Loving New Mexico - 2nd Edition

4- Balloon Fiesta - Albuquerque is home to the International Hot Air Balloon Fiesta, and it is quite an amazing sight. Hundreds of balloons lift off early in the morning every day for a week. We went one morning and sat and watched the balloons as they lifted off, it was awesome! We also went to the "Special Shape Glow-deo" where all the special shape balloons inflate and sit in a big field where you can walk around and see them light up. Its definitely a unique event that all of you should come see next October!

(These pictures don't do it justice at all, see cooler pictures here and here)

5- Friendly Attorneys - We've been invited to several get togethers with attorneys that Chad works with and we have several more planned. Its been great to get to know them and its been great to start having friends here.

6-Chad's Job - We're very grateful that he's employed and he loves his job. What more could we ask for?

7- In laws nearby - Chad's parents live here, and it's been nice for us to have family here while we adjust to our new lives. The kids love still living by one set of grandparents and constantly being spoiled.

8-Panda Express - They don't have Panda in Ohio (at least near where we were living) and its delicious.

9- Dion's - Yummy pizza they only have here in Albuquerque.

10- Our first house! Ugly as sin on the outside, but fabulous on the inside. We decided early on in our house hunting that I just had to not care what the outside of the house looked like. If we decided that we were not going to buy a house with stucco we would have severely limited our options. Now, not only did we purchase a house built of stucco, but it even has a flat roof and looks like a prehistoric dwelling. Don't get me wrong folks, I LOVE this house, but I will never pretend that the outside isn't ugly. Here she is!!

We're moving in this weekend!

Alright, I can't just make a blog post without adding a couple pictures of some cute kids.

Random

We have lots of random things to say, so if you'd like to be in the know, read on.

-Carly doesn't have a stuffed animal, she sleeps with books. She insists on being laid in her crib with a small board book and she's usually still clutching the book when she wakes up.

-Jay thinks everything that comes out of Carly's mouth is "gaGA" (emphasis on the 2nd GA), so he uses the word constantly. For example "Mom, watch me gaGA", or "Carly wants gaGA for lunch". He even sings entire songs replacing all words with "gaGA".

-Most of you know that shortly after Carly was born, she developed a hemangioma under her left eye. (She also developed one on the back of her head, and one on her back, but the one under her eye was the most noticeable.) There was a possibility that the one under her eye would need to be removed for fear of it interfering with her vision, but thankfully it was not a problem. We were told the hemangioma would fade over time and go away by the time she was 2, but currently the hemangioma is almost completely gone. Here are 2 pictures for comparison:

6 Months Old

1 Year Old

-Carly is almost walking. Actually, she is walking, but won't do it if she thinks you're watching. If you turn around and pretend you're not looking, she'll gladly walk across the room.

-Jay now officially has chores to do. His chores include unloading most of the dishwasher, making his bed, and picking up toys all over the house. He does a pretty good job and is still pretty excited about doing them, but I'm sure that won't last. Sometimes he gets a quarter for doing them, but he really doesn't care about the money.

-Yes, I am likely allowing my 3 year old to be the same thing for Halloween as every other 3 year old boy. Spiderman.

-We're buying a house and just have a few more hoops to jump through before we can close. We really love the house and are really excited to have a permanent place of residence. We'll show you pictures as soon as we close! (yes, its stucco and has a flat roof)

-We really want to purchase Beatles Rock Band for the Wii. However, since we don't want to use money from the monthly budget, we're trying to find creative ways to find money to buy it without using "real" money accounted for in the budget. So far, we're cashing in the spare change, and using Amazon giftcards earned through Swagbucks to raise money for our cause. We're about half way there, so we're hoping to be able to get it by Christmas!

-Chad and I are getting back into shape and even trading off days running at 6 am. (Chad's parents have a treadmill and it has been very convenient) I am not a morning workout person, but we've been consistent for a few weeks and it feels good. We're searching for a race to run, but all races around here seem to be on Sundays.

-Chad's parents have a fabulous apple tree in their yard and so we picked tons of huge delicious apples. I tried my hand at making applesauce and it turned out quite yummy. I was going to try canning the applesauce, but I got a little overwhelmed and decided to just freeze the applesauce instead.

-Speaking of how domestic I am, did you hear that I won a pie contest? Some attorneys at Chad's law firm invited us to a pie party and I made a lemon meringue pie fro scratch to enter into the contest. To my surprise, I won! (It was delicious if I do say so myself)

I've got another edition of "Loving New Mexico" almost ready for publishing, so stay tuned!

Loving New Mexico - 1st Edition

My goal is to find 100 reasons I love New Mexico by the end of the year in order to encourage a more positive outlook on our current situation. I better get cracking.

1. Sidewalks everywhere - Ohio is seriously lacking in the sidewalk department. Who's dumb idea was it to build 95% of Copley, OH without sidewalks? Albuquerque has sidewalks everywhere and me and my stroller love them.

2. Tortilla availability - It's true, you can find a huge selection of tortillas and green chilies everywhere. One time in Ohio we couldn't find the tortillas at the grocery store, so we found an employee and asked:

"Where could we find the flour tortillas?"

to which he replied,

"Is that hard taco or soft taco?"

3. Explora! The kids science museum here is fabulous! Jay and Carly love it (there seriously is even stuff for Carly to do), and we go almost weekly. We split a year membership with Chad's parents and it has already paid for itself several times. They even have Adult Night every other month and Chad and I are really excited to go this month and explore the place by ourselves.

Albuquerque Living

Well, we've been here in Albuquerque for almost 2 months now. We're still staying with Chad's parents while we try to find a house, so it really still feels like vacation. Every couple days (alright, just about everyday) I say something to Chad like "Do I really live in Albuquerque, New Mexico?" or "I never thought in my wildest nightmares I would be living in Albuquerque". Truth be told, it's not all that bad. I just try not to think too much about my brown surroundings and the Ohio green I miss so much.

We're searching for a house to purchase before we miss out on the tax credit, so the clock is ticking. We're waiting on an offer, and still searching. Hopefully we will soon have a house and be able to get all our stuff back and maybe this place will start feeling a little more like home.

Chad is loving his job. He is busy learning to do complicated estate planning and studying for the New Mexico bar exam he will take in February.

It's been suggested that I start posting "Reasons I Love Albuquerque" posts on a regular basis to convince myself that I like it here. I'm working on it and progressing day by day. I no longer have to hold back tears every time someone says "How do you like Albuquerque so far?" so I consider that a huge improvement. I think I've got quite awhile to adjust to this situation, so I'm going to take it.


The kids are having fun and growing so much. We've posted updates and pictures of each of them below (I know, 3 posts in one day, CRAZY!)

All About Jay

Most of you know Jay has numerous eating/gagging/swallowing/breathing issues due to some ENORMOUS tonsils that took up the majority of his mouth. Every doctor who looked in his mouth says "Whoa, those things are huge!". Well, we finally got him to an ENT here who said the same thing and even went as far as to diagnose him with sleep apnea due to the monsters in his throat. So, for Jay's sake (and the sake of anyone who has had to sleep near the snoring beast) we opted to get his tonsil's removed.

They set up surgery for 4 days later, and Jay did great! Immediately after the surgery, he had a much easier time breathing and sleeping. He had a few really hard days, but quickly began to become his old self again, despite the fact that he didn't eat anything (with the exception of a couple chocolate milkshakes) for over 7 days. All soft items (yogurt, pudding, applesauce, popsicles, etc.) are not foods that Jay touches with a ten foot pole, and therefore he was left with nothing to eat. We had hoped the surgery and subsequent starvation would motivate him to try new foods, but apparently hunger is not a motivator for this kid. He's back to eating waffles and nuggets and surviving just fine.

Jay has also FINALLY entered the big boy world and has started potty training. We've been trying to get this kid on a toilet since he was 2 1/2 with no success. Up until a few weeks ago, he would not even sit on the toilet (even with the promise of entire bags of m&m's for merely sitting on the toilet). I guess it is true that the kid just has to be ready, and Jay was too busy doing other things to take a break to sit in the toilet. He still needs to be constantly reminded to go, but he's pretty much arrived. For the first few days when he would have accidents it was pretty hilarious. We would hear an "Oh Crap!" from the other room (thank you cousins for teaching him such eloquent words) followed by a "Mom! I told you I should wear plastic pants!"

Jay is adjusting quite well to Albuquerque. We went hiking the other day and he was very confused about what we were actually doing because he thinks we can only hike in the "forest". He's gotten comfortable in Primary at Church. Perhaps too comfortable as he fell asleep in his chair during singing time today. He begs to have friends his age to play with, but his mother lacks friends in this new place and therefore Jay must suffer. Hopefully, when we figure out where we're going to live, we can get him some friends and perhaps even preschool.

He's loving transformers, superheros, and the wii. He's all boy and we love this kid.

And don't worry, we got this shaggy kid a haircut last weekend.

All About Carly

Carly has changed so much since we left Ohio. Since we've been here in Albuquerque, she's added 3+ teeth to her tiny mouth, numerous foods to her diet, and about 0 pounds. That's right folks, we've got a little peanut on our hands (ironic considering her newly discovered peanut allergy). At her 1 year appointment she weighed a whopping 17 pounds and some change. According to the doctor, she's off the charts (on the bottom end) for a 1 year old. I'm constantly wondering how Carly and Eliza (her cousin) could be related, Eliza outweighed Carly coming in at 17 lbs 12 oz at only 4 months old.

Carly turned 1 on August 16th and we had a fun alphabet party with family and a few friends here in Albuquerque. Pictures to come as our camera was missing for her party and we had to have one of the guests (who happens to be a fabulous photographer) capture the event.


She's still cruising around while holding onto things with little desire to walk on her own, which is perfectly fine with us. She doesn't say any words besides "mama", but there's not much room to get a word in when you hang out with Jay all day.

She's still quite mellow and loves to giggle at her brother, to which he will reply "Mommy! She's laughing at me", which only makes her laugh harder. She's fearless when it comes to Jay and has no problem stealing toys, pushing him over, or just screaming in his face.

She's constantly fearless. We've started to teach her to swim, and she willingly goes underwater and tries to swim towards us. At the playground, she dives head first down all of the slides (giving her mother a heart attack) and once and the bottom climbs to the top of the playground and dives down again.

Our Next Adventure

Chad has been offered a good job in Albuquerque, New Mexico! We've decided to take the job and begin our next big adventure in Albuquerque. We're leaving quickly and frantically trying to pack and tie up loose ends. Ten days from now, we will be heading to Albuquerque to start our new adventure.

We're both very excited about his new job! The job is perfect for him and will focus on an area of law that he loves. We're excited to live near his parents and continue the grandparent spoilage we've enjoyed here in Ohio. We will also be much closer to Darbie's extended family in Arizona, making for some fun weekend road trips!

At the same time, we are VERY sad to leave Ohio. We've made fabulous friends here and we're sad to move to a place where we have no friends. We've also loved living near some of Darbie's family, and we're very sad that we won't get to see them as often.

We are so grateful that we have found a good job so quickly, especially in the currently crappy economy. We have received so many blessing in the time we have been unemployed and have learned so many lessons that will hopefully improve our life in the future.

I'm sure we'll be taking a blogging hiatus until we get to Albuquerque (not that we need moving as an excuse, but if it's there, I'm going to use it).

Just can't get enough!

Stay tuned...we just may have some big news to share.

Family Update: Cleveland Rocks

My brother Derrick is home from Uruguay! We're so excited to have him back, but maybe not as excited as Jay, he won't stop talking about how much soccer he's going to play with Uncle Derrick. A lot has happened in 2 years. Here is the funniest picture from the airport, when Carly met her Uncle Derrick:



Alright, it's update time.

As far as our family goes, we're still unemployed, and still pretty bummed about it. Our lease for our apartment ends at the end of the week, so we were forced to make a decision about where to go. We've decided to stay here in Ohio for at least 3 months (we're not ashamed to admit that this tourism video for Cleveland was the basis for our decision). We're signing a 3 month lease on a house our friends have abandoned in favor of a fabulous house they just purchased (for the price of a VCR). They had 3 months left on their lease, so we're going to finish up their lease on a 3 bedroom house and then re-evaluate our situation when it comes time to move again. We're excited to have a yard for the summer, and an extra bedroom for Carly.

We're striving to be optimistic, but some days we struggle quite a bit. We have no idea what the future holds, and it causes a lot of anxiety. We know that our situation could be much worse, and we are so grateful for our relatively stable financial situation and the opportunity to have a fun summer break with the freedom to do fun things together as a family.

Since our lives are boring, here's onto the kids:

Jay:

• It's true, he read the flight instructions for half of the flights to and from Albuquerque. He asks what every picture means, over and over again.
• Thrives solely on frosted mini wheats, chicken nuggets, and waffles
• Asks Why? to every question, and everything that's not a question
• Still not potty trained
• Pretends to be "Firefighter Jay" most of the day
• He jumped up in the middle of Primary to tell everyone that he was the "best singer". Another child jumped up after him and Jay thought he also screamed that he was the "best singer". He completely freaked out and had to leave Primary. (We tried to tell him that everyone could be the best singer, but he's smarter than that. He said "No Daddy! If Noah says he is the best singer, then I CAN'T be the best singer!) We also found out later that the whole ordeal was a misunderstanding. The boy didn't say "I'm the best singer," but rather stood up to tell everyone "I'm going to Sea World!"

Carly

• This girl sure can eat! She already eats a million things Jay has NEVER, and yes, I seriously mean NEVER, tried in his life, including: beans, cheese, corn, and avocado. (I'm now convinced it isn't my fault that Jay ate baby food until he was 2 and still won't eat. Seriously, I didn't know babies just ate what you put in front of them and didn't gag and throw up.)
• She's decided she doesn't like 1 food: peaches. Yep, she even loves all the veggies.
• She army crawls everywhere. I'm convinced she'll never crawl normally. It's pretty darn cute, and she's super fast!
• She is fearless! She just dives into the bathtub on her belly and scoots around with the water splashing all over her face. (Jay's kind of a wimp when it comes to water)
• She's seriously adorable

Overall, we're all doing just fine. At least we're not Detroit.

There Are Pretenders Among Us

Any of you that knew Darbie during her college years probably knows that she is a huge fan of the show The Pretender. Well as Jay has gotten older, I have discovered that, just as the show explained during the opening credits, "there are Pretenders among us". For the past couple of months, Jay wants to pretend like he is someone or something all of the time. It started off with him pretending to be a fire fighter, putting out fires all over the house. As he began to understand the movies and TV shows he was watching, he began to pretend he was one of the characters of the movie/show of the week. He first started by acting like Buzz Lightyear from Toy Story II. I, of course, was the Evil Zerg and Jay always wanted to re-enact the scene where Buzz and Zerg fight as the beginning of the Movie. After receiving the movie Bolt for Easter, Jay always wants to play "Bolt Friends" which consists of him pretending to be Bolt, Darbie pretending to be his owner Penny, me pretending to be the evil Dr. Calico (note the evil theme) and Carly pretending to be Rhino (the suped up Hamster).

Lately, however, his pretending has become much more real life. For the past week, Jay has spent about 1/3 of the day pretending that he is me and making me pretend to be him. In his role as the "Dad", Jay leads me through the routine events of the day, mimicking my actions in each of the different situations. For example, Jay will have me act like I am asleep and then wake me up. At this point he will tell me "Now say 'I want a snack Daddy.'" After I follow that command he says like it was scripture and verse "No Jay, not until after breakfast". It is a fascinating way to examine our interactions from a different perspective.

Aside from using his ability to pretend for entertainment, Jay also tries to use it to avoid the rules or undesirable situations. Several times we have walked to the car and Jay has said "Let's pretend I'm the Daddy and you're Jay. I am the driver." Needless to say I only let that one work once before I caught on ;).

When it comes to meal times, Jay conveniently decides that I will play his role, meaning that I have to eat his lunch. One day, as I was pretending to be Jay, I said in Jay-like fashion "I don't want to eat my waffle, I want a snack!" Jay, playing a fabulous father figure replied: "Jay, if you're hungry enough to eat a snack, then you're hungry enough to eat a waffle".

To end most mealtime pretending dilemmas, I simply mention that if he is the Daddy, he has to eat Daddy foods. This takes him right out of pretend mode and right into eating chicken nuggets.

Jay's desire to pretend can get obnoxious at times. He gets mad when you don't respect his pretending wishes, making some of the daily fights twice as difficult. But sometimes his pretending can be pretty cute. For example, he likes to mimic our bed time routine. He will make me lay on the floor next to his bed, then he puts a blanket on me, sings me a song, and says "I love you Jay" with a hug and a kiss. Another memorable pretending episode occurred this morning. We were eating breakfast and out of no where, Jay says, "Let's pretend I'm Jesus and (pointing to Darbie) your a children and (pointing to me) your a children." I was a little uncomfortable when my child declared that he was going to pretend to be the Savior, but he pulled it off quite nicely. He came to me gave me a big hug and softly stroked my cheek (in the same manner Jesus does in many of the paintings with Him and children) and then he did the same to Darbie. It was pretty cute. I'm just glad to know that Bolt and Buzz Lightyear are not the only figures that Jay has learned about in our home.

I'm sure this pretending thing will taper off eventually, but who knows, maybe Darbie and I are parents of a real Pretender. (In which case we would of course "exploit his genius for our research")

Too Late to Find a Job?

We've been informed that our blog is depressing to look at with no new posts. Not much has changed with our current situation, but the kids keep getting cuter, so I suppose an update is in order.

Jay is hilarious. He's is quite aware that his dad doesn't have a job and it has made for many funny moments (at least he gets us to laugh about it).

• In the van on the way to go walking at the mall, we heard that Timbaland song "Apoligize" (You know, the one that says "It's too late to apoligize" over and over) on the radio. Shortly after we start walking, I hear Jay singing his own version of the song from the stroller. It goes like this: "It's too late to find a job"

• Shortly after we told Jay that Chad lost his job, Jay says "I give you a job, I have lots of moneys!" and runs to his room to retrieve his piggy bank and prove it.

• The kids and I ran into my mom at Walmart and while we stopped to chat, Jay was getting impatient and wanting the box of Band-Aids we were purchasing opened immediately. I told him that we couldn't open them until we bought them, to which he replied "I'm going to buy them by myself". My mom then said to him "Oh, do you have your own money to pay for them?". Jay stomps his foot and firmly (and loudly) replies "No! I don't have any moneys! My daddy doesn't got a job!"

Jay is officially in the "Why?" stage and I can't count how many times he says it in a 5 minute period. This kid wants answers. He doesn't settle for "I don't know". He always says "You DO know!" and asks the question again. Most of the time I just don't have answers. My favorites questions today are "Why is Carly a baby?" and "Why is that a garbage truck?". It's cute, but exhausting. He still survives on a diet of chicken nuggets and waffles with an occasional microscopic bite of a banana.

Carly is an adorable and pleasant 8 month old (seriously, time flies). She's got 2 teeth and she's scooting around the house. She's almost got the crawling thing down. She eats way better than Jay did/does. Jay can always get her to smile just by looking at her.

Here are a few pictures from last few months. Enjoy!

I LOVE this picture! She's wearing a hand knitted outfit and booties knitted by a lady in our ward, and she's laying on a quilt my Grandma made.

Brother sister bonding over TV. Jay's eye is bruised and healing from the Walgreens shopping cart incident. Jay flipped the shopping cart on top of himself with Carly still in it...but that's a whole other blog post.

More Carly cuteness.

Jay in his fireman costume: my boots and a lacrosse stick for a hose.

Another One Bites the Dust

"Another one bites the dust. Another one bites the dust. And another one gone, and another one gone Another one bites the dust. Hey, I'm gonna get you too. Another one bites the dust. " - Queen


The chorus from Queen's immortal song "Another One Bites the Dust" seems to be the anthem for our current economy. First it was Bear Stearns. Then it was Lehmann Brothers and Wachovia. Other companies like Bank of America and Citigroup are on the brink of total collapse or nationalization. Stockholders have seen their hopes of vast wealth or even a comfortable retirement vanish quicker than A-Rods credibility. Worst of all, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people have lost their jobs.

While some have been left unscathed by this dramatic economic downturn, I have become one of its most recent victims. On Wednesday, Feb. 18th, I found out that I was one of the 13 attorneys from my firm to be laid off effective Friday, Feb. 20th. I can't say that it was a total shock. I had been working their for about 6 months and I never had a steady stream of work. Just a few weeks ago larger laws firms began laying off attorneys. Needless to say, thoughts of being laid off were never far from my mind. Being told was a surreal experience. I had never imagined that I would be in that situation. Sure, I could see my self getting fired for poor performance or something like that, I never imagined that I would be laid off. Everyone at the firm felt so bad for me and offered as much advice and help as they possibly could. Unfortunately, we all knew that I had to go. All I could think was "another one bites the dust".


Although our world has been turned upside-down, and an potential for a huge adventure has been placed in front of us, the last few days have revealed many blessings. The kindness of my co-workers was clearly one of the silver linings of this whole experience. My co-workers (or should I say "former co-workers") were very helpful in offering numerous contacts and letters of recommendation. Darbie and I have enough money to allow me to look for jobs for a couple of months. Our lease ends in May, allowing us to move anywhere I find a job without being strapped by any unnecessary financial burdens. Darbie is not pregnant and all of us are in good health (knock on wood!). Finally, we have a lot of friends and family that are pulling for us and are willing to go above and beyond that call of duty to help me find a job.


While the silver linings are great and I love spending time with my family, eventually I'm going to need a job. That's where you come in Blogger Nation! Please talk with all of your friends, family, associates, contacts, or employers and tell them that you have a very capable friend who is looking for a job. I am willing to venture into and practice any type of law and would even be willing to clerk for a judge. I am also open to other jobs where I can use my knowledge of law and business but not actually be a practicing attorney. If you know of any job openings or have any contacts I can pursue, please comment on this post, e-mail or call me.


Thanks for enduring my marathon post. Don't worry, we'll try to make more happy, pictures-of-kids-filled posts in the coming days. Having time to do that is probably the best silver lining of all!

Some Cuteness

I'm slowly getting this blog updated. Here is some random cuteness to hold you off til the next post.

Thanksgiving

My whole family (minus my brother Derrick who is on a mission) was in Ohio for Thanksgiving. We spent the day buying things at CVS (Stephanie taught us all the art of getting free stuff), planning our next day shopping plans, playing Scrabble, and just being lazy while Grandpa Monte cooked most of the food. Grandma Melinda whipped up some cute place cards just before dinner to spice up the table.

My family let Jay play scrabble with them and make up his own words, there are some crazy words on there.

Believe It or Not...

...I'm actually posting on the blog. Seriously folks, I know you all think I'm a liar based on the last post saying there will be "tons of updates in the next few days", but I have good excuses, I promise.

I'm starting where I left off, with much more to come (no promises when it will come, but I'm trying hard, I promise), I know I seriously need more cute kid pictures up here, so here it goes:

Carly's Blessing:

We blessed Carly the Sunday after Halloween. Lots of Chad's family and my family were able to be there. It was great. Grandma Melinda strikes again and makes another adorable sewing creation. Take a look: