Moving back to Arizona and Summer 2013

Well it has been a while since my last post to this blog. For one, I didn't want to write while we were in our most stressful time we have ever been in our marriage and for another, I have been very busy since we moved back to Arizona that I honestly took every second of down time I could to just relax.

So Dale graduated BYU Law School in April. I was so incredibly proud and relived when he walked across the stage at graduation that I cried when his name was read. I am so happy that it is all over.

We moved back to Arizona the day after Dale graduated and moved into ASU Family Housing in Mesa. Because I am taking classes with ASU, We can live here on campus. It has been a great thing with us not knowing where Dale would get a permanent job, which can be anywhere in Arizona once he had taken and passed the Arizona State Bar Exam and admitted into the Arizona State Bar Association. So the ASU housing has been a great temporary place for us.

Dale took the Arizona State Bar Exam at the end of July. We moved here in April and he had from then until the end of July to study for the exam. It became a full time job for him and most of the time he was studying eight hours a day. I took a job doing hair again so he would not have to worry about supporting our little family during the study period for the bar. I started working at SportClips and a new appreciation for being a stay at home mom dawned on me. I would work a full time job and then come home and do my other full time job of being a mom. To say the least I was very tired most of the time. But the time came for the Bar Exam and Dale took the two day test. And then we waited until October 11th for results.

After the Bar Exam, Dale began to look for jobs that he could do without having been admitted to the Bar Association. He finally found a clerkship (which is basically a research position) for Maricopa County Attorney's Office. He was one of about 100 applicants and was told after his interview that they would contact him if they wanted to hire him and not to call them. We didn't hear anything from them for about 3 weeks and then he got the call one day while we were out shopping, that he got the job! I was so happy and proud. We found out that, on his first day, he was one of 7 to get the job out of 100. To say that I was incredibly proud is putting it lightly. Dale was on his way to starting a promising career in law. I then quit my job, to be a stay at home mom again and would not have it any other way.

I also found out right after Dale took the Bar Exam that I was expecting our third child. We were not expecting this little surprise and were quite nervous to find out that we would be having another little one. My kids are very close together and when I think about adding a third to this little gang I still get very nervous although I am getting used to the idea. When I was about 7 weeks pregnant, I woke up with a horrible cold and went to urgent care. While I was there they asked me all these routine questions and one of those questions was if I had any abdominal pain. I told them that I have been having what I assumed as growing pains on my lower right side. The doctor just wanted to make sure everything was good so he did a full examination. When he would push on my right side I was very tender. Because of the fear of appendicitis while your are pregnant, I was then sent to the emergency room. I then spent the day doing tests and staying overnight for observation. All I wanted to do was go home because I had a cold and just wanted to be taken care of by my husband. And because of our kids that needed to be taken care of, he could not stay with me in the hospital. I was sick, in pain, and very lonely. The next morning, the surgeon determined that I needed to have the appendix removed. I was very scared. First, having my appendix removed could cause a miscarriage and after 3 of those I didn't want to experience that ever again. Second, not having my appendix removed and then having it burst would not only cause me to loose my small baby but also put my life in danger. And third, my husband was not with me to make this horrible choice and I was feeling very alone. I told the surgeon I would have the surgery and then right after he left pleaded with my Heavenly Father that I would not loose this little one. I then called Dale and cried. He told me that he found a babysitter and would be there ASAP to be by my side when I went to surgery. I was so grateful when he walked through my door. I went and had the surgery and when I woke up was told that everything went very well and that my baby was still there with a great and strong heartbeat that I got to hear. I then cried again in thanks that my baby had made it through a hard thing as little as it was. Recovery was hard but got easier and easier every day. It was a trial of my faith and I am so happy that I was being watched over and protected.

  My little one continues to grow every day and I am feeling movement more and more. I get to find out what I am having tomorrow and I am so excited. With one boy and one girl already, either gender will be welcomed into this family.

Coen is getting so big and is really becoming a big boy now. He just turned three and is growing and learning everyday. He loves to learn new things and it is starting to become challenging to find new things for him to do. He is so smart and I am truly blessed with how amazing he is. He has now really wanted to help every time I cook. He is my little chef.

Adylee is also growing every day and has a new word to tell me almost hourly. She is starting to say more and more and do more and more. It is hard to keep up with two active toddlers but now that the weather here has finally turned nice, being outside everyday for hours at a time helps tremendously.

We just found out on Friday that Dale did pass the Bar Exam and now can be admitted into the Bar Association. Our joy is very hard to explain. After four years from the time Dale started the whole process of testing to get into law school, applying, choosing the right law program, going to law school for three years, graduating, taking the bar exam, and now passing, he can now finally find a job as a lawyer and start his career. I am so proud of my amazing husband and everything he has accomplished. It is a good feeling to know that he has this degree and can now use it to support our family. It was a great relief to know that he passed especially with a new baby on the way. So now the job hunt begins and probably moving will be in our near future. Once he finds something we can move close to that job, wherever it may be, and really get settled for the first time in our married life. I am so excited for this next chapter.

Last Semester of Law School

Well this last semester has been very interesting so far. As fast as the first semester of this school year was, the last semester has been just as slow. We are getting very anxious to get out of school and on with our lives. It doesn't help that many of our friends have moved away or will be moving in the next little while. So now I just keep myself busy with the kids and school and hope that the time passes quickly.  But we have had some fun things that have happened this semester that I would like to share with all of you.

First off, Coen is growing and getting smarter every single day. We actually had him tested because I felt that his speech was not where other kids his age is. So I had this program here in Orem come and test him. When they test things like speech, however, they test other things like intelligence and hearing and vision. Well not only did he pass everything, but his intelligence was off the charts. Can I tell you that this makes me the most proud and the most terrified I have ever been in my life. First, I am super proud of my son. I knew he was smart but according to the lady that tested him, she said that she has never seen a kid test so high. This makes me terrified as well. I have never considered myself a smart person. I struggle with school and I struggle to keep up with intelligence conversation. I start to get very anxious when I get around Dale and his law school friends. So to have a kid that tests off the charts for intelligence makes me nervous. I never want to be considered stupid by my kids. So I guess we will see what happens.

Coen is also very active. He keeps me hopping all the time. One of his little troubles that he made is in the pictures below. He colored my couch with a black marker that took me the rest of the night to remove. I went to the bathroom for two minutes.

Another one was I went to do my makeup and came back five minutes later to find Coen naked and standing on top of the microwave. He is a trouble maker and I am learning to keep up. It is the hardest job in the world, being a parent. It is a good thing I love him so much or I might have given him away by now. :) But how can you not love this face?

He is such a good brother and Adylee is always trying to keep up. They are so cute together and I love just to listen to them giggle and play together.

Adylee turned one on the 5th of February. I cannot believe that my baby is one. It went by so fast and she is getting so big. I dreaded her turning one. I feel like I was so busy chasing Coen that I missed out on her babiness. So when she turned one I was sad but very happy at the same time. I know that she is going to be hitting milestones very quickly from here on out. She has started walking more and more, but is very determined not to fully walk and just keeps crawling. It should be any day though that she will be walking. She is growing so fast. I know now that next time I have a baby that I will cherish every second of that baby and will take the time to hold that baby every second I get.

Here are some pictures from Adylee's first birthday.

I love this little girl and I am so excited to watch her grow.

Dale had his first job interview for a law job this week. It makes everything very real that we will be out of law school in two months. It is a very scary thing trying to figure out where we should go or what we should do. It is a very serious test of faith. I am trying to put my trust in the Lord but it is very difficult at times. I just want to know where we are going so I can make plans.

School keeps me busy most days but I am getting restless with Utah. I am trying to figure things to do with my kids that will keep them busy during the day without destroying my house. This snow has kept us inside and Coen is going stir crazy. So if you have any ideas please let me know.

Hopefully these next two months go by quickly so we can be around all our family again. We ask that you all keep us in your prayers that we find a job so we can have somewhere to go after law school. We would be forever grateful to all those who pray for us.

December

Well the end of the year is almost here and I cannot believe how fast our last year in Utah is already going. We have been really busy this past semester with school, work, and of course keeping up (or trying to) with our children. Coen is 2 and 1/2 now and is finally starting to talk in sentences  I feel like it took him forever to start but knowing his personality it dose not surprise me. He is a lot like Dale that way with his very observer personality and not talking to people he dose not feel completely 100% comfortable with. Our poor families have to wait for Coen to warm up to them every single visit. Lucky for us there are things like Skype and Facetime, so my kids get to see their family almost every week. This also helps with Coen warming up a lot faster when we do have visitors or we go to AZ.

With Christmas here we decided to take the kids to see Santa. Coen was very excited because we have been talking about Santa for the last month and how he was going to bring Coen presents. When we got to the front of the line, Coen freaked out and wouldn't even let Dale put him down. As you can see in the picture Coen is not even happy with Dale sitting there with him.

Adylee is the exact oppisite of Coen. She sat right on Santa's lap and had a nice conversation with him. That is our Addie though. She will talk to anyone who will listen and go to anyone who will hold her. She is so much like me that I am scared for the future. She is our social butterfly. It amazes me that these two came from the same two people.

We have also had quite a bit of snow so far this season. We took the kids out after a big snow storm and Coen loved it. I am not sure Addie did though. Again something like me. She dose not like the cold and I am pretty sure she hated the snow. It is a good thing we are moving back to Mesa where there is not snow every winter.

Dale finished his second to last semester on the 6th. He is feeling good about almost being done. He also received a paper from the school telling him about all the important dates for Graduation this next semester. It has hit us that we are almost done and will be graduating in April. (I say it like I am graduating too. Sometimes it feels like we are both graduating.) I am so incredibly proud of Dale and everything that he has accomplished  I cannot wait for our next adventure to start.

We are bittersweet about Christmas this year. Because of all that we have to pay for this next semester with graduation and the bar exam, we felt that it would be better if we stayed in Utah for Christmas instead of spending the money to go and visit our families. It is sad to think that we won't be there with  everyone this year, but we are excited about being with just us and waking up in our own beds on Christmas morning. We have gotten out kids Christmas presents for the first time this year (because we always go to AZ our families always give us all our presents and we don't buy any because out Christmas is paying for the trip). We get to play Santa this year. I am so excited I can hardly wait. I am excited about seeing out kids react to all the presents this year and spending the day playing with them and all their new toys. Next year we will get to be with out families and have our own Christmas too. As for this year we are making the best of it.

We wish all of you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

New Blog

Hey everyone! I have started a new blog and you should check it out. Also let your friends know about it too! Thanks!

cookingforthebusymom.blogspot.com

Changes

Hey All! I hope this post finds you all well and happy with life. Some changes have happened here in the Albach household and I thought that I would share. Oh and for those of you wonder if I am pregnant again.......sorry to disappoint  that is not in our update and will not be for at least the next year (hopefully, I guess birth control is not always 100% effective as we found out with Miss Adylee Ann).

Change #1
Dale applied to the Air Force JAG and was turned down  because he had to loose another 20 pounds in addition to the 50 he has already lost this summer. It was very heartbreaking (kind of) and after much prayer and thought, we decided that the Air Force was not for us. Dale is proud of himself for the 50 pounds he did loose (I think he is SUPER hot!) and it has caused him to live healthier and learn portion control, but he does not want to constantly have to worry about his weight and diet like he has been for however long he would have been in the Air Force. I personally was just fine with that decision.

We talked about going to Texas for a while after Law School because we were worried about moving back to Arizona. We have grown to like being a little further away from family. (Every newly married couple, I highly recommend moving away from both families for a time. I promise you will be stronger together.) We have learned to rely on each other more, to spend more time together as our little family unit, and we have made some great friends that will be going back to Texas and I am seriously going to bawl like a baby when we have to leave these AMAZING people behind. But again after much fasting and prayer, Texas just didn't feel right. Dale and I have always loved the idea of our children growing up around cousins, aunts and uncles, and grandparents, that we felt like we are now ok together to move back to Arizona. So we are just going to have to make sure that we make a yearly trip to see those AMAZING friends of ours because they cannot get rid of us, EVER (sorry Chinns, you are stuck)

For those who know me, know that I hate the cold and Utah has been not nice to me with all the snow. I am super excited to move back home and be around family again. I am so excited for the heat too. I know that you all think that I am crazy, but you do not have to scrap sunshine off your front windshield. So we will be moving back to Arizona on April 27, 2013 and I cannot wait.

Change #2
This brings me to our second change. I have been accepted to the Arizona State University Psychology Online Program. I am finishing up my AA degree in Medical Transcription at Kaplan University and in January I start at ASU. I am really excited that all of my hard work is finally paying off. I am really excited to start this new chapter in my life and finally get my degree. It will be about a 6 year adventure to get my doctorate  but I am excited. And I can do all of this from home while I raise my babies. I am very grateful to live in a time where this is possible and that I am able to do all of this without sacrificing time while my children are growing up. And because of the fact that I am a ASU student, even if that is online, we get to live out at the ASU family housing on the Polytech Campus in East Mesa. We are really excited for a house to live in that does not share any walls with anyone else, and it will give us time to save up some money and buy our own home in a couple of years.

Change #3
Adylee is now pulling herself up and walking with the push walker. She will be nine months tomorrow and I cannot believe how fast she is progressing. Coen did not even crawl until 10 months (I think he was too fat to do much of anything ;) ) and didn't walk until just before he turned one, so I was not expecting Adylee to be so fast with every milestone. I guess she is just trying to keep up with Coen as much as possible who she just adores and follows around constantly. She is so adorable and tries to talk so hard. We joke that she will be talking better then Coen next year and she will be doing all the talking for the both of them.

Change #4
Coen is now 36 inches tall and almost 40 pounds. He is turning into this little boy and I am not sure that I can call him my baby anymore. He turned 2 on the 5th of October and is really starting to talk and put together sentences now. He is always coping me when I am on the phone, and from what I have gathered by watching him is that I must laugh a lot when I am on the phone because he will do the same thing. He is such a sweetheart with Adylee, always kissing and hugging her and reading and playing with her. I could not have asked for kids that play better together then the way these two do. As hard as it was having them only 16 months apart, I would do it all over again because of the bond they now share. I love to just sit and watch them. I love them both dearly and love being a mommy. It is hard some days, but so very worth it when all is said and done.

So those are the many changes that are happening here with us. I hope you all are well and I have posted some new pictures of the kids. Enjoy!

The rest of the Summer and start of our last year of Law School!

So the rest of the summer in Arizona went really well. We really enjoyed being with our families for so long. We ended up coming home early because Dale was finished with his internship and we were anxious to be home. I cannot begin to tell you how nice it was to come home to all of our stuff after being away for 3 months. I love my bed and I do not want to sleep anywhere else, ever. My kids, adjusted back to our normal schedule well and it was so good to be welcomed back into our ward that we missed so much. I was especially glad to go to our playgroup again. I can tell that Coen missed it.

Here are some of my favorite pictures that I took of the kids this summer.

 Dale and I got to go to a Diamondbacks game which was awesome! We got to witness a in the park home-run and it was very exciting. Dale and Coen also got to go an their first Father's and Son's camp out. They had a good time but Dale said he probably wait until Coen is a little older to do it again. Adylee and I had a girls night out that night. We went and got dinner and watched movies. It was way fun and I think that I will continue to do that with my girls when the boys go out of town.

The last two pictures are of the 4th of July. Pretty lame, I know. It is my favorite holiday and those are the only two pictures I took. It was really nice though. We stayed at home, had a BBQ, played cards, and watched fireworks from my parents front yard.

Dale started his last year of school this week! We are so excited that we will be finally grown ups and not be in school anymore. Dale is pretty burnt out and so he is ready to be done. We are really excited for this last year.

Summertime Post #1

Well this summer has been going really well. We are currently living in Tempe, AZ in a older couples home while they are serving a mission. We have been enjoying our time in AZ with both of our families. I love the fact that my kids have had this time to be around their uncles and aunts and cousins and grandparents. We have also had some time to get to know Dale's new stepmother and her children. It has been nice to get to know the newest members of the family. We really have been enjoying our time here. I am not sure about living in someone else's home with their things. We have missed our friends in Utah and we have really missed our Ward there. I will be excited to be home at the end of the summer.

Coen is now 20 months and has officially started talking and potty training. It has been an adventure for sure. I am not liking this adventure as much but Coen is growing up fast and I am just trying to keep up. 

Adylee is now four months old and is such a great baby. She is now sleeping through the night and is rolling over and eating rice cereal. She also has started sucking her thumb which I think it is the cutest thing ever. I know that I will regret it later on, but is pretty cute now. She is so cute and I love her. She brings so much light into our home and I am excited that she came into our lives, even if it was not the most planned thing in the world.

Things in our lives are changing quickly. Dale is now applying to the Air Force JAG program in September. If he is accepted he will go to officer's training after he passes the bar and then he will go on to lawyer training for the Air Force right after that. That means we will be separated for 14 to 15 weeks. That will be very hard on me because I will be alone with the kids and then have to move our whole family where ever they station us, even if that means we are stationed overseas. The Air Force will fly Dale out to where ever his assignment is so that means we need to meet him there. Everything I have read about the Air Force life I am excited about. It will give our family a chance to have an amazing adventure and a way for us to get our loans paid off very quickly! I am very excited for the changes that will be happening in this next year.

I will be graduating this year as well with my AA degree in Medical Transcription and then I will be transferring to ASU to complete my degree in  Psychology and then to continue to get my masters in Psychology as well. So I am excited to continue my education.

We hope that everyone is well!