About Katie

Ok. I'm going to be completely candid here. I've lived with you girls and love you all so hopefully you won't judge me. :)

My Family:

We're currently living in Wisconsin and have no idea when we'll be back in UT again (visiting or living).

Colin:
Colin is incredible. He's in the 2nd semester of his 2nd year of medical school. This means the last semester of lectures, just a few more months until boards (the huge test they take covering their first two years of med school and weigh heavily on residency placement) and then a couple weeks after that is rotations (you spend a month working in each basic field of medicine to see what you would like to do)! Not only is he super smart and hardworking when it comes to school he is also a massive help at home. He's supportive, loving, a comfort, and I lean on him a ton.

Naomi:
Naomi is adorable. She just turned 2 earlier this month. She loves to dance. She is addicted to movies (currently Rio and Tinker Bell) and candy (wonder where she got that from...). She's talking more and more everyday and becoming a little bit of a parrot. This means we have to be careful with what we say. She now knows "booger" and that it's "yucky" and that stinky diapers are "gross." She makes us laugh, drives us crazy, and makes me want to cry with the fact that she seems to be growing up so fast. In my mind it feels like she's going to be starting school in a month. I just want her to stop growing. Well, that and take a really long nap. Or sleep until 8. Both work for me. :)

Chloe:
Chloe is a joy. She's been giving me a rough time at night lately (she still won't go longer than 3 hours between feedings, even at night) but she makes up for it by being so free with her smiles and giggles. She's so excited to get any sort of attention. She's not the cuddliest baby (she's a wiggler) but at least she's happy!


Katie:

I'm exhausted. I feel like I'm not getting enough sleep and I believe it's beginning to affect my parenting. I'm ashamed to admit that I'm losing patience with Naomi and I'm not always the best comforter. It's just frustrating how my girls always seem to prefer Colin to me and then when Naomi gets upset with me she'll ask for Daddy, Grandma, Pa, anyone but me. I've begun to feel a loss of self lately and I'm not sure how to fix it. I love my girls, but I need a break from them. Is that horrible to feel like you need a mini vacation from your kids? It doesn't help that Naomi's having a hard time napping lately and Chloe's still waking up 3 times a night.

In other news, I'm loving Wisconsin. It's nice to lean on each other and really become our own family unit. However, I agree with Melissa. It's challenging making friends. The way I made friends was I either grew up with them or lived with them. Neither of those methods work here so it's been difficult.

I've been trying to improve upon myself. I strive to exercise everyday, I try to diet, and I've been using Proactiv but I've been discouraged. I have no idea if the exercising is working, dieting is tricky while nursing, and I'm not convinced the Proactiv is working.

I swear I'm not as unhappy as this all sounds! Just in a bit of a rut. Otherwise, I'm the same Katie! I still love movies although now we Redbox and stream Netflix instead of going to the theaters and always buying movies. I still love to read although I don't know what's good these days. I still love candy although I can't eat as much in one sitting and I'm leaning towards chocolate. And, of course, I'm still picky, although I've been working on that too. :)

Sorry I was so wordy. I'm still that too. haha Any questions?

About Melissa

Hey all!  I tried to make this easy to skim/easy-to-read.  I didn't mean to make it long.

Here's a little about me and my life as it currently is...

My Family
Me
It's been a big change for me going from super busy, always doing homework, never finishing said homework, and just barely squeezing by to being not so busy and have almost no obligations.  I think I'm finally getting the hang of it though (now that it's been a year).


Ryan
Ryan works as a recreational therapist at the state hospital and he really likes it.  He works with the adult male general psychiatric department.  Good for him (I would never enjoy that).

Vidalia
Vidalia is now 1 and is a super happy baby/little girl.  I'm so glad to have her.  Life would be so hard without her I think.  She's currently up to 13 steps.  So that's the stage we're in.


What's Going On With Us?
Moving
In March.  Staying in Lincoln.  Much better place.  Much cheaper place.  I've already started packing.

How are things?
We like ourselves, however, we wish we had friends.  How do you make those again?  I can't seem to remember.

Our Routine
We play lots and lots and lots and then eat and sleep.

Hopes, Dreams, Etc.
Family
I wish they were closer.

Children
I hope we are able to have a large family, but we'll just have to see.  It's too soon to know how that's all going to work out.  (Our official child policy is we have 1 we know we would like 2.  After we have 2, we'll be able to decide if we want 3.)  So asking/telling how many kids we want has become a taboo thing.  We just don't do it.  In large part because my family is super full of fertility issues and miscarriage issues and early menopause history.  I suspect a lot of how many and what timing will not be up to us at all.

Other things
Cloth Diapers
We use cloth diapers.  I'm willing to tell you guys anything you want to know about that.  We are experts at how we use cloth diapers and there are about a billion other ways to do it as well.  It's not really a one-size fits all.

Homeschooling
I've thought about it and thought about it and thought about it and I'm leaning towards homeschooling.  There are pros and cons to all types of schooling and when it comes down to why we're thinking of homeschooling, mostly we just want to.

Violin
It's always been my dream to teach my kids the things I know, so we've been teaching Vidalia the violin.  She's 1, so it's slow going, but we both love it.

Egypt
I keep hoping someday the records from Egypt will become available to someone like me.  One of my biggest dreams is to be able to find my family lines.  They go basically nowhere right now and it's currently impossible for me to do anything past what is done.  (At least right now it is.)


If there is anything you guys are curious about in our lives or how we do things or whatever, please feel free to ask.  As far as things I mentioned above, feel free to share insights, opinions, or what you do.  I want to know.

January: Getting to Know You

The goal for the month of January is a simple one.  We're going to get to know each other a little better as who we are now...a mother, a wife, and whatever else you may be.  I suspect (and hope, in the best way possible) that although the time we've spent as wives and mothers (vs. N109ers) has been only a few years, we're not the exact same people. Our responsibilities have changed and how we fulfill them is probably very different.

So tell us about you, about your family, about what's going on, about how things are, about your routine, about your hopes, about your dreams, about anything you want to share.

The goal I have in mind is that we'll get to know each other better and be able to discover more we can share with each other throughout this year!

Up And At 'Em!

Brain Food is a new project to get our noggins back in shape this year--to get the brain juices flowing again by learning something new each month of 2012. Let's hack out some possible topics. I'd say anything that makes us smarter, more skilled, or more self-sufficient would definitely be a great thing to investigate. Here's what's been suggested so far:

• Gourmet cooking at home
• Cloth diapering (or maybe a broader topic, "saving money on kid stuff")
• Family budgeting
• Low-cost healthy eating
• Sewing
• Crocheting
• Cleaning & organizing
• Photography
• Gardening
• Baking 
• Canning/food storage
• Car maintenance
• Potty training

I like all the ideas we've got, but I don't feel like we've got a complete/best list yet. Everybody edit this post and add more to the list!! Is there one topic that seems pretty simple that we all agree on that we can pick for January and get started on it soon? 

I've been thinking about it, and I think that with our crazy schedules and changing needs of our little ones and everything, maybe it would be easiest if instead of having one "expert" each month, we just pick a topic for the month & then everyone posts the cool stuff they're reading and doing and finding out about that subject (along with links to the articles they read, book reviews, whatever) so that the rest of us can follow each other's tracks based on how much time we have that week/month. We can just add a label for each post that identifies the topic (you just click "Labels" to the right of the post) so that they're searchable and sortable. Then the "homework" would be to take a picture of what we made/learned and post it by the last day of the month--I think it would be fun to show off what we're all doing, and that way I'd feel more accountable to actually try things out, you know? 

Thoughts? Everyone add a few more topic ideas this week so we can pick our favorites & get a schedule!