Ahhhhhhh..... I need a job

It has been a long time coming. And the time is finally here. With Lucien starting school this fall and Fiona being a year in May, I need to start thinking about which route to go for my future work life.
1. I love being a mama and I think I could keep myself busy and happily entertained for a couple more years at home
2. But I also love being a pharmacist. And this is where things get tricky. Is all the hassle worth it???? It is so difficult to get my license transferred to be able to work here. Every time it try to roll up my selves and get started I am totally intimidated by the whole process and the huge amount of paperwork and workload.
3. Why oh why can I not come up with a creative, unique idea, run a happy lil etsy store and make enough money to put us in a more comfortable spot????

Any thoughts on this, guys??? Maybe you guys have an idea or know somebody who knows somebody.
Just a Saturday morning ramble after not much sleep and too much thinking. Coffee it is now!

Living her word....already ( Random act of kindness)

Yesterday, Stella came home from school saying "mama, I need to bring some extra tights to school," I was like ok, what for , did you rip the ones you wore??? " no mom, there is this girl at school and we are roller skating outside and it's freezing and the teAchers told her she needed to bring tights to be able to join in this cold weather and the girl said she does not have any and so I said I will bring her some of mine!" Wow, I was speechless. Now, just to give you a little more info on this. I know this child and I know she probably has more than 5 pairs of tights at home and I know money is not an issue. Also you need to know how particular Stella is with her clothing, once we find something she likes, that is it, there is no left or right from it.So, in the beginning of the school year I stocked up on one kind she liked( and those are not available year round). Due to a long and esp cold winter down here we are down to two that are left for the rest of the winter plus a pair of footed ones, which she hates but we kept as a back up! At first I was thinking why in the world do I have to send one of HER tights???? And this morning as I got ready for school I explained to her again, that after given away this second pair she only has one more and the footed ones.( I also asked her to give away the footed ones, instead) but my girl, stuck to her word and said" no, I will give her the ones that I like too and if I rip that last pair I will have to deal with the footed ones ( hopefully it'll warm up soon)"
So I send her off to school with those tights, not knowing if they were really needed or appreciated. At 6.30 in the morning I saw my lil  courageous  lady leaving me in awe with a lesson learned way beyond school!
Did I mention before, sometimes I want to be a little more like her

A first in 2014 Virtual Coffee

a fresh start!!!

It's 2014 , a new year, clean slate, fresh start, ladeedadeeda! Truth is, 2013 went out with a big bang and since then I am still trying to count my blessings and find my mojo back! Trying is the word, cause the lack of sleep due to a teething lil lady and other things on my mind are not being very supportive!
Most of you guys know how excited I was to have my family here in the States for Christmas. A lot of hustle and bustle kept me busy the weeks before their arrival. I had not seen my peeps in exactly a year and it was the first time for Miss Fiona to meet her Omi and Opi. To say the least, I was bursting with excitement and just to say it straight forward, I am happy everybody is back were they belong!
All our plans for the holidays failed due to crazy sickness among the kids of the house( 4 out of 5 came down with RSV and much more) It was a visit between doctor visits , hospital stays, organizing care for the others while tending to the sick ones, loads of grocery trips, lots of worries, delayed flights home, nasty weather and so one.Granted we were together but I felt so bad for everybody making this very expensive trip to come and see us and then it was just a big mess. I really don't want to sound ungrateful, it was just the opposite spectrum of what I had hoped for and as of now, I can't shake this deflated, tired feeling.
But I am big on trying to get out of the funk. I have started ! My kids are back to school and we are getting back into the groove with that. And Everyone is healthy ( so thankful for that) !
Despite all the craziness, I think the kiddos still enjoyed Christmas. It was a looong Christmas season this year ( after a slumber party under the lights of the tree last weekend, we took down all decorations Sunday night)
Now the house is bare and in desperate need for a deep cleanse ( this is just how I feel too) . If we would really meet for coffee, I would fill you in on all the crazy details of our Christmas 2013, I would ask you to share your secret remedy to solve funky ,moody feelings, I would ask if you have made any special resolutions for 2014.
 I made a long list of things that I would like to accomplish 2014. Some house projects, some family trips, some personal goals and some to cave out more time to be with my man, oh and of course to be more patient, ha!stella picked her word for this year: Courage! I admire her so much for that! At her very young age she picked something that she knows will challenge her very much!

I wish I would be more like her sometimes.

I am still thinking about mine! There are just too many things buzzing in my head at the moment! I might come up with one or maybe not and i am totally ok either way! 

I did not take too many pics this past Christmas season but those very few need to be shared and remembered for the years to come: "hey, remember this crazy Christmas, when you came to visit us in the States!" "Oh how could we forget!!! It was freezing cold like Louisiana had not seen in the last 50 years...". And so on. 

So I guess it is safe to say we surely did make memories this Christmas of 2013:)
here we go:

Each year the excitement of eating those tiny, cheap chocolates is grand!!!

Nikolaus 2013

pros at eating chocolate at 6am

Fiona and her teeny tiny boot

Snippets of our Christmas season 

our card 2013

Decorating the tree ( Lu decorated a very special 'Lucien corner' on the back of the tree with all his special ornaments( that boy)), listening to Pandoras Christmas station, day in and day out, packaging sweet little presents, lots of crafting, Christmas parties and visiting Santa. All was peaceful. All was bright before this happened....

Poor little sickling

and a very tired mama

Fiona's first Christmas

Take a mental break for a bit cause a lot of not so fun things went on in between those pics (104 fever, breathing treatments, shots of antibiotics, a bottle of ibuprofen and an earinfection on top of the RSV, if you care for the details).
Feeling all better for Christmas morning and then everyone else got the bug, yuck!!!

my gang Christmas morning( feeling better)

plus the cousins

the cousins before sickness struck

Lu came down with it, just not as bad, due to the fact that he is older, but both twins got it, too. One of them really bad. Imagine being in a foreign country with one in the hospital and one sick at home! yeah, needless to say the stresslevel was high, really high for all of us. Not nearly the happy Christmas we had hoped for. But as usual,looking at the bright side. Those next two pics make me really happy and I will treasure them forever.

Christkind listened to all the begging and brought her Marie Grace!!!!

happiest moment this Christmas season, meeting her Opi for the first time

So there it is, all just spilled out. The good always outweighs the bad and this is why I needed all those little, mostly happy moments documented on here. I am so out of practice, when it comes to writing a post. This one took almost a week before I had all the words and pics lined up in a somewhat presentable way. Need to shape up my blogger skills soon or really hire someone to work on my layout. Anyone out there, that you can recommend????? Thanks for listening. I feel better. The end

Currently

Reading bread and wine by shauna niequiest
Listening to the cure (burn )on my pandora station
Drinking a hot coffee with caramel creamer and lots of milk
Loving this crisp cool, sunny fall morning
Eating my go-to breakfast (oatmeal with vanilla yogurt, banana slices and blueberries)
Feeling thankful that my man is off today and brought both big kids to school so that I could sleep some more and cuddle with the little lady,
Thinking about fall projects, all the heartache going one around me, which wants me to wrap my people even closer and never let go again,
Needing to run to the craftstore to get supplies for school projects due on Monday (yikes) and homemade Christmas gifts( trying to stay ahead this year)
Wanting to get some ordered stuff in the mail!
Wearing my PJs, it is only a bit past 9 am so I'm still ok ;)
Enjoying my girlie so much, knowing that she is striving because of me is an unbelievable accomplishment to me , which I need to be reminded of sometimes when things get weary! What a sweet lil soul she is. I needed her!

Happy Friday
( this is a total random post, just the way it popped into my mind, hope you enjoyed it anyway!)

Back to school

2011 Kindergarten

2011 Kindergarten

2012 1st Grade

2012 1st Grade

2012 2nd year of Bizzy Bunch

2013 3rd year of Bizzy Bunch

2013 2nd Grade

2013 2nd Grade

so, after 3 long summer months, today was the first day back to school for my little man. and we were ready. We had a fun summer but, boy, it was long. and with having a new baby in the house, the entertainment factor was not always as fun as in previous years.but hey, we made the best out of adjusting to live as a family of five and enjoyed it anyway.
please bare with me and my computer skills. the different formats of those pics appear perfectly lined up on the blogger preview. and then i hit publish and everything is wonky. don't have the time to worry about it, otherwise I will never find time to blog again.....

One year later

I do

One year later ......
Oh where to start. Life has been a crazy whirlwind with lots of good and lots of unexpected happening to our little family.
Not quite sure why I had lost my mojo to write here for a while, cause I do need writing so desperately for my sanity! ( guess I lost that for a while, too ;))
First things first! we had a baby. Yes, and sometimes I am still in disbelief that this really happened. And I am so grateful for my sweet little surprise baby Fiona Mae, snoozing right beside me at this very moment.
 Remember my last real post about hurricane Isaac? Well, thankfully we weren't harmed in any way by it.Lots of rain of course, a couple extra days of no school, we never even lost power ( don't get me wrong, I am NOT complaining). Instead we enjoyed a little extra family time ;)
Before we knew it things were going normal pace again, kids back in school, normal business around here, me getting ready to hit the books hard to go back to work this summer. But something felt off. I did not feel right and seriously thought I might be sick, like real sick. Anyway, I was up for my check up anyway so I scheduled an appointment with my ob/gyn and I knew they would ask me about a prego test. So one fine late September Sunday morning ( I will never forget it was the weekend of the balloon festival around here) I took a test.Not thinking in a million years it would be positive, I left it on the bathroom counter not even looking at it and kinda forgetting about it. Fast forward an hour later or so: total disbelief ! My little world just got rocked to it's core. POSITIVE. It was still super early in the morning, Lu was up early as usual, so I took him outside to ride his bike, sort my thoughts and watch the sun rise ! While out there I saw two hot air balloons showing up on the horizon and then a little further away and a little lower another whee little one showing up! Always looking for a sign, I could not help myself but break down crying with the first rays of sunlight hitting my face.

this is the pic i posted on insta, the day i found out we were expecting. can you see the tiny balloons???

In retrospective, it was just a plain beautiful sight and the first sign showing me how much I needed this beautiful little baby, that I am rocking in my arms this minute.
As I broke the news to Ricky, he needed a moment, too. But the loving man and daddy he is, he caught his emotions quickly( after a little walk alone,( this hit him off guard, he did not even know I was taking a test) he wrapped his arms around me and reassured me that things would be alright). Maybe a bit different from our plans, but alright!

first doctors visit, feeling nervous

Well, to speed things up a bit, a doctors appointment  on Ricky's 38th birthday confirmed what we already knew. We were really and truly expecting another child.......to be continued!!!

yep there will be three

cpr for this lil blog of mine

this patient seems to be dead. she has been dead for almost a year. Cause of death: unkown. maybe lack of energy, time, computer issues, lazyness..... but today suddenly her toes started wiggleling again and she had an itch in her writing hand. She misses rambling about the lil and the big things. she might be back to life. I will try my hardest to keep her alive this time around. writing feels good again, sorting through my brain feels good again. cajuncoffeehaus is open for business once again