A birthday blog

This post will be catching up on birthdays! So many birthdays lol.

In order starting after Weston's 3rd birthday. We had Daisy's 8th  birthday. She had a Little Mermaid theme. I didn't get many good shots from it though. Oh what I would give to have a good camera!!!

DQ Ice cream cake. Yum!!

Decorations!

Next, up Baylie's 10th birthday! A banana split party!! Again with the camera and no many good pictures coming from the day :(

These are banana split cupcakes. A pinterest find with my own twist! Those are chocolate and banana cupcakes with strawberry frosting topped with chocolate syrup sprinkles and a cherry! They were so good! Of course we had real banana splits too!

Presents!

Then my sweet little Pepper turned 6! Holy macaroni how did 6 years go by so fast?! She opted for a beach theme since summer was just around the corner. So fun and bright! But her cake, pinterest inspired again, was close to a pinterest fail. But you gotta post the good with the bad right?

That lovely lady in the background is my Grammie. She's an amazing lady and at over 80 years old is still going strong. We love having her at our parties!!

The beach-y Pinterest fail cake.

Pepper's big birthday surprise was going to the feed store and getting to pick out our very first chickens! This was the lot she picked. I have a post in the works on our adventure in chickens, since we've now been chicken folk for almost a year.

 Now we come back full circle to Weston! This time his 4th birthday. And what a doozie it was for him!

This happened the night before his birthday. Actually at about midnight the day of his birthday the x-ray came back. He broke his leg. Just under the knee cap. Little guy bounced wrong on the trampoline we had just set up and hurt it. I, being the super mom I am, thought he twisted it, or maybe pulled his ACL. But, it became clear at about 9 that night when he woke screaming in pain and was unable to bear any weight on it that he had broken or torn something. I had dad take him to ER, where they confirmed he had broken his leg. A week later he was in a full cast from his thigh to his toes for 4 weeks, and then 2 more weeks of rehab to relearn to use it. But now he's no worse for he wear and you can't even tell.

He really wanted a John Deere tractor birthday, so that's what he got!

Our last celebrated birthday was Daisy's 9th. We squeezed it into a trip back home over Thanksgiving since her birthday was so close. We had it at a local bowling alley. She asked for a Shopkins theme this time. Shopkins. Have you seen these things? There's about a billion on them!

Her cake, Done by Wal-mart.

Lining up the ball take lots of concentration! She had a blast with all her cousins. Now I have all the other kids asking to go back for their birthday's too! Sorry kids, we have to save money to move back!
That's all for the backlogged birthday's. Next up, here in a few months is Baylie's 11th birthday....my stars ELEVEN!! AHHHHH!!!! She's almost a teen! No, not yet!!! Deep deep breaths lol.

What 2016 taught us

It's been a year since I've written on this thing. Why? Why wait over a year? Because life. That's why.
It was hard to go through all we've gone through and to stay upbeat and positive on here. Which isn't to  say good things didn't happen, because they did, but they happened with the shadow of all the other stuff going on over them.
So what happened?
Life got crazy right after W's 3rd birthday. Just before his birthday we realized that we couldn't hold onto the brand new house we just bought less than 6 months prior. We did what so many others out there have done, we got in over our heads. Thanks to our current (almost gone, yay!) President and his war on affordable energy the little town in Wyoming where we lived began to suffer. Our town is a town based on energy: coal and oil. And both flat-lined. Hard. Right after W's birthday. My husband worked for a company that serviced the machinery for the coal mines and oil fields. Coal and oil cutbacks meant suddenly our family income went from $22/hr and 60+ hours a week (that over time was time and a half btw) to a flat 40 a week.
We had no choice. Half way through July 2015 we put our house up for sale. But, everyone in our town was in the same boat. 35-40K people felt the strain of one persons misinformed vendetta against affordable energy. Which mean our house sat and sat and sat, and I took a job as special education teacher's assistant to make ends meet and to try to keep paying our mortgage, and still the house sat on the market. D's 8th birthday and J's 31st came and went. So did mine, and then we rolled into 2016. B's 10th birthday came in March and P's 6th came in May. Then we were faced with something else, a few medical bills and the end of the school year. How could we possibly make it with me at home for the summer, unable to afford daycare for 4 children while I worked?
Daycare is crazy ya'll. Straight up CRAZY! I was paying $480 a month for W and $125 for the girls to go to a before school program since I started school before them. And now? Now we pay $660 a month for W and $360 a month for an after school program for the girls. Also, we make less here than we did before. Super duper.
Back to the house though. We had to make a really tough choice. Keep holding on when we couldn't afford to (aka take out a loan we couldn't afford to make it through the summer) or let it go back to the back in a deed in lieu of foreclosure process. We chose the latter. We started the papers in May. Celebrated W's 4th birthday in July. We are just finishing the process now in December. It's a very long slow process.
Then another opportunity presented itself and another decision. A big one. A good friend of mine from high school came to visit from North Dakota. I lamented to her our issues with the slow local economy, the house, etc. She told me about the booming economy in ND. The Jobs! The Housing! The Cost of Living! So I applied for a job at the school district there, and after one phone interview they offered me the job. So, we debated. We were loosing the house, the economy was failing. There was talk of lay-off with J's company. We decided to jump.
We waited until after the county fair (post coming soon for that one!) and we packed up our chickens, dogs and a u-haul and head northeast.
Our first weeks here were awful (another post lol). And life settled down, but was it all that we were told? No. There are jobs aplenty for sure, but the pay is less and we now have to pay a state income tax, which is something new for us. Prices in general are higher here. Lots of housing options, but very few accept pets, and even fewer accept large dogs. We pay a premium for our 3 bedroom townhouse because it was literally one of the only places that would take 2 dogs over 30 pounds. Seriously. And yes you read that right. 3 bedrooms. For 6 people ya'll. The 3 girls share one and Weston gets his own, and we have our bedroom. 6 people are sharing a little less than 1200 sq. feet of house with no yard. But we do have a garage, which is handy. We keep the chickens at my friends family farmhouse 30 minutes south of town, which works as that's where J found work.
We know we will be moving back as soon at the opportunity presents itself, most certainly after the school year ends in May.
What did 2016 teach us? How to rely on each other when life falls apart. How to admit defeat. That sometimes the grass isn't as green as the cows on the other side tell you. It taught me that I need to finish my education for our big-ish family of 6 to be able to live. How to live with far less than we ever thought we could. How to budget more than we thought possible. But by far the biggest thing 2016 taught us is about family. I never thought I could miss my family like I do. My heart hurts every time I think of those we left behind us. How little time my kids have left with their great-grandparents. How much we've missed of our newest niece's first year. And so much more. We need our families to be closer than they are right now.
That's what we learned from the year that took so much from us. We hope 2017 will give us enough time to get it back.

Welcome 2017

3 and some change

So my little man turned 3 on July 3rd. I cannot believe he is already 3!!!!! Time needs to slow up for sure. We had a small family celebration on the 3rd and the big family celebration on the 4th. His big party included an epic water fight in our new pool followed by presents, a barbeque, s'mores cupcakes, and sparklers. Later that night we went to the big fireworks show our town puts on for the community. It was a great weekend.

 

 

As for the changes coming in our lives, there has been lots of indecision lots of frustration and lots of tears. We decided last minute I couldn't go through with the hysterectomy due to finances. At almost $5,000 out of pocket after insurance, it was simply more than we could afford. I look forward to having it out someday so I can be comfortable again, but not now.

We have officially listed our house for sale. Again for financial reasons. It was a learning experience. A mortgage we should have been able to afford then a slow down at work made it next to impossible to have a family and the house at the same time. So over the last few months we have put our hearts and souls and blood, sweat and tears into this place. Pulling from resources we didn't have to pull from. (Thank God for banks willing to loan money for things like reno) We finished the basement with an extra family room, 1/2 bath and bedroom. We also had the unexpected reno of the upstairs guest bath. A new toilet, a new tub and surround and she's good as new again. But it's now even more imperative that we sell this house quickly because we have the loan we got to cover the renovations. Which takes us to the next sort of change.

I will not be going back to school this fall as I had planned. With so much uncertainty going on with the housing and finances we simply cannot afford for me to go back to school. We are barely scraping together each paycheck as it is, so there is no way we could afford for me to drive 3 hrs away each week and take out student loans and swing another small rental budget. I was also very saddened that I would be missing all of my PJ's kindergarten things. I would be missing out on all the little plays and holiday parties that they get in school. Missing parent teacher conferences. Missing that first day. I just can't miss those thing, because once you do you can never get them back, and my husband wouldn't be able to make it to them either due to his work schedule. So, for better or worse, I've decided to give up my dream of being a teacher. I guess that means I have no more dreams- which is very sad. Lots of tears over this decision. Instead I will try to get on with the school district in a different capacity that will still allow me a steady paycheck to help make up the difference in our budget while allowing me to have the holidays and summers off with the kids.

All in all, I feel like I've given up a lot of dreams for my family this year. We've made some pretty big sacrifices to make things work for them. The house, my career, even my health. I'm struggling not to be bitter or upset about this, but its pretty hard. Focusing on the positive things helps, but it's still not what I had envisioned for us. Maybe someday I will get to go back, but I seriously doubt it. That in itself is depressing. I will leave this post with one of my happy thought: perhaps selling this house will let us move to a new place where we can have the livestock I dream of, letting my kids do 4-h. Sometimes letting go of old dreams lets us discover new ones.

Surgery, blood pressure, and.....college?!

My oh my, what a week and a half its been at the casa de Soesbe! Per my last post my bp was skyrocketing out of control, but medication had be prescribed to help. Well at my doctors request I came back after a week of taking the medication and much to the surprise of the nurse practitioner my bp had dropped down to 120/78, much closer to my "normal" and well within the parameters of safe.

With the news of my improved bp, the ob/gyn's office called me back this morning with notes from the man himself that said to go ahead and schedule all the pre-op things and a set a date for surgery. EEEKK!! I'm looking forward to the surgery, but as I sit here I find that I am both nervous and sad as well. Nervous for several reasons. There's always a risk associated with surgery. Then there's the fact hubby has to take off 2 days of work because they don't operate on Fridays, we might be able to slim that down to one day if I can find someone to help me out on Friday. I'm sort of sad too because this is the end of the end of the end with kids. I mean I know we aren't having any more, but now its something about the fact that I can't anymore. Period. The End. Game over. It's a bit sad to me. But all of that is overshadowed by the fact that I will no longer have the yuckiness that surrounds my monthly flow. 3 weeks of the month of nothing but feeling sick, hormones, with a heaping side of pain and misery sandwiched in the middle just for fun. My uterus has been a dear frienemy to me for all of my life. It's also been an amazing giver of life, the protective powerhouse that nourished and supported of all 4 of my children. And so I am sad to see it go, but happy to finally feel good again.

And lastly, over the past 2 weeks the hubs and I have been talking about going back to school. I have about 2-2 1/2 years left to finish the degree I originally started out to achieve. Waaaay way back in the fall of 2003 I started college at Kansas State to get my degree in Agricultural Education. He is undecided what he wants to be when he grows up, but he knows that he doesn't want to continue doing what he's doing in the patch. His body is falling apart out there and we both know he won't make it to retirement age out there. So the plan is, at this moment, to have us both return at the same time. Me full time, him part time on the nights/computer based. Then when I graduate and get a job he will finish off his degree by going back full time. Hopefully at the end of 3-4 years we will both be working in careers we both really enjoy and can retire from.

Blood Pressure and a Hysterectomy

Last week I went to see my Ob/Gyn for my yearly womanly thing...well in this case it was like one every 2 years (my Ob is a really busy man I made that appointment 2 years ago at my last check!). I love my Ob, he's a terrific man with a huge heart. I've been having repro issues, well all my life really but I never knew it until a few years ago, so we started the conversation of a hysterectomy right after Wes was born. As the years have gone on the issues are getting worse and so at this meeting we decided that it was time for the surgery to happen sooner rather than later. One problem. I suddenly seem to have an issue with my blood pressure. All of my adult life it's never been an issue, even in pregnancy, but it is now. I've gone from a normal bp of 110/78 to 140/91...yikes! So, in order to have the surgery safely I have to get my bp down. He started me on a medication to help, and I am starting a new "diet" and work out program this Thursday. Couch to 5K is something I've done in the past with success, so I will be going back to it. I am trying to not see this different way of eating as a diet as that puts me in the mind frame of "can't have" or "don't eat" an that always leads me to feelings of resentment. So, this time I am just trying to just look at is as eating healthier.
In other news, my Pepper J. is now off of her IEP, or she will be in May when the school year ends. She no longer needs it for her speech. I'm not sure I am ready for her to start Kinder though. I'm not sure she's there, but I have time to decide.
Today I had my school tour for Weston as well. The preschool does this will all incoming kids regardless of other siblings that may have gone or are still in the school. So Wes will be in the same school and in the same class as Pepper, luckily for the classroom, Pepper won't be there this fall when Wes starts. Those two are like oil and water and fight...a lot! We started potty training Wes over the Easter break, he's getting there, we almost have it down- boys are definitely different than girl where potty training is concerned!
Baylie just had her IEP meeting as well. She's progressing so nicely, we are blown away. She is now loosing one of her therapies, which is amazing! She will no long have adaptive PE because she is now strong enough to not need it any more. However, the adaptive PE teacher is still on her IEP as a consult in the event she runs into something she needs help on. Amazing little girl. She will do Extended school year aka summer school, just to help solidify some of the areas that are rough for her.
Daisy is Daisy. She's great in school. We found out on Easter, thanks to my mom and step dad, that both Daisy and Baylie are both very good at softball. Very natural with the bat and good (surprisingly) with the hand eye coordination needed to hit the ball. So, we decided to go ahead and sign them both up for softball at our local recreation center, that will start April 27 and run to July 9th. 3 days a week and then games on the weekends...oh boy, what did I sign myself up for?! lol.
That's it for Soesbe household news!

 

And for accountability sake my dinner planner:

1) Chicken stir-fry Pitas

2) Turkey Burgers w/no sodium green beans & mashed sweet potatoes

3) Swai w/ Wild rice and Sautéed summer veggies (red peppers, summer squash, zucchini, onion)

4) Skinny chicken salad (via skinnymom.com) pitas & chips (chips for the kids and hubs not me)

5) Chicken Eggplant Parmesan w/veggie noodles and garlic bread (bread for kids not me)

6) Grilled chicken breast w/ side salad and berries

7) Oatmeal w/ eggs and turkey sausage

One year, and a busy August!

*****This was a draft I wrote in august of 2013 that was never published, but I feel like its been in the draft box long enough and deserves to see the light of day.*****

Weston turned one July 3rd!! I cannot believe how fast the time has gone. He's such a little ham, and we love him to bits. This picture was taken on his first birthday!

 

 
 
 
 Here is a picture taken from his party we did on the 4th. This is the dessert bar! We had apple pie, cupcakes, ice cream and s'mores!

 

Two Years

It's been two years since I last posted.
The last two years have been a roller coaster of ups and downs but I will do the best I can to do a brief updates. Last October we sold our house, and had to temporarily move into a smelly small apartment. Let's say that 6 people in a two bedroom 1.5 bathroom 800 sq feet apartment on the top floor with a dog is not fun. Thankfully, we were able to purchase a new house in our old neighborhood within 3 months of closing on our old house- I don't think I could have taken another month in that apartment!
After selling our old house we used the profit from it (the good thing about buying a foreclosure is that there is usually a pretty decent profit) to pay off every single thing in our lives. And for 3 months we were completely debt free for the first time in our 9 year relationship. Yep, even the vehicles are paid off!!
Baylie:
Baylie has just turned 9! Can you believe that?! One more year and she will cross into the double digits. She is finishing up her 3rd grade year and is doing very well in school. She has come so very far in the last couple of years. Something in second grade clicked in her head and suddenly she became the spelling queen. She's funny and loving and very maternal. I can't wait to see what the next few years bring for her academically because she is far surpassing anything anyone could have imagined (especially me!).
Daisy:
Daisy turned 7 in December. She is rocking 1st grade. She is so smart, I am blown away by how fast she picks things up. Last weekend she finally got the hang of riding her bicycle without the training wheels, we celebrated by buying her a new helmet with a unicorn on it :) I wish desperately we could afford to put her in sports- like dance or gymnastics. Daisy is thoughtful and witty and very helpful. Watching her grow and learn has been so much fun.
Pepper:
Pepper Jeannette...oh Pepper my Pepper. She is crazy and funny and spirited and so much more. She is getting ready to start kindergarten in the fall and is very excited. She's been in early intervention for about a year getting speech therapy, the school therapist thinks this will probably continue into grade school for her pretty pronounced lisp. The school calls PJ a "very strong will child" meaning that when she doesn't want to do something even the almighty power of God couldn't make her do it. We all that hard headed. She has a beautiful kind soul and she simply doesn't take any crap from anyone...ever.
Weston:
Weston is so smart, and funny and ALL boy. I love having a boy, he makes things....interesting. He's 2 and a half and is some where between the terrible two's and the threating threes, with just a hint of the forceful fours. He loves dirt and mud and tractors, but has to have Baylie's old purple blanket to sleep every night and lugs it everywhere with him when we go to town. He loves things that sparkle and shine- the brighter the color the better. He's at a stage where all he wants to do is help...he could help someone to an early grave I think! My life is definitely a little brighter with him in it and way more complicated in the best sort of way.
Everything else:
James and I are still doing good, 9 years of marriage and coming on 10 years of dating and I still love him- I call that a win. At Christmas we added another member to our family in the form of a 4 legged friend. His name is Cowboy and he is 1/2 standard collie, 1/4 border collie, 1/4 chow. He's been a challenge. Right after our move into the new house he started having seizures. For almost a month he had test after test and what seemed like an ever increasing dosage of medication to help control them. The medication cause excessive urination and behavior issues with the kids. It was looking bleak with him, we were pretty certain we would have to re-home him to someone that could afford his meds and dr. bills and had time to work with the peeing and behavior, but as suddenly as they came they left, we were able to back him off the meds and eventually stopped and they haven't been back home since. All the issues we had with the meds vanished as well.
I promise to update more. As I read back through all my old posts from the years of blogging I realized I missed writing out my thoughts, the kids crazy antics and the ever changing dynamic of our household. Those memories are written there for me to read whenever I feel like it for me to keep preserved and cherished for the future. Things I have forgotten with time and a busy life. And I know in the last two years there are things that I should have put down, cherished memories that are buried somewhere in my subconscious that may or may not resurface. And, so I will no longer blog to do it, but instead as a kind of indestructible memory album.
That is all for tonight.