Welcome to the Chaos

I used to be a blogger. Not one who made money, or got "pageviews", or is really even missed on the internet, but I used to do it. I blogged about my wedding to my awesome husband back in 2007 for a wedding website, then I blogged (bitterly) while trying to conceive our first child, then moved along to a new blog when I got pregnant with our daughter, Piper. I blogged continuously afterward, mostly the hazards of being a working mom with your daughter in the office with you. After that, the posts got less humorous and got darker and depressing as we dealt with a few miscarriages while we tried to conceive our second and last child. Eventually, our daughter Ellie came along and... well, I don't know what happened. I stopped feeling the need to write anymore, and just kind of moseyed on with our life as a family of four. Then I realized recently that I really miss writing. Sure, I could easily just keep a journal, but I hate hand-writing, and well, I'm a sucker for attention and praise. Okay, not really on the last part, but maybe someday I'll have something to say that might help someone else? Who knows. Either way, I'm here now, ready to share my life with you. For starters, here we are.

That's me in the back left- I'm Amber. I'm 36 and work as a bookkeeper for a small company in LA. To the right is Paul, my fantastic husband. He teaches at a Catholic school. On his lap is our daughter Piper, she's six and goes to school with Paul. She's one of the sweetest kids you will ever meet. She has the heart of a Disney princess, the sense of humor of a... six year old girl? Piper is a twirler, a dancer and a giggle machine. She's an absolute love. On my lap is our daughter Noelle, who we call Ellie (aka "The Tornado" aka "Tornado Ellie"). She's two and a bucket of laughter. She keeps us on our toes with her antics, and she's fantastic with her mischief.

We recently moved from a two bedroom apartment to a detached house, and we have no idea what we're doing. We had a lovely garden that gradually started getting overgrown while we waited for Winter to come and kill everything. Silly us. We should have known Los Angeles doesn't actually have a "Winter". If anything it was WARMER this winter than it had been this summer! With a few recent rains (the so-called El Nino has yet to make the fearsome appearance we had been warned about), our greenery got out of control! Thanks to my dad and his trusty green thumb, he came over a few weekends and we tore shit UP. Well, out. We planted some seeds, tore out the horrid trumpet vines and loads of bushy flowers the previous owners left, and it's starting to look like we aren't hillbillies, whew. Little by little we're learning about this life in a house. With an actual garage! We don't keep our cars in there because so much space to store crap! Got a tub of old clothes that Ellie outgrew? WHO CARES if we're done having kids! Just store it in the garage! Found an old couch on the street? GARAGE IT. We may need it someday to start a colony of bed bugs! We moved from a commute of maaaybe 10 miutes to a commute of 30, and it took some getting used to, but we really seemed to have found our groove in this new home. We don't GO anywhere because who wants to drive 30 minutes to get to their old stomping groung? Instead we just kind of loiter outside our house, enjoying the sun and hoping neighbors don't judge us for our newfound freedom. Hopefully we'll put some pictures up on our walls someday, but hey, no need to get ahead of ourselves. We MAY still have a Thanksgiving harvest sign in our front yard. We move slowly, what can I say?

 Life is exciting with our two girls. They love each other so much, it's the best.

Their favorite thing to do in our house is chase each other. Literally, just chasing. Back and forth. ALL day long. It burns energy so I'm all for it, until someone runs into a corner or door, that is. Which kind of happens a lot. Oh! I forgot to mention we also have a dog.

Yes, the typical American family here. Two kids, a dog, crap shoved into closets so visitors don't notice how hectic our lives are. It's not pretty, but it's our life. Welcome to the chaos.