Boogie Babies and Pinkalicious

So, I signed Karcie and myself up for Boogie Babies at the Apex Community Center.  I knew it would be a hoot and would be a great way for Karcie and I to meet other babies and their Moms.  There was about 12 18-24 month old babies and Moms in this class.  There were toys to be shared, or not!  There were smiles to be had, or not.  Songs were sung and you get the picture!  It was loud, it was crazy.  Babies were playing tug-of-war with toys.  Moms were trying to referee nicely.  All of this was going on while trying to sing, dance, and keep our own rambunctious 2 year olds with us AND participating.  The class is on Thursdays and meets 6 times.  It should be fun and I think next week will be better because the children will know a little more of what to expect.  As for meeting Moms and babies......  We met Kylan and her Mommy.  We also met Livia and her Mommy.  We already have a play-date for the three sassy girls scheduled for next Wednesday.  I hope it goes better than Round 1 of Boogie Babies!!  :)  There will be photos of these Boogie Babies soon!

After Boogie Baby madness, Karcie and I scooted over to Kamdyn's school to have lunch with her.  It has been Read Across America this week in celebration of Dr. Seuss.  They have had various activties throughout the week....crazy sock day, favorite book character day, wear red/whte, PJ Day, etc.  You know Pinkalicious is still our favorite book and character after all of these years!  So, Pinkalicious dressed up and went to school.  She enjoyed sharing her new school with me and the lunchroom procedures.  It still feels so weird to me to be a guest in her school instead of a teacher.  I will always be a teacher at heart even though I am taking a break for now.  I sure do love my single job title for now though - MOMMY!

Meet Sydney

Sydney has definitely been our saving grace around here!  She and Kamdyn have been attached at the hip since we arrived and they met.  Each of them rush home daily to get their homework done so that they can play.  If it's a nice day, they play outside.  If it's raining they alternate houses.  

On Monday, Kamdyn stayed home sick.  Sydney came to check on her afterschool.  Remember, they are in the same class.  :)  Kamdyn was MUCH better by the end of the day.  I promised Kamdyn and Karcie earlier in the day that we would use their Valentine's Day money from Nanny at Chic-fil-A that night.  Kamdyn and Sydney convinced me that she needed to go with us, which I didn't mind at all.  However, I learned quickly that having to get three buckled in seat belts is a tremendous feat!  I would have to leave the house 15 minutes earlier in order to have everyone strapped in.  After that hurdle, the girls enjoyed Chic-fil-A.  They played, ate, and played some more.

Karcie is going to be "that" little sister that follows the big girls everywhere that they go.  She drives Kamdyn crazy, but Sydney seems to enjoy hanging out with Karcie.  Sydney has a 2 year old brother at home so she is used to it.  And, Karcie really loves Sydney!  It was a fun night and I see a great friendship in the making!  Sydney's Mom and I talk daily as well.  She has been helpful to me, too.  Thank goodness for good people and friends!

"What are those silly girls doing?"

Watching our EVERY move!

Since all of our bedrooms are now on the 2nd floor, I leave diapers and wipes downstairs to keep from going up and down every time a diaper change is needed.  My typical routine begins with getting out the diaper changing pad, lying it flat, getting a diaper, and then the wipes.  This is where I found Karcie on Monday afternoon.  She has it all figured out!  Now if I can get her to repeat real potty procedures this  closely so that we can ditch the diapers!!  A Mother can DREAM!

She did get out a few too many diapers!  :)

Maybe her bear had a BIG mess!

Apex - Full of Surprises

I should have known on Saturday when Kamdyn complained ALL DAY about being tired that something was brewing.  By Saturday night she was complaining profusely about a sore throat.  I looked at it with a flashlight, but it just looked red and a little swollen.  We sent her to bed early in hopes of a miraculous recovery.  No such luck!  On Sunday morning, Kamdyn came into our room screaming saying her throat hurt and now both of her ears were hurting! 

We don't have a pediatrician yet.  We've only been here a week!!  I knew where the closest Urgent Care was and luckily it opened at 8 AM on Sunday.  The doctor said her throat was definitely infected and did a throat culture.  It's safe to say that Kamdyn ABSOLUTELY DOES NOT LIKE A THROAT CULTURE!  But, who does?  She screamed and cried!  The doctor also said that her ear was infected.  The quick strep test came back negative, but they, of course, sent it off for the "official" culture.  We left WalGreen's with an antibiotic in hand.  She missed school on Monday because her fever was not completely gone.  We went straight from Karcie's final dose of antibiotics on Saturday to starting 10 days of antibiotics on Sunday for Kamdyn.  The doctor called on Tuesday and said the strep test came back positive and that we should throw away her toothbrush. Nice!  Our first week in Apex has been filled with twists and turns.  Guess I should stop blogging and find a pediatrician so I can be ready for the next time.  :)

Good Folks

The neighbors have been awesome with welcoming us to the neighborhood.  Kamdyn has met a precious little friend, Sydney, that lives a few houses down.  They have played together nearly everyday since we got here.  She has been a blessing to Kamdyn's transition.  The craziest thing is that Kamdyn and Sydney ended up in the same class!!  Kamdyn is thrilled.  I am sure Sydney will be appearing on here soon.

Just the other day Sydney rang our doorbell.  She was standing at our door with a delicious loaf of banana bread all wrapped in red ribbon with a sweet card attached from her Mom.  You see that the banana bread is almost gone.  :)

Yesterday, another sweet family came down and delivered this delicious homemade loaf of bread.  We feel blessed to be welcomed so sweetly into this neighborhood.

Yesterday, when I checked the mail, my sweet Denise sent this card to me.  I teared up, but I sure do love and appreciate these sweet gestures.  I know that God is constantly taking care of us!

3 Hour Delay Already???

Kamdyn has been in school here a whopping 5 days and we've already seen snow and today was delayed 3 hours because of forecasted ice.  We didn't see any ice around here, but the county is big.  I guess it's possible that ice was elsewhere.  At any rate, Kamdyn is loving the extra time at home.  Karcie was loving the additional time with big sister this morning, too!  So was Mommy!  When Kamdyn is home Karcie wants to do whatever sissy is doing.  When it's only Mommy, she wants me to hold her and entertain her every second.  :)  I love these two sweeties!

Karcie Dancing

More fun with Elmo.  I have to sneak photos and videos of Karcie because she will stop whatever she is doing as soon as she sees the camera.  We haven't gotten around to hanging this mirror yet.  She likes to look at herself in it.  Check out her foot stomping, hip shaking moves!  :)

Row, Row, Row Your Boat

This is Karcie's sweet rendition of Row, Row, Row Your Boat when we were on our way home from getting Kamdyn from school.  She is talking more and more everyday, although in this song, it's more humming than talking/singing.  It makes me laugh though because it shows her personality and sweet voice!  :)  Kamdyn's commentary is pretty funny, too!

Life Goes On

We are trying on best to resume our "normal" life here in Apex, NC.  We've played outside in the freezing cold almost every day.  It's been hard for me to get used to the colder temps here in NC.  A few degrees makes all the difference in the world. The girls don't seem to notice and/or care if they are freezing outside.

Karcie loves her motorized 4 wheeler.  Her feet do not reach the pedals on the trikes so this is perfect for her!

She does need a lesson in steering though!  She runs into everything and can't figure out why?!?!?

We stopped by the park one afternoon after picking Kamdyn up from school.  Karcie loves to play and climb and really isn't scared of any of the equipment.

We are also still in LOVE with Elmo!

And, Daddy!

We still watch Elmo nightly on one of the mobile devices.  After bath, Karcie finds the closest one and will not let up screaming "MELMO" until someone gets Elmo on You Tube for her!  La la la la, la la la la, Elmo's World!  I hear it in my sleep!  :)

Nanny and Georgia to the RESCUE!!

Prior to us moving, my Mom and Georgia kept asking if they needed to come and help once we got moved in.  I didn't know what I was going to need.  My mind was frazzled to say the least.  Kamdyn was starting school on Monday.  I didn't know how she would adjust.  I didn't know if having extra people here would make the chaos worse or better.  So, I put them on standby.  

We spent Saturday night in the house for the first time.  We were so tired from all of the work that we didn't have time to think about our new living arrangements.  Our beds were up and everything else around us was in boxes!  UGH!  But, we slept well!

It only took one day with the movers before I knew that I was going to need some extra help in order to get everything situated.  Nanny and Georgia came to the rescue on Sunday afternoon shortly after the girls and I found the Wal-Mart and shopped for groceries.  Our pantry and refrigerator were bare. I had fed the girls enough peanut butter and crackers washed down with Capri Sun.  It was past time for getting groceries!

I can't thank Nanny and Georgia enough.  Nanny entertained Kamdyn and Karcie while Georgia and I worked.  Georgia carried boxes down the stairs and out of our house.  We have A LOT of stairs!! 

Here are some of the highlights from their visit. We sure are missing them this afternoon.  Karcie stood at the door before her nap screaming, "Nanny!  Georgia!"  It was kind of sad.  :(

After Kamdyn's first WONDERFUL day of school, Georgia and Nanny took the girls to Monkey Joe's!  They had a blast!  Karcie only liked the little exit ramp slides and refused to actually get on any of the "real" jumpy things.  We didn't have a photo of Kamdyn, but she enjoyed a delicious ice cream sandwich that night just before dinner. 

After ALL of us picked Kamdyn up from her 2nd day of school, we took her to Dunkin' Donuts for a chocolate covered, chocolate filled donut AND hot chocolate.  Holy Chocolate!  She loved it!!

Karcie was dancing to her own tune as usual!

Later that night, we had leftover chicken tacos and waiting on Richard to get home from a cocktail/appetizer event with work.

Nanny and her 3 girls!

Kamdyn and Karcie hanging out one night before bed.  They were so silly while Nanny and Georgia were here.

Nanny and her 2 girls just before Nanny and Georgia left on Wednesday morning!

These are the boxes that Georgia took out of our house and I drug  to the street on trash day.  This is only about 1/8 of the boxes that we had altogether.  The trash man was not happy to throw these in his truck in the rain!  But I sure was glad that they were gone.  I emptied EVERY BOX in our house!!

Kamdyn's First Day at Olive Chapel

Kamdyn was AMAZING on her first day of school.  She was a little nervous which was to be expected, but I was so proud of her!!  We were greeted in the office by the precious data clerk.  She took us down to the Kamdyn's class where Kamdyn was greeted with a welcome sign.  This made her VERY happy!  Her teachers were super nice and welcoming.  She has a full time assistant in her class which I L-O-V-E!  Kamdyn couldn't wait for me to get out of her class.  She didn't shed a tear, but I did!  I couldn't help it!  She is growing up so fast and has amazed me with how well she has adapted to our move. 

Mrs. Anderson was sharing with Kamdyn their behavior/reward system.  I knew without a doubt that Kamdyn would have every penny filled by Friday and would be shopping at the class store for a nice little surprise.  She's such a rule follower!

I went through her folder after school.  She did great!  Her teachers left a note saying. "Your sweet girl had a great first day!" The data clerk stopped me at carpool to tell me how her teachers have already bragged on Kamdyn.  They thanked the data clerk for bringing them such as sweet new baby!  I already feel right at home at the new school and so does Kamdyn.  She couldn't wait for Day 2!

North Carolina, here we come!

We made it and so did our things!  We drove up on Thursday morning after a trip to the doctor.  Georgia called us early that morning to let us know that Karcie had been crying since she woke up.  She was holding her ear and saying, "My ear!"  I love that she can finally tell us what is wrong with her.  I immediately called our Augusta pediatrician.  I told them our situation and they got us in immediately to see the Nurse Practitioner.  I was fine with that.  I knew she had an ear infection.  We just needed a prescription so we could get a dose in Karcie before making our 4 hour trip.  I'm so glad that we went ahead and took her.  It would have been a nightmare if we had waited!  She was fine after about an hour into the ride.  Thank goodness for antibiotics!

We got to the house on Thursday.  The movers weren't planning to be there until Friday morning.  Apparently, they take a full day for travel no matter how far the destination is.  Weird!  We were able to sort out a few things at the house in preparation for the "storm" that would arrive the next morning.  The four of us stayed at a Residence Inn while waiting on our house to be "live in" ready.

Fridays weather was perfect and so were the girls.  I feared that we wouldn't be able to entertain them all day while we worked.  After all, we didn't have TV, internet, or TOYS!  We had Karcie's pack n play for nap time.  The first day was filled with mostly moving the garage stuff, some of the furniture, and a lot of boxes into the house.  By the end of the day everything was unloaded, but there wasn't a lot of time for unpacking.  I started in Kamdyn's room/playroom so that the girls would have something to do the folllowing day.  That was the room with the most boxes and stuff!  I almost lost my mind trying to organize all of the toys.  I had everything organized prior to our move in nice lime green storage bins.  The movers decided that dumping the stuff into boxes and folding up the storage bins suited their packing style.  Well, it didn't suit my unpacking needs or style at all.  When I opened boxes and everything was dumped inside, I could have strangled three people!  After Richard saw my little temper tantrum around 7:00 he decided that it was time to break for the night before I lost my mind.  I was so overwhelmed and I was only on ROOM #1 people!! 

This is the truck when it arrived at our house.  Two new houses are being built across the street.  This is taken from our driveway.

 The movers came back on Saturday to help us "unpack."  By that, I mean sit everything all over the place while we tried to put it away.  Again, I almost lost my mind!!  I wanted them to take as many boxes as possible, but I didn't want stuff sitting out everywhere.  Obviously, they do not know Karcie?  The movers sensed my anxiety after I so politely told a few of them several of times that I did not like stuff everywhere.  I finally told them to leave the boxes that were left so that I  could unpack them at my leisure.  I felt so rushed with them there. 

Mother nature surprised us on Saturday, too!  As the girls were playing upstairs and I was working to unpack the kitchen, it started snowing.  It was beautiful and it snowed ALL day.  Karcie had never seen snow and wasn't too interested.  I finally stopped what I was doing, ran upstairs, and dug through everything to find  Kamdyn's snowsuit and boots.  I let her run around with the neighbors in the snow.  I hate that we didn't have time to enjoy it as a family, but were up to our ears in boxes!  Thankfully, it snows a good bit here and there will be another time for playing in the snow.

Our front yard.

Our new house all covered in snow!!  I LOVE it!!

What a wonderful NC welcome!

The Final Day

The last day in North Augusta entailed watching the movers carry everything out of our house into their huge Semi truck!  When the truck arrived, I couldn't imagine that we had enough "stuff" to fill up this truck.  But as they packed, I almost panicked worrying that there wouldn't be enough space.  In fact, they had to leave a few of their things out in order to fit all of ours.  Keep in mind that they did take the golf cart on this truck, too!  That makes me feel better about all of the junk, I mean treasures, that we own.  :)  You truly do not realize how much stuff you have until you have to move it.  I simply can't imagine doing this without a moving company.  I was amazed that we had so many boxes because I am the QUEEN of throwing things away!  Ask Nanny.  I threw away something of hers on one of the nights that she stayed with us in our new house.  Oops!

It was a dreary day and I was kind of glad.  Leaving the river and the view would have been much harder had it been a beautiful, sunny day.  Instead, it misted and rained off and on almost all day.

It was weird watching the truck drive away with EVERYTHING that we owned that evening.  The mover took it to his house and we wouldn't see him or our things for over an entire day.  That made me super nervous.  

At the end of the night, the transportation company came to take the Honda away.  He could barely speak English and I was worried that the Honda would not make it to our new house the following day.  Thankfully, it showed up about an hour after we did.

Richard and I ended our night at our local downtown Augusta favorite restaurant, The Pizza Joint.  We got a good night's sleep in preparation for the next few days.  At the time, I had NO IDEA how overwhelmed I was about to feel and that's probably a good thing!

I sat on the screened porch one last time before they moved me out of my chair in order to load it onto the truck.  I reminisced about the outdoors dinner we had on this porch and all of the memories that were made in this house.  But, I also thought ahead to all of the new adventures that were waiting on us in NC. 

Georgia had Kamdyn and Karcie for the day.  She met us at the hotel that we were staying at for the night in Augusta so that Kamdyn and Karcie could have lunch.

Then, she took the girls to the Mall where they enjoyed cake pops.  Karcie had her mistaken for a lollipop and wouldn't bite into it.  :)

Reality Check

Monday morning started with a HUGE reality check in the form of this truck parked in front of our house.  Ready or not, the time was here.  The moving crew came in and worked like little tornadoes all day in our house.  In what seemed like minutes, everything that we owned was packed and stacked in boxes.  All of our photographs were put in boxes.  Honestly, I felt like our memories of this house were being packed in the boxes, too.  I felt like crying at times, but there was too much going on.  Questions were being asked of us all day.  Does this go?  Are you taking this with you or is it going on the truck?  Put this here.  Put this there, etc.  

I am so very thankful that Richard's company is moving us.  I can't imagine doing all of the packing ourselves and then moving to a different state!  That would bring the term overwhelmed to a whole new level!

I still feel like a sitting duck.  I'm blogging as they pack around me.  There's not much I can do here, but I know that I face a lot or work when we get to our new house. They do unpack boxes and take them away for us, but they don't put away the items.  They put them on flat services.  I still haven't decided if I like that or not. I think I will feel rushed as they move from room to room to get everything put away.  I am worried that will put our house in more disarray.  Well, I have exactly two more days to ponder before I decided if they take everything out of the boxes or if I just have them leave the boxes in the appropriate rooms.  What would you do?

Poor little Kamdyn had to find a spot to do her homework.  We couldn't even find a pencil for her to write with.

And even though she only had one more day left at LFH, she insisted on completing all of her homework.

Karcie on the other had was LOVING the chaos in the house.  In fact, she was pretty much insane last night. She ran for room to room with her hands out to the side as if to say, "What happened?"  Ignorance is bliss.  Poor baby has no idea what is about to happen.

She was having a good time in Kamdyn's empty closet.  All that was left was a bed for one of their baby dolls.

She was content.  Maybe this made her feel safe.  It was the only "clean" place in the house, I think!

Boxes, boxes everywhere!

Sad!