About My New Job

January flew by and now February is long gone too. What the heck?! We're only two months into the new year and I am now THIRTY years old and recently just started on a new career path outside of the hotel world. Huge change for me! I love just knowing stuff and being valuable so starting work in a completely different industry has taken quite the toll on me.

For Christmas, I bought myself a new Bullet Journal and have been using it to track a variety of things, one being my mood. In my mood tracker for January, the entire first week was all purple, notating stress/anxiety/worry. I expected that with a new job, but oh my goodness! There is so much to learn and I feel I've only scratched the surface. My last day working the overnight shift at the hotel was on Christmas night. Honestly, I was surprised I lasted 5 months. They were kind of a blur as I was always tired. So I'm happy to report that now that I'm working during the day, I'm sleeping a lot better at night! (I had been struggling with sleep for about a year before I decided to work at night.) I'm happy my sleep patterns are much more normal now. Overall my mood tracker was mostly yellow, depicting happy/satisfied/okay for a good portion of the month so hooray for that! February was fairly similar, except for the bout of flu that hit our house during the middle of month...

Because I now work for the same company my husband does, we can't work in the same store, for HR reasons. With that said, he's worked in my store twice now since I've been there. (He's overseeing the store I work out of while the search for a new center manager continues.) The first time he was there, I had a little anxiety attack when he arrived. Watching him walk around the store and taking notes, all the while observing the staff, was a roll in which I had just envisioned him doing, and now that I was watching him do it (and observing me!) I found him to be intimidating. Yes. I found my husband to be intimidating.

A few days later, my store ran out of trash bags (how does that happen?!) so a team member had me call my husband's store to ask if they could send some over to us. I have talked to my husband an uncountable number of times on the phone, but when I had to call him at work about work, I again had a wave of anxiety wash over me. He answered the phone, and I panicked a bit, and said, "HI this is Sadie from the Cascade Park store..." I'm happy that my phone training and supply sharing rendezvous was with Perry, but at the end of the call, he added, "Now that you know how to use the phones, you can pound pound me any time you want to baby." It was a play on words because to dial store to store you simply hit ## and the store number, but I was immediately mortified that my husband said that to me at work. My heart was already racing and my palms were sweating so for him to end the call with that...My co-workers could easily see how frazzled I was!

I was working out of my store last week (I often work out of others stores in Portland to get the hours my store can't give me) and I took a step out of my comfort zone and answered the phone. It was Perry, except I thought he said Larry or Terry at Lloyd Center, so I didn't process that I was talking with MY HUSBAND until the end of the call when he said, "It was nice talking to you Sadie at Cascade Park." I felt like an idiot as I wandered off to retrieve the person he called for. He gets me so flustered!

I've had several anxiety filled days, but overall I'm mostly enjoying my new job. Primarily, I work in shipping and help out in our self-serve area when people need help running the copiers or the fax machines. The elderly customers really like me :) I do get a little anxious at the thought of working at other stores though because I'm not knowledgeable in printing. Most of the stores I fill in at make most of their revenue from their printing department and only do a handful of shipments each day. The store I work out of normally, typically, needs at least two people to man the shipping station during the day, so I'm getting very confident when it comes to shipping, but have only dabbled in the printing side of things. I feel really useless when I go to other stores not being able to help out over there.

In other news, Ms. Gail *finally* received her FedEx costume in the mail last week, and it was the BEST THING EVER! She was so so so cute! She also decided she doesn't want to have kids because she really wants to be a mailman when she grows up, and apparently having kids wouldn't allow her to do so! Hahaha!

Miss Gail's Christmas Concert + Fire Station Field Trip

Miss Gail had her first Christmas program a few weeks ago and it took an entire day to get it uploaded to share. She was so so sweet!

Just a few days before their program, her preschool class met up at Target and everyone purchased a toy to take over to the fire station to give to kids in need. I got the pleasure of corralling three of the four girls in the class. They were fun though!

While at the fire station, the kids were able to check out the fire trucks and see all the fire fighting gear. Such a treat for them!

Miss Gail's First Jamboree

You guys. Miss Gail had her first gymnastics jamboree on Sunday and it was ADORABLE!  

Because of the limited number of seating, and not being able to bring HD & JP into the gym with us, we opted to leave them at home and pay them each ONE dollar for good behavior. It worked. We left them with dad's phone and they didn't call us at all (or answer when we called and text). The spent their hour alone playing Legos and watching football. Proud day!

 We were "those" parents that arrived to the gym almost first just to ensure we had good seats. We selected ones in the opposite corner so we could have an unblocked view of the entire floor. Miss Gail was SO EXCITED! However...

 When her class got up to show off their skills, she remained seated and the show went on. It wasn't until everyone went that I realized she wasn't going to go, so I jumped out of my seat, ran over to the coach and made a big to-do announcing from across the gym after getting her coach's attention that "she hasn't gone yet! She missed her turn!" 

 So lucky mom and dad were able to watch her show off her skills without the other kids getting right in my camera view. And the entire gym was focused on her and her alone. If that didn't get her nerves going more...

 She was so so cute on the balance beam, making sure to make eye contact and smile at us. Heart melted!

 Miss Gail was also one of the few that could hop up onto the bar without assistance. Yay her!

 When she heard there was going to be a medal at the end, she was sold on gymnastics. Fast forward to Sunday morning, when they called her name to go up to receive her participation medal, she sprinted to the front and climbed up to the 1st place platform. 

 She was so excited!

Seriously, can she get any cuter?

Lutheran World Relief Quilts + Sewing Lessons

We've lived here for about 8 months now and have yet to have people occupy the house to the west of us. The couple who owned it when we moved to the area were the original owners and were now in their 90s. Because of the stairs and the maintenance needed on the house, they moved to a senior living development.

I happened to be out walking around with Ms. Gail when their estate sale was going on in March. Another of my neighbors happen to be doing the same thing so we met by chance not knowing if either of us were residents of the area or sale go-ers. One thing led to another and we were talking about how excited Ms. Gail was to start preschool school this fall but I hadn't decided where I would take her. She referred me to her church just at the bottom of hill, which was a Lutheran church similar to the preschool she and the boys attended in Missoula.

Fast forward several months and Ms. Gail is now attending (and loving!) preschool there. I dropped her off last Friday and was telling her teacher how much fun she had on her first day when she mentioned the old ladies next door just loved listening to the little kids as they quilted. Of course my ears perked up, quilting? Tell me more!

Every Wednesday ladies from the church meet just down the hall (and share a partitioned wall with the preschool room) to create quilts to donate to those in need. My heart was way excited to hear this because I've been wanting to get back to sewing/quilting again but have become so frustrated with my children at home not leaving my sewing stuff alone that it's not worth the fight right now to work on anything. Wednesday's aren't the ideal day for me to hang around after dropping Ms. Gail off at school due to my work schedule but I've decided I'm going to do my best to make it work - even if I am a zombie.

This past week I dropped Ms. Gail off and wandered down the hall to see what "Old Lady Quilting" is all about. Take a stab at the first three people I met. Linda, Betty, and Doris - my mom's name, mother-in-law's name, and then my grandma's name - ironic? I was low key hoping there was a Carol to be met as that would have been my other grandma's name. Linda toured me around and showed off the storage room filled with the blankets they made as well as the ones in progress, along with all the fabric, sheets, and batting which had been donated.

I wasn't sure what to expect going into it, but I was pleasantly surprised. Everyone had their own job. There is a lady who comes in specifically to cut up fabric that is donated. There was a lady hand sewing scraps of batting together, another set of ladies sorting through and arranging fabric scraps to make quilt tops. (Most of the ladies sew the tops together at home and then bring them in for the rest of the process.) One larger group of ladies worked on tying the quilts together and then the quilts were brought over to my table where I worked with my neighbor (who I met in the spring and then forgot about and re-met) pinning the binding on so Doris could sew it all together. Doris is the oldest one in the group, coming in at about 92 years old and is the only one who sews there at the church.

Currently they have about 70 quilts ready to be shipped out in October. Coming up in the next couple weeks, they will take all the quilts they have completed and put them on the backs of the pews for the entire congregation to see and then box them up and ship them out the following week. They send out shipments twice a year, each time sending between 60-70 quilts.

 All the little old ladies were more than welcoming. It'll take me some time to recall all their names though. By the end of the three hours, I decided it was every thing I expected it to be, not knowing what exactly I expected it to be. Honestly I really enjoyed all the chitter-chatter amongst them. "Oh I just love your jean top! Did you do the embroidery on it?" "Oh thank you! Sharon did this for me a while ago. Isn't it lovely?!" "Oh yes! It's just beautiful!" And you better believe there was a coffee break complete with pound cake right at 10:30a. Not a minute before. It was the best!

I told Ms. Gail about my little adventure next door to her classroom and she was SO SURPRISED when I told her I never went home and that I was listening to them the whole time. For whatever reason, I decided that now would be a good time to start teaching her how to sew as well.

Lesson one did not disappoint! All I had her do was "sew" on the blue line. "Oh mom! Were you saving this machine just for me? I mean I saw you sewing on your machine once and thought that was just great, but now we can have mom and daughter sewing dates!!" She was probably more excited about sewing than she was about getting a cat, which says a lot considering her love of cats.

I'm pretty sure I found myself a new babysitter! Hahaha! Wiggle-wobble wiggle-wobble... She's hooked!

Ms Gail + JP

JP and Ms. Gail have always been quite the pair. He just adores her and she adores him just as much. They are often caught playing *so nicely* together.  It melts my heart. While their spots at the dinner table keep changing, I secretly think JP likes when his sister sits next to him because more often than not he'll get a nice back rub or back scratch by the end of dinner. 

Just the other day the two were coloring and Ms. Gail decided she wanted to give her picture to JP. When she handed it to him, he looked at it and responded, "OH wow! This is great coloring! I like it!" (He's also a suck up when he knows I'm watching. The look on his face was saying something different...) She was obsessed with him for the rest of the evening.

Yesterday she made a comment about how she wanted to marry JP because he likes her coloring. That evening I caught a special moment between the two of them in the bathroom. I had been working in the kitchen for a while and called out to Ms. Gail asking where she was. When she said she was doing nothing in the bathroom, I told her I was going to check (you know with all those hair cutting incidents, you can never be to sure with her...) and she started panicking. Just as I opened the door, JP and Ms. Gail hopped into the tub to hide. It was soon discovered that he had been combing out her hair in an attempt to put it in a pony tail. He was helping her get ready for their wedding after dinner. She changed her dress again after dinner and JP had me put her hair up so it looked like Belle's hair. 

My kids are obsessed with their bums. Can you tell?

Several weeks ago we had some friends over and my three kids occupied themselves in the basement with music, when JP came upstairs later handing out tickets to their concert. Upon our arrival to the basement, they had chairs set up for up, and JP had used his circuits to make a strobe light. HD was in charge of the lights and the music as JP and Ms. Gail slow danced around in circles. My friend and I whispered a few times back and forth about how cute they were and Charlotte was quick to shout out "NO TALKING!" and then would go back to slow dancing. I left my phone upstairs and missed it all, but it was so so sweet that I had to catch their wedding dance on film. It did not disappoint!

More Football, Less Teeth, and No Covers

It's been a busy few weeks here now that football is taking over our lives. I didn't expect so much practice time when we signed the kids up earlier this winter. Every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday I'm scrambling to figure out an easy meal that's quick to prepare and still relatively healthy. We're about a month in, and I have several go-to meals but I can imagine they're going to get old pretty fast...

We had a week off of games in lieu of Easter and had pictures yesterday before the games. HD's team was the first team up on the docket so they had to be to the field by 7:15, though their game wasn't until 9:00a. Luckily Perry ended up taking him and leaving me with the other two so they could sleep an extra hour. I also realized the night before that this was HD's snack week, so I needed time to pick something up from the store before leaving. We were running late, like usual, because JP forgot his mouth guard at home, along with his water bottle...We made it just in time for the beginning of HD's game, but I had to hang with JP to make sure he'd push up his glasses for pictures.

 

I thought it might have just been a fluke last game when he was matched up against the biggest kid on the opposite team, but it happened this week too. I was able to catch the second half of his game and really enjoyed watching him play. He still has a lot to work on skill wise, but he's improved a bunch already. I mean, he was actively trying to grab flag instead of just watching the action.

This week HD had a second game at the same time as JP. We lucked out having them play at fields next to each other. Let me just take a minute to tell you about the weather though. It was warmer than the previous game, but oh the rain! Perry and HD were there from 7 until about 11;15. Everyone was soaking. The ground was soaking. When you walked on the grass water would spray up and all the ground in about a 6 inch radius around your foot would move. It cleared up a bit by the time JP played but still.

This week was JP's turn to be a team captain. He co-captained with his new friend (#2) and was thrilled about it.

Sometimes it's really hard to watch JP play. He's been play on the line and doesn't really understand what he's doing. See video below. Several times I had to roll up his sleeves to get him at least looking ready to play.

Having the boys play next to each other was a blessing and a curse. Despite having MPRs, they didn't seem to play much. They were both on the bench at the same time, and when they were in, the plays move so quickly that it was hard to really watch them. For the first half of JP's game, he was playing on the line. After the half, the coach realized something wasn't working with his players so he made a quick adjustment and pulled JP back for the huddle. Of the 5 plays they ran, the first four were either handed off to someone else, or just ran. On the 5th play, I was over watching HD and was walking toward JP's field when he was handed the ball and made a dash for it. He had a flag pulled immediately, but was excited to get to touch the football. I was so excited I couldn't get my camera on and focused. I was at the wrong angle for it anyways, but still. Exciting none the less. We hope more of that happens with JP as the season continues. 

We've had other exciting news in the house too! We're losing more teeth!

 HD lost his first top tooth the day after Easter. He spent the entire evening trying to get it out. We tried pulling it and twisting it, but nothing. Then after school on Monday, he casually just pulled it out.

JP lost his first top tooth on Saturday after bugging me about wiggling it for him for the past several months. Both of his top teeth were loose though. He tried pulling it out with his Terra Climber race car, but no luck, so he also casually just pulled his out. He doesn't want to give it to the tooth fairy though... It was placed in his little treasure box under his pillow and then removed before she arrived. Instead of a coin, he was given a note saying she be back to look for it tomorrow... he hid it again. 

In other news - I think I've mentioned before that I'm having a really hard time sleeping through the night. I think it's been since maybe July since I've slept through the night without waking. I have no problem falling back to sleep, but I just tend to toss and turn all night. I've even bought a cooling pillow at who-know-what-thirty at night. It's okay. It stays cool to my face but it smells a little funky. Probably the aloe that's in it. 

But for the last several nights, Perry and I have been fighting. It's unnerving how confident he is in that he is not stealing all the covers. He refused to believe that he could ever be a cover hog. So the other morning when I woke up freezing, curled up in a little ball, I got proof.

I suck out of bed, leaving my side intact. I had a corner. I had even pulled up the quilt from the end of the bed in the middle of the night, and look where it ended up... The best part about this all was knowing I won. When I left the room, he heard the door tap the frame and he woke up, rolled over to look for me, realized he was being a hog, and tried to fix the bed to make his cover-hogging ways less obvious, as I giggled at him through the crack. The things I put up with...

Let's Go Warrior Eagles!

Today marked the official start of flag football for us. Technically practice began two weeks ago, but we had our first games this morning, and our boys are *still* on a losing streak. While I don't care so much they have *never* won a game (regardless of if they were keeping score or not) my boys have never been on the team that dominates, or is used to scoring. We've been through one baseball season, and five seasons of soccer and have yet to win.

We were hoping to change that streak today. We didn't. But we had fun anyways. That's what it's about right?

 These boys were troopers too! JP's game was scheduled to begin at 9;00a but we had to be there early enough to get his jersey and do warm-ups. Everyone slunk out of bed around 6:30, which really blew coming off of spring break, and we left the house around 7:15a. Scored a killer parking spot being one of the first ones there. Then we froze for the next several hours...

 JP can easily be picked out in numerous ways. A) We missed the gold socks memo. Everywhere I have read it clearly says, "Socks must be black" so imagine my surprise when the rest of the team shows up in gold socks... B) He wore his Lions sweatshirt under his jersey and insisted his hood be up. C) Never could you see his hands. How can you grab a flag when your hands aren't out?

This is typically what JP looks like when he sees mom taking a picture of him. He asks like the camera is going to steal his soul or something...

I wasn't sure how long the games would last, but they plan for them to last an hour. I think JP's lasted half an hour. It was over before they really got into the groove of it. There was also some confusion before the game as to who we were supposed to play. Apparently one of the fields was deemed unplayable so they had moved teams around to make up for the "missing" field and for some unknown reason, had our opponent playing at a later time. We scrambled to find another team ready to play...

I think it goes without say though, JP was mostly just excited for the snacks at the end of the game. 

With JP's game starting late and ending quickly, we had plenty of time to get HD over to his warm-up area and to then go find him after the game. Halfway through JP's game, HD and his team mom came over to find me because the league wasn't going to let him play because his physical hadn't been turned in. I'm thinking I came off pretty snarky when I told her I turned it in - to her- on the first day of practice. Luckily I had taken a picture of it, just in case, but then my phone wouldn't let me send it... She ended up taking of picture of my picture of the physical. Thankfully they let that pass as they continued to look for it. I was going to be *pissed* if they weren't going to let him play!

HD is on the "gold" offense and defense. He takes his position quite literally and lines up in the same exact position every time. It's cute! He's really good about using his body to block instead of his hands.

 Both Perry and I found it quite amusing HD, who might be the second smallest on the team, was having to block their biggest player. I mean they are the same height when the kid is hunched down!

 HD expressed how frustrated he was at the end of the game about how this kid was blocking wrong. (I didn't know the blocking rules until I googled them this afternoon.) You can't grab any part of the opponent, at all, or block with extended arms and here, this big guy is completely holding HD's shoulders. I see now why he was so frustrated! But he did a great job none-the-less!

They lost 7-12 but they all played great! Quite a few of his teammates were also first time football players too! I'm eager to see how both JP and HD progress this season!

Next game I'm wearing some rain boot because the wet grass we trudged through numerous times, were cold and wet by the end. And I'm probably bringing a backpack instead of a bag to carry stuff in. Definitely more blankets too! Though there was no rain, it's still pretty chilly at 8:00am! The slightest breeze turned me into a big baby, quick. 

I Let the Boys "Borrow" a Camera...

At the end of February, when my parents came to visit, the seven of us piled into my vehicle and headed to the zoo. My mom had given us a membership to the zoo for Christmas and this was the first semi-sunny, semi-warm day we had really had since we've moved, so it seemed to work out to be a great day to get out of the house.

While we were there, I did my "mom-blogger" duty by snapping pictures here and there of everyone to later use on the blog (but it didn't ever happen). After about an hour, HD asked if he could use my (Canon Rebel) camera to take pictures. To explain to an 8-year old how the zoom works + the hold to focus then push all the way to take the picture, all on top of not dropping it or banging it around is simply exhausting. The day before I had found a book titled, "Who's Butt?" at the library and assumed HD would like it simply because it had the word "butt" in it. In short it was a book about a photographer who, more times than not, captured pictures of the behinds of animals instead of their faces. (Anything to get him to read!) HD thought this was a great book, and wanted to make one of his own. That's what he set out to do with my camera in tow. I can't tell you how many times I heard, "Look! Look! I got a picture of its butt!" You know what though? I didn't care because if you know HD, he's usually bouncing around or not paying attention. This trip to the zoo was so relaxing. This kid was F.O.C.U.S.E.D.

Fast forward to spring break this week. I spontaneously decided we needed to get out of the house after JP broke the mirror that hung over my mantel. He apparently dropped kicked a football, right after I agreed he could have a friend come over. I cleaned it up, picked up his friend, made sandwiches and packed lunches for everyone, and then found batteries for an old camera of mine. I've been meaning to pick up an SD card for it, but haven't remembered yet, so I popped my Canon card into it and away we went. HD again enjoyed his time photographing animals and it seemed to make the zoo trip a little less chaotic. What was I thinking taking 4 kids to the zoo by myself?

That night at bedtime, we allowed the kids to sleep in the fort they had built in JP's room. HD grabbed the camera again and gave a very nice tour of it. Perry thought it was great! It wasn't quite up to the funny standards as the sledding video they made in December but hey. I love how HD points out every little detail.


In some of our down time yesterday, JP remembered the camera was working and took a very animated video of himself dancing on the ceiling. I don't know what I love best about it. Is it the music he makes himself? His dance moves? The way he tricks us into thinking he's actually dancing on the ceiling? It could very possibly be how out of breath his is at the end...

I didn't realize how much youtube they must have watched on my mom's iPad, but I also enjoy how they introduce themselves at the beginning!

Collages From our Time at the Missoula House

This winter has been a blur with all the chaos and changes going on for us. Never would I have guessed I would be moving back in with my parents but it happened. Being in limbo between two houses was quite the challenge! We kept busy none the less!

We spent Thanksgiving at Kim and Julian's brand-spankin' new house. It's beautiful! Unfortunately for Kim, she broke her wrist in a few places short while before Thanksgiving and jut had surgery on it the day before. Fortunately for the rest of the family, Kim can give pretty good directions and Julian prepared and cooked dinner. We spent the afternoon watching the Lions play the Vikings. The rivalry was pretty heated between Julian and me...there were some choice words said when my Lions pulled off a victory! Hahaha! Robin, Ramzi, and myself play Tri-Ominos while the boys occasionally sat down to play as well. Nap time on the couch was amazing. Ms. Gail never willingly takes naps :)

 I think the most annoying part about moving across town was having to drive the kids to school and pick them up every day from school. The bus was much more convenient... Ms. Gail and I often had plenty of time to kill before the boys were released from school. She's still working on her silly faces!

 To kick off the holiday season, I reluctantly purchased a village gingerbread house kit because I was simply tired of saying "no" to everything they wanted at the store. Ms. Gail and I decorated ours while the boys were at school. They were so anxious to get theirs decorated, but found it too time consuming. While I was cleaning up their mess, they stole my phone to do some night sledding. If you missed it or need to see it again, they made this video. I couldn't even be mad.

 We also managed to squeeze in one more fun evening at the hotel waterpark before we left town. It's too bad the boys didn't like swimming more when they were younger!

To finish up a little catch-up post, here's a few more random pictures from our time at the Missoula house. When we first moved in, Ms. Gail slept in Robin's bed, HD slept in the spare room, and JP slept on the floor in the playroom. The arrangement changed so many times because everyone wanted a turn sleeping in my bed. For a good month, I would wake up an uncountable number of times. By the end of our stay, all the kids were sleeping in some configuration in my room. I had a love/hate relationship with the whole thing. But we powered through!