It's been well over 5 months since I last blogged. Life is happening, its going by quick and I want to remember everything for what it is. It is currently 12:30 am, I am staying at my dad's house with my three boys and my husband just left.

Let me go back.
We moved to Bakersfield, CA in February of 2017. We knew nothing about the city. Didn't have any friends there ( I had my cousin there and her kids), but besides that no familiar faces. All we knew was that we could afford to have a house, a yard and do laundry in the comfort of our home. So we went for it. David and I both really wanted to make our living situation more "livable" for our growing family. We were tired of over paying for an apartment we were not happy in, and barely able to afford the cost of living. So we moved 2 hours away and went with the mentality of we'd be living within our means and providing more space for our children.

The house was beautiful ( as I've shared). But days went by, months passed and I became sadder and sadder. I remember the drive back home after Having Benjamin was so hard. All I wanted was to be in a familiar place with my friends and my family surrounding us. I became depressed . I felt like a zombie every single day. I'd wake up, my body hurt, my head hurt and I wanted nothing more but to lie down on my bed in peace. Well, that didn't happen often because with a 4 year old, 2 year old and a new born it's not as easy as it seems. My husband would wake up at 3:30 am and wouldn't be home until 6ish sometimes later because he'd drive two hours each way to get there . All I wanted was to have him with me to make me feel secure in this unknown place in life.
It was hard. I cried A Lot. like a lot a lot.
I'd beg each weekend to take me back to our old town, and a lot of the time we did.



The living situation became difficult . Than summer came and it seemed unbearable. I had never lived in a place as hot as Bakersfield gets. 116 is not ideal when you're a mom of littles and nursing. We thought we would be saving money but the "extra money" was spent on gasoline for our car and air conditioning running 24/7. It was HOT.

So fast forward to now, we jumped the gun, gave our 30 day notice as soon as we found a place we applied to live at. A few days after giving our notice, we found out we didn't get the place. But we both agreed we wanted to move out of Bakersfield, so we kept the notice. We found the cutest little house on a family farm and we went to the showing. It was a rental and other people were there applying as well. We let them know we could be in within a week because  that's when our lease would be up. Days later we found out they wanted us to live there we were so excited, but they also notified us that their brother was in the middle of being bankrupt and they'd offer that little house to him if he needed, so we were on stand by until now.... a month later.
We moved out of Bakersfield.
Put all our belongings into a storage unit.
And went our separate ways.

This is where I struggle to share things on social media, mainly because people can be so quick to assume what is not true and than talk about "it" amongst others.
I had to move in with my dad and David moved in with his mom.
We are separated by 156 miles which = 2hours and 33 minutes.
Not because that's what we wanted but because that's how it has to be for this bit.
His mom still has a school aged child in her home and it'd be to hectic with my family being there. And I get that but it's extremely hard mentally and physically doing this on my own without my husband.
It's not the best of circumstances here at my dad's either but I'm glad to be close to my dad and to also be growing closer to my spiritual Father. That's something I lacked when we were in Bakersfield.

So this is week 4 of living at my dad's and we just found out that the house we were waiting on is "most likely a no go" for our family. - words from the landlord.

So here I sit, wide awake blogging. It's almost 1am and I'm trying to figure out what our next move will be. It seems that God always gives us blessings in disguise because if it weren't for me living here with my dad and us waiting on a place we would not have been able to afford fixing our car which needed to be worked on. So we did that and now we are saving to move out and in to a place together with my husband and in the city we want to live in.
This journey has been hard but I've learned to trust in God 100% now more than ever. As sad as I am being without my husband or without a home, I've also enjoyed being around my dad and in this area exploring outside with my boys daily.

Packing & Moving

Ok so we'll start out with the cute pic of me going to church with the boys. This move happened super quick and almost out of no where. Obviously we had been on the hunt for a a few months but when we got the call saying we were accepted as new tenants for our new place, we had less than one week to move into our new place and we had to be out of our apartment by the first of February!

We had been at our apartment for almost exactly 3 years on valentine's day! So much has happened since living there. We were so blessed to have been there, paying rent that was affordable and being close to our family. A little piece of me will miss this apartment.

So with so little time, I tried to pack most things while David was at work, which was super hard being so pregnant and trying to keep the littles entertained while doing so. David would than come home and pack his side of things or things I couldn't reach. =)
He actually ended up working a side job both Saturday and Sunday, just two days before we moved , so I had to buckle down and pack up our place.( Hence the Church picture above without David)  It's insane how much stuff we actually had and could fit in that small 900 sq ft place.

On Monday, David woke up super early, picked up a rental moving truck and he and his two pretty awesome friends loaded absolutely everything into the truck and drove two hours to get to the new place, unloaded it and drove 2 hours + back! We are blessed to have had their help! Don't worry, I didn't lift any boxes or anything.

My amazing Mother in Law was sweet enough to take both boys early morning so that they would be out of the way while loading and cleaning our stuff.

Boys. David and his two friends and our boys.

So this is at our new place.

I than picked up the boys from their grandma's house and they said their goodbyes and we took off to our new place.
Not going to lie, I panicked when I arrived. Everything was everywhere.. many things in the wrong rooms and all I could think about was that I would be alone until late night when David would come back home. I needed to think of how to get the kids ready for bed with their things everywhere and in different places, and to make something for us to eat.

I ended up letting them play outside, crying a couple times because guys, I'm so emotional now and feel like the world is always caving in on me...lol
but seriously, I was pretty frazzled. I "manned up" and made soup with our cooler food because there wouldn't be a fridge for over a week and we had our nice dinner together. After eating, I pulled that twin mattress in the picture below into the empty nursery, plugged in the little tv and let them watch their show until we all fell asleep together. And David came home around that time as well.

It was a pretty weird and stressful first week, but we got through it. And we got through it without a fridge, washer and dryer! I'm definitely not going to make it seem like it was easy because it really wasn't. It was a weird lonely feeling knowing my husband is far away at work, I'm in a new city by myself with my two toddlers and growing belly and growing aches and pains but I'm blessed with my best friend messaging me almost daily to check in and my mom and dad and mom in law as well. It's feeling more like home and I like it. =)

A huge thank you to Joseph and Jose for helping us for hours to move our stuff and being so kind! And A big thank you to their wives for letting them do so! I know it took time out of them being home for dinner but we truly appreciate all the help!

And thank you to David's mom for watching the boys and loving them so hard that they have nothing but amazing things to say about being with you and their auntie and grandpa as well!

We've had wonderful guests visit since our move and that makes me feel so at home and in peace! Thank you Linda, Danny, Mom and Rudy, David's mom, Daddy and Estela for taking time out of your day or days to drive over and be with us! We love you all!

Our First Rental Home (empty house tour)

What a busy couple of weeks it has been! 18 days since I last blogged and so much has happened! I'm so excited to share that we are all moved out and moved into our new house! It's been quite a different transition we're still getting used to but it's been great! I'll get more into the details of our moving day but for now I am excited to share the photos of our new place before we moved in!

Hello there Handsome! I won't show the front of the house for security reasons but this is the front door.

 Immediately when you walk in, to your left is our kitchen. Renovated. This is a house built in the 1940's but the renovated kitchen really gives it a great feel!

 Something I always wanted was Good natural light in our home. We've got it now! =)

Beautiful countertops! 

 This rental didn't come with a fridge or washer and dryer but all the hook ups are there.

 This door leads to the side yard. 

 From the kitchen this doorway (with no door) leads to our dining room.

 and to the right of the dining room is our living room with a fireplace.

 From the living room you see this door way that is a room with another fireplace. This will be our baby's nursery.

 Jack and Jill doors.

 That little cabinet and and all the windows was what made me immediately think of having this be the baby's room.

 This is another room. This will be Noah and Levi's shared room. Their jack and jill door that leads to the baby's room.

 door to the right is the front door. There is a hallway door that we mostly leave open. It leads to the 1 bathroom we have and our rooms.

Bathroom. 

 It's a pretty small bathroom but it's cute.

 From the hallway past the bathroom, that is our room. Our "master" if you will.

 Our vintage closet. I've grown to love this closet over the past week. This room is the biggest we've ever had for ourselves. It's not big but it sure does have the perfect amount of space.

 And this is our Living Room. It's spacious, has great light coming through and a fireplace! For years I would tell David " Our next place has to have a backyard and a fireplace!" and look, now we have a huge backyard and two fire places! God sure does spoil us!

 Living room, the door leads to the backyard.

 Our little back porch.

 We bought the boys a little trampoline I found on Craigslist for $25! You bet they're on it as soon as the sun comes out!

There it is! Our little house tour! We are so excited and nervous and ah! Don't even know how I feel but we are happy with this new adventure of living somewhere new in a house and just doing something we needed to do for us. Our boys are so happy having the space they have now! We've been praying for something to come through for us and this is the year that we have been answered. It's not a permanent move, but it is good for now. 

We Are Moving!

Super quick update,

We have been looking at different rentals around our area for the past maybe 7 months and have had no luck. Everything is so overpriced and you get no space or yard space. We began to venture out of our county a couple of months ago to look at rental homes and have come across quite a few! If you don't know, we live in southern California. At the moment we are ten minutes from the beach and live in a 2 bedroom  1 bathroom apartment, with no yard or patio and not enough windows to make me want to take cute pictures ! lol

Last week we got the phone call that we got approved to rent a home 2 hours away from us now and we said yes! It's a beautiful 1940's 3 bedroom 1 bathroom home with a big back yard and garage. The kitchen has been updated and looks beautiful! We are so excited but so nervous at the same time! I'm almost 32 weeks pregnant and relocating our family is just nuts! But it will benefit us in the future. We follow Dave Ramsey's Financial management and agree that sometimes you need to sacrifice something to overcome debt and or get ahead. And that is what we are doing. I'm excited to have space for our boys to run around and play in! And there's a bonus, we are allowed to have a dog! So count on seeing that in the near future!

We are beyond blessed that my husband is such a dedicated hard worker and is willing to commute to work from our new place. His company provides him with a work truck and gas card so for him it is worth it, it's just a big sacrifice on waking up early to drive the distance.

We're excited for this new change in our lives. I can't wait to post so many pictures of details of our new place!

*click on the links below to see our past moving experiences! We are not new to moving as you can see! haha*


Our First Apartment: Studio
Decorating our little Studio


Our Second Place : 1 Bedroom 1 Bathroom
Noah's Nursery in Our Dining area

Our Third Place: 2 Bedroom 1 Bathroom
Noah and Levi's Shared Room

We Moved!!!!

I'm am beyond excited to share that our little family has moved once again and for the better! Man it feels so so so good to be on our own two feet again and have a place we can call home. As most of you know, we had moved in with David's parents last June to save some money because David was going to join the Airforce. Well, that didn't happened, we stayed living with his parents probably longer than we should have and even though it really helped us out and gave us a head start, I'm so thankful that God provided us with a lovely 2 bedroom apartment in beautiful Camarillo, CA.

Valentine's Day  2014, was an adventure for the McDaniels'! Thursday the 13th, we prepared by calling in a Uhaul truck and packed all our belongings in it and stayed up past 2am just to be ready for the following day. Friday, Valentine's Day was moving day for us! David had to work a half day and me and Noah spent the day cleaning, emptying out our room and driving down to meet with David at the new place. I was actually hit with the second cold within the month while doing all of this. I probably got sick a lot because I was so stressed out and wanted to move so bad I just kept going and going. So even though we didn't get to do much of a romantic thing this year, I still loved that this Valentine's Day memory was of us moving in to our new home.
So here it is, our little apartment Before.

When you walkin this this what you see, the living room and to the left is the dining area and kitchen. 

The Kitchen. Noah helped me put food in the fridge.

Dining area. ( not our table)

bathroom

Bedroom

Noah's room

So there ya have it! It's small, but perfect for us. It's vintage and has character and I love it! It looks very different now that we've added our touch to it. We've had to get new and used furniture since we had only our bedroom to deal with. When we moved out of our last apartment we gave away a lot of furniture to friends and family that needed it. But it's been fun finding things on Craiglist and than making it our own. I will be posting before and after photos real soon!

=)

Out Of The Yellow Cube!

We are all moved into our new place and out of the yellow little studio! I love where we're at now! I'm so happy and excited to keep decorating and do some DIY stuff to the place! Yesterday we went to pick up our sectional & coffee table from David's parent's house in Lancaster. They had been sitting in their garage for the past couple of years and we Finally get to use them!!!

The Whole time we were taking stuff out of the old place, Cosby looked at us like "What's going on?! Where's the bed?!" awww haha 

So that was the little cube we lived in for a while! Well we had to start somewhere! I'm proud of us and how far we've come.

Now to show you a bit of the new place:

Our big couch. Cosby already claimed it. 

My Boys. <3 

My Mom and step dad came over in the evening to spend some time with us and on our new couch. =) they brought ice cream, bananas, and strawberry syrup to make banana splits with! So good! We also picked up the movie "Our Idiot Brother" Hilarious!!!! Ah! Perfect Sunday night! 

The syrup looks like blood in this picture. O well, it was tasty! 

My mom, Rudy & Cosby.

I took this picture with my iphone and thought it came out pretty cute. =) 

Back to the Photo Challenge!      

5. 10:00 am for Feb. 5 I was on the road to Lancaster to pick up the furniture. 

6. is a Stranger.. Okay one sec, let me walk outside and snap a photo! Okay I'm back this is what I got:

I  have no idea who this gentlemen is but I know he's here for the event at my work today: Ronald Reagan's 101th Birthday! There's a big celebration here with a buttload of Cake, music, people and news reporters. Pretty cool. 

That's all for today, Hope your Monday goes by fast and good! =) 4 More days until my Brother is home from deployment!