Saturday, April 5, 2014

Life as we know it

Well folks, life has been crazy lately. Isn't it always?

I'm movin on up in this world. I just got a new job. I'm now working at the Southwest Behavioral Center. I've only worked for one day and know its going to be right up my alley! I pretty much just watch kiddos, go to group therapy, do activities with them, and then go out to eat with them. Its a pretty awesome job and honestly it felt like I wasn't even working! In fact it reminds me of a lot of what I did as a volunteer at The Erin Kimball Foundation. Also, during the summer I get to go to girls camp! I LOVE camping and it sounds like its going to be a blast!

Then I have another job lined up with "Allies for Families" and its a partnership with DCFS. I would work with at risk families that are on the brink of losing their custody to the state. I would go in and work with them teaching them parenting/life skills so they can prove to the state that they can keep their kids. It sounds like it would be a fun/interesting job. The only problem is that during our home study the licensor said that they may not make any matches with us for foster care if I'm working for AFF because it may be a conflict of interest since I'd be working for the very families that may need foster care. So I'm not entirely sure this job will work out since in the end I'd much rather do foster care. We shall see.

We finally got licensed to be foster care parents!! I say finally but really it actually happened way faster than I was expecting! I mean we started this process back in February and we are already licensed two months later! Crazy! I don't think my house has been as clean as it was when we had our home study. I was stressing over the weekend that everything looked completely spotless. The licensor was such a gruffy guy and so chill that I think he hardly noticed.

We thought that we were only going to be approved for one child because our spare bedroom was like 2 ft too short for the requirements. The licensor measured Jayda's room and her room was almost at the cut off for the requirments so he said as long as we switch Jayda's room with the spare room we could be licensed for two kiddos! So of course we said yes. Now we just wait for Ben the caseworker in charge of matches to contact us to meet and get to know our family. Once that happens then it is just a matter of waiting for the call. It's crazy to think that everything may change as soon as this summer in our family dynamic!

In other big news, Jayda is starting kindergarten this year! We registered her last week and it was all surreal! She was so excited to go see her new school and when we went into the office she demanded to meet her new teacher and classmates. They of course said they couldn't do that because they didn't know but she didn't seem to understand. They thought it was so funny that this little girl who looked like she was 2 or 3 years old was talking like such a big girl. She may be small but her large personality makes people instantly gravitate to her. We met the principal and he seemed like a pretty cool guy. He even challenged her to a race down the hall. We go back on the 17th for assessments for which I'm sure she will do great! She's such a smarty pants.

Jayda is also into the phase of talking about getting married. She has a few husbands lined up and one week will be married to a classmate and the next week she will tell me she broke up with him. It's so funny but crazy that she's already boy crazy! She cracks me up!

She's quite the social butterfly too. Sometimes it scares me how social she is because she doesn't understand boundaries. The other day I found her outside on the sidewalk sitting next to this guy from baja talking to him. I dont know how many times I've talked to her about talking to strangers but she doesnt seem to grasp the concept. I told her to come here and said she shouldn't be talking to that guy because he's a stranger. She said, "But Mom, he smells good!" Talk about scary! I don't know what to do/say to help her understand that its not ok! She just sees the best in everyone that she can't fathom that anyone would do anything bad to her. I have to watch her like a hawk because of it.

Haven is getting so big! Well she's really not THAT big or as the doctor said at her last appt, "she's not breaking any growth records either". I think she was like 20lbs at her last appt. What is funny is Jayda is only about 6-7lbs bigger than Haven so to me Haven is huge! She is teething right now she she is straight up miserable. When she was a baby she was so chill but she's gotten quite the sassy little attitude. She lets me know if something is bothering her and isnt afraid to let her sister know who is boss. Jayda will try to give her a hug and she will just push her away and yell and then immediately come to me and give me a hug instead. Poor Jayda is just a sweatheart and gets her feelings hurt but I think Haven is just going through a weird phase right now. When she does give her sister a hug though it is precious and Jayda gets so excited.

Haven also doesn't like to say mama. I ask her to say mama and instead she'll smile and say, "Daddy, da-da!"

Haven currently loves to climb on EVERYTHING! I'll find her on the coffee table, on top of the jayda's kiddy table messing with the lights, the top of the couch, on top of the bed, etc. Then she gets pissed she can't get back down. So I have to put anything she can step onto high up so she can't climb anything. She also loves to play in the toilet and so I know if I hear splish splashing its Haven playing in the toilet when someone (cough cough...Jayda) forgets to close the lid. Also, she's pooped in the bathtub more times than I can count. Nothing like vacating the bath only to go poop fishing with a plastic cup. I don't know which is worse, tons of pebble poop or the runs. Yuk!

She also likes to sprinkle tuperware all over the house. I literaly can track her movements by tuperware lids.

Also, why did we buy new furniture? How could we have been so naive. Never again!

This is from the other week when we decided to go down to vegas to see the cousins! We were planning on going to Zions but it was terrible weather so we decided last minute to go down to vegas for the day.

As for me, lately I've been obsessed with crossfit and eating healthier! I'm determined to whip this body back into shape! I've been neglecting myself and my health and I need to change it. I've been going to crossfit almost everyday during the week either early in the morning before Chase goes to work or in the afternoon after he gets home. I've been at it for almost a month. I was getting super frustrated because I was working my butt off at crossfit, plus working out at home, and eating healthy and I hadn't lost a freaking pound! I definetely noticed a change in my body so I know that I was building up muscle tone but it was still completely frustrating working so hard and not seeing number results.

But this weekend I talked to my sister and she told me to toss my scale away or to have Chase hide it! So that's what I'm going to do. I'm also going to start eating completely clean this week and not eat something unless they have just a few ingredients on the label, sticking to whole foods, and not obsessing over calorie counting but trusting the process. The problem would be that I would step on the scale and see no progress and by the end of the week get so frustrated that I would just say who cares what I eat its not working anyways! So I think by throwing away the scale I wont get discouraged anymore. I mean how sad is it that a number on a scale dictates my happiness and mood for the day? The fact of the matter is I have felt AMAZING since becoming healthier and everything else will naturally follow.

I'm also proud because Chase has been coming to crossfit too. He screwed up his knee and it was all swollen so he had to back away for a bit but he's going to get right back to it. Its so addicting and I love going there because the trainers are awesome and the people that go are strong but not "in your face, better than you" kind of people. It's been really fun to watch my growth and myself getting stronger. And since starting about a month ago I've never done the same workout twice. I highly recommend it to anyone that is curious about it.

Chase is still doing the same ole same ole. Working his butt off as usual. This week has been extra hard for us because he's been working both jobs constantly so we havent seen much of him. But hopefully this next week wont be as bad. His girls (all of us) miss him but we gotta do what we gotta do sometimes! We're also trying to track down either an SUV or a....mini van. Yes I said that right. A mini van. We've come to that point in our lives where we just turn in our cool card for the old lady who doesn't care what people think and actually cares about economics and space card. So everyone can just suck an egg! We will rock that mini van...hardcore.

Welp that's life as we know it. Until next time. Click.