First Day of School

Yesterday was the first day of school for the James' household. My day began by getting up at 5:30 and going to the gym to workout and them back home to shower before getting Marley up and ready to go. When I got her up, she was so tired and sat in a chair and started to cry. I asked her what was wrong and she sobbed that she was going to miss me. I'm not quite sure what she expected, I think that she may have thought that she'd be staying there for a long time, like when she goes to visit her dad. Anyway, we had breakfast and she got dressed and we left at 7:30. LBJ is a small neighborhood school and when I pulled up I was not expecting to park two blocks away and walking here, but that's what happened.
We got to her class room, which was very small, and she decided to sit at a table with four other little girls. She looked so sad when I left and later told me that she cried after I left. I told her I cried to, which I did as I walked back to my car.
Me and Roni picked her up at 3:15 and she ran out to the car happily. She said she had a great day and made two new friends. She likes her teacher and told me about her classroom rules.
We went home and a little bit later picked up Ben from work, then I dropped off him and the kids and headed to class. I'm taking 2D Design and 3D Design and I'm looking forward to learning how to use watercolors and how to weld. I have the same professor for both classes who is from Japan and looks alot like Bobby Lee from Mad TV. It was a fun class, and we all scribbled on a huge piece of paper with sharpies. We got out of class early, which was good because Ben's parents were in town and I got to see them before they headed back to Vernon today.
Today I finally got Marley on a bus and she's going to be taking it home this afternoon. I hate that she has to ride the bus, but it's better than me having to spend the entire day running people around like I did yesterday. Anyway, I think it's going to be a good semester.

Happy Birthday Ronin!!!!

Ronin's birthday party

We had Ronin's birthday last week since Annie and Ray were going to be in town. It also worked out that Ben's grandma, Mimi, got to make it. We had a good time visiting with them. Ronin hit the jackpot in the present department, and enjoyed his cupcake.
We also got the living room put together, so now I have another room with no excuse to not clean up. It turned out really cute, and it's nice having a nice quiet place to sit and study.

Marley's Homecomming

Wow, we've had a busy couple of weeks! Marley came home on July 22nd, and my mom got to visit for a little over a week. I finished her room just in time to surprise her when she got home. Here is a rundown of the improvements:
Painted the room pink, laid down the maple flooring, altered and hung new curtains to match her new 1950's inspired Cinderella comforter. Hung her pet net, and princess canopy, put in the extra twin bed and dresser from the ranch, I found these adorable wall stickers at dollar tree and decorated her closet wall with them and above the beds. I took down her heavy closet doors and replaced them with hot pink silk curtains. It turned out really cute, and it's the most finished room in the house.
So anyway, while my mom was here, we shopped, and played with the kids. We tried to see the road runners, but I think it was too hot when we went and they weren't out. We drove up to New Mexico and went to Carlsbad Caverns. It was amazing. It was also nice to get into the cool 60 degree temp of the caves after the 2 hour drive through the desert. And when I say desert, we literally drove through 2 small towns on the way there. No houses, no gas stations, nothing. It was a little scary.
It worked out that Jared was going back to Indiana a couple days after my mom had planned to go back, so she got to stay until Thursday, and we even got to see Jared for a little while.
Saturday Marley and me got to go to the grand opening of a Toy's R Us in Midland. They had live appearances by Funshine Bear, Geoffrey the Giraffe, and Spiderman. But the highlight was seeing Barbie. Of course Marley was terrified of all of them, but I did get her to get close enough to Barbie to get them in the same frame of the pic. They also had buy one get one free barbies, so we were able to get Marley a couple that Barbie signed. It was a fun little outing. Anyway, I've been working my behind off in this house, so as soon as I get more pics, I will post more about the house.

Ronin

We had our 8 month well baby check up today. Ronin has only gained 1 lb in the past 2 months. He has gone from the tenth percentile to the fifth percentile and now he's dropped even below that. The doctor is concerned, and so am I. I'm supposed to increase feedings and bring him back next week to get him weighed. They also are concerned about curvature in his spine, so he had X-rays done today. Even the technician said something about how it looked curved. Also he has to go to an ophthalmologist because that new baby googly eye thing isn't going away like it should have. The worst part is that we can't find a pediatrician in Texas who is accepting new patients, our insurance, and children under 4.

Marley is 4!!!

Marley turned 4 years old today! It's so crazy how she keeps getting older but I stay the same age! Bizarre! Anyway, we had a party on Saturday with a couple of other families from our ward. There are 3 Marley's in our ward, one boy and two girls, and the girl Marley's have become fast friends. We had "the other Marley" over and her brother and another little girl and her older brother. Since our backyard is in pretty bad shape, we got a kiddie pool with a little slide, a crazy sprinkler with 15 nozzles that wiggle as they spray, water balloon's and squirt guns and told the kids to bring their swimsuits and let them have at it! They had a blast! Luckily the day wasn't too hot! It was a pretty crazy day, a bunch of members from the ward showed up around 8:30 that morning to help us put down flooring and paint. Then we only had about an hour before the party. Before we knew it, it was 8pm and me and Ben realized we hadn't eaten at all that day! Anyway, Here are the top 10 reasons why we love our little princess!
10. independent, she always has to do everything herself.
9. imaginative, she loves to dress up in costumes and could play barbies for hours.
8. Smart (sometimes too much for her own good)
7. Beautiful, her smile lights up a room.
6. she's a great big sister
5. adaptable, we have drug that poor girl from one house to another, and across the country and she never complains.
4. she is so funny! I'll never forget her teasing me before she even had a 20 word vocabulary.
3. she is so brave, she once stood up to a much much older kid at the playground who was picking on all the little kids, and yelled "HEY! YOU CAN"T DO DAT!".
2.she is so loving, she tells me at least 50 times a day that she loves me, and she loves to cuddle and give hugs and kisses.
1. She's ours!

one month left

So we are going to meet with our lawyer today to get a plan together to be out of here and in Texas in a month. I talked to Marley's dad yesterday about us moving, and the situation of us being out of work, out of money and soon, out of an apartment, and he's actually being unusually understanding about the whole thing. We may even be able to pull this thing off without going to court. He's in Mexico right now, and then he has to have surgery when he gets back, so he'll be out of work for 6 weeks, so I'm sure he want's to do this as inexpensively as possible. Also, if we go to court, we have enough of a case to be able to move quickly. Plus, we have INSANE people living below us that are stalking Ben, so I know her dad will be happy to get her out of this house. I will be so happy if we can keep this out of court, but at least I have a good lawyer in case we do have to go.