I'm a slave driver...

I even give the baby chores that make her tired, i.e. watching me cook.

But I let them relax after their toil.

As for us (the adults), we just put in an application for a place here in Gaithersburg (but not the Village, yay!). I seriously love this house. Everything is finished- doors close- including closets, the appliances are new, the carpet is nice, the deck is sturdy, the yard is prob 3 times as big as our current one, and the walk-out basement even has COLOR! It's sad that these things make us excited, but they do. Our options in VA so far have fallen through- if this house doesn't work out then we'll have to go down to Woodbridge again to check out some new places since I think this house might be the only decent house in our price range here in Gaithersburg.

Oh, and tomorrow Grace and I are going to Kindergarten Orientation! It most likely will not be the school that she will go to in the fall, but at least she'll get a chance to see what it's like. I'm sure we'll go check out whichever school we get assigned to before she starts.

Pictures as Promised

Here are some new pictures of Moira...

Before anyone starts to give me grief about the next picture, I swear, I tried to give the girl a pacifier. I really did. She GAGGED on it. Every time. And in the last 2 weeks, she just started sucking on her thumb. So, I've decided that when it comes to our girls' genes, Kaylon's genes go to their appearance, and mine all go towards thumb sucking. It's the only explanation I can come up with.Here's her happy smile. I LOVE her smile. It makes my day- every time :)

Liliana and Grace Singing the Alphabet

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5lIz4mL6ug

I still haven't gotten the camera, but here's a video I've been meaning to put up :) The stupid thing won't let me embed it, so you'll have to follow the link. Enjoy :)

YES, Drill Sergeant!

Liliana is her own person. She does things her own way, and if she's unhappy with what you're doing, she lets you know. Last night as we were getting ready for bed, Kaylon did something that disturbed Liliana. She grabbed him by his shirt, pulled him closer, and then proceeded to "yell" at him. After a few phrases she leaned into his face, putting her nose to his, and continued giving him a piece of her mind. She totally looked like a drill sergeant! We were laughing so hard we had tears running down our cheeks. I love her independent spirit. Right now, she is my comic relief, well, except when she colors on the walls with crayons or the laptop screen with a permanant marker :O.

Grace is really starting to get how sounds make words. Yesterday she was typing with Kaylon on AIM and she wanted to write 'cought in a net.' I heard her sounding it out and she came up with 'kot' for 'caught.' Makes sense to me! She really likes the PBS show 'Word World' and usually helps the characters sound out the words. woo hoo! we have learning.

Can't forget Moira. She continues to grow bigger- I can't believe that she's almost 3 months old! She smiles all the time now- especially in the morning for whoever is nice enough to get her out of bed, and for Grace, who might now trump Kaylon for her favorite person. Grace can do no wrong with her. It's really sweet to see them interact. Moira is also sleeping better at night (thank you!), making me a nicer person during the day. I took some pictures of her last night, but my camera is upstairs where she is sleeping, so i'll post them later.

As for us, we found 2 places we liked in Woodbridge and one place in our price range here in Montgomery Village. We'll be setting up appointments after we see how a few other things fall into place (probably next week). I need to start packing, but it just doesn't seem urgent yet, and I'm a procrastinator, so it's not happening. But it should- soon... i hope... :)

Haircuts and Woodbridge

We all got our haircut today... thought I'd share some before and after pics :) First Miss Grace...

Sunday

Today (It'll be cuter when I spend some time on it)

Me (Same old, same old)

I saved the more dramatic for last... Miss Liliana

Sunday

Today

We decided to not go with the bangs, but to grow them out instead. I had her look at herself in the mirror and she couldn't help smiling. It was a cute moment :)

On the housing front, I am an idiot and I miscalculated the distance from Woodbridge to the closest metro. Turns out that Woodbridge is a better commute for Kaylon, so we're turing our sights to there. Housing is comparable and we already have at least 2 friends there (yay Justin and Lauren!), so it seems to be a better choice. We'll be checking out some places there on Saturday hopefully.

Thumb Sucking

We are in the process of getting the thumb sucking to end in our house (just as Moira has begun to discover that she has one!). It's a hard road, since both girls do it without even thinking. Grace has been doing pretty well with a reward system- she starts the day out with 5 jelly beans in a bag and then loses one every time we catch her sucking her thumb. I worry though that she does it when she knows we're not around.

We tried that system with Liliana, but she just didn't get it. So Kaylon went out and bought pink duct tape and we started wrapping it around her thumbs today. She thought it was cool for about 30 seconds, and then it sunk in that this was to prevent thumb sucking and she got upset. She's already got one thumb free this morning- the other seems to be on better. I'll have to reapply before nap time. Here's a picture of the tourtured.

Easter

Happy Easter Everyone!

Here are some pictures from Easter. We had a nice day- I got up early with Moira and we made some german pancakes with strawberries. This is Moira helping me:Then the girls came downstairs and searched for their eggs. They also had cards from Grandma Susie waiting for them. And here they are in their dresses from Grandma Elyse ready for church:

We had dinner with friends from the ward and they did another egg hunt (the girls' fourth- i'm glad we don't have another one for a year). It was sad that it was our last dinner with this group of friends. But there was good food and good friends, so we had a great night.

Manassas Trip

I should be in bed. But Kaylon is playing his Xbox and I've had a long day, so I'm destressing on the computer. Fun stuff.

We drove out to Manassas today. A good friend took Grace and Liliana for me, so it was just us and Moira. We met a realtor and he showed us a townhouse for rent. It didn't have a backyard, so it was immediately off my list. He printed a list off for us to look at and choose from for next time. We picked out 2- one we like better than the other- so we shall see.

But overall, we really liked the area. It's laid out better there- less crowded and yet more condensed. Any store or restaurant you could want (expect maybe the Cheesecake Factory) is on this one street. The parking lots are big. The streets are big. It's well manicured. It's suburban, not urban. And I like that. I really liked that everything was right there, instead of having to drive up and down the 270.

And believe it or not that made me feel guilty! I feel at peace about moving there- I think it's the best thing for our family- but I feel guilty. See, any other time we moved it was because we needed more space or Kaylon got a new job. It was a necessity. But this time it's a choice. A judgement that one place is better than another (for us anyway). But I feel like I'm betraying our home here- our friends, our ward, our favorite family walk spots. We're gonna make this huge change that we don't have to- walking away- and I have nothing to blame it on but myself. Not that we could stay in THIS house, but if we really wanted to we could stay in the Village. But we don't. And that's hard to admit because I am really going to miss my friends here. I'm going to miss my routine, and serving in the primary, and knowing how to find my way around town. But I can't deny that this is going to be good for our family- financially and otherwise.

It's time to move on... but it will be a hard 2 months preparing to do it.

Decisions

We gave our landlord our 2 months notice tonight. We decided that it would be better to leave now and get Grace into school than to wait and see what the landlord decides in a few months. We're also pretty sure that we are going to rent for a year in order to save up some money. It feels too rushed trying to buy a house right now- even with the 8,000$ tax credit calling out my name.

Now we must decide WHERE we will live. When that is determined, I will for sure let y'all know.

And so begins the next journey...

New Info...

Kaylon emailed the landlord and asked for some more information this morning and we just got a reply back. Turns out he intentionally missed payments so that he could get into a loan modification program. He also revealed that they will be putting it back on the market in September, most likely.

Ok, that just sunk in as I was writing it. They want to sell it- so we might as well get out now before Grace starts school. I guess I was focusing on not liking the not-so-smart-landlord-practices, but what it comes down to is that they don't have the money to keep this place. And I'm not sure, but I thought that the modification programs were were primary residences, not rental properties. So, regardless of anything else, we will be moving- where, I don't know, but it looks like we'll be putting in our notice soon.

Oh- and Kaylon found some places in Montgomery Village today in our price range. I guess we'll just have to decide where we want to settle down and go there. I don't want to be moving more than we have to. We're gonna go check out Manassas this week- seems a good idea since neither of us has been there before :P

Our Introduction to the Financial Crisis

Sometimes adults say the stupidest things. Things like, "Ya know, we haven't really been affected by the financial crisis going on around us," or "Wow, we haven't had any big trials lately." Next time I say something like that, hit me over the head. ;)

Actually things aren't as bad as we thought they were 24 hours ago, but here's the story. Sunday night I was cleaning the kitchen and I found some of the landlord's mail on the counter. One letter was from a government agency dealing with finances which set a bell off in my head. I commented to Kaylon that it was letters like this that made me nervous. Jokingly, Kaylon took the letter, held it to the light, and started "reading" that the house was in foreclosure. Then he stopped and actually read it- the loan was actually in default and headed toward foreclosure. We goggled our address and it came up listed for sale on 3 different websites, including the newspaper. Kaylon called the government agency that had sent the letter and they confirmed that the house was headed into foreclosure.

We went into crazy mode- making sure that we had all our facts strait before we confronted our landlords, who had never mentioned these problems. The area where we live now has raised the rental prices, so we found that we could not afford to stay here, sad as that is. We decided to move to Manassas, VA, and rent for another year or two to save money to buy a house. We worked out commutes and looked up utilities. And then we called the landlord.

Turns out that they did not realize what was going on. They knew that had missed a payment or two, but didn't know that the house was on real estate sites or nearing foreclosure (which is why I hate that we still get their mail- had the letters gone straight to them, they would have figured this out, not us- aren't they lucky we're nosey). At least they weren't scamming us like we thought. Supposedly the landlord is going to work this out and get the house in the clear, but neither of us are very comfortable with the situation- we were paying our rent, but it wasn't going to the mortgage, and that raises red flags. We'll have to decide very soon if we want to continue here for a while and give them another chance, or if the risk is too much and we move to Manassas anyway. It needs to be soon so that we know what school Grace will be going to in the fall, though.

So that's where things stand. Some people knew this was going on, so this is an update- for other's I'm sure it's the first time hearing of it. But we are fine- we are not getting evicted- and we have some power over the situation again, which is good. Thanks for all of you that helped the past couple days- we really appreciate it.

Uncle Curt's Visit

Curtis, Lindsay, and Luke flew out to Maryland this past week to visit my dad and us. They came up our way on Saturday to spend the day. We decided to take them to the Washintonian Center- a lake surronded by shopping and restaurants in Rockville. We ate at Californian Pizza Kitchen- in fact we were their first customers of the day! As we were finishing up our meal, Curtis noticed that Liliana had had a blow out. It wasn't until she stood up that we realized the extent. It was literally the worst blow out I have ever seen- up her back, down the back of her pants, as well as down her leg. I walked her to the bathroom, sheilding her from eating patrons, whom I sure would not want their appetites ruined by the sight of my daughter. I cleaned her up as Kaylon ran to the Target down the street to buy her an outfit. Until he arrived she wore her jacket and my nursing shawl as a skirt. I was pretty impressed with my creativity on that one! Kaylon got some outfit advice from a helpful mom at Target, so he came back with a matching outfit and we moved on with our day, but not before Curtis christened Liliana "Volcano butt."

We had been hoping to go bowling, but the ally was full for the day, so to make up for this, I promised Grace that we would get ice cream. So we all stopped for some at Maggie Moos, and then we shopped at Dick's Sporting Goods until it was time for them to leave. We had a great time with them, and I think that they enjoyed the girls' antics (who can resist them?). I really wish that we could live closer to our siblings- I feel like we're missing out on some relationships. Maybe someday the economic center of the US will move to Phoenix... (don't worry, I'm not holding my breath.)

2 month appointment + bits and pieces

Moira had her 2 month yesterday. She weighed 11lbs 5oz and measured 22 inches long. That keeps her on the 60% curve, for now. Grace and Liliana both fell in the charts after 3 months, so we'll see if Moira does the same (it's fairly normal for breastfed babies to do that). All the nurses were gaga over her (not that I can blame them). Sadly it was an appointment with shots, but she handled those pretty well. Someday she can go to Burger King after getting shots, like Grace looks forward to doing in June :) Here are some new pics for the grandparents:

Kaylon came home early from work today and is at the doctor's office- probably with strep. Ugh. I hope that I don't get it next. But here's the question of the day- if I do get strep, do I get to come home from work early and sleep all day?

Sometimes life just isn't fair.

Anyways, Liliana is talking more and more in sentences. It's amazing to see that happen. It's even more amazing to watch her and Grace have conversations. Yesterday they played with their toy animal for at least an hour. They made up scenarios and had the animals interact together. Grace even had one animal tell another one how to act nice, lol. I absolutely love that they play together so well (usually).

Here's a pic from today with their friends Jack and Charlotte. They were all getting ready for a party. Then out of the blue they started dancing with each other. We're gonna miss the Swensons when they move in May, sniff, sniff...