Merry Christmas!

Well we made it to Utah safe and sound, and we’re finally settling in.  Here’s what’s happened in the last few months.

The end of September was crazy and busy, full of packing, canceling utilities, price checking and booking moving trucks and storage units, etc.  I had to keep the packing organized into what I could keep in storage long-term, and what we would need right away at Grandma and Grandpa Hall’s.  All I kept thinking the entire time I was packing was, “Where the heck did all this crap come from?!”  Who knew two people and one baby could accumulate so much stuff in such a tiny house and small amount of time!  We FINALLY got it all loaded onto the moving truck hours after we wanted to be on the road.  Our wonderful friends and next door neighbors, Mike and Chrissy, helped us so much with the packing and loading, along with our friends Carter and Jason.  Brother Shumway from our ward was also a HUGE help with the loading, and he and Sister Shumway came back after we left and cleaned the whole house!!!  A couple other friends from the ward helped with watching Abby so I could get lots of packing done without Abby “helping” by unpacking.  We are so grateful to have had such wonderful friends nearby in Arizona, and we miss them so so much!

During the last couple days of packing, I was in my doctor’s office several times and the ER once due to some light spotting.  The baby was found to be healthy and so was I, the doctors simply asked that I stay off my feet as much as possible, which I tried to do as much as possible.  The spotting stopped a couple days after we arrived in Utah.

On October 2nd, the 11 hour drive went very smoothly and quickly.  We thought it would take longer with the dogs and Abby, but we made great time.  Our friends Jason and Bailey drove the big 24 foot moving truck, towing the Malibu; and Joe, Abby, and I were in the Jeep with Bauer and Edward.  The poor dogs got sick all over each other, which was no fun for them and no fun for Joe who had to clean it all up.  The next day, my dad and siblings and Joe’s Uncle Jason and cousins were there to help us unload the truck into the storage unit and unload what we need at Gma and Gpa Hall’s.  The following week I was busy unpacking and making us comfortable because we had no idea how long we would be there.  Joe got right back to job-hunt.  He had plenty of interviews and was constantly applying for more jobs.  Whenever he wasn’t job hunting, he was with Uncle Jason working on the new business.  I was also going over to the office to help with the business for the first few weeks, but Abby was not OK with knowing we were in the same house and leaving her downstairs to play with Aunt Melanie and cousins.  She loves playing with them, but hates that mommy and daddy were ignoring her.  So now any work I do for the company, I do from home while Abby naps or after she’s gone to bed for the night.  I got busy with applying for Medicaid that Abby and I were approved for.  We were prepared with enough savings and credit card availability to survive 3 months without a job, but hoped we didn’t have to spend all of that.

There was one company we had particular interest in that Joe had a phone-interview with while we were still living in AZ.  After several interviews and tests with them throughout almost 3 weeks, Joe got a great job offer from DirectPointe!  It was an answer to so many prayers!  We were so blessed to have found a job so quickly considering the way the market is here and all over the nation.  Not only is it a great position in the company, but we didn’t have to sacrifice very much in salary, which we were sure we would have to because Utah generally pays a lot less for IT jobs than Arizona.  And the job is literally walking distance from the new company.  Joe started almost immediately at the end of October, and benefits kicked in December 1st, hooray!

The same weekend Joe got the job offer, we got an offer on our house! We have been so blessed!! As I had mentioned in previous posts, we’re short-selling our home, so it wasn’t a great offer but it’s one we think the bank will accept.  We signed a few papers and sent the offer to the bank along with the stacks of paperwork we did before we started the process.  The BPO was ordered on the property about 5 weeks later, and now we continue to play the waiting game.

We were out looking for a house or apartment once we got the job offer.  We were hoping to get into a house with a yard for the dogs.  It was difficult to find homes or apartments or condos that accepted any pets at all, let alone large dogs.  After lots of searching, we settled with a small condo (apartment layout) for rent by the owners.  We chose this place because it’s walking distance from Joe’s job and the company, it was the least expensive place we’d found, and they were OK with our dogs with only a small pet deposit.  It’s a very cute little place, 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms.  The owners have an 18 month old daughter so Abby’s room was already painted really cute, with some vinyl lettering and a cute shelf built-in.  The 300 square feet that we lost are most noticeable in the kitchen, living room, and master bath, while the bedrooms remain a pretty good size. Also, it’s very difficult not having a garage or yard to store our crap in, and it’s all been stuffed in the 3rd bedroom, AKA the office and baby’s future room.  There is a small storage closet out on one of the two balconies, which helps a little.  The dogs remain not allowed on the carpet, so they’re in the small kitchen and dining area, or in “their room” (the laundry/2nd bath), or out on the balcony.

We are so grateful to Gma and Gpa Hall for their hospitality during the 5 weeks we stayed with them.  They were very easy people to live with, and the dogs loved having their huge backyard to run around in.  We moved into the condo the first week of November with the help of my dad and siblings again, and our friends Jaron and Heather.

Because of the size of our place, we have had to be very creative in our furniture placement and organization.  We moved some covered shelves that were in our garage in AZ into the dining area and were able to finish unpacking our kitchen into those.  We also sold both our bedroom sets and grandfather clock, which enabled us to close the storage unit and save that monthly cost.  We then went to a Black-Friday sale at Shopko and found awesome prices on two nightstands ($40 each) and a dresser ($90) for our room, an armoire ($90) for Abby’s room, and some covered storage shelves ($60) for the office.  We grabbed a couple of over the toilet shelves at Walmart for both the bathrooms at about $15 each.  So we are making due, but it’s definitely cramped.  The dogs are only getting bigger, and this baby will be here April 1st or earlier.

Speaking of this baby, about 5 weeks ago, we went in for an ultra sound to find that we are having a baby BOY!! We are so excited!  We’ll be calling him Joseph Myles Hall.  Myles was my dad’s dad’s name.  We can’t decide what to call him for short yet.  When we’re around Joe’s family, his dad is called Joe, my Joe is called Joey, so this guy will be baby Joey, or Myles, or something to that affect.  I found a midwife group that I love, recommended to me by Aunt Mellanie. They are so great.  They noticed right away that I have a hernia that I’ll need to have fixed with surgery.  I got it when I was pregnant with Abby, I know because I noticed it, but no doctor that I asked knew what it was!  And they’re not too hippie, most midwives won’t allow an IV or child monitoring during labor, but this group requires it.  I’ll be delivering at Orem Community Hospital which I’ve only heard great things about.  I have an option for an epidural if I want it, and they’re affiliated with a great OB/GYN’s office (one that was recommended to me by a lot of people).  They’re the back-up doctors that are notified as soon as I go into labor, so if anything goes wrong, they’ll be there just as quickly as if they were my own doctor.  Don’t judge me, but I’m going to try to go without an epidural this time, only because my experience with Abby was so traumatizing!  (Epidural wore off at 9 ½ cm and I stayed at 9 ½ cm for another 4 hours approx, was refused any more medicine, felt everything, very scary!) So I want to go in prepared mentally and physically to feel the pain so it’s not such a shocking and horrifying experience.  The midwives have of course been very supportive, and my midwife will be there to help coach me almost the entire labor, not just show up when I’m pushing.  This pregnancy has been great, I only threw up twice total!  I felt really nauseous the first trimester and had to wear a mask sprayed with perfume during diaper changes, but after that first trimester, I felt fine.  Compare this to when I was pregnant with Abby and threw up for 6 months until they finally gave me Zofran so I could start gaining weight.  I have felt SOOOO tired though, much more than I had with Abby.  I think this has a lot to do with chasing Abby around, moving, moving, etc.  I’ve just felt like a zombie the whole time.  I want a clean house but I don’t have the energy to clean as much as I’d like, it’s pretty awful.  But baby and I are healthy, so I shouldn’t complain.  I’ve of course grown faster than I did with Abby, but it’s a steady and gradual growth (compared to gaining the entire 50lbs of the whole pregnancy in the last 3 months like what happened with Abby).  I just can’t believe I still have 3 months of growing to do, I feel so big already!!

We’re unpacked for the most part; the place is functional at least.  Christmas decorations are up, and we’re preparing our house for lots of visitors during the holiday season!  Our live tree died, which is pretty annoying, that’s never happened to us before.  It just stopped taking water.  Home Depot guarantees all their trees with a free replacement; however, I don’t have the time or energy to undecorated the dead tree and redecorate a new one.  So we’re sticking with the ugly dead tree for the next week.  Joe’s parents and sisters came into town this weekend, and we’re excited to share the holidays with them!  Joe’s mom Sam will be here tonight, and will be staying with us for about a week.  It will be so fun to celebrate Christmas with so much family around.  My dad and step-mom and siblings will be out-of town for Christmas, but we did a mini-Christmas with them yesterday and will be getting together for a full-blown celebration on the 29th.  We’ll be spending Christmas Eve with my mom so we can continue the tradition we celebrate with her.  And Boxing Day (day after Christmas, English holiday), will be celebrated with a nice English Dinner with whoever wants to come.  We definitely have a busy week ahead of us, but all the shopping is done, all the gifts are wrapped, all the baking is done (16 loaves of banana bread baked in one day!), and the Christmas cards – courtesy of Meg Hall Photography – were dropped in the mail yesterday!  Phew!

Abby Update:

We are more and more stunned everyday by our beautiful, smart, and strong little angel!  She has adjusted so well each step of this move, and we are so grateful for that.  When we were living with Gma and Gpa Hall she at first thought we were visiting again I think.  There was a lot of visiting my mom, my dad, our friends, Joe’s Uncle Jason and Aunt Mellanie’s, etc.  But she warmed up to everyone very quickly.  I usually only allow her to have her teddy a bedtime and naptime, but I let it be a comfort to her during these changes.  Because of this, she has definitely come to rely on her teddy and binky!  Her eating and sleeping schedule was thrown off a lot, but once we got back into our routine once we moved into the condo, she quickly adjusted again and is doing a great job with her schedule.  Also, now that we’re back in our routine, she’s not relying on the binky nearly as much!  In the midst of all these changes, the poor darling was cutting her one-year molars, all 4 of them, and another two bottom teeth, totalling 12 teeth now!  (Top right molar 10/4, top left molar 10/5, bottom right 10/30, bottom left 11/18, tooth #11 on bottom right 11/21, tooth #12 on bottom left 11/27.)  She’s had a couple colds and one ear infection, but nothing serious.  No swine flu for her, even though Joe’s cousins had it.  We all went on got our H1N1 shot back in October, so we we’re good.

She definitely loves her teddy! It’s one of her favorite words, and she’s adapted her own sign for teddy, which is a snuggle-type sign.  Well, the dogs that she loves so much got to her teddy and tore it to pieces!  I flipped out!  Joe contacted the Prestige Toy Corp. who created it but they weren’t selling the teddy anymore.  However, they happened to have one left in the warehouse that they shipped to us free of charge!  Joe sent them a courtesy product from the company as a thank you.

I used to only have the TV on for 1 or 2 shows a day max.  Well Abby has fallen in love with Dora the Explorer, and that’s all she ever wants to watch!  I hate that the TV is on so much throughout the day, but she’s not yet at the age where she just sits and stares.  She’s still very active, and will come in and out of the living room playing with toys and reorganizing mama’s shelves, then when a song comes on the TV she’ll watch and dance.  The last week or so, any time the TV is on, we HAVE to be watching the Christmas episode of Dora the Explorer!  She hands us all the remotes and begs for “Dora, Dora, Dora, Dora!”  So funny!  So I’ve cut down the amount of time the TV is on at all.

I thought that the move and all the adjustments would slow down her progress in developmental areas like speaking and signing, but she has been progressing faster than ever before!  Her new pediatrician who I love is very impressed with her.  One of the reasons I love him is because he doesn’t accuse me of starving my child like everyone else.  At her 18 month check up on Dec 2nd, she measured 33 inches in height which is in the 75th percentile, and 21.2 lbs which is in the 5th percentile.  He said so she’s tall and skinny, but the fact that she’s so tall means that she’s still growing, so I’m not worried about her weight.  Thank You!  She went to her first dentist appointment last month and the dentist was very impressed and pleased with how clean her teeth are.  Yay!

Abby’s so great at listening and understanding:  The other day she asked for water by signing water and saying, “wa, wa”.  So I told her, “Your sippy cup is out in the hallway on the floor.”  She said, “Oh.” And walked out of the room and grabbed her cup.  So when the doctor asked, can she follow simple commands, that’s a definite yes!

She’s definitely still a daddy’s girl….try daddy’s most precious princess!  She’ll actually be more fussy when daddy’s home because she knows that all she needs to do to get what she wants from him is fuss and whine *rolling eyes*.  He’s such a sucker for her, it’s adorable!  She’s really at the age of fit throwing in general though, if we say no or if she’s frustrated with something.  Our little drama queen.  She’s also not so great at sharing her toys anymore, but the doctor said it’s the age she’s at.  So when she’s playing with her cousins she can get pretty possessive, which has been a struggle.  This is usually the age that children adapt “no” as their favorite word.  Luckily for us she never says “no”.  Instead, she says “ow!” for no or anytime she’s frustrated.  It’s hard not to laugh when you tell her not to do something and she puts on the saddest face and shouts “ow!”

Abby knows when she’s being mischievous and she has this silly little laugh that’s hard to explain.  It’s just a mischievous, deep, drawn out laugh.  She also will use this laugh when she’s just trying to be silly, or give you a pity laugh.

One of her favorite things to do is look at pictures.  Whether they’re hung on the wall, or on the camera or computer, she could look at pictures of dogs and family all day long!  She’s still always happy with a book in front of her, and she loves to color!   Abby’s great at her little “projects”, she’ll sort and reorganize my cabinets, collect crayons in our shoes, make piles of anything then put them back….such a busy baby.  One of the cutest things she does lately is talk on our cell phones to nobody.  She’ll just walk around the house with the phone to her ear and chit chat forever.  When she does this, she’s got a casualness to her walk and swings her free arm, it’s adorable!  Unfortunately, whenever we actually have someone on the phone like a grandparent she gets shy and just stares and the phone, instead of talking.  Haha!  For some reason she’s been very interested in plugging her ears with her fingers, it cracks her up, I don’t know why.  She loves prayer time, which is just so precious.  During our bedtime routine, after story time we tell her it’s time for prayer and she immediately folds her arms and bows her head, and usually sits on daddy’s lap.  She doesn’t try to say the prayers yet or say “Amen”, but I have a feeling that’s around the corner.  Recently she started saying calling for me and waiting for an answer.  She’ll be talking my ear off, then say, “Mama?!” and pause…then I say, “Yes, darling?” and she’ll continue with her story.  She’ll do this several times in one conversation, so cute!  Abby loves hiding in enclosed places like closets, or behind curtains, but then she can’t help but laugh like crazy when we say, “Where’s Abby?”  Then she’ll come out and scream or laugh!  As soon as we have a little extra money we’re going to be putting this goose right into dance classes!  She LOVES to dance!  Anytime we put music on or if a song comes on TV, or when we’re watching So You Think You Can Dance, she’ll just get the biggest smile on her face and dance and dance!

Abby is a great communicator, with all her new words and signs she can almost always tell us what she wants or needs.  Back in September and October she would also take our hand and lead us to what she wanted, which was so adorable!  She doesn’t do that anymore for some reason.  Here’s the list of her newest signs and words:

September: 1st – says “tea”; 7th – signs <hungry>.  October: 19th – says “cracker”; 21st – says “dora”; 22nd – says “please”; 25th – signs <binky>; 26th – signs <cracker> and <juice>; 28th – signs and says “water”; 29th – signs <thank you>.  November: 1st – says “shoes”; 3rd – signs and says “eat”; 17th – says “coat”; 24th – says “color”, “babu” (what we call babushka), and “backpack”; 24th – signs <diaper>; 27th – says “soft” (when touching mama’s pregnant belly); 29th – says “papa”.  December: 1st – says “potty”; 3rd – says “book” and “bath”; 4th – says “go”; 5th – signs and says “cookie”; 8th – says “hot” and “cold” in context; 9th – says “that’s me!” when pointing to herself and seeing a picture of herself; 9th – says “bauer”; 15th – says “bubbles”; 15th – signs <potty>.  She can also point to her nose, belly button, eyes, ears, mouth, and toes when asked.

Abby shocked us on November 29th by peeing in the potty!  She had been showing signs of readiness for a couple weeks by signing diaper when she needed to go or when she needed a change, then she kept trying to go in the bathroom.  She can’t open doors yet so she grabs our keys and pokes the doorknob to try to open it.  Finally we sat her on the potty twice that day and the second time she peed!  We were so proud!  I’ve since gone out and bought all the potty training essentials, and she sits on the potty all the time, but nothing else has come of it.  After the holidays I’ll be concentrating on doing my part to potty train her.  Things are just too crazy right now.

I can’t believe how much of a big girl she is now.  She’s so independent.  A lot of times she doesn’t want to eat anything unless she can feed herself!  She loves to brush her teeth, but hates when I brush for her.  My little grown up!

Bauer and Edward Update:

In Arizona we had the puppies trained to be inside and outside, and they were trained to sleep in their kennels at night.  When we were living with Gma and Gpa Hall, they were outside full time.  This made me worry about bringing them back inside.  When we found our condo, we had decided to sell them because of the small space and no yard.  We weren’t getting any bites, and we were about to move so we put them up for free.  After Joe had dropped them off at the lady that contacted him about the ad, he had a bad feeling about it.  It was suspicious that she didn’t invite him in and her neighbor asked about if she had sold the puppies she had before.  Joe got home and Googled her and saw tons of ads for dogs for sale, including her precious beagle that she claimed would be so excited to play with Edward and Bauer.  It looked a lot like she was running a puppy mill.  Joe and devastated and worried like crazy!  He called the lady the next morning and asked to take the puppies back claiming that his grandparents were willing to keep them in their yard and our daughter missed them too much.  She was kind of confused but allowed it.  Thank heavens!!  Needless to say, we have them back and we’re managing in our tiny place with these big growing dogs!  They were immediately comfortable being inside again, and remembered the off-the-carpet rule.  They tried to literally dig out of their room (the 2nd bathroom), so there’s a nice hole in the wall, and scratches and bite marks all over the walls and doors.  We put this “bitter-yuck” spray all over and they’re not interested in doing that anymore.  So it’ll be a nice pricey project for us to repair the room.  Now they just occasionally get into the diaper garbage or tear up a dozen rolls of toilet paper, and so on.  We bought a dog litter box that we have out on the balcony that they learned to use pretty quickly.  It’s pretty disgusting to upkeep the litter box so Joe is just taking them on more walks.  He works close enough that he’s able to come home for lunch every day and is able to walk them before work, at lunch, after work, and before we head to bed.  It’s working I think, but they still leave plenty of surprises for him to clean up.

We are so grateful for our beautiful, growing family.  We have been blessed in so many ways, and we’re grateful to be so close to our extended family.  We love you all and hope you have very Merry Christmas and a wonderful New Year!

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