One Day Gone... Four Left To Enjoy

With the end of our Sunday day and the dawning of Monday morning, it marked the first day of our last week here in Utah. I'm determined to not let time go by too quick; can I demand time slow down? Well here are some pictures to mark our events we've been partaking in:

Maddix felt he could fit in this tote

PB&J can be sticky!

Poor Nala waiting for her bath

At the end of the day Maddix was tuckered out from all the fun we had playing with Nala, going to lunch with my mom, and then attending a "very un-merry un-birthday party to ME, TRAVIS, PHIL (my brother-in-law), and GARETT (my other brother-in-law)," hosted my by in-laws.

Movie time with Daddy

FORT TIME!!!
Maddix and Cousin Keili enjoying some of their last time together

I don't know if they enjoyed the forts as much as they enjoyed the technology hidden him them (Maddix's phone, and Keili's guitar), but they sure enjoyed each other.  He'll miss his cousin!

~Such a Big Boy~

Maddix continues to melt my heart on a daily basis. And faster than I can wrap my mind around, he's become a toddler that wants to do everything by himself. Lately I've been letting him get closer and closer to completely feeding himself:) 

Look mommy, I have the spoon!

Most the time I'll strip him down and help him hold the spoon on its way to his mouth, but this time I felt adventurous:

He did it all by himself! (Notice he's left handed?)

And so it was, that the first time in his life, Maddix fed himself... all by himself. It helped that it was oatmeal so it stuck to the spoon when he tipped it upside down occasionally, but hey, the food made it into his mouth and he ate the whole bowl. Congratulations baby boy:)






On another note, last night we went to dinner at the Pizza Factory with Travis' two life long friends and had our farewell party with them. We went back to their house and played games until after midnight... I can't believe how tired I was at the end of it all! None of them have children, so I attribute their extra energy and desire to continually play another game to that fact. Thanks guys for the fun night and goodbye present! 

HoW It'S AlL CoMing ToGethEr!!!

Is it happening? Well of course it, is you say. I've only been talking about it for months and blogging about every other post right?! Right you are, but now I have some actions to back up my banter.

1. I officially worked my LAST day at Chuck-a-rama before we move.
2. Travis actually dared to book the plane tickets! We leave from the Salt Lake Airport next Sat. at 7:00am. Early, yes. But I'd rather do that than wait around all day. 
3. Our visas are supposed to show up today!!! So we could have left this Sunday like we'd wanted too, but it's okay, I'm just happy its all happening really:)
4. Today I had my zumba farewell party. I do a Zumba class Mon, Wed, and Fri and they were nice enough to do a two hour goodbye party with lots of dancing and goodies.
5. And finally, we've moved EVERYTHING out of Grandma's where we've been living the last 2 1/2 years. 

All that's left now is to clean, party, clean, and party... add in a few errands and such, and this next week is going to FLY by:) Well here are some pictures from yesterday's moving adventure.

Watching cars, with his cars toys, in his toy car (box)

Poor Maddix had a bit of a frustrating day due to his toys disappearing, not being allowed to touch most the piles on the floor, and mommy and daddy being too busy to give him attention. He improvised by climbing into every box we got out for packing and making car sounds:)

By the time Tangled came on Maddix was SO tired from missing his nap and getting in trouble that he called into my laundry basket full of fresh warm clothes and cuddled with the pillow.

Everyone was loaded and ready to go. Maddix was helping to drive Nala around as you can seen from the photos above. Then we ended the night with a trip to the New Buffalo Wild Wings in Lehi; just me, Travis, and my uncle Scott. It was a surprise for Travis since he LOVES that place and makes up go every time we pass through Vegas. He was happy; my waist line was not.
Then this morning at 5:30am I went to Grandma's to start cleaning out our rooms and officially pack our suitcases. We've been planning on one free case a person and then paying $50.00 extra per bag for us two have to suitcases a piece, BUT I made everything fit into one! Super stoked! At 47lbs a piece, we are under the 50lb wait limit and we're ready to go.
It really made me think though, "If I can survive off this one suitcase for the next 6months, why do I need everything else?!" Then even deeper, it hit me again, "If I were called to leave to Zion today nothing in this suitcase would help me get there. I wouldn't need clothes and make up. It made me realize just how pointless our worldly possessions are...

This was my Zumba Class Farewell Party! Thanks for getting me skinny again!

Steps Toward the Bigger Goal

So normally, I look like this: Smiling and happy with the day. Especially when my son looks like this:

But today, on our list of errands I was scheduled to go get some shots since we're leaving the country and I haven't had shots since kindergarten. I'm terrified of needles, and my arms hurt! So instead of being smiley, I looked like this:

Oh also we received an email last night from the Polish Consulate stating that they'd received our application! That's the good part, bad part is that we sent a normal check to pay for the visas when they only accept money orders or cashiers checks! Ah! Will this ever go right?! So we ended up paying double to have the new check over-nighted and our 14 business days starts tomorrow... So much for leaving this weekend.

So for the meantime, you'll be seeing these familiar faces wondering about for a little while longer:)
Oh, and thank you to Grandma Judy for lunch at the Olive Garden yesterday, we had such a great time.
And thank you Michelle and Charlie for having dinner with us tonight! We've loved all the times we get to go out with you guys!

What if we decided to stay?!

You know how in movies when the main character commits to marry someone and the invites have been sent out, the wedding gifts have been bought, and all the down payments have been made? But the character has a change of heart and desperately wants to run away, but feels committed? Well, today we had another farewell party with my grandparents, aunts/uncles, and cousins and by the end I really wanted to yell out, "Just Kidding! We're not leaving; I want to stay and continue to see you guys!" Of course though, I'm just having cold feet, same as all those brides from the movies. We had a great time with everyone. Maddix even got to play with my Aunt Shanna's new little puppy: 

Cousins Shay, Lexi, and I 

Me, Maddix, and Gaddy the puppy

While Maddix was out playing with the puppy, cousin Hunter came out and started pushing Maddix on the bike; he quickly became his favorite person of the night. 

Maddix playing with pup. Gaddy

It was so adorable. While he played with Gaddy, he kept calling her "Nala!" And every time the puppy got too far away or too close his voice would go from a pleasant playful call to an annoyed impatient voice yelling, "Nala, here!" Ha ha, it was great. It was a great night, and it was weird to think I'm not going to see them again for another six months or so. I'm going to miss their faces; especially this one:

~FaMiLy TiMe~ last for awhile~

Fun Family Time comes in all shapes and sizes. For me, the last few days included Regionals for my brother and brother-in-law's swim team, packing up all my family possessions, and a family party with my parents and siblings:

Go Uncle Colton!

Today after Travis came home from reffing and announcing the swim meet we headed up to my Uncle Scott's who so graciously is letting us house all our stuff in his basement while we're gone, and we consolidated and organized all our stuff; I think we did pretty good so far:

Ta Da!

We got carried away with the boxes and ran late to our farewell party at my parents, but once we got there we partied hardy! Especially Maddix, who continued his new obsession with hiding inside cupboards. Also, tonight I found out my sister, Brenna, tried out for a club softball team and not only did she make it, she passed up her age of the 10year olds, and made the 12year old team! So proud of her.

Super Softball Sister!

For dinner we did homemade pizzas, ate sticky buns (way too many of them), and watched Shrek Four. All of a sudden when the movie ended we realized a late Christmas miracle occurred. Although it was late, the snow arrived; the first real snow fall of the year... and last year.

Yes, we're barefoot, all us sista's out in the snow!

After partying hard, and enjoying all our time together as a family, we made sure to include Nala in all the fun!

Poor Dog

She's so used to it, it's sad... So Fun.

Wow, So Much Going On

Tuesday I originally sought out to create a post about some funny things that Maddix has started doing, some of which happened that day, but by the end of the night my day had taken a major turn around!

This would be our rental car. But what for?...

At 4:00pm Tuesday, Travis hung up the phone from reaching the Polish Consulate's voice mail, yet again, and made a decision: We needed to drive to L.A. and go to the Consulate in person and there was no time to lose. At 7:30pm that night we hit the road, Travis, me, and Maddix.

He was such a good sport to get in the car and just go

We drove until we reached Vegas at 1:00am where we were extremely ready to check into our room. Only problem was that Travis realized he forgot to book the room, and it took an extra half hour to finally get in a room and get to bed. Meanwhile Maddix enjoyed all the bright lights, sights, and sounds.

View from the room

Wednesday morning we woke up and continued our drive to L.A. When we reached the consulate they were less than helpful.. Travis told me it was a wake up call into what a lot of Europeans are going to be like. She told us we needed to mail in all our information, where we interjected that we had all the information if she'd just let us give it to her; but she declined. Although we drove from Utah to L.A., had all are papers with us to give her, and were desperate to get this all taken care of, she just looked at us firmly, told us to mail her the papers, and asked us to leave. So we did. We turned right around and went home.

Once again, Maddix was AMAZING during this whole time

During the drive home we decided it was worth the drive however, despite not getting our forms in, because the lady did give us some information that we otherwise wouldn't have had; important information that wasn't listed on the website (that she so highly recommended over and over during our conversation). So yesterday night we arrived home at 1:00am, ready for that trip to be behind us.

So today we woke up and immediately ran to the post office with all our papers to mail into the consulate that we were just at the day before. The lady said it would take up to 14 business day, but most likely less to receive our visas. Let's hope it's less since our flight date was set on Jan 29th. The Lord will prevail.
Now to post the events that transpired Tuesday that had me cracking up :

I walked into the kitchen and what did I see?

Oh, what is that coming out of the cupboard?!

Its a Maddix Monster!

 

 

This is the first time he's ever done this and I thought it was hilarious. Then later that day he pulled another moment that had me laughing

This is over at Grandma Lori's house. He once again decided to try and climb inside the cupboard. And then tonight, in his room, he again tried to climb up onto his shelf:)

It didn't pan out so well for him. But I love that he tries!

~Several Things On My Mind~

Since its been a few days from the last time I've blogged I'm having a hard time focusing in on one particular post to make; therefore I'm just going to list some things that are on my mind (maybe that way I can try to shut my brain off at night instead of constantly thinking the night away. Does anyone else just think all night, instead of being able to sleep?) 

1. Will we ever leave? We are still waiting on our visas to come through so that we can legally live in Poland and we're afraid to book our plane tickets until we know we will receive them in time. So even though we've started to pack, we've made our first two payments for school, and we've said our goodbye's I just can't see the light at the end of the tunnel because we've pushed our flight back from the 12th, to the 19th, to the 22nd, to the 29th, and today Travis mentioned moving it back to the 2nd of Feb :( Of course he's wise to try and give us more cushion room for our visas to come through, I'm just eager to go.

That's me anxiously waiting to leave.

2. When is my REAL last day of work? This past Wednesday the 11th was my last day on the official schedule because of when I originally thought we'd be moving, but thankfully my managers let me post a note saying I could pick of shifts if someone needed the day off and funny enough, I've worked every day since. It's been nice really, but I don't know how many times I've began to say goodbye to some of my regular customers! They've cried, we've exchanged contact information, they've tipped me extra big since it was my "last day," and at some point I'm wondering when we'll be done saying our final goodbyes! Not trying to complain however, it's been very convenient picking up shifts at my own freewill and choice, I'm just becoming embarrassed every time I see them "one more time." :)

Me on my way to work

3. Why do we have to have cellphones? Is there really a good reason we have to have cellphones? I mean, maybe one per couple, but every single person? I don't like that people can get a hold of me whenever they want. And if I don't answer right away then something must be wrong, I must have lost my phone, or I must personally be ignoring you. Maybe I just like having my day planned out and don't like that at the drop of a call my entire schedule for the day is scrapped and there's no structure. Can't people plan ahead?!
4. Muscle Memory: You know, it's funny to me that I can go weeks without playing the piano and then I can sit down, play for a good half hour and remember each key I'm supposed to play and at the end my fingers aren't in pain from being worked. It's  funny to me that I can ignore my accounting degree I spent so many hours studying for until one day someone asks me a fact and I rack my brain for the answer without it cramping up from the work. BUT I have been sick and I've gone some time without any working out and my first day back my muscles showed no memory to the work. I AM SO SORE! Why do I have to be this sore? Did my body really forget how to stay in shape that quickly? Where's the muscle memory now?
5. Why does teething have to hurt so bad? IS the pain necessary for these little ones to go through? Sure, they forget it, but we don't. Maddix is cutting his molars and he has never been so miserable. Oh he's got that croopy cough, the never ending runny nose, a fever, and all the aches and pains that keep him up ALL NIGHT LONG. I haven't had the best pictures to post of him since he's basically been crying for a week solid, but here are some shots I managed to get of him when he was trying to be brave and smile through the pain.

Bundled up to stay warm

Licorice anyone?

Trying to smile instead of cry

Staying warm in the car