Dear Xanga,

I have known you for a long time, almost three years.  And during that time I have come to expect more from you than the attitude you have given me lately.  When I log on, there are a million changes I have to navigate through to figure out my own page.  When I email customer service to take care of glitches or errors on my page, I get a snarky answer from some intern who obviously doesn't know what they're doing.  I am PAYING for this.  Unbelievable.  And honestly, Xanga, you had it coming. I'll not waste my time with you anymore.

So I guess this is the end.  And really, let's just be honest.  We can't even be friends.  It would just be awkward at this point.  So my friends and readers who have logged in through Xanga before to read the family updates are welcome to bookmark our new page directly at www.morozfamily.com  Xanga, really, it's not you--it's me.  I just need more and there's no way you can provide that.  Call me high maintenece, tell all your blog friends I was a crappy writer, whatever makes you feel better.  But for me, I'm moving on.  Good bye!

Sincerely,

Kari Moroz

Darling, isn't she?  Take one last look at the sweetness, because yesterday she said her first sentence.  It propelled me into reality, and I became fully aware that she is not a sweet, compliant, innocent baby anymore.  It shocked me, not because she's *finally* talking, or because she's growing up (I enjoy toddlerhood more than the infant stage) But because she said to me...and I quote:

"NO!  Don't want to!"

My little lady is no longer sunshine and lollipops.  I mean, sure she has her moments...but we are now being ushered into the dark cave that is the Terrible Two's.  And this my friends, is God's way of preparing us parents for Junior High. So when your toddler is throwing the mother of all tantrums in the middle of Target, or coloring with permanent marker on the top of her toybox, or is refusing to go to sleep unless she's wearing her crocs to bed, (yes, all three of those occurances happened yesterday in my house) just be thankful that at two they're still so darned cute. 

Sorry I'm not updating like I should.  Tee ball and the school year ending and just life in general is so busy.

Chris and I cleaned the whole house yesterday and it feels soooo good!  We're not knick-knack/clutter people so more than anything it was just doing laundry, putting away dishes, and getting rid of the kiddie clutter.  Lots of toys found their home back in the playroom.  Nice. 

Gracie got to third base at tee ball before her team had three outs.  This is progress! She still skips to first base, which is definitely not really a competitive edge, but she tries her hardest out there and I am proud of her.  She smells like strawberry lip gloss and has started carrying a purse pretty much all the time.  My little mini me!

Trinity's had a language explosion!  She says everything now, she will repeat and we can actually tell what she's saying about 70% of the time.  =) My favorite thing right now is when she says "I sorry" and hugs her sister.  So sweet. 

I freaked out last night about my reconstruction.  There's this moment of the process that terrifies me more than anything else, it's the waking up from surgery.  When I am still drowsy from the anesthesia and the nurse comes and lays her cold hand on my arm and says in a disturbing, urgent, irritating kind of way, "Kari?  Can you hear me?  Wake up, you're in recovery.  We are done with your surgery." My eyes open and I become aware of my surroundings.  And then the pain becomes intolerable.  I cry because it hurts so bad.  I regret waking up, but they won't let me close my eyes.  They ask me ridiculous questions like "do you know where you are? and on a scale of 1-10, what's your pain level?" I answer "in the hospital and 12." Monitors beep out of my line of sight and nurses bustle around me, preparing to move me into the next room to see my family.  I want to see them, but I'm torn between facing them and the pain or being in heaven with God.  Believe me it is a struggle.  Because the pain is intolerable and nothing, not even my precious family could compare to how wonderful it would be to just be rid of this body and this pain. I do carry on, I will recover-- but the road ahead is long and full of agony.  I have to believe it's worth it or I wouldn't opt to do the surgery.  But it's still scary, much scarier to me than any of the previous treatments.  I don't know why, that's just how I feel.    

How weird is it that people that I meet now, don't know I had cancer?  It's not obvious anymore. I mean sure I don't have boobs, but my hair and everything is starting to be very normal. How cool!  And welcome, new chapter! 

We live in a town heavily populated with Mexicans.  Now, I hope this doesn't turn into a hot topic in my comments section because I LIKE the Mexicans.  A lot.  I like their grocery stores and I like their roadside taco stands.  I like their culture.  In general they make great neighbors and I'm happy to share my block with a Mexican family, even if they did paint their house a hideous shade of two tone blue that sticks out like a sore thumb on a street of white people's white houses... but I digress.  But one thing I cannot stand is the fact that there is always a rooster about two blocks over, waking me up at 5 am.  WHY?  Oh why?   Now when I'm IN Mexico, even though it's irritating, I understand it's very much a necessity for those who cannot get electricity in their homes.  They have to work very early in order to get done before the heat of the day.  I get that.  But did you have to bring your rooster with you?  Did no one tell you that you'd have electricity in your American house?  Please, for the love of all that's holy, take the rooster back where it came from!  You, my Mexican friend, can stay.  But the rooster has to go. 

And now, without further ado, I present to you pictures from the Arts Festival:

Tommy Bailey's band.  They're our worship/rock band at Northview.  They covered some classics, like Dave Matthews and U2, among others. 

Trinity rocking out to some DMB: 

 Gracie twirling, of course...

We love it downtown!

This was cool, it was the kids creation station.  They all got to tie ribbons on this huge caterpillar, then run through it.  Fun!

Gracie deciding on a face paint design.  She ended up asking for a "custom" job...

Yup...she's the TARGET DOG!  lol

Trinity got a butterfly!   

alright that's it.  I have to go do the neverending laundry. 

Gracie got her tee ball jersey!  They just lost their 3rd game, but Gracie doesn't care.  The Bronchos are number one in her book!  She's such a cheerleader...

Here's her pink bat!

Trinity playing peek a boo:

Goofy Trinity:

Kendra, me, Katie...right before we got pierced!

My new jewelry...

The end!

"Aaaaah, Gracie! The party girl!  If that child could have bubbles coming out of her, she would!"

Also we were shown her progress.  Her handwriting is sloppy but it's not because she's not good at it--she's comfortable enough to write it really fast.  Mrs Cox suggested we start working on her last name and perhaps it will slow her down a little bit.  Her numbers look great, but she confuses the 6 and the 8.  Letters are all recognized, and she is reading a few words.  Everyone is her friend, including the older elementary kids and lots of the junior high and high school kids know her and love her.  ALL the teachers know her.  Looks like she's making quite a name for herself!   

Tonight during the video chat, Trinity said, "Hi Joby!" to her baby cousin!  Then they played peek a boo.  So sweet.  It's nice to know that even though the cousins are so far away they can still grow up knowing one another. 

Trinity has started her terrible twos.  She's kicking, hitting, and throwing herself down.  Gracie skipped the terrible twos and waited till the terrible threes.  She really just got out of it, and we still have occasional meltdowns--although she is getting much better.  But then there's kid #2 and it's in full force.  Oh the joys of parenting! LOL

(Don't let this innocent face fool you.  She has probably just done something very naughty!)

I'm feeling the need to simplify big time.  Now that Trinity's old enough to transition out of baby toys and into the little girl world of Disney Princesses, markers, and Strawberry Shortcake dolls, the girls are playing with pretty much all the same things--it's just there's twice the stuff now.  Sigh.  And somehow it was all ending up *between* the girls' rooms in our living room.  So today I decided they are going to be roomates.  I cleaned out Gracie's room and put all the toys and stuff in Trinity's nursery.  We moved the crib and changing table into the room across from Gracie's bed.  Eventually I'd like them to be able to sleep in Gracie's bed since it's HUGE but we'll wait till Trinity stays dry all night.  I'm sure Gracie will one day thank me for that.  Naptime went as good as it could have I suppose, but I know it will be a tough week.  The girls are both in there right now talking.  They'll be exhausted tomorrow.  But it will be worth it!  I just have to be consistent till they get used to it!

Chris is playing Guitar Hero.  He's a rock star, dontcha know? It's fun, I'm just not good at it at ALL.  No loss for me, really.  I have plenty of other things I would rather be good at.  Haha.

Trinity's trying to potty train.  Sigh.  Seriously I wish she wouldn't.  I love the diaper till we're almost three around here but watching Gracie kind of opened Pandora's Box and Trinity decided she wanted to be just like Sissy.  So here we are exploring potty land a whole year earlier than I'd planned.  I won't mind if she takes to it quickly but if her little internal potty clock isn't going to click until she's 34 months, then I want to save us both the frustration.  

I got yelled at by my oncologist for not keeping my appointments up better.  Apparently I missed one somewhere in there and he couldn't believe I wasn't more on top of it.  Um, hello?  Two children, a part time job, ministry work at church, upkeep of my house, cooking meals for my family, friends and OPAT and REST stuff and carpool and homework and teacher conferences, not to mention all the speaking engagements and articles and interviews I'm regretting doing lately...yeah, I'm not exactly one of those patients he's used to, who sits all day waiting for a weekly bunco game or an oncology scan.  I'm kind of an unusual case and I think he forgets that cancer isn't part of ME at all.  It's part of my past.  I'm OVER it.  Of course I'm taking my meds so the cancer won't recur.  But seriously, I just don't have time to deal with cancer.  I'm too busy LIVING!!!

Alright, I won't bore you any more with my ranting.  Just pray my kids finally give up and go to sleep tonight lol.  And I promise I won't miss any more of your (ahem, boooooring) oncology check ups, Dr Tfayli. =) 

Cause it still feels like winter here to me.  It's too cold and rainy to do anything.  Yick.

Today I took the girls and Luke to Chick Fil A with the indoor playground.  I figured if we could beat the crowd, we could play first and just as everyone came in to play, we would eat.  It worked beautifully.  We showed up at 11, played for an hour and a half (YES, you read that right!) and ate around 12:30.  When we left, the babies had heavy eyes.  Everyone's asleep right now.  Ahhhh, silence... 

We're gearing up for the big Just Between Friends consignment sale and I'm ironing, tagging, preparing like crazy. There are outgrown clothes all over the house and I still have a ton more to do!  I estimate if everything sells at half price, I'll have about $500 at the end of the sale.  If everything goes full price (which I don't expect it to but it would be nice!) I'll have almost $1000 to sink back into the back to school budget.  Summer, we're taking a break and I'll be buying LOTS of shorts sets from Target.  I'm just too lazy in the summer to make sure we SHOUT the stains and hang it all to dry.  Back to school shopping is more fun anyways!

I am all over Spring though, so while we can't enjoy the great outdoors just yet, we are trying on our new Spring/Summer arrivals indoors.  Gracie only wants to wear ruffles.   Trinity prefers pockets.  Hmmm, I'll see what I can do about that...

Trinity's Naartjie dress/capris.  I may put her in this one for her birthday pics.

Gracie's Naartjie and capris...um, and I'll have you know she posed herself like this hahahaha...

A new sundress for Trinity. It fits a bit big,but she doesn't care, she likes the pockets. 

Pajama day!

Silly faces.  

Luke and Trinity--they are the best of friends.  So sweet!

It's over! Peace out!

So Gracie's class is studying fairy tales and nursery rhymes.  I didn't have that in mind at ALL when she sent home a form to do a "book report" which was to have a parent record the title, author and illustrator and then the child is supposed to draw a picture of the favorite part of the story.  Gracie's favorite book is her Read With Me Bible and her favorite story is Luke 2 when Jesus was born. The picture she drew was absolutely precious. Today Gracie's teacher walks her out to the car and says, "can I talk to you about something?" I immediately thought OH NO, what did I do???  Mrs Cox said, "We have a little problem with Gracie's book report, we're doing fairy tales and Gracie did a true story.  I couldn't let her share it today because I just couldn't bring myself to lump a real story of the birth of Jesus with actual fairy tales."   

Duh.  We both laughed and I thanked her for being so sweet.  She is such a precious teacher and a neat Christian woman.  Oh man, I'm gonna have to start paying more attention to Gracie's assignments from now on! 

We are so excited about Fairy Tale day, all the kids are supposed to come in their favorite story costume.  I'll have to make sure and get pics!

Alright I am sleepy.  Have a great day!