Update on Karis and Life

Update on Karis
We cleaned Karis out for several days, and now Karis has a NORMAL urge to go, and she goes in the POTTY now.  She has had one small accident since Sunday... and all other times have been in the potty.  If you know the problems that we've had with her, you would know that that is HUGE.  She is still on a 1/2 dose of the miralax (a daily use laxative), but the doctor said she would probably be on that for a few months.  Our goal now is to really push getting her to try some more things with fiber (especially fruits and veggies) so that she will be able to become more regular on her own without help (her teacher is on a mission to get her to try new things, so that helps!).  I wish that I would have understood her issue a long time ago!  I had no idea that it was uncontrollable!  Now it is obviously clear because with-in a week of treating her issue, she has become NORMAL in this area!  It's hard to explain the excitement... but after cleaning her up from pooping in her pants for a few years, this is something to celebrate! 

Life
Robert and I are exhausted, but excited and at peace with where God has us in life.  We both love our jobs, we're able to have so much more time with our kids since we made the change with childcare (and we and the kids all love the choices that we made!), we have amazing and restful weekends together every weekend, we actually get to work together to raise our kids and do everything, and we are looking to buy a house :).  We never thought we'd be able to even think about it!

I found an awesome store today that I just have to share!  It's about 2 minutes from where I work!  It's called Urban Acres.  It is a brand new store in a really cool part of Oak Cliff (a part of Dallas).  They sell local, organic, and whole foods (as much local as possible!).  They sell low temp pasteurized/non homogenized milk, raw milk cheese, yard eggs, organic and local produce, pastured meats and chicken, pasta, beans, raw nuts, raw honey, etc.  Just about anything that we need.  I told the owner (who is about my age) today that if I could own a business, this is what I would love to own.  He said, well, you can help out here and be a part of it!  He said that if we volunteer to help sort produce for the coop, that we can get food credit :).  I think it would be fun to be a part of a local business!

After I checked out the store, I decided to just drive around and look at houses in the area... and WOW.  They have some beautiful, amazing, old houses in really nice neighborhoods.  Oak Cliff has had a bad reputation, but I'm seeing now that the reputation isn't true for all of Oak Cliff.  Robert and I really want to live there.  It reminds us of San Marcos and the parts of Austin that we love.  I've been looking at houses for sale in that area and there are so many, and at great prices.  We're thinking about buying a house that needs some work (and have a low payment!) and fixing it up.  We love that area and really feel that it fits us well and we feel like there's also a lot of work to be done there.  So, it's the best of both worlds.  I know that God called me to Oak Cliff to work with the kids that I do, and maybe he's calling us to make it home :).  Robert is more excited about it than I am (and I'm pretty excited!).  It would be nice to just be a 5 minute drive to work :).  Robert's drive may be a little bit longer, but it won't be too bad.  And, it's worth it to him.  If we end up living in Oak Cliff, we'll probably find another church so that we can be part of the community there.  Robert isn't required to go to church where he works... he'll just have to work there every third Sunday (which isn't bad at all!). 

Another benefit to living in Oak Cliff is that UNT has a campus there :).  And they have a 4-8 grade education major, which is what Robert wants to do :).  So, to me, I feel like God is just planting us there!  We'll see!

We're just going to pray through all of this and see where God leads us.  He has completely changed everything that we ever thought would happen in our life in the past 4 months (and things are going well, even though it's not easy); we're open to whatever He wants!  We know that His plan is so much better than anything we can think or dream!