Spicy, Savvy & Sane: July 2009

Answer to Mom's Request to Send "A Picture a Day or Threreabouts"

The last day for the Asheville office to receive applications is Friday. Hopefully Rob will get a call for an interview shortly thereafter. I've always been someone who has a really difficult time with not knowing what is right around the corner. Will we be in California or in North Carolina in the fall? How do I plan? Do I start cleaning out the garage? Packing boxes? Obviously, no but the suspense is brutal.

I went last night to the OC Smug Meeting . I got to meet the talented Jamine Star and Jessica Claire. I am blown away but the generosity of this photographer community. I love being a part of it. I feel honored. I love loving what I do. That's what only about %20 of people who have careers can say...isn't that unbelievable?

Since we've been watching the television series, "Little House on the Prairie", I've picked up the first book, "On the Shores of Plum Creek" and have been using it as our read aloud for the last couple of days. I remember reading it when I was little but had completely forgotten how descriptive and sweet this series is. I strongly recommend it for the young learners in your family.

Dwight in Disneyland

Here we are in the most "magical place on earth". Who knew the most magical place would be so crowded and hot.

Here are my stunned Disneyland first timers. "What IS this place?"

Yes, he wore his cowboy hat to Disneyland. Makes my heart go all fluttery. Isn't he handsome even in his Dwight Yokoam phase?

Four

We celebrate Leila's fourth birthday tomorrow.
Yes, you know it's going to go fast because, as your children are growing up, someone tells you just about every day.

But I wasn't prepared for lightening speed.

Nothing has prepared me for the conversations we've had and the joy I've experienced as the Mama of this little girl.

In so many ways it seems that God sent her to Rob and I to save our sanity, help give us back our joy, our lives. It's a lot of weight for two little shoulders to carry but she's already filled the role. There's nothing left for her to do but smile.

Happy Birthday, Sunshine
********
Someone pinch me.
Rob was actually talking about which car we would need to take should Asheville work out.
I am trying to keep my feet on the ground but we would live no more than 3 hours from everyone in my family (not including extended relatives).
This is way too exciting to be true.
I've called the regional centers and school districts to get specifics about what kinds of therapies we could get for Luke. I am waiting to hear back from most of the people I've called but at this point I am thinking that we will make it work however we have to because it's about quality of life for ALL of us.

Night, night ~
xoxo Gina

Recently Rob, out of the blue, brought up Asheville, North Carolina and said it might be a nice place to live. "It's beautiful there." I said, not thinking much about it. A few nights later he brought his resume to me and asked me to take a look at it. Believe it or not, it actually took me a few days to put it together.

Rob used to work with someone who now works in the Asheville office and the head of the office called to see if Rob would be interested in a newly-opened position. I am trying not to get my hopes up but I really don't know how not too. If we lived in Asheville we would be no further than 2 hours from every single member of my family and my children can grow up with their cousins. I can't remember the last time I was hoping for something this much. Since it hit me FINALLY yesterday, and I looked up the job and saw the posting, I've been praying literally almost non-stop that this could work out for us. I love California and I've met some wonderful people and made some beautiful friendships but this would be a dream come true. I'm trying desperately to live in the now and be thankful for where I am.

But when the kids were napping this afternoon I spent almost an hour on Google Earth touring Asheville. I am on the edge of my seat. In the next few weeks I am going to be either elated or very disapointed. I hope I handle whichever is meant to be with the appropriate measure of grace.

Bullet Points

Today we finished Milly Molly Mandy and tomorrow, for movie night, we'll be watching Anne of Green Gables, the sequel. Popcorn included. Who am I fooling? It's popcorn night with a little bit of movie watching thrown in.

There was a substitute sensei in Leila's karate class tonight and he kept calling Leila "Leela" but she said "That's okay, he can call me that if he wants."

We've decided on a language program -- Rosetta Stone. We'll go through level 1-3 of Spanish and then level 1-3 of French. I think that will take them up to 7th or 8th grade and then we'll spend some time with Latin.

And for math, it looks like it will be Math-U-See. Like so many, I wasn't much for math in school and I wanted to find a way to make it interesting and...let's be honest...easy. I think I may have found it with Math-U-See.
I love all the concepts in The Well Trained Mind and am planning on pretty much following it to the letter. The website is chock full of useful tidbits.
On the "issues" front, Leila is wanting to talk back to me a bit (okay, a lot) and we are working on saying only, "okay [or] yes, Mommy" rather than her offering her whole line up of "if"s, "and"s and "but"s. Liam issue is SCREAMING! He screams when he's happy and he screams when he cries. I must curve this habit NOW! So not fun.
We've read through the beautifully-written, Wind in the Willows recently but I'm thinking of picking it up again.
I love Voddie Baucham
Liam loves to kiss and it looks something like this:

Four

My little tiny baby girl is going to be four and has legs up to here.

We've decided to go for it and go to Disneyland.

I think four is kind of the magical age. It's going too fast.

Way to fast.

I vacillate on whether or not to keep this blog going but I'm attached to it for some reason. I'll use it for candid shots and nothin' too fancy.

Nighty night,
Gina