Tuesday, September 24, 2013

New

It's been a long time since I last blogged.  A LOT has changed in the Wilkerson family.  Here's what is new:

1.  We live in a new town-- Katy, Texas.  It is a "suburb" west of Houston.  We moved here mid August.

2.  We bought a house!  We love the added space, the beauty of the home, and the neighborhood in which we live.  We are around the corner from my brother, and about a mile from my cousin.  Pretty good set up.  The boys have their own rooms, so they are FINALLY not waking each other up or keeping each other from falling asleep.  AND we have a guest room, so we would love some visitors.  Here are a few pics of the house:


I love our front door!


Jared's office:
Our builder added these shelves as a last minute upgrade due to a pretty big mistake the builder made in calculating the square footage of our home.  It was 300 square feet smaller than they originally told us, so they had to made up the difference in price per square footage that we had agreed upon.  The builder also put in more ceiling fans and covered almost all the closing costs.


Living room fire place:


kitchen:


The table I refinished:
(The project that took FOREVER!)


kitchen:


planning station across from kitchen:
LOVE the built-in desk!



3.  Jared has a new job.  We new big law has a brutal schedule, and adjusting to his new work load has been a challenge.  But Jared likes his work and he likes his co-workers.


4.  Luke has a new school.  Although he is only in Kindergarten, this is Luke's THIRD school.  I think transitioning to a full 7 hour day has been hard on him.  But the most difficult change has been the expectation increase and the need to be more independent.  Luke is struggling to complete his work.  He is, however, one of the top readers in his class!  And there aren't any behavior problems besides focus.  And, in all honesty, I knew focus was going to be an issue.  We'll just keep working on it.  Luke also started a new tumbling class-- his first non Mommy-and-me class.  Last week was his first class, and he really liked it.  Today is his second class.


5. Micah has new big boy underwear-- James underwear (the RED train from Thomas and Friends.)  In all honesty I think it may be Skarloey on his underwear, but since the train is red, Micah is happy.  He is not at all fully potty trained, but he can go potty by himself and doesn't have pee pee accidents as long as I am good about reminding him to go.  He just doesn't take himself yet when he feels the urge.  Micah also started a tumbling class.  He is in a mommy-and-me class, but I think he will transition to an independent class once he is potty trained.  Micah will very shortly be starting the long evaluation process to determine whether he qualifies for the public preschool program.  If he does not qualify we will put him in a private preschool 2-3 days a week.  He will have to be potty trained to do any kind of private program.  I hope he picks up on the potty thing quickly.


6. I have a lot of new responsibilities as well.  Phone calls that Jared has made in the past (to set up utilities, etc.) were my job this go-round.  That wasn't a big deal.  But the yard is now my responsibility.  I have now mowed a lawn THREE times in my life-- all of them here in Katy.  I also attempted to edge once.  It didn't go so well.  But practice makes perfect, right?  I also volunteered to be a room mom for Luke's class.  I thought my job would be to provide the napkins and cupcakes for class parties, but Luke's school is HARD CORE.  So my job includes making a giant scarecrow for a festival in October, putting together a basket for an auction and carnival in November, and doing lots and LOTS of cutting out for Luke's teacher.


7.  Living near family is a new experience that we LOVE.

Pics of family and tumbling to come.  I can't get them to upload today.

Final Weeks in Amarillo

With time running out in Amarillo we tried to do a few things we hadn't done before.  Inside the mall there is a putt putt course in the dark that is decorated with neon paint and has black lights to make things glow.  Luke had asked to go there many times, so before we moved we took the boys.  In all honesty, it was probably the worst putt putt course I've ever seen, but at the same time it was probably the most perfect course for kids I'd ever seen.  Each hole was easy, and we could finish our 18 holes within their attention span, so it made for a pretty fun day.




The last 2 weeks were pretty busy with packing.  While I was occupied, the boys got into quite a bit of trouble.  One morning Micah dumped a whole bottle of baby powder on his head.


When he saw me, I think he must have been afraid of what my reaction would be.  He ran away from me which made the powder fly off his head and cloud the entire room and the entire floor in powder.  It made quite the mess.


It also made the powder drift down to cover his entire body.


I put Micah in the bath and cleaned off the powder, then I left him in the bath with Luke as look out while I went to vacuum the living room.  I should have known better.  Luke gave Micah a tube of Desitin and Micah rubbed globs of it all over his hair and chest.  I could NOT get it out of his hair.  I washed his hair with Dawn dishsoap and baby oil which finally got it out, but then he had greasy baby oil hair.  It took about 4 days before he looked normal again.



Once the packing was completed and our stuff was picked up on Aug. 9 we had a week of camping in our home.  Since there wasn't much to do at home we spent a lot of time out and about.  Emery and Nozomi kept us company in our adventures.  One morning Emery took us to the airplane museum by the airport.  The boys had so much fun!  I wish we'd known about it sooner.  The boys got to explore an old Nasa jet and an old parachute plane from the Vietnam war.

Nasa Jet:




We also got to watch an Osprey test flight.


Old Ugly
(the plane from Vietnam war):



That last week we also went to dinner with the Moody's at Red Robin, took a last trip to the bounce house, visited "inside playground" with Luke H and Nozomi, and waited for Papa to come.

After a year in Amarillo the boys and I left with my dad on Aug. 15th.  Jared joined us in Katy on Aug. 24th.  

The year in Amarillo was a great experience for our family!  We especially loved and appreciated our time with Jared during his brief 8-5 schedule.  We also made a few very good friends and we wish them all the best.