The Terrible, Horrible, No-good Very Comical Date

So Eric and I tried to go to the Temple last night. We haven't been together ever since before baby girl was born! So we went, but first off, I couldn't find my temple recommend so they had to look me up. Fine. But then after we waited a little while for that and they verified my status, they told us that the last endowment session was actually at 6 on Saturdays (it was 6:30 at the time). I was really bummed because we have heard that there were some changes to the endowment session and we were really looking forward to going to it together. But it had been such a long time since we had been to the temple that we decided to stay and try to do sealings anyway. But then someone told us that they were all full up in the sealings office and couldn't fit us in. So we split up to do initiatories and after I had changed and waited a little while they told me they wouldn't be able to fit me in! So I ended up just waiting in the lobby for 40 minutes while Eric did initiatories. It was not ideal. So I was pretty disappointed when we left the temple. I just felt bad that we went through all the effort of scheduling out a time and finding a babysitter who would be able to put both kids to bed on her own and really trying to go and I didn't get to serve at all. I maybe cried a little bit. So then we decided that since the kids were going to bed already anyway we might as well stay out and get some dessert. So we drove up to Portland to this place called Papa Hayden's that we really like. And it was a bit of a pain to find parking but we managed to find a place a couple blocks away. So we go in and they tell us that its a 20 min wait for a table or we can get in the to-go line. Well, we opted for the to-go line but that ended up taking forever too. Then when we finally got our dessert and got back to our car we realized that we didn't have any forks! And we didn't feel like just going home to eat so we found a nearby Fred Meyer to get forks from (and some water because I was super thirsty). So we had to find parking again (always a challenge) then the door we went to was locked because it was late so then we had to walk around the block to the other door. So anyway, then we finally got the water and the forks and got back in the car and decided to head down to the waterfront to eat. But while we were driving I accidentally missed our exit so then we had to take a SUPER long detour. And then when we FINALLY got down to the waterfront it was super foggy and we couldn't even see the river AND there was no parking anywhere. So we ended up just driving home anyway. So basically the whole date was me just waiting for things and driving around. I kind of whined about it a little not gonna lie. Eric and I joked that it was the kind of night that would be in a rom-com if we were funnier people. You know, where all the mundane little things just keep going wrong! 

Anyway, it's kind of been one of those weeks actually. It was Katie's birthday (yay!) so we took her out to dinner on Thursday. But we ended up having to wait forever to be seated and then wait a super long time for our food so Levi started to kind of lose it. Then Emery managed to grab Eric's water glass and dump the water all over my leg and shoe (fun). Then while we were packing up to go, Eric knocked over his water glass again and also the bag holding the boxes of cheesecake to go and Levi had a meltdown: "My cheesecake! I not want my cheescake fall over!!" He was literally scream-crying. He was just sooo done. It was way past his bedtime. So then we quickly exited and went out to the car. But it had been raining so then Levi slipped trying to climb into the car and he ended up falling out of the car and into a puddle. Poor kid. So that, of course, made him lose it again. It was a bit of a disaster! 

But! On the plus side, Emery has finally been sleeping better again. She slept through the night both Wednesday night and Thursday night and then the last two nights she only woke up once to eat briefly and then went right back to sleep! She also, put herself down for a nap all on her own once this week! Woot woot! She has also been tolerating food a lot better now. I think the probiotic has made a big difference. She has found a new love for wheat cereal and for the pedal pedal peach applesauce packets from Costco. I think she would really love to be able to feed herself. She tries to grab our food all the time and the other day she managed to snag a bite of Levi's peanut butter and jelly sandwich! Haha. I am looking forward to when she gets just a little better with her oral motor skills so she can do more finger feeding. I know I could do a more baby-led weaning type of approach but... I'm lazy and don't like to have cook fruits and veggies to make them soft enough to give her. I would rather make a big batch and puree them so I have more to easily give her in the future. 

Anyway, so that's how life has been since we got back. Working and falling back into the daily routine. Emery is getting more frustrated that she can't figure out how to crawl. She tends to push backwards accidentally which is very annoying to her. 

I'm looking forward to this week because Mom comes into town to visit! Yay! And then on Friday Emma and Spencer are coming so we'll get to have dinner with them. And then on Saturday Mom is watching the kids for us and Eric and I are doing a little get-away to the coast! We found a hotel right on the beach with a beautiful ocean view and I am seriously so excited to just curl up and watch the waves and do nothing! It sounds glorious. 

Anyway, to wrap up, here are some pictures from the last couple weeks! 

She is just the cutest little "driver" ever.

I'm so glad that Levi will use his chewy (when prompted usually). Here it is successfully re-directing him from chewing on the divider at the airport! 

Levi looks so much like a little missionary when he wears his white shirt, tie and backpack! He's so cute I can't even handle it! 

 

This picture seriously cracks me up! This is Levi's almond milk. It's as if it's saying, "Nooo don't give me to the toddler please!" Hahaha

Emery has been really into crossing her little ankles in sitting these days. It's so cute! 

Little miss's tongue has white patches on it. I took her to the doctor on Friday and she said she may have thrush but can't say for sure. She said to just watch it for a week and if it doesn't go away or if I start to get to symptoms to treat her with an anti-fungal she prescribed. I'm super hoping it's not thrush and that I don't get it because that just sounds awful. 

Levi is getting even better at holding his ukelele properly and strumming it. He's such a little musician. 

Ever since our trip to Texas, Levi has been even more into luggage, planes and airports. Here he and I built an airport out of his toy boxes and blocks. The train tracks are the luggage conveyor belts. Also, notice the giant messy pile of toys in the background. Levi has been unfortunately into dumping out his toys lately and then refusing to clean up! It's been a thorn in Eric and my side lately! 

Martino Family Photos

While we were in Texas, Eric's whole family took family pictures. Here are the ones of our family and the group!

He looks so shy! I love it! 

This girl was very confused about why she was sitting on the cold grass by herself.

It's a shame that the photographer wasn't able to capture my smiley, friendly baby's personality at all!

The couch we were sitting on totally sank several inches into the soft ground which is part of why I look so short in this picture, because my end sank the most! 

I love how all the little boys (Levi, Hyrum and Evan esp) have the exact same expression of confusion in this picture! Haha. Also Emery and Noah are looking like, "Why is Silva throwing such a fit?" 

December Wrap Up

The last month of 2018 ended up being one of the busiest and most stressful yet! I'm glad we've gotten a chance to spend some time in Texas the last week and a half and try to catch up on some sleep and some respite from the never-ending chores at home. We've had a rather sick December. Between two separate colds (lasting 2 weeks each and coming right on the heels of each other) that got all of us, a stomach bug that felled me and Levi for a couple of days each and another random fever day for Levi that caused another day of missed daycare, it seems sometimes like we will never be well again! It can be frustrating, especially since Emery doesn't sleep well when sick (shocker). Actually, if I'm being honest, Emery just doesn't sleep well in general and hasn't for the past two months or so ever since we introduced food it seems like. She went through this awful period of arching and grunting and crying with gas at night but at the suggestion of our pediatrician we cut back her foods to just peaches, pears, peas and plums and started her on a probiotic and that seems to be helping with the stomach discomfort a lot! Unfortunately, now she has a cough that wakes her up and keeps her up. Understandably, Eric and I are just very tired all the time. I may have had a melt-down a few nights ago in the middle of the night when Emery was coming down with cold number two that I just couldn't do this anymore! I cursed the big family and all their germs and swore I would never do Christmas in Texas again since we always end up sick! But after Eric let me take a super long nap the next day I now feel a bit saner although still tired. Anyway, in spite of everyone and their brother (literally) getting sick around here, being with the Martino clan for Christmas is fun. My favorite part has been watching Levi and Anson play together. They are so cute together and get along so well! I wish that we lived close to each other but I doubt that will ever happen as Greta and Matt intend to be full-time travelers starting in June of 2020 (theoretically). I personally would hate to be full-time travelers but it does seem like an awesome adventure if that's what you're into. Matt thinks its the best way to raise children and definitely did his best to defend it/convert us to the cause while he was here but I would rather stay in one place and put down roots.

On that note, Eric and I have been checking out neighborhoods and gone to a few open houses while we are here. I know that we can't decide where we want to live until after Eric finds a job out here because commute time is almost #1 on our priority list (must be less than half an hour!) but it's still fun to look around and see where we definitely don't want to live and where feels comfortable for us. I printed off a map of the area and marked a border of 40 min from Trey and Patty's house because we don't want to live farther away than that. I also marked out where the best school districts are and where the Targets, Costcos, Wincos, and LDS church buildings are as well as the Temple. After making the map we went and checked out Argyle, Roanoke, Savannah and the edge of Prosper and the area on the northwest of Frisco where Frisco meets Little Elm. This last area was definitely my favorite. The houses are older but the schools are good and I like the feel of it and I particularly like that there's a Costco and Target 10 minutes away and it's 30 min to Trey and Patty's, 30 min to the Temple and 30 min to the airport and only 15 min from Ikea! Location wise it's the best I've seen so far so it would be awesome if Eric could find a job in Frisco. Also, I just like that there are full-grown trees there because the area is a little more established. The new houses out by Prosper are gorgeous but I just don't know if I would like the housing development style of living. I like the idea of all the amenities these big developments offer including pools, gyms, cafes, etc but I just don't know if I could handle living off of busy 380 with all its traffic and so far from any stores except Kroger and a handful of fast food places. Anyway, the area investigation has been taking a lot of my thoughts and energy this trip and it's exciting to me. And I appreciate that Eric is also super willing to go with me and look at places and he doesn't seem to mind touring houses even though we know we aren't going to buy any of these just to get ideas of what we like and don't like and what would be deal-breakers for each of us. Ideally, we would love a 2 story, 4 bed (or 3 bedroom plus an office) with an upstairs open play area for $275k. We would love to have the master bedroom upstairs but that seems pretty unlikely based on what I've seen. I don't mind if the house is dated and needs a little updating as long as we would only need to make cosmetic changes like paint and countertops and not have to knock down any walls or change the floorplan. We are planning to talk to our financial advisor soon and see what's reasonable for us as far as how much to pull from investments to supplement our down payment and also how much would be prudent to put into the house upfront to fix it up.

Anyway, so the move has definitely been dominating my thoughts and attention this week. But we did also have fun playing games with Trey and John and Matthew and Valerie and we have a get-together planned for all the four older siblings and us tonight without kids which should be a blast. Levi has had a lot of fun playing with his cousins and exploring all of the toys here at Papi and Nona's house. We all went bowling together as a family which was fun, we did family pictures which was quite the production and included a couch that actually ended up sinking several inches into the soft ground of the pasture by the end of the shoot haha. And Christmas Eve, of course, is always a big, loud, crazy production around here with a big dinner, the nativity play (Levi was the cutest little king ever!), a visit from Santa, the cousins' gift exchange and the opening of stockings. To Levi's credit, he only got over-stimulated and had to take a break in Papi and Nona's room by himself for a few minutes once! And Emery is a little sweetheart and just loves all the attention. She will reach out to anyone and smile and at them and loves to be passed around.

In other news, Emery learned how to roll over finally! Just since we've arrived here in Texas she has suddenly become a little rolly-polly and will roll purposefully to get toys now. And she is so happy and proud of herself! She also has started to experiment with how to get out of sitting without falling over although she has only done it successfully a few times.

Another thing that has been taking a fair amount of our time lately has been finishing the Book of Mormon! It took work and sacrifice, but I did end up finishing it before the end of the year! I feel pretty accomplished about that! I wasn't sure I would be able to do it but I did! And it was definitely different than other times I have read the Book of Mormon. I have never read it that fast before! It helped me keep a bigger picture and keep track of people and places better and see the over-arching themes. I also really liked just focusing on Christ. If I doubted before how much the Book of Mormon teaches about Christ, I don't now. The whole book teaches all about Him. I look forward to going back through all my highlighted verses about Him and taking a more in-depth look! And I am looking forward to starting the Come Follow Me home study curriculum. It is still a little intimidating to me to know how responsible I am and will be for teaching my children the gospel. But as I think of it, I am reminded of my patriarchal blessing which specifically states that I will be primarily responsible for teaching my children and preparing them for life and eternal life. I am glad I will have this new tool to help me so I won't have to figure everything out on my own.

Anyway, I should probably wrap this up, but now, pictures! There's a million of them but I will try to just post the best or most memorable ones.

She just rocks that headband!

Eric and I went to an awesome white elephant party at the Nelson's house. Our gift? A Flock of Floss. We thought it up at midnight one night and I think we thought it was a lot funnier than any of our friends did! Haha. 

Emery loves her daddy! She is constantly saying "Dada! Dada!"

We were shopping in Target (did that a lot this month!) and I turned around and saw Levi trying on all the sunglasses! 

Emery is old enough to ride in the cart now! Yay! I've loved wearing her and snuggling her while we shop but she is getting too heavy for that to be comfortable any more. 

Levi and I hosted a Christmas decorating party for his little friends before we came to Texas. Unfortunately, I was super sick that day but I had already had to reschedule the party once and I'm stubborn and didn't want to cancel it so I just tried to power through. Honestly it was a little awful but Levi had fun! 

He was very proud of his cookies. 

Emery had her 6 month check up! Can't believe she's been with us for over half a year already! 

A typical Levi moment: watching Temple videos, no shirt with his chewy. 

They are so cute together!

Levi's first meeting with Santa at the Tualatin Commons Tree Lighting Festival. He was very excited.

An attempt of a picture with Papi and Nona with all the grandkids. Silva HATES to be held by anyone but her parents so she was freaking out. And I love how Ben is cuddling Levi.

We put Levi, Hyrum, Anson and Evan at a little table in the dining room and they were so cute together! 

 

 

Emery loves her uncle Mike!

And her auntie Shannon! 

Christmas jammies!

The boys were very cute bowling together!

We were so sad to say goodbye to Matt and Greta's family!! 

These best buds are the cutest cousins!

Emery has been really into sticking her tongue out lately!

She just has the cutest smiles ever!! She's like a little cherub.