I won't be able to write for long today, but I thought I would give a bit of an update, since I haven't done a good job in writing for a while.

Kristen is doing well.  She was sick for a few days a couple of weeks ago, which was really not fun at all, but she is better now.  She loves the new place and sleeps pretty well there most of the time.  She is also walking a lot better now, although her first choice of movement is still crawling.  She loves her mommy of course!  She had her first visit with Bryan a week and a half ago.  He spent about twenty-five minutes with us before leaving, and she only wanted to be held by me anyway.  If you'd like more details on that, you can give me a call.  Anyway, I can't believe Kristen is almost a year old!  I got her the Cinderella DVD, The Giving Tree, and a swing for her birthday.

Things have been very busy as usual with work, babysitting, school, and planning the wedding.  They have been even busier with moving into the new apartment!  The kitchen has come together pretty well, and so has my bedroom.  Unfortunately I have not had much time to work on the living room or on Kristen's room.  I hope to do that on one of my days off this week.  And of course little by little I am able to clean up.  More on the apartment--it is a townhouse style apartment with three bedrooms, a basement, possibly an attic (we have yet to check that out), 1.5 baths, and of course the living room, kitchen, and dinette area.  There is even a small deck on the back!  I'm really excited about it, and I can't wait to post pictures.  There are of course a few things that I wish I could change: there are no medicine cabinets or drawers in the bathrooms--just cupboard doors in the full bath-- no shelves and limited storage space and only one outlet in the basement (which serves as a recreation area for all of us).  But of course the positives outweigh the negatives.

It will be nice when we can afford the internet also.  I have only recently realized how much I use e-mail for communication.  So hopefully the both of us will be making more money here soon and will be able to add that to our phone plan (which is still pending at the moment--should be up on Monday).

I actually have three interviews tomorrow for administrative assistant/clerical positions, and last week I interviewed for a supervisor position at Old Navy.  Please pray that I find a job that will help provide for our family and one that I will be happy with.  I am not very happy with my job at Old Navy right now.  My hours have been cut in half, and my babysitting jobs keep cancelling on me a lot now too.  It's very frustrating, especially since Jeremy has not had work for a couple of weeks.  He is hoping to get a job offer arond mid- to late March.  Please pray for him also.

Cora and Rosa (Jeremy's daughters) of course just love the new place.  I hope that I will be a good stepmom to them.

Well, I really ought to get going.  I hope you all are doing well!

I'm sorry it's been so long since the last time I wrote, but I have been extremely busy!  I spend most of my time at Jeremy's house now--and Kristen is keeping me quite busy as well.

Kristen took her first steps yesterday!  Jeremy's parents were watching her while we were out looking at a house, and when we got back, I came up to her (just a few feet away) and said, "Come to Mommy!"  (We've been trying to get her going for a while.)  And she took like 2 steps to me!!!  I was superexcited!  Of course she has a little bit until she really begins walking around on her own, but it was really awesome.  And she won't walk to anyone else but me. 

Right now she has three teeth coming in, and she already has both upper and bottom two teeth.  She can wave bye-bye and give kisses (very messy though haha--and only when she's in the mood to do so).  A couple times I thought she made the sign for food that I have been trying to teach her, but I'm not sure.  She loves crawling up the stairs and thinks it's hilarious to come back down on her two feet.  She also loves to say mama and da-da, and that's okay, because Jeremy has become "daddy" to her.

Unfortunately, Kristen has been waking up almost every night now.  It's really frustrating for me, because of course I am the only one to get up with her, so I am losing a lot of sleep and am exhausted during the day.  Sometimes she just wants to snuggle with me and then goes back to sleep.  Other times she won't settle until she gets a drink.  Sometimes she just wants to play (which makes me really mad).  I wish there was just some way that I could get her to sleep all night, because I am wearing thin. 

In other news, Bryan is now paying support, so now I suppose we have to go through allowing him to see her.  I'm not looking forward to it at all.

Jeremy and I have been looking at houses, and last night we looked at one that Jeremy is really interested in.  It's a duplex (I think that's what it's called) and is 2 floors plus a basement and attic.  The attic area is just like a bedroom--basement is just a basement.  We can ultimately turn it into four bedrooms, and there are 2 full baths.  The kitchen is basically brand new, though we would have to buy appliances.  There is a lot of work to be done on it, although it is definitely liveable.  Jeremy is very handy, so I think we can get a lot of work done without a lot of labor cost.  Some things I would like to do are build a closet in what we would like to be the master bedroom, strip the paint and wallpaper in what would be Kristen's room and repaint.  In the same room, I'd like to pull up the carpet and just have a wood floor.  Upstairs bath is a little shabby, so at some point that would be nice to replace.  There's a little cubby in the attic that, if redone, could fit another bed, so I'd like to do that for Cora and Rosa.  I'd like to pull down the paneling on the one half of the kitchen and repaint, repaint living room and dining rooms and pull out the closet in the living room, replace the carpet in the living room, and pull up the carpet in the dining room and have wood flooring there.  Replace side door and front door, and spruce up the basement to make it a decent laundry room.  I know it's a lot, but Jeremy was saying we could just do it in bits and pieces, and of course the majority of it isn't crucial.  The house is only 110, so that might be good for us.  We'll find out this week if we will be able to afford it, and then we will be putting in a contract.  We'll see how it goes.  I think it would be good for us.

And for those who haven't heard yet, Jeremy and I are engaged!  More details on that some other time.

Work is okay, although I'd really like to start looking for a post-graduation job.  Any input on that would be awesome.

I have more to write, but I'm about out of time.  I need to be up at 5 tomorrow--work at 6.  Have a good night!