, which you need to do in order to build the church. However, we have less than a handful of tithing families right now. Who are those families? Why the staff of course. That means we have limited funds, but need to start meeting and growing the congregation for this to change.
One of the things I have been working on is researching the items on the list for the Children’s Ministry so that we can find the best deals possible. It struck me this afternoon as I worked on this budget, that maybe there are some who would like to help us outfit our Children’s Ministry. We have been working hard collecting as many donated items as possible. I donated bags full of toys that the kids don’t play with anymore, and our Children’s Director has been collecting baby/kids supplies from people all over the valley. We are starting out with the basics, but it would be great if those basics could be in place when we get going. Desert Ridge is full of young families, and many of them are going to choose the church they go to based on what their children like, and what they as adults feel comfortable with when they look into the children’s rooms. We want to create a place for kids to be safe, feel nurtured, and learn about the love of Christ.
Do you want to help? Below you will see a list of the things we need for children and an approximate cost of each item. If you would like to make a donation to help provide part of all of one of those items there are a couple of ways that you can do that.
- Click HERE and donate online.
- Send a check to: LIFE180 Church, PO Box 72822, Phoenix, AZ 85050 and specify “Children’s Ministry” on subject line.
- Link to this post on your blog or on facebook to spread the word.
