Another House Update

It has become a habit now to stop by the house almost on a daily basis to see if anything new has been done. Well, this past week they did alot. They added our marble to the bathroom counters, put in the master tub and shower, put in the boys tub and shower, and laid our tile! It's really coming together now and looking like a house. We are still being told that our move in date should be end of January/beginning of February. I hope nothing happens to delay it! In the photos below they still haven't put the grout between the tiles yet. Hopefully that will be this week. This is just a few snapshots of the tile in the areas that we have posted before.

Happy Birthday Jacob!

Saturday was Jacob's 2nd Birthday! He started it off by waking up at 6:00 a.m. He watched some Elmo, watched his bubba and daddy play Mario on Wii. He played with some of his Christmas presents, and then took a nap. When he woke up from his nap, he went to look at the new house being built, then he came home and had a small family birthday party. We sang Happy Birthday to him and had a cupcake with a number 2 candle in it. We each had a cupcake ourselves to eat with him. However, he did not want his big cupcake so he took a couple of our smaller ones. He apparently also only likes icing because he ate all the icing off all the cupcakes but wouldn't eat the actual cake part. Too funny.


























Then we cleaned up so Jacob could open his presents. Dexter even helped with the cleanup :)















Jacob had lots of practice opening presents over Christmas so he knew exactly what to do with those presents sitting there waiting for him. He is really into animals right now and naming them every time he sees them in pictures or while were driving. So, it was only fitting that for his birthday he got a little peoples farms complete with animals and sounds and also a tractor pulling hay and a cow. He loved it!


























So, overall, even though he didn't have a big celebration, he had what was most important: his family with him to celebrate a very special day. Happy Birthday Jacob! We love you!

Welcome 2010

We rang in the new year very quietly this year.. watching movies in our apartment and then going to bed 30 minutes later. Not very exciting to most, but just the way we like it. I have been looking at all my Facebook friends and seeing all the new resolutions for the new year and new decade and wonder, "What will I do this year?" I've always been really good at making new year resolutions. My downfall has always been keeping them. I find that when I make these resolutions, you know, the ones that we always make every year: lose weight, eat better, be a better person, etc, I quickly become discouraged and feel like a failure within a couple of days after snacking on some potato chips and by the end of January my resolutions are a thing of the past and long forgotten. So, I believe that I have come up with a new way of making resolutions that will keep me always striving to achieve, but not make me fall to the floor and curl up in a ball feeling like a failure. Some may look at this as a pessimistic way of making changes or a way to cheat in some way or another, but I look at it as being realistic. I have a family, a job, and projects going on that may sometimes require more attention on any given day or week. The kids or myself may be sick, work may be extra busy or stressful at times, my husband's work schedule or traveling may not permit me to get to some things. That's life and sometimes you just have to go with what life throws at you. So, having said this, here are some things that I will TRY to work on this year.

1. I will try to make better food choices for not only myself but for my family as well. However, because we are busy with school and work, I will not feel like a horrible wife and mom if we order pizza a couple times a month.

2. I will attempt to go to the gym at least 3 days a week but will be happy if I make it at least 10 days out of the month. However, I will also keep in mind that work, kids, and illness may get in the way so I will not cry and go eat an entire carton of ice cream if I don't make it 3 days a week. Even if I only make it 2 days a week or 8 days a month, it's still better than what I did this past year.

3. As for being a better person.... this has always been sort of vague. Who determines what makes a person better and who makes the call of whether or not you are better or worse than you were before? Is it being what other people want you to be and is that necessarily better for you or for others? And since we are human and are always changing with the world around us, I think that for me, knowing and admitting that I am an emotional person who is driven by my emotions will be a start. So, because I am emotional, I will try not to let my emotions make my decisions for me or let them make me a reactor to things in life. This does not mean that I have to start to become less emotional, but I will try to pause and let my brain and emotions compromise on what is best for me and my family. Sorry outside world... that may mean that I may not be the better for you.

4. I will remain an honest person, but will try not to be brutally honest :)

and lastly, since I don't want to overwhelm myself or others,

5. I will try to update my blog more consistently. I know I will not be an everyday poster, or even an every other day poster, but I will try to do it at least once a week, if life permits.

Happy New Year from the Kovar Family :)

House Update

Today while out doing errands and looking at model homes for decorating ideas, I swung by our new house that's under construction to see if anything had been done since last week. I was so excited when I walked in! They had taken all the plastic off of our cabinets, put in the granite countertops in the kitchen, and put in our fireplace. It's always hard to know from little samples whether or not the choices you make are going to be good ones so I was a little worried, but after seeing it I am very happy with the choices we made. The granite is black with copper and charcoal flecks in it, but the flash from the camera made the granite look a little lighter. I tried to get a picture of the granite with the countertops but with no electricity in the house yet the lighting wouldn't work. See below!

2010 is on the way

So, another year has gone by and so far this year has been pretty busy for the Kovar household. We finally had the damage from Ike fixed on the house, put our house back on the market, sold it, moved into a two bedroom apartment, Josh started 3rd grade, starting building a house, and next thing you know it's Christmas and now here I sit already dreading going back to work on January 4th, 2010.

For the most part we have been doing great. I say for the most part only because since we have moved into the apartment, we seem to always have some kind of head cold or sinus problem going on. I think it may be something in this apartment. Hopefully we won't be here too much longer. But as I said, we really can't complain too much. It's been a good year for us.

Sadly, my side of the family did lose a member of our family, my Great Uncle Charles Carter. This was one of my Grandpa Wayne's 7 siblings. We did get to see him in July though before he passed away. He sang at my grandmother's birthday party. You never would have guessed he was sick. He had such a wonderful voice.

The kids are really growing. Joshua so far has done pretty good in 3rd grade. It was a rough transition at first but I think he's adjusted just fine now. In previous grades all they concentrated on were the basics of reading and knowing how to read, or knowing how to add or subtract. Now it's not only about how well you can read but also how well you understand what you're reading. He had a hard time with that concept at first but he's improving. Math is still adding and subtracting but now you're throwing multiplication and division and word problems. He isn't too thrilled about the word problems part. I don't blame him. I never liked them much either.

Jacob is really starting to talk like crazy. His favorite past time is watching Elmo on you tube and playing with his big brother who he absolutely adores. I can't believe he'll be 2 in just a couple of weeks. How fast that went by! He is such a joy. He stays busy non stop and is a very loving boy. Of course, he has inherited a bit of his mother in him too so therefore, he does have just a wee bit of a temper and stubborn streak. (As my Great Uncle Bob put it, I'm getting everything I deserve! He says it with love though:)) That's alright though, it'll serve him well in the future.

Brent and I stay busy with work and the kids. His job always slows down at the end of the year but with the new year comes new projects and he'll be busy again before you know it. School of course follows the same schedule. After the holidays starts the push for the TAKS test (yuck) and then before you know it it'll be summer again. It'll especially be busy for us here again in about a month when the new house is ready.

We are currently having a new house built. It's in the same neighborhood that we built in last time. In fact, it's right next to the house we built last time. For those that remember, we had to let that one go when the contract on the house we were trying to sell fell through at the last minute. Which, as we see now, was really a blessing. The last house was a two story with all rooms but the master upstairs. We had tile put all downstairs. After much consideration and visiting other houses with that floor plan and stuff, we decided on a different floor plan this time. Now, we went with a 1 1/2 story house with all bedrooms downstairs, game room and media room and half bath upstairs. They tell us it'll be about a month, end of January/beginning of February before it's done. At first that seemed like it would take forever and that it was so long away, but here we are already looking at the new year coming in this week.

So, now the only question that really remains for the rest of this week is, What's in store for the Kovar's in 2010? Well, we are pretty sure we can still count on having our jobs, which lately is a huge blessing considering the economy and the countless people who have lost theirs this year. We are pretty sure that our new house is definitely going to be a huge blessing after being in a two bedroom apartment for almost 6 months now. As for the rest, we will just have to wait and see what is in store for us.

Enjoy the pics from the last few months.

Red River New Mexico

After January things were kinda uneventful. We had our normal routine of work, school, daycare, home, dinner, baths, bed, and then repeat. They finally finished repairing our bedroom damage from IKE and we able to once again able to sleep in our bed instead of on our matress in the gameroom.

In March we decided to take a trip to Red River New Mexico for some snow and skiing. Unfortunately when we got there most of the snow had melted from the surrounding area but there were still a few patches left over. They keep the mountain pretty packed down with ice for the late season skiers.

Now, this was Josh's and my first time skiing. Brent had already been. I thought it would have been easier than it was. Everyone kept saying, "If you can water ski then snow skiing will be a piece of cake." I really didn't find this to be true! I can water ski just fine, but snow skiing made me realize that I don't have the sense of balance that I once thought I did. Josh didn't really enjoy the skiing part too much either. We were all supposed to have full day snow lessons. We were done in half a day. Josh was doing fine until he found out his class was going on the lifts. He was done from that point on. No way was anyone getting him to jump from a chair down to the ground. So of course, when he was done so was I. Someone had to watch him, right? Then Brent didn't want to continue if I wasn't going to continue, so that about sums up our skiing day! We did have fun though during the trip. We went tubing down the hill, walking along the "strip" of Red River, they had a huge gameroom full of fun things to do, the food, the small patches of snow to play in. It was a nice trip and better yet, it was just nice to get away. We didn't take Jacob with us. He stayed at Debra and Glenn's. This trip was about getting away and spending time with Joshua. He has been so good with Jacob since he's been born and the poor thing doesn't get as much attention as he did before Jacob was born. Don't get me wrong. We don't ignore him or anything... it's just he's not the only one anymore and sometimes it's just not as easy to spread the attention out equally when Jacob is still so needy. Anyway, enjoy the pics of New Mexico!

Walk this Way!!

Jacob started walking the day after Christmas, just a few weeks shy of his first birthday! Here is an early clip of him walking over to his bubba laying on the couch.