Doing what we are good at...Moving

Hi, we're the Harringtons and we are the most unstable family you've ever met.  We move several times a year.  I know, I know, here we go again.  Ever since everything went down in 2008 things have been crazy and we have moved too many times.  It's getting so bad that I hardly have room on my boxes to label what's inside.  They look like this: fragile-living room decor, kid's room books, tpc move-master bedroom, '09 move guest bathroom., dishes-kitchen...etc. etc, Living room pictures.  I try to cross out the old labels but I'm sure the wrong boxes will end up in the wrong rooms as we unload because people probably won't be able to tell what label is current.  Oh well!  I'm just glad that most of our boxes have lasted this long.  On a positive note, we stayed in this apartment for 18 months!  Incredible!  It's been good here but we out grew this place over a year ago when Cooper was born.  We finished out our lease and always planned on getting a 3 bedroom place once our 18 months was up.  We made it!  BARELY!  It's been insane! The place is nice and we could be fine here other than the fact that Cooper has been in our room this whole time.  He is almost 13 months old and does not sleep through the night!  I did not experience this with the other kids.  They were sleeping through the night much earlier and they also had their own rooms.  I just believe that this is the reason Cooper is still waking up.  We have a sound machine so I don't always think it's noise that wakes him (although Rich has been known to snore loud enough to wake him or randomly sneeze or cough in the middle of the night and scare me half to death and wake Cooper).  I really think the main reason is that Cooper knows we are there, right next to him, so of course we will pick him  up.  I need my sleep to be most effective around here and having a baby in my room ain't helping.  Not to mention his things being all over our room and closet as well.  Rich and I are both people who like organization when it comes to our things.  A home for everything is how we like it.  But having a small place makes that tough.  Cooper also naps in the kid's room on most days (in the porta-crib) because it is quieter during the day in there and darker.  So that has made their room more cluttered with the crib being in there.  And if you are wondering why I don't put the big crib in there permanently, it's for this reason, Jonah would kill him.  Trust me, he would.  His crib wouldn't fit in there anyway.  So for the sake of momma getting her sleep and all of us not going crazy with a small cluttered place, we will not be renewing our lease here.  I found a 3 bedroom apartment in my same ward that was cheaper than the 3 bedroom apartment here at this complex.  So we are moving about 5 minutes down the road.  Like I said it is in the same ward (that means we will go to the same church building with the same people because it's in the same boundaries-if that makes sense).  Unfortunately it's not in the same school boundaries though....but more on that in another post.  I know I sound bitter in this post because of our lack of stability but I'm actually excited about this move.  I'm excited that Cooper will have his own space and I'm excited because our new place has a ton of windows!!!  Even 2 windows in my kitchen!  I don't know what it is about windows in my kitchen that makes me feel happy and feels less like an apartment!  I might even attempt to grow some wheat grass or have real plants.  The living/dinning room has a lot of windows too.  The place we are in now is so dark.  I open up all the blinds and it's still not very bright.  I'm really looking forward to this move.  You have no idea!!!!!!  I'll keep you posted on Cooper's sleep progress for those who care.  I am not expecting it to be an easy transition.  He and I have some tough habits to break.  NO more co sleeping!  I'm sure it is going to mean a lot of sleepless nights for me for a while.  But I know it will be so worth it to retrain him to not depend on mommy to fall asleep or back to sleep.

9 more days!

We have a little unspoken agreement with moving:

*I do all of the packing and unpacking

*He does all the loading and unloading (with some of my help and others)

*I hang the pictures and decorate

*He hangs shelves and moves the furniture that I can't move

*We both do the cleaning of the old place and the new place

And together we make it happen!

And on a side note:

   Cooper is just so cute!  I really don't know why we have toys!  He doesn't play with them much at all.  His new favorite thing to do is carry around bowels, cups, boxes, or bags and put things in them.  He collects things and then stops and takes them out and puts them back in.  It entertains him for a long time now.  The other thing he now does that tempts me to have more babies is,  I say, "Cooper, I love you!" And he instantly makes kissing sounds and gives me the sweetest flirty smile and then more kisses. 

And on ANOTHER SIDE NOTE:
  Have you been ripped off lately?  I have.  I know this post is long enough, but read my story here, it might save you from being ripped off one day.

A couple weeks ago on a particular day, Julien was at school, Jonah at a friend's house, and Cooper was toting around with me looking for apartments.  I was starving and the stressful day called for a Hot and Ready pizza.  So I headed over to Little Caesar's to get a $5.99 (they aren't $5 anymore) pizza and figured the rest of what I didn't eat could be for dinner that night.  I walked in and had Cooper in my arms and the creep that was working there immediately started to try to flatter me.  He went on and on about the way I looked and it was really uncomfortable and annoying but whatever, I just wanted my pizza and smiled and answered his questions.  I'm not telling this to brag.  He was nasty and obnoxious.  I ordered, and handed him my credit card and when I handed it to him he told me the total which was $6.98 or something close to it.  He continued to try to flatter me, now asking me (as he looked at my picture on my credit card) if I was a cheerleader in high school.  He then typed something in his register as he looked at my card and I was getting super annoyed and suspicious.  The cheerleader question was to distract me by the way, as was all of his flattery.  He then asked if I wanted my receipt although he didn't use the word receipt.  He called it something else and I said, "yes please." His countenance then changed and he looked a little let down that I wanted my receipt.  So he hand it to me while looking in my eyes, and said "here you go beautiful."  (Again, trying to distract me. As soon as he turned away to get the pizza I looked at my receipt and , UH HUH, INTERESTING...the total was $22.99.  Nice try loser.  I am standing there watching him slice up my pizza, thinking about how I am going to deal with this.  It was soooo irritating and I felt so violated!  He then hands me the pizza.  Again, calling me beautiful (I'm puking inside).  And then I say, "um, this receipt says, $22.99."  He very quickly (looking ever so guilty) asks me for my credit card.  I didn't want to give it back to him, but did anyway and he looked at it and says, "oh, 2299 are the last 4 digits of your credit card number.  I must have accidentally typed that in instead of the total!  The real total is 6.98, I'm so sorry!  Thank you for looking."  Oh really, is that why he said, "$6.98" as he rang me up the first time, sure.  At this point I'm just trying my best to not tell the guy what I really think of him as he voided the sale and gave me a voided receipt.  It made me sooooo mad!  Not just that it happened to me but the fact that I know he does it to people all of the time because he was so quick to say, "oh let me see your credit card...i put in the last 4 digits."  What a loser!   Some people!  Ironically, it happened to be the tastiest hot and ready pizza I've ever had from Little Caesar's.  They aren't always that great.  But even still, not worth $22.99!!!  It took a few days for the money to be returned to my account and during those days I grew more irritated.  I'm still going to try to bust this guy.  Just not sure how yet.  So moral of the story, check your receipts!

Christmas Morning

Julien was up at 1 am and discovered the presents and ran and woke up Jonah and they both came out.  I told them to go back to bed.  Julien had made Christmas cards for each person in the family and hid them all over the house and then went back to bed. He woke up again at 4 am and finally again at 7:30 and we gave them the okay to be awake.  Cooper had a blast having everyone on the floor and went from present to present touching every thing.  He never did mess with the tree since there was so much going on.  After we opened presents, my dad and Carolyn came over and we had brunch and more gift exchanges.

Let the fun begin!

Opening gifts/ Toy Story 3 was the gift that got the most screams and jumps for joy.  Thank you to my sister for that one!

The mess of presents/the new ping pong set up

My kids make funny faces when they are concentrating.  Connect 4 was one of our family favorites this year!  We've played it many times since Christmas day and the kids are getting really good.  They beat Rich and I sometimes. 

 It took me a while to finally get these 2 Christmas posts up and now we are all over Christmas so I'm stopping here.  Hope you all enjoyed Christmas this year!

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve is my favorite day of the year.  I think my kids are pretty fond of it too.  This year it was a busy day and didn't seem like Christmas Eve.  I wasn't even with my family for most of the day, well, except for the Cooper.  Finally, by night time, we were all together and we did our Christmas Eve traditions.  The kids got new p.j.s and a new ornament that they get to open.   We brought the tree down from the counter (if you saw that post).  Cooper did just what we thought he would...clobber it and knock it over and pulled off the ornaments.  He was as big as the tree!  But we just brought it down for the traditions and then put it up until they were asleep and brought it back down again for Santa.  We put out cookies for Santa and I read them a Christmas story and that was our night.  Can't tell you how much we miss being with extended family during the holidays.  Even though we have our own traditions and love being with our little family, we miss the big group of family we had in St. George, UT, and CA.  We always feel a bit of a void around the holidays, but that doesn't mean we don't still enjoy them, because we do. The kids make it fun, we just miss everyone else. 

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It's really hard to get a picture of the three of them together.  Here Cooper is trying to get away, like he does, and Jonah is crying because he wanted to hold Cooper.  I'll take what I can get!

Is it just me or does Julien look like a teenager here?!



We had 4 packages of presents that were mailed to us this year, so I saved them to put out with the Santa gifts.  They were so amazed when they woke up!