Everything Changes

Just thought I would update the blog with the current status of some goings on. It turns out the offer and contract we got on selling our house did not work out. Now we are back to trying to sell our house so that we can buy and move to the place we have a contract on.  We have about a month left to get a contract on our place so we can get the new place.  It is very nerve racking not knowing if this is going to end the way we want.  All we can do for now is just keep hoping for our place to sell because we really want to get the other place.

On a totally different note, I wanted to give an update on my running project. The update is that I ended it. I did not want to end it but I felt like I had to.  With all this selling and buying of houses that came about all the sudden things were getting kind of hectic around here. I did not have enough time in the day to do everything I wanted to do and I needed to cut back on something. The something that got cut was running, which is unfortunate. Maybe I will try again in the future.  I am pleased with the progress I did make and what I was able to accomplish but I have to admit it was not easy like I thought it would be in my grandiose ideas. We may never know if I would have been able to accomplish my main goal.

What?!?!

The Farm of Hale is moving (again), hopefully for the last time for a long time. We always knew our current location was temporary.  We just wanted to spend some time here to let the housing market come back so we could make some money off this house and then hopefully find a permanent home. We absolutely love our current location but we need a bigger house and would like more acreage.  We wanted to be picky about our next place and find just the right place. Our only timeline was we wanted to be in our more permanent location by the time Esther started school which is in a few years so we had time to be picky. A place happened to come along that we went and looked at a couple weeks ago and we decided it would be a great place for us. So, we made an offer and they countered and we accepted.  The only contingency was that we had to sell our house and we had 45 days to do so.  So we got our house all spiffed up and listed our house for sale by owner yesterday and put it on craigslist and Margo's facebook.  We showed it once yesterday, and once today and had three more showings set up. But the second person who looked at it wanted it, for full price!!!! So, we signed a contract on it.  It was crazy.  I had someone else call after that and offer us more than asking price.  As long as everything goes like we hope and it appraises, we will be moving May 28th.
The new place will enable us to do a lot more farm stuff. We are going to move further out which is what we have to do in order to have a bigger farm and afford it. It is in Prairie Grove Schools and is northeast of Prairie Grove about 6 miles.  It is about 10 miles to the interstate and 12 miles to our work.  It is 20 acres with a 1750 sqft house (that needs to be updated) with a big shop, two barns, pond.  It even has a rental mobile home on it that is already rented.  It will be a great farm place and enable us to do a lot of things so we are excited about it to say the least.

Memorable Easter

I could not resist posting this picture. We had a pretty normal Easter overall today except that something funny/awesome happened for church. Every parent has ideas of how they would like their child to be or act. One of my things is that I (Josh) want our girls to be silly, have fun and to be themselves. I also think it would be great for them not to fill pressured to conform to ways of acting that don't really matter or don't make sense. I am kind of a rebel on things so it is not surprising that I want them to act like me. So when Esther begged to wear her Russian looking leopard print hat for Easter (the holiday where we celebrate Jesus resurrection by dressing kids in extra fancy new clothes to go to church and hunting eggs brought by bunnies) we said sure, why not. I know at the very least we made a great family memory today, the day Esther wore a leopard print hat to church for Easter, and that makes me really happy. I am willing to bet that in 10-20 years when we are reminiscing about all the years that have gone by we will still remember the time Esther wore a silly hat on Easter instead of not remembering Easter 2013 as anything special. 

Happy Faces

Esther has been having some amazing after sleep hair recently. It is awesome. This is my new favorite picture of her, amazing hair and silly face

And we can't leave out Clara who is always up for hamming it up.

A Mulligan and Being Realistic

I ran another race.  Actually, I have run two races since my last post about running. A couple weeks ago, I ran a 5k in Fayetteville and it did not turn out well.  I am not sure what happened, but I have lots of theories.  I felt terrible running that day almost from the very start. I think the main problem is that it was more of a cross country race running on grass, in and out of trees, through mud, etc.  I did not know it would be that way and was not prepared for that. Whatever the reason (or excuse),  my time turned out worse than my previous 5k and that was very frustrating. I knew from training that I was better.  I was so frustrated that I thought about stopping this racing experiment.  After giving it some time,  I decided to take a mulligan on that race and sign up for another race in March just to see if that race really was a fluke or if I was not improving.  My goal in doing this running experiment was to keep improving until I reach my goal and if I am not improving I might as well stop.
So I signed up for another race in March which was today up in Bentonville.  In my delusions of grandeur I had hoped to run around a 21 minute 5k in March.  But I got knocked back down to earth and realized that now that I am in shape, I am not going to see the big improvements in time like I did between my first and second races.  The race today was cold, 37 degrees at race time.  I improved my time which is what I am looking for in the very least from race to race. My time was 22 minutes and 18 seconds.  That is only a 42 second improvement over my last race but it is improvement so I will take it.  I will say that it is getting harder to keep this thing going.  It was kind of exciting at first but now it is starting to wear on me.  There are a lot of days that I have a hard time making myself train. And, it is hard sometimes to keep pushing myself and motivating myself to get better.

"I'm a Razorback"

Yesterday, Esther got to experience her first Razorback game. I obtained a couple tickets to the baseball game yesterday so I could take her. I figured baseball would be a good one because it is pretty low key, you sit pretty close to the action, and there is space to run around while daddy can still watch the game. It was a middle of the day game and a no name team so there would not be many people there for her to disturb if she decided to run around/have a tantrum. I was not sure if she would like it or not or how long she would last but I thought it was worth a try to see how she did.  She did pretty good for a 2.75 year old.  She lasted 2-3  innings although she mostly played in the fun chairs that fold up on her own.  She did watch some of the game and would clap when everyone else clapped.  She would make comments like "he did good throwing that ball", and "he's running",  "They're playing the Razorback song".  She also enjoyed seeing the cheerleaders dance on the dugout and she loved seeing the razorback mascot but only from afar. When he came close she was a little frightened so he kept his distance. She also really really wanted to go down on the field with the players. After a couple innings she was getting bored so we got a snack...popcorn, which I don't think she had ever had before (as some of you know we are a little protective about what food we give the girls).  She did not want to try it at first but after I kept eating it she gave it a try and really liked it.  I also offered her a sip of my soda (another first for her) but she said she did not want it and I definitely was not going to push that. She lasted another inning or two in the stands while eating a snack.  After that she was done sitting so we went a walked around the covered area and then out in the grassy area in outfield for another inning or so. She probably would have walked around longer but daddy was getting tired of just walking around and not watching the game so we we left.  Overall it was a pretty good experience, no meltdowns and she had fun. But I think she is still a little young to be very excited about actually watching the game or sitting there for a long time. 

 

Tiny Dancers

We all know that toddlers can be a little difficult and hard to get along with. And we know that sisters sometimes fight and get on each others nerves. Put them together and you have our girls.....toddler sisters. It can be very challenging at times. But that is not what this post is about.  Our girls have lots of fun together too. They play, laugh, and giggle together. Esther loves to help her sister and recently has started holding her hand when we are walking places. And Clara wants nothing more than to be around her sister and do what she is doing. Clara hates to not be with Esther and they are so excited to see each other in the mornings after they wake up.

We listen to lots of music around our house. If you randomly showed up at our house, 9 out of 10 times there will probably be music on. Lately, right before going to bed at night, Esther and Clara have been having a little dance party. The most requested song by Esther is "I Like to Move It, Move It" by Will.I.Am. Well, last night another good dance song came on our Pandora 90's station..."All Star" by Smash Mouth, and we got a pretty good video clip of the dance party.

Kids with Kids

It is that time of the year again......it's baby goat season.  We started having babies about three weeks ago and currently have 6 babies, 3 girls and 3 boys.  They are really cute and fun. The girls are really excited about them but more in the theory than in practice.  They pet them for about 2 seconds and then they are done but they are always excited to go see them. Feel free to come see them sometime.

Update: Couple of Videos

Let me start off by saying that I am really really really going to try to post on this blog more often.  I get busy and don't think about it but I really want to.  A month or so ago I read back through a bunch of old posts on the blog from several years ago.  It was great reliving all the things we had experienced and written about (and even forgotten about). It is a great record of our lives. So, I am going to try to give updates more often.

Esther and Clara are growing up fast. Esther is now 2 1/2. She is a typical toddler, lots of fun with meltdowns thrown in. She continues to be very smart. She can count to 20 and say her ABCs. She is learning what letters words start with and learning to write a few letters.  She loves to read books and has a pretty big vocabulary. She has a great memory and recalls random things all the time. She loves to build with blocks, color, play with her kitchen and food, and take care of her babies. She goes out most days to help feed hay and check on the goats. She is definitely not outgoing though and is really reserved around new people.  It takes her a long time to warm up to people. Even though she smiles and laughs for us all the time,  she will hardly do it for other people.  Her personality is definitely more like her daddy's and therefore I feel like I "get her".

Clara is 14 months old. We still think of her as a baby, but she is really a toddler these days. She thinks she can do whatever her big sister does. She loves to be outside and see the cats, dogs, chickens, and goats. She still doesn't say many words, but her comprehension is really high. She understands everything we say. She follows instructions and knows everything we do. She is learning more words and sounds everyday and is finally starting to try and say some things. She knows most of her animal sounds. She loves to eat (though she only has 4 teeth) and sleep. She loves to stack blocks, read books, play with their kitchen, and play with her animals and dolls. She is ornery and emotional. She pesters her big sister, steals her toys, knocks over her blocks, pulls her hair, etc.  She is super fun and definitely a people person. Her personality is definitely more like her momma's.

They are both lots of fun in their own ways. They are busy and keep us on our toes.

Here are a couple videos of them.
This is our normal routine after bath time. Playing in Esther's room.  Esther gets really hyped up after bath and before bedtime and it usually involves her running around, dancing, and singing.We have no idea what she is saying/singing here except for the random "pink pj's".



And here is Clara saying Esther.  It is the cutest/funniest thing.  It kind of sounds and looks like she is sneezing but she is saying Esther. We get her do it it for everyone because of how great it is.

5k take two

Well, I am still running.  You never know how long these "new year's resolutions" will last but mine is still going.  Today I ran my second 5k of the year. I was hoping to have a big improvement from my first one since I feel like I am in shape now and was not even close to it with my first one a few weeks ago.  This race was in Conway.  Before I tell you about how I finished I want to tell you about why we went to Conway for a 5k.
Some of Margo's family organized this race (2k, 5k, and 10k) to raise money for Arkansas Children's Hospital.  Margo's 2nd (?) cousin (I am not really sure how the cousin numbering system works) lost her two daughters in the past few years.  One died at 6 weeks old to a heart infection and the second at almost 3 years old died last year from brain cancer.  It is a really sad story, I don't even like to think about it.  If you want to read more about it and watch a video that was on Little Rock tv local news a couple days ago click here.
Back to my race today... my first 5k I ran in 26:27 and my main goal for this 5k was to run a faster time and hopefully do it in under 25 minutes which I thought might be pushing it for my second race. But I knew I was in a lot better shape this time and I had high hopes.  Much to my surprise, when I finished the race I finished in 23 minutes even. I was so surprised that I mapped the race when I got home to make sure it really was a full 5k and it wasn't short (it wasn't). As an added bonus and surprise, I placed first in my division (male age 31-40) and I placed 16th out of 350 racers.  I even got a medal for placing first in my division.  I was very surprised. I can only hope that I keep with running for a while and keep improving. I still have a ways to go to meet my overall goal.
The whole event was a lot of fun.  It was very family friendly with lots of activities. The girls had a blast running around and playing.  It also was a really good day not just because I did well but because it was to support a good cause in honor of two little girls who are greatly missed by their family.

Proof that I was there 

New Year's Resolution? Plan? Idea? Experiment?

Not sure what this is except something I wanted to start in the new year and see if I can do it for a year. I came up with an idea a few years ago that I wanted to start running again. I ran track in high school (sprinter/hurdler) and was pretty decent at it.  But since college basically I have not done any type of running or regular exercise.  I may look in shape because I am skinny but I am actually in very poor shape compared to what I once was.  But back to my main story....The idea I had a few years ago was to start a running program on January 1st and attempt to keep it going for a year.  During the year I wanted to run at least one 5k race a month and see how my time improved over the year.  My main goal is to get to where I can run a 5k in under 20 minutes or faster.  I want to see just how fast I can get.  I had been thinking about this for 2-3 years but had never done it mostly because we have had new babies the past couple years.  This year I finally made up my mind to go for it.  I am getting older (32) and will be past my "prime" soon so I figured I better do it before it is too late.
So, I started running January 1st. In the cold weather.  I had not ran of any consequence in probably 10 years and have not exercised regularly in that time either.  It was a slight shock to the system to say the least.  Fast forward 12 days and today was my first 5k race (not only for the year but ever).  I know you are probably supposed to train for longer than that but for my experiment I need to run one in January and there happened to be one in Rogers today.  My grandiose goal was to run a 25 minute 5k for my first one,  my realistic goal was to run under 28 minutes,  and my easy goal was to finish without stopping to walk.  In my 12 days of training I had yet to run 5k without stopping to walk.
So, today I ran in the Tux on the Run 5K which was raising money for the YMCA in Rogers.  I think there where about 150 or so runners.  I am happy to report that I finished without stopping to walk and I finished with a time of 26:27.  I am pretty happy with it but I have a ways to go to get to where I want to be.  It was fun to run in a race though.  Although I did get beat by like a 16 year old and a 60 year old.  Half way through the race I got passed by a guy pushing a toddler in a jogging stroller.  It was very demoralizing at the time and I told myself at that time that my new goal for the race was to not get beat by anyone pushing a stroller.  I ended up meeting this goal also and passed him with about 1/4 mile left.

Here I am after the race with my awesome windblown hair.

Clara's Bday Party

We had a little party for Clara's birthday on Saturday.  Luckily the weather was pretty nice so we could be outside for a while. We don't have a very big house so having many people inside for an extended time does not work to well. But we were able to have a few friends and family over to help us celebrate which was nice. Clara has no idea that it is her birthday or her party so the first birthday is mostly for us parents. But, all the kids had fun playing together. Clara did not know what to think when everyone sang to her, she had a 'what in the heck is going on here' look on her face. And she got to have her first cake ever (almost her first sweets ever except she stole a bite of cookie the other day before we could stop her). Everyone was impressed with her eating of the cake. She ate lots of it but created almost no mess. It was impressive.

Eating Cake

The Friends

Here is a little video from the party.

One year old

Seems hard to believe, but today is Clara's 1st birthday. She had a rough start (hard birth, 5 days in NICU, cried the first 3 months) but she has turned into a very happy, silly, active little girl. Here's an update of what she is up to:

• Walking, running, climbing everywhere. She started walking at 10 months and hasn't slowed down.
• Not really talking yet. She will sometimes repeat mama and dada. She "ruffs" for dogs and "mmm" for cows. 
• She is very emotional and quite dramatic. If she is happy then she is all smiles, but when she is upset she is sobbing on the ground.
• She is a mama's girl for sure. If she is tired, hungry, upset, etc. and sees me, she will cry until I pick her up. 
• She still sucks her thumb, mainly when she is tired or upset.
• She's a great sleeper. 10 hours at night and usually a 2 hour nap. 
• Loves to eat! She eats just as much as Esther does. She eats pretty much everything we give her.
• She is still a big girl. She wears 18-24 month clothes. Her 12 month dr. checkup is next week, so we will get her official stats then.

We got Clara a little rocking chair for her 1st birthday (like we did for Esther).

It is hard to believe she went from this

 to this

#1 and #2

A few months ago we tried to potty train Esther. According to all the potty training gurus she met all the "readiness steps".  But even though according to the experts she was ready, she had not decided she was ready.  She is too smart for her own good sometimes and so she would deliberately hold it until naptime or bedtime and then just go in her diaper.  When she couldn't hold it that long she would only have "accidents" when there was no way we could get her to the potty quick.  So, after 4-5 days of that with zero success in going in a toilet, we decided to stop.  Since then she has made some strides in going in a toilet at daycare but still would refuse to go here at home even with our promises of great reward if she pee-pee'd or poo-poo'd in the potty.  We decided that she was one of those kids that just had to decide for herself that she was ready.
Well, yesterday she decided she was ready.  She has been telling us when she needs to go and peeing and pooping in the big commode like crazy.  Even though I am a nurse and deal with pee and poop everyday, this is the most excited I have ever been about it.  It is so crazy that a switch just flipped one day and she decided to do it.
I wish I had a picture of her on the commode to share on here but I don't.  However we did go get some cheap studio pictures done today at the request of my mom so I can share one of those.

Movember

Today is the first day of Movember. During the month of November each year men in the U.S. and in other parts of the world grow mustaches to raise awareness and funds for men's health issues, specifically prostate and testicular cancer initiatives.
I have decided to do it. By "it" I mean grow a mustache during the month of November for testicular and prostate awareness. I am doing it for a few reasons. 1. It seemed like something fun to do and a way to annoy Margo 2. I am a nurse in a urology clinic which deals with prostate and testicular cancer so it fits perfectly.
It also worked out perfectly because of my halloween costume yesterday.  I dressed up for work in some of my best 70's clothes, parted and slicked down my hair, and shaved everything except my mustache. So since Movember started today I just decided to keep it going. I am not good at growing facial hair so I am sure it is not going to be very remarkable in 30 days but we will see.
I joined a team on the official Movember website.  I joined the Mustache Goods and Wears team.  The Mustache Goods and Wears is a store owned by some friends of ours here in Fayetteville. Feel free to check-out my page on the Movember website, us.movember.com/mospace/4603045, and you can rate my mustache and even donate in honor of my mustache. The money goes to men's health organizations like the Prostate Cancer Foundation.

Here is my costume yesterday

Here is a closer up so you can see the ugly stache.

Pumpkin Carving

On Saturday we took the girls to a local pumpkin patch to get some pumpkins.  That night after dinner we carved one of them into a jack-o-lantern.

Esther was good at helping to scoop out the guts

Clara just wanted to eat it.

And eat it.

And it was lots of fun playing with the guts in the yard.  Bathtime was soon to follow.

Clara Walking

Well, Clara started taking steps on her own the past couple weeks.  She is getting better and better every day. She turns 10 months old in a few days so she is a couple months ahead of when Esther started taking steps.  We will try to put up a better blog post in a few days but for now I thought I would just put of a video of her taking some steps a few days ago.  It is not easy getting a video of it because she gets distracted easily by the camera.

Family Day

In adopted families, the day you adopted your child is a special day. Different people have different names for it: Home Day, Forever Family Day, Gotcha Day. We decided to just call it Family Day and make it special day for the whole family to celebrate.
Two years ago today, we drove to Little Rock after getting a surprise call the night before, and met Esther for the first time and brought her home with us. It was amazing and crazy how it all went down. In less than 24 hours we went from hoping to become a family someday to being a family with a 6 week old. You can read the story of that day here. Now in less than 2 years we are a family of 4.
Esther was an amazing gift and we are so thankful to have her as our daughter. We can not imagine life without her. It is fun/amazing/challenging/hard/crazy/awesome being her parents. She is growing up fast and learning so much every day. But I think we learn just as much about ourselves as she does about growing up.
One of the hardest things is knowing how to talk to her about adoption. She is still a little young to understand so it is not a really big deal yet. Even though she is too young to understand, we still make it a part of her life from the beginning. We have children books that involve adoption (A Mother for Choco) that we read to her.  It is really hard to get through them without crying every time.
Here are some pictures.

This is the day we brought Esther home. 

Esther loves taking care of her baby doll.

And taking care of her sister.

Last night we took the girls to the fair and Esther got to ride the carousel for the first time. 

And she rode the little roller coaster with mama. 

Clara - 8 Months

Clara turned 8 months on the 6th. (We are a little late getting this out because it seems we block out everything except Olympics these days)  It is hard to believe Clara is 8 months, time has flown by.  It does not seem like she is that old.  I keep thinking that she is doing new things really early but then I realize that she is older than I am thinking she is.  She is growing up fast.  She crawls everywhere and pulls up to standing on everything.  She is also taking some steps while holding on to things. And she is in to everything.  We have had to put the baby gates back up (to Esther's dismay).  She is happy most of the time and a lot of fun. She makes the best faces and smiles constantly.  She is definitely more emotional than Esther was.  She gets hurt more often and gets her feelings hurt more easily.  She is a great sleeper, she sleeps 10 hours at night without waking up and hardly ever cries when we put her down for a nap or for bedtime. She is eating more baby foods and starting to feed herself some little puffs and yogurt bites.

Here is a video of Clara from this morning.  This is her first thing in the morning, right after waking up.  She is displaying some of her funny faces and her all around happiness.  This is how she is almost every morning when you go in to get her.

 

2 years old!

It is hard to believe, but Esther is 2 years old today. Time has flown by, but it is hard to even remember our lives without her. She is such a blessing to our lives and we are so thankful God brought her to us. She was such a easy and happy baby and she has turned into smart, funny, ornery two year old. I won't lie, things are not always rosy (her being a toddler and all), but overall she is a terrific kid. 

We had a good day celebrating her bday today. Josh asked her what she wanted for breakfast this morning and she asked for eggs and a waffle with peanut butter. She got a cupcake for snack, which she loved. She also "blew out the lights (candles)" while we sang happy birthday. We asked her what she wanted to do today, and she said "go to Sam's". So Josh took her to Sam's Club this afternoon. She is easy to please! We ended up singing happy birthday at her request several more times.

Things Esther is doing these days: 

• Talking up a storm. She talks in full sentences and picks up new words daily. She repeats everything we say.
• Loves to help--unload the dishwasher, help with laundry, pick up, put away groceries, etc.
• Loves Clara (most of the time). She asks for her first thing every morning and likes to play with her.
• Loves being outside--riding her tricycle, helping Josh in the garden, walking through the pasture, giving the dogs treats, blowing bubbles
• Still loves books. We read dozens of books everyday. She is starting to memorize several of her books, so she turn the pages and will "read" them to us. She likes to tell us "be careful with the pages"
• She knows all of her letters, numbers, colors, shapes, and animals. She says her ABCs and counts (to 20) mostly correct. We are working with her on counting objects, and she is picking up on that.
• She has started singing more. Current favorites are ABCs, Twinkle Twinkle, Jesus Loves Me, and today-Happy Birthday.

She really is a lot of fun and she keeps us on our toes. Of course she comes with the normal two year old challenges though! We love her so much and are thankful she made us a family. We are looking forward to many more amazing years with her.

Here are some pictures of Esther throughout the past two years.

Here she is eating her birthday cupcake today.