March

I've missed writing on my blog and it has been bugging me that I don't just sit down and do it!

 Life has been busy and good. Anders is getting so big and we have noticed some nice changes in his almost 5 behavior. He still has a HUGE imagination and loves guns, battles, sling shots and all things battle and boy. He is getting more empathetic with a little help from me and Chris although we are still working on that character trait!  When we moved to this back house in October he went through a rough patch with all of the changes. We had to really crack down on being a friend, kindness, (not hitting, throwing things or harming anyone). I really struggled with guilt and wondered how in the world to tame this little savage! It turns out that with consistency and time these things work themselves out.
 Life has gotten into a nice cadence and we are truly enjoying the atmosphere of our life. We love living so close to our friends and their nice daughters. Anders is learning all kinds of things about friendships and life here. The backyard is a fantastic place for adventures and fun and I love watching the kids play while I'm doing dishes.

Chris is doing well too and is enjoying his work. He has been able to take advantage of the train which is a nice stress free commuting option. The L.A. freeways can take their toll!
We have been going to church down the street from us where some friends of ours have been involved for a long time. They had been inviting us to come and when we found out how close it was we couldn't refuse. We miss Malibu Presbyterian but the drive was just getting too much to do so often. Anders still goes to school there a couple of times a week and I am involved with MOPS as well. Next year we will be staying closer to home and I'm looking forward to less driving.

As a side note, this month Chris and I celebrated 5 years of Marriage by spending the night up in Solvang. We came to the conclusion that Solvang is a "drive through" kind of a place. We were immensely grateful to my parents who took Anders for the night to give us a little break.

Here are a few pictures that I've been snapping lately.

Super Boy!

This is a still shot from a video I took of our neighbor Kate and Anders playing in our house.

Cowboy

Anders and his friend Stella at pre-school. They'll miss each other next year.

Letting Anders play in the bubble water to kill time. This window is my view of the  back yard.

We've had some rainy days lately. This is my view from the couch

Entertrainment Junction

We returned home on Monday night from a 6 day trip to Cincinnati to be a part of my Mother in law's wedding.
It was an activity packed trip beginning with a visit to the Entertrainment Junction which apparently  holds the record for the largest model train display in the world. It was such a cool museum that we could have all used another couple of hours to take it all in. There was a North Pole section devoted to Santa, Mrs. Clause, a lively skit of the Christmas Carol and a large display of Christmas trains. It was quite incredible! Here are some pictures of the museum.

Totally in love with Entertrainment Junction!

The displays were so detailed and interesting! I couldn't help taking pictures of the actual model villages and scenes.

There was a whole playground area that was a great way to get the wiggles out! 

Such a fun Christmas model.

Mrs. Clause baking cookies for the children...

Anders LOVED Santa! He asked for an orange race car with the #4 on it...

Grandma J.

Pictures of the new place

A few weeks ago I took some pictures of our new digs. We really do feel at home now and we're enjoying the new atmosphere that this new space provides.

Our bed is sort of in the living room but now we have long curtains  separating the two rooms. The t.v.  and entertainment center are finding new homes and we'll have two more comfy chairs in that spot.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

We have so much to be thankful for this year. We're thankful for a good job, health, a great living situation, and most of all for salvation.

Have a blessed and fun Thanksgiving.

A little catch up perhaps?

It has been too long since I have posted. We moved the weekend before last and there is no internet, computer or television which is both good and bad. It's good when Chris is home but bad when Anders is in bed and I am home alone. Let's just say that I've been getting plenty of sleep. Today the cable guy is coming and we'll at least have Wifi so I can catch up a little on my iPhone. We haven't been missing the unhealthy amounts of t.v. watching and since we have a little dvd player/t.v. Anders can watch dvds every once in a while. All of my books, cds and dvds are packed away in storage so I'll be hitting up the library today for a few movies and books. I do have a Kindle but because of a lack of Wifi I haven't been able to download any books while at home. But I will as soon as I can!

I haven't begun to feel settled in the new place yet. The storage is really limited and I just feel like I'm bumping into something wherever I turn. Since the house was unoccupied for almost a year with the windows open, I'm fighting a small war against little buggies that think it's their house too. I've sprayed bug spray around the perimeter as well as around baseboards and windows and it looks like I may win yet! On the upside, it is VERY quiet and peaceful at night and since we don't have curtains or shades up yet we fall asleep to moonlight and mysterious tree shadows every night. Very relaxing. Our friends who live in the front house are so gracious and we're really glad to get to live so near them. The girls have been very sweet to Anders and so far we've only had one "inccident" where Anders wasn't so kind and I had to have a "coming to Jesus meeting" with him. We like having the dogs to play with and the big chocolate lab Charley comes to visit sometimes and "vacuum" my kitchen floor.
I'll post picures as soon as things are in order and we have a computer to post from. Today I'm visiting the computer center at our old apartment while Anders is in pre-school.

Changes

It's finally hot again here in SoCal. We have had the most amazingly comfortable summer (sorry rest of the country) but as of this week it's been ranging from 98-102. Thank goodness for air con, indoor play and t.v....

I haven't been posting much here lately mostly because Facebook has taken over most of my social networking time. It's become hard for me to write anything significant over 3 sentences long. O.k. so part of that is just me or summer melting my brain, or white sugar, white flour and corn syrup, or motherhood, or too much t.v. or not enough reading or engaging in meaningful conversation on a regular basis... The list could go on.

So, the past few weeks Chris and I have been looking in earnest at different living arrangements. It's weird that we would because we LOVE it here. We have a life here. The beach is 10 minutes away and did I mention that we love it here? BUT, Chris is driving so much everyday and we know that our sweet affordable housing deal will expire in a year and rent keeps going up. We've just been feeling... restless. So, when I was at a friends house cutting her 4 girls hair, she mentioned that they had a back house that they needed to rent out. I had a look at it and went home and excitedly told Chris about it. All of a sudden there was this option, a very reasonably priced option out there. Financially we could really use the break. We need to save and take care of some other obligations without feeling strapped all of the time.

As we considered this option we looked around the area where Chris works. There were some really sweet places built in the 40's and 50's with tons of space but they were a bit more pricey. Tempting but we realized that we would be even more stressed financially by making the move and by paying more. We would also have to take Anders out of the great pre-school that he's in because of the distance.

Soooo.... On October 1st (Lord will'n and the creek don't rise) we'll be moving into the small one bedroom back house with a gigantic yard with 4 very sweet little girls and three dogs for Anders to play with. It will be an adventure although I'm a little apprehensive about losing some of the luxuries that we have had here. But, I'm ready for it. I'm sure that it will be character building and in the long run we'll have fond memories for this place in our lives.
I've already started sorting through the mass of baby clothes that we don't need and hauled them to the Goodwill. Next will be packing up books, cds, clothes and kitchen ware that we don't immediately need. Most of these will go into storage while we live in this house.

I'll update as we get closer to the first and hopefully I won't have gone packing crazy by then!

Kidspace Museum and critters

Last week we went the kidspace Museum in Pasadena. There were so many fun ways to burn off extra kid energy! Riding tricycles around a track, playing in the cool stream, climbing the indoor structures or the outside climb wall, learning about spiders and insects, digging for dino bones and more.... So much  fun!

I had to add this picture of two kind of cute little frogs that found cool comfort on our patio this week. I posted this on Facebook but thought I'd repost it to balance out all of the picture of Anders....