Aleksi

There are a few things I already knew about Aleksi prior to living with her:

She loves the beach.

She loves to shop.

She LOVES her family.

She likes to play the "would you rather.." game

Her favorite chinese student is Dave.

She likes to have her hair in braids while eating peanuts in her underwear.

She loves watching movies as much as I do

She "jeffs" (long story that needs to be told in person)

She thought my name was Aubrey even after knowing me for months.

After being reunited and living together for 3 months I have learned a few more things:

She is ADDICTED to shopping.

She cries when she thinks about Bentley

She likes to tap you on the shoulder and wake you up in the middle of the night to tell you things like "cortney, its thundering outside" and "cortney, do all mountains have names or just the big ones?"

She goes for 3 minute jogs

She doesn't cook...ever.

She is THE MOST boy crazy girl I have ever known

She can't say no to people

She likes to try on and plan out her outfits before she needs to wear them (came home on a saturday to find her trying on outfits for sunday).

She loves her accessories

She has Unicorn hair ( a piece of hair that without fail is always shooting straight forward like she is ready to stab someone)

(case and point)

She has the craziest bedhead I have ever seen. But seriously. No person/stylist/professional could mimic the way her hair looks in the morning if they tried.

She is very artistic

She wears a mouth guard at night and its my favorite thing about her.

She can't whistle

She cuts corners to close while driving and takes chunks out of her tires

She loves my family like her own

She has a huge heart

She thinks I am really funny...because I am

She does a really good impression of the Target Lady from the SNL skit

She hates cats--like a lot

She likes to leap off our front doorstep (don't ask me why)

.....

This list will get bigger and bigger and so will the reasons why I love her so much.

Did you know?

I just found out that elephants mate for life.

I knew Penguins, Doves and some humans, but I didn't know elephants did.

Did you know that elephants can die of a broken heart??

How precious/sad is that...?

If you seperate them from their life partner they get depressed and will stop eating.

Poor thing.

I like elephants so much more now.

Animals can be so human sometimes. I hate that most of the world forgets that.

Going back.

The other night Aleksi and I were laying on my bed and talking about our childhood.We were both SO blessed to have such a wonderful childhood full of fun/good memories.We talked about Christmas and how it was such a magical time as a kid...even still as an adult, but there is just something about being a child at Christmas time. Nothing beats it. My parents did such a good job at making sure there was magic at Christmas time. It's something I look forward to when I have my own children. I laugh so hard when I remember me as a child around Christmas. Well, any holiday really. EVERY year I would write a note to santa and leave it next to his plate of cookies. Don't think it was a letter telling him how good I was or thanking him for my presents. It was a piece of paper with a list of questions that I insisted on having the answers too.

1. Who is your favorite reindeer?

2. How far away is the north pole?

3. How long does it take you to go to everyones house?

4. Can I have a bell off of one of the reindeers collar?

also made a similar list for the Easter Bunny the night before Easter.

1. How far can you hop?

2.Can I have some clippings of your hair? (what was I planning on doing with that???)

3.Can I have a paw print?

I laugh so hard at these memories because I was such a curious child (still am as an adult), but it also makes tear up at the thought of my parents sitting there playing along, answering my silly questions and looking around the house trying to find some kind of hair clippings to leave me. I love my parents. They are such good parents.

Its so funny the things you do and think as a child. The way our little minds worked. When I was a little girl I couldn't figure out for the life of me how my hair grew and where it came from. The only explanation I could think of was that my little body must be full of hair and the only way for it to come out is by growing out of the top of my head. I was convinced I cracked the case of how hair was coming out of all of our heads.

You're welcome everyone.

Why were we in search a hurry to grow up? I have no idea because I wish I could be a child again--for just a day. I have thought about what it would be like if we all had the opportunity to spend the day with our younger self. Does that make sense? Just you and your 5 year old self for a WHOLE day. I wonder what my 5 year old self would insist on playing and I wonder if my present self would play along--I know I would. I would wear myself out for sure.

Mud Pies would be somewhere on the list. Oh....and capturing cats and probably getting a spoonful of peanut butter and licking it all gone while we ride around the neighborhood on our bikes. We might even get our Recorders and play them as we march on top of our picnic table.

Just an idea.

That sounds like a fun day.

Someday.

Someday is the answer to a lot of my questions these days.

When am I gonna have a job? Someday.

When am I gonna have some money to buy cute stuff? Someday.

When are my hot neighbors gonna go ahead and start falling in love with me? Someday.

When will my life not be ghetto? Someday.

Speaking of ghetto. I don't have a microwave. It's funny how much you take these things for granted when you have them. You learn very quickly when you are poor how to get creative. For instance, this is how I defrost stuff.

Blender & hot water.

Nice, huh?

and then there were 3

Happy. Excited. Grateful.

Thats how I feel about my good friend/old roomate Stef moving in next week.

Stef decided to move into the 3rd room we have (used to be our craft room) and Aleksi and I are thrilled.

I think this is a blessing for all 3 of us and the answer to all of our prayers.

I have a lot of great memories with this girl and am looking forward to some more!!

I forgot I had one of these...

Its no secret that life is hard.

Mine sure is at the current moment.

But thats just the thing, they are only moments. The hard times won't always be there. Well..at least thats what I keep telling myself.

I am still currently jobless...and its HARD.

Until my current moment passes I am creating a mental list of things I am grateful for.

1. Family- That my sister who is a mother of two who is remodeling her entire home and also pregnant took time to research and send me a list of job openings. That my brothers and their wives have fed me and gave me a place to stay when I was homeless. That my Parents...(pause while I cry some more)...love and support me and currently make it so I am not homeless and starving.

2. Friends-who also have fed me, but more importantly keep me happy. Especially my Andersen girls...couldn't survive here without them.

3. Laughter- thank goodness Heavenly Father gave us laughter and THANK GOODNESS ITS FREE. Laughing is the only thing keeping me sane as of lately.

4. Ingrid Michaelson songs- you can't NOT feel good listening to them.

5. My dreams-along with laughter this too is free and free is about all I can afford these days.

6. My extremely hot, baseball playing neighbors- I live next to three very, VERY good looking boys..correction..MEN (there is nothing boyish about them). Aleksi and I don't have internet or cable so being able to spy on our neighbors has provided some entertainment for us. Don't worry, our bedroom windows only face their living room and backyard. NOT their bedrooms..we're bored, not perverts. The other night I watched and listened from my dark bedroom window for over an hour while one of the boys and his girlfriend broke up. Tempers raged, awkward moments shared and tears were shed--by all three of us. It was like watching The Real World on MTV.

7. Reading- I currently just finished The Hunger Games series and it is the best series of books I have ever read. EVER.

8. Saron- my niece. She isn't even here yet and already brings me such joy. I can NOT wait to get my hands on her. I have been having dreams about her lately. The best part is that I get to be there when she makes her grand debut at the end of next month.

Thats my list so far, but it gets bigger each day.

Home Sweet Home......?

Aleksi and I got the keys to our house on Friday.

What should have been a really exciting day was actually quite overwhelming.

We moved all of our stuff in and quickly realized that we really don't have a lot of stuff.

Aleksi has a TON of clothes and I have a lot of scrapbooking stuff. That's it.

We have a big, empty house that needs a lot of work. A LOT OF WORK.

Aleksi and I spent hours in the backyard yesterday weeding, raking and finding treasures.

Treasure=2 dead birds, tennis ball, dice, a broken gardening tool and a lot of never-before-seen bugs.

We managed to get several huge piles of sticks, weeds, and dead leaves and it still doesn't look like we made a dent. *sigh*

Someday I will be able to post "after" pictures and they will be darling, I promise you that. Until then enjoy these ugly "before" pictures of our new house (not yet a home).

(excuse the boxes and bags--we still haven't completely unpacked the stuff we do have)

Living Room

Kitchen

We are dying to rip down the nasty wall paper border and we thought we wanted to paint the cupboards, but quite a few people have said that we shouldn't. What do you think?

Laundry Room

This room will look much better when a washer and dryer occupy the dirty corner.

Bathroom--the only thing thats semi-new in the entire house.

Aleksi's room

My Room--don't you just love the stars??

Craft Room

This room is mostly windows and will be darling with a fun color of paint on the walls. I'm mostly excited to decorate this room..obviously.

Backyard

The backyard wraps around the whole house..so its pretty decent sized. The open gate you see in the picture leads to our SECOND backyard--which is mostly dead grass and a firepit.

FYI..this picture was taken *before*our yardwork.