What can happen in 2 years?


I can't believe it's been 2 years since I last posted something on this blog. I've spoken and thought up many posts in that time, and I'm not real into regrets, so we'll pick it up from here.

I'll give myself 60 seconds to type all the things that have happened since the last time I posted:

Sold our house
Abby in first grade
Avery in preschool
lived with Jen and Brian for 9 months

Bought a new house
Now live in Savage, MN
New job for me at FedEx
Anna's remaining two siblings both married
found a church home - Hosanna in Lakeville

More of a comedic list:
i've gotten my hair cut a total of 4 times...maybe
we've cooked dinner almost once a week
girls have gone to bed before 8:00 (their established bedtime) six times
I now play softball instead of baseball...that's sad

Bloomington to Savage

So, we sold our house in Bloomington on April 4, 2012. We had roughly 30 days to pack it up and move it out. I'm not going to tell you that it was difficult or that it took many many late nights, 453 boxes and slightly fewer rolls of packing tape, even though it did. What I will say is thank God for a mild winter in 2010-2011. This past weekend was St. Patrick's Day and it snowed. Last year it was 80 degrees on March 17...yeah we were lucky.

We barely had time to pack all of our belongings up, let alone find a house...so what's the logical move? Of course, move in with a family of three...one of whom is 2 years old, another is 30 and has a home based business in addition to his primary job as a pilot, and the other one was 8 months pregnant (nevermind the other descriptors...4-5 weeks from having baby is all that is needed.) Why on earth did these people agree to let us move in? Why in the world would we want to live here? Good blog material...why else? 

Up to this point the only child who had ever lived in this house was Carson. Well, Carson had a lot to get used to, and fast. In the span of 24 hours his two girl cousins set up shop in one of the 4 upstairs bedrooms, his bathroom was invaded by pink and light blue, and maybe more confusing yet...this perpetual sleepover didn't come with any popcorn, staying up late or movies. Not only did he not get to participate in the slumber parties, he was confined, by himself, to his normal room, which was under constant audio and video surveillance...not kidding...nowadays baby monitors could be used in espionage. 

Part of the deal for Jen and Brian allowing us to live with them was that I would finish their basement. Yeah, that means that for the first month and a half of this experiment, four adults and three kids were all sleeping on the top floor. We crammed our king size bed into a soon-to-be baby room which already contained a crib, dresser and diaper dumper. Twas more than a cozy arrangement, but man did it beat the hell out of an apartment...and I did get my remodeling fix quenched by finishing that basement

One of the other giant sized benefits of living with J and B was their proximity to Abby's school, and Avery's as it turned out. For those who know us it's not news that we aren't the most punctual family in the league. I've got a hunch that one particular couple, with whom we spend a pretty good deal of time, actually will tell us events and meeting times begin 15 minutes before they actually do. Well, it took exactly 4 minutes to drive from our temporary home to Abby's school, and another 3-5 minutes to make it from Abby's school to Avery's. The interesting, and funny, thing to note about this reduction in travel time is that Abby had even less time to scarf down her peanut butter toast on those rarer, but inevitable days when we were running really late. 

This is an incomplete post from far too long ago...simply publishing for future reminiscing's sake...

Power Shine

My how our little Avery has turned a corner. In a few short months she has gone from simply saying words (mostly when prompted) to talking almost all the time and stringing sentences together as often as she can. She definitely makes some other noises which definitely can't be considered words, even tho they have plenty of meaning in their own right. We'll categorize those noises under terrible twos and do our best to ignore them for now. But I've realized that one of my favorite things that comes with little kids learning to speak is how their words and sentences fit together. They sound like immigrants coming to a new country and learning the language, or better yet, they sound like me while traveling in Mexico and trying to recall my 3 years of Spanish from so many years ago it saddens me to count them. You essentially grab onto the few words you know and drop everything else that should surround those words in a properly constructed thought or sentence. I'm no English major but I'm reasonably sure, "ah cookie?" "ah bailey?" and "ah cup milk?" aren't complete sentences...but that's what I love about it. It's exactly the same as when I'm walking through a restaurant in Mexico and I get a waiter's attention just to raise my shoulders, point my palms towards the ceiling, lift my eyebrows and say, "baño?" Ok, maybe not exactly the same...if it were truly apples to apples I would grab my crotch, jump up and down and announce which number I planned to go once getting to the baño. 


So, it stands to reason that since Avery doesn't speak the language exactly as we adults do, she probably doesn't hear it the same either. This couldn't be more evident than with her most recent obsession..."power shine!" It took us at least a a few hours to even figure out what words she was saying and then another day or maybe two to understand what she meant. You see, the Disney phenomena has a strong hold on this family, especially the lone male and the middle sized female. So, when Tangled finally came out on DVD and Blu-Ray Combo Pack (see what I mean?) Abby, Anna and I had already seen it...and become huge fans of it. Little did we know or expect that our not-even-two-year-old would surpass us all in her love for this splendid movie. Avery's TV and movie watching skills probably should alarm us, but being able to plop both our girls down in front of the TV for a bit, and knowing that they'll both do nothing but watch, is a nice ace in the hole. Avery's obsession with Tangled has got to simply be a product of sheer volume and mass. Somehow that movie just doesn't get old, and I agree wholeheartedly. And consequently, it's been watched by our girls no less than three or four hundred...thousand times. Anyway, there's a song which is sung many times throughout the movie called the Healing Incantation. The lyrics go like this: 


Flower gleam and glow
let your power shine
make the clock reverse
bring back what once was mine
heal what has been hurt
change the fate's design
save what has been lost
bring back what once was mine
what once was mine


Sitting there in the second line of this short song are the words no one in this family will ever forget. At some point Avery starting referring to Rapunzel (the character) and the movie in general as "Power Shine." And since she coined that term, it's filled many of her waking thoughts, and hopefully some of her dreams as well. I personally find it amazing that she would see and hear Tangled as many times as she did, and those two words were what she grasped and remembered. Those who have heard her say it can vouch for it, it's so damn cute you just want to hear it again.