I have a blog?!?

So so much has happened since my last post 6 months ago! We have been settling in our new home. It has been quite an adjustment. More than I thought it would be. This is our first permanent home in 10 year and I was prepared for how much different that would make it. We love our house. even though we are still finishing decorating and painting. But I suppose that will never be done! Thomaston is a small town. I say it has everything that you need but not everything that you want. On weekends we normally make the 45 minute drive to Macon or go up to Atlanta to do some real shopping! I do miss Target, Marshalls and CVS!! But we feel very blessed that Jordan has a job that he loves.

I'll do a quick little recap of everyone and then maybe I'll try to be better at staying up to date!

Taliyah!!! Oh my! She has been such a handful! The best way to describe her is busy. I always thought that my girls would be very similar, but I was wrong. Taliyah is very independent. She wants to do everything herself. She also wants to climb. Before she could even walk she was climbing. I'm constantly pulling her off the countertops, tables, bookshelves, stools and out of sinks, tubs and toilets....It's exhausting. I get really worried at times because it seems like she is just trying to hurt herself! She's already chipped her front tooth! Luckily I think she's starting to mellow out alittle...alittle! She hates shopping. Going to the grocery stores takes an extra helping our strength and courage! There normal is screaming, crying (sometimes by me!) and bribing. But with all this craziness comes the sweetest, most lovable little girl ever. She loves giving kisses, smasher her face into yours, huge hugs and blows kisses when you leave. She has so much love for us in her tiny little body and we love her so so much!

Jayla!! Jayla has grown up so much since we moved her. She loves having her pink room. She has become my little farmer girl and helps me take care of our chickens. We have 6. She's not scared to chase them around and try to pick them up. Jayla is a girly girl!!! She loves to paint her nails, makeup, high heals, pink, and anything that sparkles! I'm not sure where this comes from but it sure is cute! She has a love hate relationship with Taliyah. For the most part they love eachother. They are starting to really play together and sometimes I even catch them hugging and giggling. And then there are the melt downs! Where a kicking and screaming fight happens over something very small! But that's sisters! Lately she's been telling me she wants another sister, we'll just wait and see about that Jayla!

I'll be back to finish the rest of the Fam!

It's been awhile!

I know, I know...it's been a very long time! But to my defense I've been very busy and without a computer since Easter. Here's what we've been up to, only major life changing events!

Jordan graduated from school!! Finally we are no longer students! I'm so proud of him and all of the work he did. He is now offically Dr. Houseman.

After graduation Jordan and I went on a cruise to the Bahamas. It was AMAZING! It was so nice to have a few days to ourselves, we felt like newly weds again! The beaches were crystal clear and the food was awesome.

After the cruise Jordan packed up his bags and went to Georgia to start his new job working at the Upson Regional Medical Center which is attached to the hospital in Thomaston, Georgia. For the next 6 weeks I worked on packing up the apartment and getting things ready for the big move. That brings us to where we are now! We just bought our first home!! We live in Thomaston, its a little more than an hour south of Atlana and 45 minutes West of Macon. It's a small town but not too small. Our new house is 5 bedrooms, 3 1/2 baths with a basement and a charming wrap around porch, all sitting on 5 1/2 acres!! We've only been here a week and we working on getting settled in. Jordan's friend from Ohio came to help and he's been an amazing help. It's been fun making the house our own but we still have a lot of unpacking to do. It's definately a change moving from palm trees and beaches to pastures and horses but I'm starting to love the peace and quite that we have. I can sit on the porch and just enjoy it. That's all I got for now. I'll post more pictures of our house after we get settled. And if anyone wants to come visit we finally have some extra space and would love guests!!!

Sorry the pictures are out of order, experiencing technical difficulties!

Butterfly Garden...Day 1

I ordered this butterfly garden the other day. I have seen these before and I know I would have loved one as a kid...and let's not kid ourselves I still think it's cool. Well today the caterpillars came in the mail. Jayla is so excited to watch them grow and transform. It takes a couple weeks for this complete transformation so hopefully this will teach her patients as well! We have 5 tiny caterpillars and we are excited to see what happens....keep you posted!!!!

School...on Saturday??

This semester Jordan has a lot of classes on the weekend so I have to find some things to do to entertain the kids. This weekend we went to the Fountain of Youth. It's not our first time there but they were doing a School of the 16th Century! So the kids got to learn about some things from the past. For those of you who haven't been the fountain of youth is more that just a fountain, which the water is so nasty and it doesn't seem to be working for me! They own a few acres and it's very pretty land. They have a little camp set up of the native indians. There's a planetarium and a few other things like that , I think they are very dated so we didn't go to them again. They do cannon demonstrations. They also have peacocks all over (last time we went a male peacock attacked our car because it saw it's reflection in it and thought it had some competition, we still have the scratches!) The kids had fun and it was a great Saturday afternoon activity...and best of all it was free!!

If anyone wants to come visit St. Augustine we only have a couple of months left! I've turned into a pretty good tour guide and we would love to have visitors!

These are some of the original cannons! They were some of Jayla's favorite, but she hated the real ones that they demonstrated

This guy taught Jordan about weapons from the 16th century. He also like watching the guy who was making bullets. He melted down the metal and then poured it in to a mold. Seemed like a lot of work to me!

I think it's a little big Jayla!

They have peacocks all over! I don't know if I have ever seen a white peacock, aren't they beautiful?!

Jayla kept eating the bread that we brought to feed the peacocks. But she was very brave and let them eat out of her hand.

Ready...set...go!!!

Jordan had his last pinewood derby this week. I tried really had to make sure we didn't wait until the last minute this year. We had been working on his car for a while and had it done a few days before. I took it the night before to test it out on the track. It was then that I found out that it was so slow! I didn't want a repeat of last year (he didn't win any races!!!) So in the morning I got out my new dremmel and made a new car. If it was faster then he could race it, if it wasn't then Jayla could race it against her friends after. It turned out to be faster so he raced Lightning McQueen! I'm happy that our ward isn't very competitive. The boys had a fun time. Jordan even won a few races!

Pictures!!!

Here are a few pictures from the last few months. Read the following post for an update (it's kind of long!) ENJOY!!
Naked Taliyah in a bucket!

I tried to get a good picture of the kids, this was the best I could get. I'm thinking the more kids we have the more impossible it will be!

We went to winter wonder land here in St. Augustine. It's at the park it it has ice skating, reindeer games, Santa, ice slide, elf village and snow (which is more like really little bubbles...you don't want to catch it on your tongue!)

All the Houseman girls with matching dresses!

Christmas Eve. Again, the best picture I could get of all of them together!

Looking out the window at the snow

Jayla and Gabby making Christmas cookies with Grandma

Beautiful Taliyah

I gave Jayla her first haircut! She looks so much better now!

Baby's First Christmas!!

New Year, Big Changes!

It's been 2 months since my last post. Those are the busiest 2 months of the year but also full of the best memories that I would like to share!

We celebrated Thanksgiving with a family from our ward that we have become very good friends. This was the first year, and probably the last, that I ate Thanksgiving dinner outside! It was a great dinner full of great food, friends and fun!

Christmas came and went in a blur! We weren't sure if we wanted to make the long drive to Ohio again this year since last year the drive was an absolute disaster! But we decided to go. Normally I like to have Christmas at our own home but since Jordan had his exit exams first thing in January we needed to get back so he could study. Jayla got to spend time with her only girl cousin, Gabriella. They are a little less than a year apart but this is the first year that they have been able to be at the same level to play. They had so much fun playing princess, ballerina and zombies (with the boys of course!) Jordan got to spend some time with his boy cousins and have a few sleep overs. The kids got to see some now and Jayla liked to stick her fingers in it. Our poor kids have no winter clothes so they were cold the whole time! We had a very nice visit but it was short because we had to get back! Our kids got some very nice toys but not everything on their list...This year I've decided Christmas needs to more about spending time with family and Christ and less about wanting a $300 gaming system with $50 games. It's hard to balance the fun and excitement of Santa and keep the true spirit of Christmas as well. Hopefully I will be able to make it a fun and spiritual Christmas every year for our family.

I was very happy to welcome in 2011! We have been looking forward to this year for a LONG time! When we moved here 2011 seemed so far away. I remember holding 2-month-old Jayla and thinking she would be 3 years old and in Sun Beams when we move. Jordan will be in 4th grade! And I couldn't even think that we would have a 1 year old! In 3 months my hard-working husband with graduate and we will be moving on! He's looking into different job offers. We aren't sure exactly where we want to move, but we definitely know where we don't want to move. We have some very big decisions ahead of us and we are hoping that we will make the best choice for our family.

I decided not to make any major new years resolutions. I know there are some things that I would like to improve on. I think as a family we are going to be healthier. Recently Jordan was diagnosed with Celiac Disease. Celiac disease is an autoimmune digestive disease, essentially the body is attacking itself every time a person with celiac consumes gluten. Gluten is found in wheat barley and rye. So the last few weeks I've been researching gluten free foods, recipes, restaurant menus...etc. Jordan never really liked breads and pastas but you wouldn't believe what gluten is in! Marinades, cream of chicken soup, soy sauce, even our taco seasoning had gluten in it! So this going to be a definite life style change for us but we feel very blessed that we found this early before he got really sick and that gluten free foods are easier and more accessible than they have been in the past. Jordan will be feeling better and have more energy and hopefully the rest of the family with benefit and get a little healthier too!

Taliyah has changed so much the last few months. She went from doing the worm across the floor to full crawling me and following me around like a shadow! At this age Jayla was already walking, I hardly remember her crawling. So I'm happy that Tally is taking it a little slower! She is into everything. Her favorite things are the dog food, outlets, the baby gate and knocking down all the movies. She loves loves loves to jump and dance. This week she has fallen in love with the door way bouncer. It's so much fun to she her jump like crazy in that thing. She's always smiling and we love her so much, but she does definitely keep us on our toes!

Jayla is my amazing little girl until about 4-5 and then get possessed by this crazy disobedient child! By the time bed time comes I'm ready to go to sleep too!! She really is a good girl, just going through a phase, I'm sure it will pass by the time she's 18! Jayla started Sun Beams this year. She loves it! She will be giving her first talk on Sunday, or should I say I will be giving her first talk on Sunday! She is a great big sister and I can't wait until they can play together even more.

Little Jordan is working on his pine wood derby car. This year I bought a kit. Not because we want to win....we just don't want to loose as bad!! I'm not bad a decorating the cars but we are not good at designing and making fast cars. It's hard to put on those stupid little wheels!! He will be starting baseball soon and he's getting excited for that.

Well I think that's all for now...I'll try to add some pictures sometime!