We're Here!!! We're Here!!!!

FINALLY!!!! After 2 days on the road, we arrived at our new home around 4:00 on Tuesday! The ride wasn't too bad, except for Elisabeth puking in the car Monday morning and both she and Julia developing colds. Of course. Evan did such a good job picking out this house! It is enormous and I'm still adjusting to having a basement, yard and garage. You get used to having only apartment luxuries after 3.5 years, ya know? My mom drove over with me and the girls. She stayed with us till Sunday, when we dropped her off at the Denver airport. I don't know what I would have done if she hadn't been here to help. There were so many boxes and things that needed to get done. She'd watch Julia, give her naps, feed the girls, play baseball with Ebeth in the basement, and help me with anything I asked. She was a complete godsend! Now I have to stinking learn to do it on my own. Thankfully, Evan had a four day weekend, so we got to have lots of family time. Although, I bet he's very excited about getting to escape to his office tomorrow...because it's rained the entire time we've been here and the girls are going crazy! So, I don't blame him for wanting to escape. (Who am I kidding, I'm wanting to escape to his office tomorrow)

Here are some pictures of the past week...

The girls napping in the car. This only happened once when they were both asleep at the same time, so we got pictures.

After being cooped up and unpacking for 3 days, we went out for lunch on Friday. We ate at a place called The Airplane Restaurant, where they literally turned an old plane into a restaurant. Ebeth loved it!

You even got to go into the cockpit and hang out!


This is the storm that was headed our way after eating.

Poor Memaw was forced to sit in the backseat. That's what you get for being barely 5 feet tall!


On Saturday, we hurried as fast as we could inbetween storms to visit Garden of the Gods. We did a little bit of climbing and exploring before it started raining again.
Memaw hung out with Julia at the bottom of the rocks.


This is the Balancing Rock. For obvious reasons.
We're totally coming back sometime and actually walking the trails, packing a lunch and making a day of it! It was absolutely beautiful!!!!


After our drive through the Garden of the Gods, we went over to Manitou Springs, next to Colorado Springs, and looked at some shops. We also found a cool park that was inhabited by hippie children. My mom thought maybe they were dressed up for a party. Silly Memaw.
Julia makes this face all the time. She's so lemony.
Elisabeth was very nervous about climbing this wall with the rope. But, after several attempts, she did it! She's so determined.
Julia is not a fan of slides.
So, Evan kept making her try.









On Sunday, we took my mom to the Denver airport. For once, it wasn't raining in the morning.

Elisabeth moves nonstop. So much so, that she's a blur in this picture.
Goodbye, Memaw! We will miss you!

I downloaded about 200+ pictures, so I'll share some of the other pics another time. Now, I must get back to Julia's room, which is still a bit of a mess. But, she's a baby, so she doesn't care. :)

Please make time go faster...

I forgot to put up Ebeth's half birthday pictures! She is 6 1/2, people. That's big stuff!


I hate packing. I'm so done with it. Not literally, because I have tons left to do, but I wish to be done with it. I hate packing by myself. And it's not like I'm packing up entire rooms or anything. I'm going through every room and trying to find the things that belong to my rugrats or myself. And then, I have to pack them into boxes to have them mailed out to Evan, where they will sit for a week and wait for me to UNpack them. Omg, I hate packing.


How are my sickly children, you ask? Oh, lovely. Ebeth was almost instantly better once medicines were put into her. She is such a trooper and never complains when she's sick. She's a wonderful patient. Julia? Not so much. Over the weekend, Julia was unbelieveably cranky, screaming when I'd lay her down at night, not eating, constantly wanting held, etc. I was running on empty for a while there, and then decide that on Sunday, Mother's Day, I will take her to Urgent Care, to rule out Ebeth's contagious pneumonia or possible ear infections. The doctor looks in her ears--perfect. Thoroughly listens to her lungs--great. Lifts her lips and checks out her upper gums--4 teeth coming in. Yep, my kid was suffering from teething. So emabarrassing. Not that I'm complaining. Julia has had her own case of pneumonia, seasonal allergies and the GI virus since January. Having her be well is a blessing. Nevertheless, still a little emabarrassed.

My computer will be getting packed soon. I'm going to try to load pictures before that happens, but I'm not making any promises. (Who am I kidding? I'm totally going to load pictures because it's a form of procrastination, and in case you skipped reading the first paragraph--I HATE PACKING!!!)

Welcome to the World, Kyla Raeigh!

My cousin John Rob and his lovely wife Annette just welcomed their third child to the world! Little miss Kyla Raeigh was born today! She weighs 6.9 lbs and is 18.7 inches. I'm sure big brothers Jack and Parker are eager to get her home and show her the ropes!!! Congrats you guys! She's gorgeous!

If you are contagious, stay away from my children!

This past week has sucked.

Monday, Julia puked all night, every half hour, from 12:45-5:30AM. Call the doctor and they tell us it's the GI virus. Lovely. Julia has been to the doctor EVERY MONTH since we moved to Pekin. I seriously think she is allergic to this town.

Wednesday, I start puking. I am puking, every half hour, from 2:30-6:30PM. My parents and Evan's parents have to take care of the kids because I'm honestly so violently ill that I'm weak and light-headed. I couldn't even take care of Julia in the middle of the night because of a fever.

Friday, which is today, Ebeth says she doesn't feel good. The school nurse calls at 1:15 to say Ebeth has a fever of 103, a stomach ache, head ache, her throat hurts and she has a cough. Awesome. Take her to the doctor, assuming it's strep. Nope. Double walking pneumonia. Yep. Pneumonia.

WHAT THE HECK?! I mean, seriously, we move in a little over a week. Could I catch a freaking break here?

I am so frustrated and overwhelmed and still slightly bleh from being sick myself that I just want to crawl in a whole and die.

So, if you think you might have the sniffles...DO NOT TOUCH OR BREATHE ON MY KIDS!!!!!!! Thank you.

Wanna See Pictures of Our New House?!

Of course you do!!! Here's the tour! (Please keep in mind, I have not actually seen our new house yet, so I'm only going by what Evan has told me since he has seen it with his own two eyes)

This is the loft upstairs. The owner was originally going to make it into a fourth bedroom, but decided to leave it open. We are going to make it a play area/computer area/guest room.


The girls' rooms are upstairs. The Dora the Explorer wall paper you seen is going to be torn down due to tackiness. :P There is a small closet and the bathroom is the door to the right. Elisabeth is ecstatic to have her own bathroom!

This is our backyard. Elisabeth is appreciative of the "private" fence. Sometimes she wants to play and she doesn't want others to watch her play. The deck is right off the kitchen area and will have chairs and table soonish (hopefully).

This is the kitchen. It is GINORMOUS! I love it. I will cook happily in it.

This is the staircase. The doorway under the staircase leads to the master bedroom. We have our own bathroom, which is lovely!

This is the mudroom/laundry room. The door leads to the garage. Notice I have upgraded from a laundry closet in DeKalb to a laundry hallway in Colorado Springs!!! Someday it may be an actual room!!!!!! (I'm not complaining, I truly am excited that it's not a closet! And has shelves to put things on instead of on top of the dryer!)
This is the unfinished basement. It is massive. Elisabeth will be able to tap dance, skate or run in circles all winter down there.

I am trying to pack up what we have here in Pekin so I can either UPS it to Evan in Colorado or shove it into the Gallant's trunk and haul it with us when we drive out. Not fun. Ebeth has been scrutinizing every little thing I put in a box, in case it's something that needs played with ASAP. However, I realized that I had been negligent and didn't acutally say how Evan found us a house! He was really looking at about 3 different houses, sending me pictures, and calling me to tell me the pros and cons of the 3. We narrowed it down to two and he went back to rethink what would work best for us. The first house was gorgeous, had 4 bedrooms, a sun room, nice kitchen, and about 4 different stair ways that would needed gated off. The other house had 3 bedrooms, a huge unfinished basement, and only one staircase to gate off. We decided to go with the second one, and Evan was able to move in right away!!!! Poor Evan has now had to pretty much unpack everything all by himself, but at least he's not living in a hotel on base anymore!

Don't worry, though, because while he's had the burden of unpacking, Julia made sure to continue with the whole "being dramatically sick and making Mommy lose sleep" bit that she's been doing since we moved here. Monday night, around 12:45AM, Julia starts crying, which is normal since that's usually when she wakes to eat. I walk in and instantly smell vomit. She has puked EVERYWHERE!!! It's on the sheets, pillow, blankets, her pajamas, her hair! Ebeth kind of woke up (probably because I was making gagging noises) and asked what was wrong. When told, she plopped right back down and fell back asleep. Not me, though. I had to strip the crib, take a very tired, sad Julia to the bathroom and put her straight into the tub. She enjoyed her middle-of-the-night bath, and once I had her cleaned up and was trying to decide whether I should put her back down with me or go sleep on the recliner downstairs, she pukes all over herself again. Recliner! I strip her naked, take a pillow for me and a beach towel and head downstairs. Here is where my geniusness comes in--you see, I didn't want to have to keep changing us if she puked again, so I laid the beach towel on me, laid Julia on my tummy, and then everytime she puked, I just folded the towel to a clean part and laid her back down. We never had to get up!!! Julia puked every half hour until 5:00AM. She finally slept till 6:30 without vomitting. It was the saddest thing. She'd wake up whimpering and restless, she'd puke, and then she'd instantly fall back asleep. I called her doctor's office and the nurse said that the GI virus was going around, that Julia definitely sounded like she had it, and to watch for dehydration and after 8 hours of no puking, to put her on the BRATT diet for 48 hours. I had to spoon feed her water to keep her hydrated, but she did stop puking. Ugh! I was sooooo tired. Thankfully, she napped for 3.5 hours and I was able to nap as well.

She's doing MUCH better today, so I took her to see my mom so I could get a couple of things done here. Which I"m doing by updating my blog. See how productive I am?!

Well, I'd better get back to packing because Evan does read this and he will gloat that he's not the only one who procrastinates and then mock me. [sigh] I sure do miss him.

The Countdown Begins.

I took this picture to share with you! Keith's garden is full of these beautiful tulips!!! They are my favorite!

The girls and I officially leave for Colorado Springs on Monday, May 18th!! To say I'm excited is an understatement. I will get to see Evan every day! I will get to have a partner for this whole "parenting" thing! I will have my family back together. Ugh! I am so impatient for time to fly.

Of course, time does no such thing. So, let me tell you how we've been spending our time...



Ethan has been spending his time instructing Jana on how to properly weed a garden.

Julia has been spending her time bossing other people around and making this complaining face (which is very similar to her father's complaining face...)
Julia has also been exploring the wonderful world of eating dandelions. Here is how that goes:
1. Pick dandelion out of ground and show it to your Mommy. Listen as Mommy will tell you, "No.No.No.".
2. Proceed to eat said dandelion while making eye contact with Mommy. Mommy will definitely make a squealy noise and grab the dandelion out of your mouth. Start process all over.

Julia loves a good stroller ride. It's great for nap taking.


We've been trying to be outside as much as possible due to the weather being GORGEOUS! Kyle and Ethan met us at the "big park" on Sunday. Elisabeth pushed Ethan on the swing a whole minute before Ethan deemed himself all done.
Julia is into standing and cruising around. She's pretty awesome.
Elisabeth is a wall climbing fool!
Julia enjoys some swing time.
Omg. I love this face.
The girls and I walked to the fountain. Julia had never been and really liked it. She tried to jump in when I sat her on the ledge, so she was regulated to observe from the edge.


On Saturday, (that's right, we're going back in time due to Blogger putting my pictures up backwards, so deal!) we drove up to DeKalb to visit friends and so Ebeth could stay the night with her bestest friend Avery one last time before we leave. Here I am with my lovely friend Danielle and her new car! (which we're standing in front of!)
Danielle and I worked together at both The Growing Place (Ebeth's daycare) and at Camelot. She was Ebeth's first daycare teacher. Elisabeth adores her!
Here are the girls in my favorite DeKalb bar, Fatty's. Only the best dining atmosphere for my young children.


Last Thursday was Elisabeth's open house at Jefferson. We walked there and on the way back, we stopped at Tot Lot for a few rounds of swinging. Julia enjoyed riding on Papa's shoulders so much, she kept kissing his head!
Nina and the girls swinging away.


Julia had never swung before!!! She loved it!


Ebeth also got a Papa shoulder ride.
Elisabeth's open house was lovely. She enjoyed showing off what they do daily and getting to see her friends' parents. She'll be leaving 3 weeks before school ends, but she's okay with that. She's so excited to see Evan and our new house, she can't wait either.