What Now?

Every so often, I will think of this space, sitting here, neglected.  I want to be the blogger who consistently writes, and share our little piece of the world with you. I'm just not sure that this blog is the way to do that going forward. Initially, it was a fun and creative way to share the happenings of the Giles family. Things, however, have changed. Micah and Corrin are older.  While Corrin still likes to take pictures, Micah, more often than not, doesn't want to be bothered.  And while I still demand a few family pictures on Sunday afternoons, I mostly allow him the freedom to choose not to be involved in picture taking. So where does that leave Growing Up Giles?

As you probably can tell from the dates on the last few posts, I've pretty much just left it.  The blog has been sitting here, abandoned.  Social media is easier. I snap a photo, do a quick edit if needed, and post with a short caption.  All in a matter of minutes.  I'm not sure that this space will ever be what it once was.

Happy Halloween!

Halloween is not one of my favorite holidays, but in the past few years, I've enjoyed dressing up, and dressing the kids.  This year was the first year that they both chose their own costume without some major guidance. I think that they did an awesome job with their selections.

Without further adieu, I present Goku and Grandma!  They were both a hit everywhere we went!

We started in our old neighborhood, but no one was really participating in Halloween, so we ended up heading toward a church that was hosting an event with booths and jump houses.  There were absolutely too many people there, so we went to visit another neighborhood, and hit the Halloween jackpot.  There was enough houses participating for Micah and Corrin to feel like they got enough candy without overdoing it.  We all had loads of fun, and we have enough candy to last us a while. I wonder what they will want to be next year.

Corrin also had Nerd Day at her school for Red Ribbon Week because she is "too smart for drugs!" 

We're Still Here

No. I didn't forget about you or the blog.  We've just been doing a whole bunch of nothing. Our days are mostly spent going to and from work and school, then coming home to prepare to do the same thing again the next day. On the weekends, generally, we've been hanging out around the house, and going to church. We've gotten a little boring, but October is a new month!  And we've got quite a few things that we plan to try.

Murphy's Law: Home Edition

If it can go wrong, it probably already has. The move into our new digs did not come without some trials.  First there was the damage to our belongings that had been held in a storage unit while we transitioned to this house.  Rodents destroyed all the hosing for our refrigerator and washer, as well as the mattresses that were stored.  There was also mold, so our loveseat had to be trashed as well.  In total we hauled away the loveseat, a king sized mattress, a twin mattress, and a shelving unit.

Then there was the lack of hot water. Turns out that the landlord had disconnected the gas, and we ended up having to wait a few extra days to have gas turned on in our name. Added to that, no one thought to check the water heater, so we took cold showers an extra day because the water heater hadn't been adjust to actually heat the water.  Cold showers are no fun.  Now that we have hot water, we're learning that there is a very small window of comfortably-temperatured water between ice cold and boil your skin off water.

Well then surely my husband, who has a IT-based career, can get the internet and cable connected. Think again. Apparently, the previous tenant had both cable and satellite connection while living in this house, because there are two active cable lines running into the house. You would think that the line that works for our cable provider would work once we plug in. You'd be wrong. So now we have an appointment for a technician to come out, and yet another fee to pay.

By now it's Wednesday, and Mikey has finally replaced the hoses for the washer, and rewired the dryer because this house is older, and had a different power outlet that did not fit our dryer.  I never thought I'd say it, but I was actually looking forward to doing laundry at home, and not having to go to the laundromat. I should have listened for the universe's laughter. We turn on the washer, and water starts pouring out of the side of the washer. Defeated is the word that comes to mind when I think of this moment.  After cleaning up the water, Mikey rechecked the hoses to be sure that everything was fitting correctly. Finding no loose hose, we are now debating between calling a repair man to hopefully fix it, or just buying a new washer. We Googled possible causes, and now we're afraid that if we call the repair man we'll pay that fee, and still end up having to buy a new washer. Ugh!

Thursday we gave ourselves a break.  Mikey went to the laundromat to do laundry, because quite frankly we were getting to the point of wearing dirty clothes or going naked.  I'd rather not share this loveliness with the public, and the thought of redressing in dirty clothes makes my skin crawl.  At the same time that Mikey is slaving over the washer and dryer, the kids and I stayed home. We had dinner. I organized the kitchen a little more. (I'm still searching for all my dishes and pots.) We checked homework. The kids bathed, and went to bed early.  

Finally, it's Friday!  The cable should be on at some point today.  We are in the process of making decisions regarding possibly purchasing new mattresses and a new washer. We are safely into our new home, and working on getting everything organized and reestablishing our routines. We have awesome friends who came out and helped us move our entire household in two days. We are truly blessed, and we know it. So take that Murphy!

House on the Hill

Remember this house. Well...

We moved.  We left what was supposed to be our forever home, and moved into the basement of a family member for roughly six months. And now we have moved again, into a small ranch house that sits up on a hill that we are renting. Why you may ask? To put it plainly: Money. Owning a house is expensive. Whenever anything breaks, you have to dig into your pockets for the money to fix it, or do without. Not to mention all the other costs that go with homeownership, like property taxes, utilities, home owner's insurance, HOA fees, and so many others.

Add on the cost of raising two adorable children, student loans, and wanting to experience life instead of just surviving, and you have the perfect storm of debt and struggle.  It was all beginning to be too much. So Mikey and I sat down and talked and talked. We actually had several conversations about it. We realized that we didn't want to live life surviving paycheck to paycheck. We didn't want to have to worry about the next catastrophe and not know where we would get the money from to cover what we needed to cover. We didn't want to worry that one of us would lose our job, and we wouldn't have a paycheck to cover our expenses.

So we made the decision to downsize, get our debt under control, and build a substantial nest egg before we put ourselves into more debt buying a new forever home.  For now, the house on the hill is our home.

What does downsizing look like for us? We went from a two story, five bedrooms, four bathrooms house sitting on more than two acres, to a single story three bedrooms and two bathrooms with a reasonably sized lot. That sounds so major just typing it. The front porch is to die for! The master bedroom is spacious, even if the closet space is going to feel tiny coming from each of us having our own individual walk-in closets. The kids have asked to share a room, and that will leave the third bedroom to serve as a guest room and office. The backyard is nicely laid out with lots of space for the kids to play, and it's fenced in. There's a laundry room and storage in the garage. I'm optimistic that this house will work well for us.  Of course my Pinterest boards are jumping with ideas to make the loss in space more manageable. 

Her Royal Fiveness!

My sweet little miss turns five years old today. Recently, I looked back through the blog, and reread her birth story and watched a few videos from when she was a baby. I had forgotten so many of the details. I had forgotten how afraid I was after her birth, when she refused to breathe.  I had forgotten how worried I was when we brought her home from the hospital with extra gadgets to monitor her. I had forgotten the sheer exhaustion from interrupted sleep and working full time.  I had forgotten the sadness that came from leaving her every day to commute an hour and a half to work when she was so tiny.

But I remembered the overwhelming joy that she brought to our lives. I remembered the uncontrollable laughter that she causes. I remembered the sass that lives in her.  Corrin is not afraid to live out loud.  She's not afraid to stand in her truth, and let the world know she is here. Wanna know a (not so secret) secret?  I envy her that. I envy her the freedom to know what she wants and go for it without thought of what anyone else thinks. And the mama bear in me is willing to go to the mat to protect that. 

Don't get me wrong, she can be shy and hesitant at times. Surprisingly enough mostly with her peers. I'm afraid that she recognizes that sometimes those who could be friends can sometimes hurt us.  But that doesn't stop her from being Corrin. So what's Corrin up to nowadays?

I have seen your soul and it is beautiful. 

Corrin...

· is so much fun to be around. And because she attends school in the district I work for, we are almost always together. 

· is still our silly girl, who laughs at the drop of a dime. 

· is our little chatterbox. Honestly, she never stops talking. She even talks in her sleep. 

· still has a mind of her own when it comes to what she's going to wear. That's a battle we just don't feel like fighting. Sometimes she's all about comfort. Sometimes she's a princess and only a dress will do.  As long as whatever she chooses is weather appropriate and acceptable for whatever event we're attending, we let her express herself. 

· is currently baby obsessed. Honestly, she's been baby obsessed for the past two years, but just recently it's gotten to be overwhelming.  She constantly listens to my belly (by placing her ear over my stomach) so she can hear the baby that she is convinced is in there. (There is no baby in my belly!) She constantly talks about having a little baby. She's actively praying for a baby. 

Birthday Partying!

We hosted a birthday party at a local fun place called Stars & Strikes. The kids bowled, played laser tag and bumper cars, ate pizza, and roamed around the arcade.  They had a blast!  There was lots for them to do, and there were lots of friends and family members there to celebrate our little princess.  She opted for a Barbie themed cake. (There's a story behind said cake.) All in all, we had a blast, and the birthday girl hasn't stopped talking about her party yet!

Now the cake on the other hand.  This cake was so delicious.  We tried a new bakery based on reviews alone.  I'm so happy we went with the reviews. This cake was awesome!  It was delicious and moist, and beautiful. I really didn't want to cut it because it was so beautiful.  Corrin and I had originally discussed her cake, and she wanted a unicorn cake, with rainbow layers. We had searched Pinterest for inspiration pictures. We talked about this birthday cake up until we were parked in the parking lot, and preparing to enter the bakery to place the order.

The baker came out, I explained what we wanted (a birthday cake and some cupcakes), and then she asked Corrin what kind of cake she wanted.  My daughter then proceeds to change the whole game up. The unicorn cake that we had researched and talked about became a Barbie cake with bling. I was left stunned and confused, but we went ahead with the cake that Little Miss wanted, and it was beautiful, and delicious, and everything that she wanted it to be.

Silly big brother

What's Happening?

I know. I know! Exactly one year and six months later, and I’m trying AGAIN to revive this blog. This space started as a place for me to document our children’s antics as we grew through my pregnancies and their infancy and toddlerhood. My sister was deployed overseas, and I wanted to include her in the changes that were occurring.  Well now both of our children are school-aged and attend school full time.  Where does that leave this space? Still trying to figure that out...

What have we been up to in the past year and a half?  We’ve gone on a few vacations. We’ve celebrated holidays and accomplishments. We’ve suffered loss and setbacks. We’ve all aged a little and grown. Micah has started first grade. Corrin is in Pre-K4. They are both smart and inquisitive kids, who keeps us on our toes, and usually laughing. We’ve moved and moved again.  

In short, things are different, and I'm sure more change is coming, but we've done a pretty good job of going with the flow. Now here are a bunch of pictures (in no particular order), and a promise that I'll be back, and hopefully it will be long before another year and a half have passed. 

I've realized that a whole bunch of pictures in the blog are broken because of the foolishness with Photobucket charging roughly $400 per year to continue to host them.  I'll be honest, I'm never going to pay that much money for anything to do with this blog, so I'll be (slowly) going back through the blog and replacing pictures as I can.

What Now?

My poor, neglected blog. It's been more than a year since I've last made an update. I've thought about updating the blog. I've thought about taking it down completely. I couldn't make a decision. So I didn't. Then I forgot about the blog completely for a while, because life got to be too much. It was all I could do to make it through the day to day. Blogging was not a consideration let alone something that was going to be scheduled into the week.  In the end, the blog just sat here; abandoned.

There have been lots of changes in the Giles household recently!  With those changes, it looks like Growing Up Giles may make a comeback!  I won't make any promises, but we'll see if we're able to stick with it this time.

Look for a slightly updated look to the blog soon. In the mean time, here's a picture of the munchkins!

State of the Giles Family 2015

Did you watch the State of the Union address?  I did not watch the live address.  The reason is ... The reason really doesn't matter. Anyway, all of that to the side, Google and YouTube have come to the rescue, and I was able to watch a recording of Obama's speech. The social media commentary was enlightening, but I thought I should check it out for myself.

Typically, I greatly dislike politics of any kind, and I tend to avoid watching anything politically driven.  I think I've said it before here, but I'll restate that politics make me anxious. I like to avoid anxiety when I can, and this is one area where I can and do avoid. Disclaimer aside, I have decided that I will provide a State of the Giles Family address to let you know how we've been doing since my little blog break, and our goals for the year.  So here goes:

*****

Family, Friends, anyone who stumbles across this patch of internet space:

The Giles family is doing just fine. The past year has been trying at times, but mostly pretty awesome.  We celebrated birthdays, graduations, and five years of marriage.  We've played in the first snow of two little people's lifetime.  We've laughed and cried.  We've learned to crawl, then walk, then run, then jump, and finally climb. 

Corrin has grown by leaps and bounds.  It's hard to believe how tiny and fragile she was only a couple years ago.  Now she is running, jumping, and climbing.  She's sleeping through the night. She talks constantly, and is learning new words and expressions every day.  She has such a fun personality. The silliest things are hilarious to her.  She loves shoes and clothes. We're working on her sleeping in her own room. Right now she sleeps in the room with Micah. It does not look like it's going to be an easy transition.  We'll also work on potty training.  That should be another fun experience.

Micah continues to amaze me.  His vocabulary and ability to have a conversation have grown exponentially.  He's a funny little guy.  He's so caring, and always wants to be sure that everyone is happy. He started preschool!  I'm sure I was much more sad than he was.  He loves his classmates, and they love him.  Micah got his big boy room. It's still a work in progress, but we're making progress.  In 2015, Micah is working on learning all his letters, numbers, shapes, etc.  He should also be working on not jumping on the couch.  We'll see how that last one goes.

Mikey and I have mostly been taking it easy. I big chopped again, and cut off all my hair. Mikey decided to grow his hair and loc it up.  I went horseback riding for the first time. Like I said, 2014 was pretty laid back.  In 2015, we are going to work on being more present when we are with the kids and each other. I want to work on being more fit and healthy.  We plan to get fit as a family, starting with family bike rides using our Christmas gifts.  We also have a list of activities that we want to do together as a family. It's our family 2015 bucket list. I want to work on taking more and better quality pictures.

There are lots more goals, but ultimately, the Giles family goal for 2015 and beyond, is to make each day better than the last. Working together, and loving each other through thick and thin, I'm sure that the ultimate goal is easily within our reach.

Radio Silence

I find it extremely frustrating to be listening to the radio and suddenly find myself listen to dead air. Two seconds later I have either flipped the station or turned on my iPod. So imagine my surprise when I took a moment to visit the old blog, and realized that I had not posted anything since March 2014! I have reasons that I haven't been posting. I won't share them, because frankly, I'm sure you don't care. Moving forward he goal is to blog more consistently. Some things have changed, so hopefully, it will fit into my schedule better to blog again. Honestly, I miss blogging and sharing what it like to be growing up Giles.

So now the silence is over. Lots of things have changed. Things look different around the blog. The little Giles have grown. The big Giles have grown too. So I'll be working on keeping you up to date on what we Giles are up to, starting with an update on some of the things we got up to in 2014.