Kowallis Family: May 2011

Carter stood for 4 seconds by himself today :) 9 months old.

He started crawling at the beginning of 7 months I believe. He got that down in about 1 1/2 weeks and then moved to pulling himself up to walls, people, the couch, and anything he could find. He is really quick and very busy. He will find anything he is not suppose to get and be there in a few seconds putting whatever he can reach in his mouth.

Aden has been doing great. He loves to copy...yes even Carter. Aden will get down on his hands and knees and crawl around with Carter mimicking everything he does, including pouting. Aden's vocabulary is doing excellent. He is a good talker and pretty much blabs all day. He is a great dancer and loves life! He gets excited about everything and is really good at building his blocks. He calls whatever he buids a church. He asks if we can go to church every day.

He built this all by himself! He is now 2 1/2 years old.

Nursery is his favorite part of the week. I don't blame him he has awesome nursery teachers. Aden sang in sacrament with the primary for the first time on Mother's day. I went up with him and help him and helped all the other nursery kids that had no clue what they were doing. It was fun. :) Aden knows the first 6 words to "I am a Child of God" and makes up the rest. He also knows the first words to "ABC" and then makes up the rest. He has the melody great. He also loves to sing "As I have loved you".

The other day I woke up to Aden in Carter's pack in play. Since we only have a two bedroom and Carter has been having so many terrible nights we put Carter in our extra bathroom in a pack in play. So anyway I woke up to Aden in Carter's pack in play. He had dumped the bathroom trash in the bed and unrolled the whole roll of toilet paper and mangled it to the point of not being usable. He was trying to hide Carter in all the trash and Carter didn't like it very much. Oh My. The memories.

We have recently discovered why Aden has been waking up 4 times a night calling for Mom and asking "Me sleep couch". He is afraid of the shadow's his night light casts in his room. We let him sleep with his light on last night and didn't hear from him until 6:20am. Oh gol. :)

The other day Aden took off his pajama's and took a sticker off the bread bag and stuck it on his chest. The sticker said, "All Natural" We thought it was pretty funny. I fried our camera batteries so we didn't get a picture, but maybe we will roll play later. This was Mother's Day. I asked him while we were sitting out on the patio watching it rain. "Aden do you have any good advice for me?" He said, "Go to church. Learn Jesus Christ." :)

(carter with my b-day flowers from Eric and the boys)

Carter has really been through a lot. We finally got his acid reflux under control doubling his dose. It's quite wonderful that our insurance covers it all because is medicine is $180 a month. We have to call ahead to get it ordered because the pharmacy has to get the approval of the insurance every time and that takes forever.

Lets see also I had terrible ear aches last month and Carter started acting and had a terrible night. We took him to the doctor and spent 30 mins pressure washing his ear to get it clean enough to see. Then the doctor confirmed he had an ear infection. This is the first we have ever had. Aden has avoided them all together. We got him some medicine and Grandma Denney recommended some sweet oil drops. Within a week we were both better. I had a terrible cold flu that weekend also that cleared within the week.

Previously I was working on my first oil paintings and created this...

and this

which turned into this...

and was inspired by these flowers. Having the bed of my dreams would really top this off.

I never got to finish my European decor because we didn't have the funds. But that is okay. I learned a lot and gained experience. Plus I didn't spend very much and got most stuff on clearance. My London bathroom is my favorite and the only finished one, besides 1 prop and I will take pics and add that later.

Here is pics of my Master bath with our extra big Roman tub. The theme Venice,Italy :)

I free handed this on the bathroom wall.

So back to crazy problems with Carter. The next scenario was when that was cleared up we ran out of formula as we had been getting WIC formula and that is the very expensive brand. We had previously tried every brand of formula and Carter was upset with all of them. We then went back to Soy and his body was accustomed to formula instead of breast milk he took it and we had a happy baby.

Well babies grow out of these milk intolerances. Aden had it and grew out of it. So I decided to try cow's milk formula. (Cutting corners to save costs is not always a good idea.)He was quite fussy for a few days, had a terrible night, then had a great night. Well we got more soy formula checks and I tried to get him back on his usual brand. That didn't work so well. He was so fussy and crying and refused the soy. So Eric took his lunch break to bring us some more of the cow's milk formula and happy pappy he drank it all and went to sleep. It ended up working out because with Eric's new salary we won't need government assistance so now he's on formula that is half the price and still really great for him.

He loves his little doggie from his Aunt Hyrum's family.(Blanket and sheet given by his great great grandma Hansen)

Alright so you think things would calm down right? Oh no that would be too easy. Then we took Carter in for his 9 month check up. Turns out they forgot to give him his 6 months shots and after an hour and a half in the doctors office we did them at the end and did our best to move his legs around and then get out of there.

The doctors office we go to is really cool. It has two floors. One is for sick visits and one is for healthy visits. The sick visit floor has two lobby's. One is for contagious and the other is for not contagious. They have every room painted with custom murals themed to children's novels and fairy tales. Since we go to the doctor about 5 times a month we get a different room each time and still haven't seen them all.

So Carter got his shots and Eric was on the phone in the car with an interview for a new position down in California. I should have moved Carter's legs around more but was excited to leave and boy was that a mistake. Carter cried for a day strait every time he or I moved his legs. He would just lay on the floor and cry without moving until I picked him up. So fussy!

Turns out Eric did get the job he was interviewing for. That is a miricale in and of itself. Our rent was going up $200 a month and we needed to give our 30 day notice that Friday. We prayed and decided that the best thing would be to move to another apartment or to California and we would have a month to figure it out. So we gave our notice and everything fell into place. For months I had been searching and applying for positions for Eric and researching schooling options and everything else to help us reach the next step in our lives. His job right now is very unreliable because it is so dependent on the weather. This year we have had so much rain and snow there is and will be serious flooding. So anyway after months of pondering, praying, fasting, paying tithing and fast offering, trying to survive, and researching one night I decided to just look around at some companies in Southern California and send them Eric's stuff. Well I sent his resume, cover letter, letter of recommendation, and picture to two companies that night. The next morning he had a email stating that they were impressed and wanted an interview.

Now remember there wasn't even a position open and we had been being considered for a number of other positions that were posted and still are waiting to hear back a month later. So next day right. We set up a time while Carter is at his doc. appointment since Eric would need to get off work so we could have the car. And well the rest is history. The owners of www.socalandscape.com had been overwhelmed with work and were considering hiring someone to help when Eric's resume landed in their laps. Because it is in LA California most of their workers are Hispanic. Eric is bilingual, their designer is retiring, Eric has his design degree from one of the top horticulture schools, they need help managing their maintenance, Eric has worked in all the different fields of maintenance, they need help furthering their company, Eric is getting his MBA in management and wants to help companies be more organized and profitable. It was a match made in heaven. Their work is SO beautiful and unique. It is a small company but has great reviews and Eric says the best designs he has ever seen. He feels intimated but confident that the Lord wouldn't give him something he couldn't handle.

So crazy, with everything else going on in life now we are moving to a foreign place, but a beautiful place with a great job. We are looking for housing in Santa Clarita, California because it is much more spaced out and family friendly. Eric's commute will be about 20-30 mins. Eric's family will be 2 1/2 hours away not in traffic and 4 1/2 hours away in traffic. That stinks, we wished we could see them more often. It also stinks how far away we are from my family. We can take a plane ride home and web chat with all of them monthly however so that helps. I am looking forward to my Grandma Denney's big Thanksgiving meals, and fun Christmas traditions from my parents. I am also looking forward to renting a cabin in the mountains and inviting all of Eric's family to stay and have Christmas and play games and have snow ball fights like I have with my family growing up in Idaho. California does have snow, you just have to drive to it. But most of all I am looking forward to going outside almost every day with the kids and getting their energy out. No more 8 months of cold weather.

So our perfect morning/afternoon. This last Saturday, the Carter was screaming from his shots was a wonderful day. It was about 75 degrees, and it was the first Saturday in the last 9 weeks that Eric didn't have to work. I had actually cleaned the house and done the dishes earlier so the day was ours. We went to Aden's friend James' first soccer game. Which it was really cute. He is three years old so their soccer uniforms looked more like dresses as they didn't make them small enough for this age group. Then we went to the store and got some snacks and diapers. We have been shopping at Smiths because every dollar we spend there we get a penny off every gallon of gas. So $1000=$1 off every gallon. Also they give at have a lot of great deals and coupons. Then we went on a drive up the Jordan river to a fun park and went on a hike and picnic. We stopped at a little pond where there were fish and snails and Eric and Aden played with a little snail since is was too muddy to catch a fish with his hand like they did last time they were there. Then we walked back and went shopping for some clothes. Old Navy was having a celebration and giving out Cotton candy, snow cones, and popcorn. We were so happy to know our prayers were answered, the weather was perfect, and we were together. It was perfect. :)

Carter has been really grumpy again since his shots and when I give him tylonel he goes to happy perky Carcar like his normal personality. Grumpy winny baby=grumpy winny momma and toddler. It could be teething but he can't live on Tylenol!!! He has 6 teeth and has had that many for about 3 weeks. When he was teething these his gums swelled up and turned white and he was SO cranky, nobody got any sleep!

We had another week of rain and get locked up in our apartment and go crazy. So this weekend will be 80 degrees and they opened the pool at our apartment so maybe we can go. Now if we can just avoid all the booties and boobies that come with a pool.

Eric is flying to California this Friday. I am so proud of him. He is such a wonderful man and husband and deserves a position of respect and responsibility where he can learn, grow, and shine. We hope this will be it. He is flying in to Ontario, Ca and his Dad will pick him up. Then they are having a family reunion get together dinner. We haven't been down there for about 1 1/2 years. Then the next morning he has to be at his new job at 7am which means he will be leaving a little before 5am. That day he will need to look at housing and make and sign his work contract. He will also be going to a meeting with a client for their company to see how everything works.

They want him to start as soon as possible so we are trying to figure out how he can do that. I'll just say that a truly broken heart to Heavenly Father allows him to give you what you need and want. When you think you know what you want, usually it is harder for you to hear what HE wants for you. Everything I have found about Santa Clarita seems like the perfect place for me and my family right now. I had never even heard of it.

We are grateful for our South Jordan experience. We truly have learned SO much in the last 6 months. It has been the perfect stepping stone to go to this big move. Here are some model pics of our apartment. We have LOVED it here and loved even more that we got it for such a good price. We are one of the few who have an excellent view from our patio and windows. We can see 3 temples, the river, live dear in the land by the river, the city, and the mountains.

We live on the 4th floor and have fond memories of walking down the great playground and around the pool and to the lounge to get some fresh baked cookies, just to burn off the calories on our 4 flight climb. :)

(what my apartment could look like if I had a decent budget)

My favorite part of the whole thing...

I was chosen to be the model for a make up application seminar they hosted. It was fun. I sat in front of about 30 women and the teacher applied the new spring look. We have also enjoyed free breakfasts on occasional Saturday's. Their workout room is awesome but I haven't been getting enough sleep to have the energy to use it. They also have a free trainer come twice a week. The week I went I was the only one and it was way harder then my body was ready for so I didn't really enjoy it. I am still stuck on Fluidity if I ever get the motivation to exercise.

I am writing this for our personal record and scrapbook because it is a lot easier then actually scrapbooking. So no worries if you didn't read any of it!

California....ready or not here we come!