January 2013: This & That...

Here's a real-life, inside scoop of what our life is REALLY like!! I mean, sure...we try to make the best out of every situation and keep positive and have fun in life, but let's get real...sometimes life just takes over and we do everything in our might to just keep on swimming. So, without further delay, here's a glimpse of what January at the Carmack household was REALLY like...

First of all, Olivya didn't sleep for a month. That's 4 weeks people! Not a single night. Since the first week in December (we were in Texas when it started), Olivya has woken up every FREAKIN hour and cries until I pick her up, or give her a bottle, or give her a pacifier, or swaddle her in a blanket. But of course, I never knew which one she wanted, and she would never settle for the one she didn't want, so sometimes it took a half hour to get her back to sleep, only to be woken up an hour later again. It was a horrible 4 weeks and I have thanked God 10 times/day for the past 4 days because she has started sleeping through the night again!! Halleluijah!!

Did I mention it was awful? Like worse than when she was a newborn. She was a mess. I was a mess. (And of course Michael and Adelyn slept through it all except when I would get so fed up and kick Michael to get out of bed because I just couldn't bring myself to get up one more time. And he was more than willing to get up with her (don't get me wrong)...but he has the natural ability to sleep through her screaming, so I got the joy of waking up to it every time.

Not good people...not good. Yep, it sucked.

And not that I would have had the energy anyway, but it's been ungodly cold here for the past few weeks! Just make sure to read the "Feels like" temperature below the actual temperature. It's brutal, which (in my opinion) makes me twice as crabby at the world.

The only saving grace during our cold weeks was my cousin Sarah (well, technically my cousin's daughter...but we don't get technical in this family) came and spent an entire week with us and hung out and even watched the girls every day when Michael and I had to work. The girls LOVED having their cousin Sarah here!! We loved it too...we even got some good games of cards in after the girls went down at night...(Thanks Sarah for hanging out with us all week!)

But don't let that make you forget how cold it's been here...

We also experienced our first "winter" electric bill that included all of our electric heat to heat our house in this insanely cold weather. Let's just say, Michael and I both had a slight heart attack when we opened that bill. Almost immediately, Michael went around to all the thermostats that control our electric heat and turned them all down to 55. Yep, 55 degrees. (Since then I've convinced him to turn them up to 60 so that we at least don't see our breath in our house). So, to stay warm, we resorted to building forts and sitting in them all night. You think I'm kidding, but all 4 of us literally sat in this fort for a majority of the night for at least 4 days last week. It was that cold. 

Everyone always asks us how we are liking small town living, and the truth is that we really like it. We just wish that the small town could be closer to a bigger city (the twin cities would be ideal!), but I guess that would be counter productive. So we've decided to embrace it just the way it comes. And that includes looking forward to our weekly trip to Brainerd on Fridays (our day off) to run errands, go to Costco, and grocery shop (and get Caribou Coffee!! My favorite part!). I can't decide if it is sad or cute that Adelyn is so excited every time we pull into Costco and Target (She literally squeals with delight as she says the store's name over and over again). 

And of course, we make it back to the twin cities a fair amount too! Last weekend we headed back as I got to throw my friend Maggie a baby shower with my friend SueLynn and another friend of Maggie's. We chose the theme "You are my Sunshine", as we needed a gender neutral theme (they aren't finding out the sex of the baby) and so of course, we had to have all yellow food. It was a great day celebrating Maggie and Baby Waterman. I can't wait to meet this little one in just a few short weeks:) 

And so there you have it, oh faithful blog readers. There's some of the in's and out's...the joys and challenges...the crazies and normals...that we call our life. Oh - and we love it all....most of the time.