This one's a GOOD one!!

Well, it’s been a VERY long time since I’ve posted so here’s to catch ya’ll up! (if your on here to just get the good news, scroll to the bottom!)

Graysen is doing great, as usual she’s starting to get sniffly but I think that has a lot to do with allergies and this lovley cold (okay.. cooler) weather we’ve been having. She had her two year check up and they were very impressed with how well her communication (and mocking) skills were! She repeats absolutely everything we say, and she is starting to say 6-7 words in a sentence. When she wanted me she used to just yell “MOM!” now it’s “Momma, Momma where are you?” or instead of just telling the dog “NO!” she will say “NO daisey that my toy, bad dog!” She even is bossy enough to tell the dogs “Dogs STOP! Stop barking in baby house!” Aweee.. I LOVE her! Haha!  She is doing VERY well at the Y now. She used to hate going, and anytime we even got close she’d cry and say “no momma, no play!” Now she is excited to go play. She is still in Gymboree as well, we moved her up a level and this level seems to be a lot more fun for her. They do more interactive things like looking and pictures and telling the “teacher” what is in the picture, she will sit in the front row and point and answer all of Mrs. Robins questions.

Potty training is also going very well! We have had two accidents in four weeks. One was a pee accident at home, and another was a poo accident in public. I’m not sure what happened with that one my only guess was that she was having fun and she wasn’t sure where I was (even though I was looking at clothes right near her, I wasn’t in plain view). Either way she’s been in panties for a while and she is doing wonderful! She even tells the Ladies at the Y when she needs to go potty!

The home front is good as well! The house looks like a tornado went off in it by the end of every week because I can’t quite keep up with it… but that’s life! When I get breaks from school I take advantage and do a quick deep clean just to keep the dust and mites down the best I can. We haven’t had to do too much to the yard since the weather has been cooler so that has helped my slacking J

School is kicking my butt nothing new on that end! I had a birthday and it was wonderful. Brandon and I ran our first (okay mine, but our first together) 5K and that was a blast! I came in 12^th out of 27 in my age group, and with my age group being 18-25 I was at the top of it so I thought that was pretty dang good! Brandon hurt his knee again, so we are waiting for him to get into a doctor to see what’s up… really hoping he didn’t’ re-tare it! (wow I am making this quick!) The dogs are good as well, Annabelle just got fixed so that’s been interesting. Tuesday will be two weeks so she can finally go back to her normal self.. That will save some headaches for us all! Oh and I got my hair cut! I LOVE it…much easier to take care of, and less headaches (I seem to get a lot of headaches.. ) since I don’t’ have to pull it up all the time!

Okay… Now… A couple weeks ago I put on my status something I was anxious for and yada yada yada it was blog worthy…so here is the story…(yes another one)!

School related…. So if you are already bored you can stop reading now! Anyway as most of you know I applied to the nursing program out here and did not get accepted. They didn’t tell me why, just that I wasn’t accepted. I didn’t’ get the greatest grade in my very first Anatomy class in Hawaii so I figured that had something to do with it even though I retook it here. I do have a 4.0 here and have taken everything I can for the nursing class minus the one class I’m taking now! Therefore I went to speak to my counselor (WHO told me by the way I’d have no problem getting in), to see what else I could do instead of nursing (at least while I keep attempting to get in). She was astonished that I didn’t get in, and couldn’t’ understand it so we sent a few e-mails out and made a few calls. She gave me the info I needed so I left it at that. This nursing program is pretty good. They only accept 120 students a year (4 cohorts) but they have over 400 applicants a semester. The lady in charge of the nursing department got back to my counselor and come to find out the reason I did not get into the nursing program is because I did not put my Student ID number on my application. Therefore they did not know I was a TCC student so they didn’t pull my transcript and just thought I was applying with NONE of the pre-reqs so I was tossed out from the get-go! Either way.. they fill their nursing program fast.. and In July at that, so it may be MY fault for screwing up so I have to deal with that! Either way this lady went out of her way and took my application back to the nursing committee to see if they would be willing to take a second look at it. It’s been almost three weeks and I finally heard back on it.. It was a long drawn out e-mail.. again telling me it was my fault for not putting my student Id number on the application (TIME OUT: TCC calls their student ID number : SIS on this application it asked for your EMPL ID… okay I THOUGHT that looked like employee Id.. that’s not what TCC calls their student ID number so how is that my fault.. yes I should have called and asked.. but really.. FIX IT!.. okay rant over) For a LONG e-mail shortened I HAVE been accepted into the nursing program. They had someone drop out of the Cohort 4 and I will be taking their spot! So the program starts in March, which gives me time to take a few 8 weeks classes in January to keep going for my bachelors (this is just an associate program, but hopefully by the time I’m done I will have every single class I need to just transfer to a university to get my BSN)… but did I mention how EXCITED I AM!... I’m sooo releaved! Starting in March puts me a little behind schedule but it’s okay, better then it being next August or November! SO that was the BIG BIG news J   Thanks for taking the time to read (if you made it this far haha!)

The end of summer already!!

Well I’m way overdue for an update so here is one. I will try to make it as quick as possible!

Graysen has been doing great with potty training (not making this a separate post this time). She hasn’t had an accident during the day in about 5 days or so. When we are out she will tell me she needs to go potty and is actually telling me a good length in time before she actually has to go, so we have time to get to a potty! When we go to the Y she will go potty at home before and then when I get done with the Y I will take her to the potty and she goes just fine! I think I’m going to put her in panties here soon! I will just make sure I have change of clothes and plenty of wipes in case of an accident! Night time can still be an issue. Sometimes she will wake up in the morning and just play in the room before I even know she’s awake and so she’ll go in her night time diaper. This morning was a different story though, she actually woke up at 5:30 and told me she needed to potty so we went potty and then she went back to bed!! So it’s a working progress for sure!

This lil’ lady of mine is talking so well! She is putting 5-6 words in a sentence now. “Momma me play side (outside) wif Annabelle.”  “Momma me hungry, me eat ummm” hehe She is still referring to herself as “baby”. If you ask her what’s the babies name she will tell you “Grayhen” (missing the S sound). She can count to 10 just not always when you want her to and she’s doing great with her ABC’s.. again when she wants to! At her birthday party Mrs. Shirley asked her, Graysen how orld are you? Graysen said “uhh two..” and Mrs. Shirley said “you are TWO!” and Graysen’s reply “Yes Shirey (Shirley)”. She does great with her colors as well!  We rearranged her room so that a lot of her toys are in her room now. Before it was so crowded with the changing table and all that stuff, and since we don’t need that anymore we took it out. So now she is playing a lot more in her room by herself. She will shut the door (and lock it ) and just play. I will check on her and when I knock on the doory she will say “Ummm Yes Momma?” haha I wil ask “Graysen can I come in” And she will respond with a “Otay momma, coming” and she will unlock the door for me and let me in! Really, she’s just growing so fast and it makes me sad just thinking about it!!

We did recently have a few weird weather issues. We had an earthquake which is extremely rare for this area. Actually so rare that a few months ago Brandon and I were reading that Chesapeake VA (where we live) is listed as NUMBER ONE of being the safest city from ever having an earthquake haha, I guess they wiped that one off the record! The earthquake was quick, and didn’t cause any damage to us or our surrounding area. Most will say it was very mild but definitely felt! Then of course Hurricane Irene… I understand that the people here want everyone to be safe, but they really just freak people out! This was our first “real” hurricane that actually made land that we’ve been in and I’ve been in worse thunderstorms. The states north of us got a lot more flooding, and even VA beach got flooding but we didn’t get anything that wasn’t gone the next day! I enjoyed the rain, but it wasn’t as bad as they were predicting it to be.

Graysen’s Birthday and Birthday party fell on the day of the hurricane. I decided not to move it due to the fact that if it was supposed to be a bad Hurricane Sunday wouldn’t be a good idea because of “aftermath”, and putting it off a week was not going to work for me. One, we already had the food, and two I was already so behind in school trying to plan this party, get it in order, get the house clean for it, KEEP the house clean for it…. I wanted it done with and wasn’t really too worried if everyone decided not to show up! This was basically the case! Brandon’s parents made it, our good friends Steve and Melissa, and our neighbors. Even though there were no other kids (yet again) it was actually perfect. Graysen (at this age at least) is a total show off and the number of people we had over was already overwhelming for her. I’m glad we didn’t have much more than what we did! Food wise though, I do wish we had more people haha because of the storm we did lose power for two days and lost all of the left overs and everything else we had in the fridge! Overall the birthday party was great, and Graysen had fun, it’s one we will never forget!

Can’t remember if I mentioned the new dog in the last blog post, but we did get a new dog. She is a Newfoundland – Lab mix, and she is a DOLL! She is starting to listen very well and as I train her Annabelle is slowly starting to do the same things, which is exactly what we were wanting! Annabelle hasn’t chewed up one toy/item/sock since Daisey has been in the house with us. Of course Daisey is a pup so I have to stay on her, but Annabelle has taken the mommy role and has been an excellent dog! They keep each other company when Graysen and I are out of the house, and Annabelle just seems so much happier! Miss Daisey has been a great addition to the family!

Only 11 weeks old and as big and Annabelle, OH BOY!

School is already kicking my butt! Being full time wasn’t the BEST idea, but I’m doing it! I was a little stressed out because they still hadn’t put an open lab schedule up for my Anatomy class, and the last Anatomy class I living in the lab, and that’s how I got such good grades. Since I hadn’t been able to get into one open lab Minus my first time being last night I was getting really worried about my upcoming grades. They finally got an open lab up for Sunday so I’m a little less stressed now! History seems to be very easy (because of the great story-telling professor I have), math is math, and my sociology class seems to be tedious, but it’s still a lot of work and tests… and tests on the same days… UHG! We’ll see how it goes!

Last and not least I just started this couponing thing. I won’t be the extreme one that goes around finding deals every day but I am going to start trying to save more money. My first trip went extremely well, for it being my first time. I basically cut our normal shopping trip in half by just using coupons and getting stuff on sale! There were only a few items that I needed that weren’t on sale but otherwise everything else was! We’ll see how that goes!

Thanks for checking in!