Leap of Faith

Big changes are coming to our house starting tomorrow. For six years we've been slaves to the plumbing and pipefitting union and for those six years, it's been a gamble as far as employment goes. Up until this past September, Josh was an apprentice with the union and had no choice but to remain loyal to his local union until his contract was up. Well...his contract is most definitely not up yet. Technically, there are four and a half years left on it.

But we found a loop hole.

Apparently, after you turn out as a journeyman, you can withdrawal from the union due to financial hardship. Josh got this helpful bit of info from a teacher who he befriended while in school. So that's about the time I whipped up a nifty little resume for the ol' hubby and he started gettin' his interview game face on. I really don't want to go into every detail so let's do the short, short version. Months of sitting on the bench waiting for the union to pony up a job for him got us zip. Three whopping hours after sending out a resume to a local job and he's already got an interview. Thanks for your awesome work, union dudes. Talk about your epic fail on their part. After many, many phone calls and a lot of prayer and questions...Josh has a job. WOOOOOOO HOOOOOOO!!!! (Sorry. Had to be done.)

So begin the changes. This job is a career job. Retirement, vacation, paid holidays, room for growth...the whole shebang. It's a pay cut. A big one. But theoretically, the pay cut won't be so bad because Josh would be working full time with no unemployment to make up the lost days/months. We also lose union insurance which means we get to join the rest of the working peeps and pay for it out of our own pocket. The first few months leads him through a period of probation when they determine if his starting hourly pay sticks or goes higher. It may not sound like "big changes" to anyone else, but to us...this is huge! We are scared. We also know that the pay cut will make things tight around here. But hopefully tight is better than impossible (which is what unemployment is right now).

Now to the other major change. Okay. Maybe "major" isn't really accurate. But to me it's a big change. Josh has to go baby-face. He's gotta lose the beard. Not just trimmed, folks. The full on smooth effect. No facial hair allowed at this place. It's gonna be rough seeing him beardless, but I suppose I just have to get used to it. I married that beard almost 12 years ago and I'm gonna miss it. I like the scruffy look. I'm going to have my parents take a picture of us this weekend before the beard takes it's final bow.

It's been a rocky six years and I'm kinda scared what will happen next. It's all going to change now. It's time to take that leap of faith and put our lives in God's hands and hope that the path we're taking won't be as bumpy as the last. Wish us luck!

Kindergarten: Complete

Alex and his super awesome teacher, Miss Stithem

He did it! Alex successfully made it through kindergarten. The beginning of the year, I was terrified to send him off to school with a group of strangers. Leaving my allergy kid in the hands of "some kindergarten teacher" (as I thought of her before he went), was super scary for me. After all, I had been his protector for so many years that it was hard to see how someone else could watch out for him as well as I could. Pre-school sort of prepared me, but that was only a few hours every other day. The first semester with his teacher, Miss Stithem, was rough for me (and him, as far as trust goes). As the second semester came and went, I gained more trust. By the end of the year (yesterday), Alex had come to trust Miss Stithem enough that he didn't need to directly hear me say that something was or wasn't safe. Turns out that she was awesome! She really looked out for him and made sure he was safe everyday. We were so blessed to have her as Alex's teacher this year and we were very hopeful that she would be Abby (and Evie's) teacher later on. Due to budget cuts, she was let go. I was very disappointed to hear this and so was Abby.

As for Alex's kindergarten experience, it was a full success. The kid is as smart as a whip and we are super proud of him. He's on an early third grade reading level, much to our surprise. He went above and beyond his learning duties as a kindergartner and we couldn't be more happy. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that his first year of school was wonderful and we can't wait to see where he goes from here as he embarks on first grade next year. What a ride it was! Kindergarten: Complete.

Worry, worry, worry

If you're looking for my healthy stomach, it no longer resides in me. Or anywhere else, for that matter. My list of worries has actually had my stomach pulverized for good measure. I can honestly say that my list of worries gets bigger every day and sometimes, like yesterday, I realize I need to do something about it. Yesterday was a bad day for weather. We had a tornado scare. I had to use my "scary mommy" voice with the kids. Our weather radio went off and about ten seconds after I heard our town's name come up, the sirens started blazing in town. I told the kids to get their stuff and haul tush for the van. We don't have shelter in our home and with three kids to worry about the safety of, I was forced to scare them into a desperate need for speed during the situation. We were going to go to my friends basement, but it's six miles away and hail was on the way. So we turned tail and headed for the local "storm shelter". It's the local high school locker room. We made it to the shelter just in time for me to practically hop the fire lane curb and run into the building. Lucky me. I think I rebroke my foot a little after slipping on some wet grass trying to get Evie out of the cold rain. She was dressed in nothing but a onesie and shivering. Abby and Alex were crying and terrified, soaked to the bone. As I sat there in that locker room, huddled with the masses with my terrified and crying children, I realized I can't worry about this anymore. I need a shelter for my family. Need - with a capital 'N'. I have an annoyingly long-time unemployed husband, three kids I desperately need to keep safe at times like this, black widows being crushed in my backyard (tonight), mold and terrible dirt smells permeating our house after any rain choking us and causing asthma flares, ants swarming my cupboards, and a germaphobic borderline hypochondriac son with a paralyzing fear of touching food. I need to make a solution for one of these problems and a storm shelter is almost at the top of my list after hearing about all the scary things happening during these storms. They say to place your worries in the Lord's hands. I'm trying. Lord, I could use a storm shelter by the end of the week, please. Amen.

Evie is 6 Months Old

6 months old

Evie's officially half a year old! And let me tell ya. She is a movin' and a groovin'! Alex and Abby crawled around the six and a half month mark with Abby beating Alex by about a week. Evie decided that she can do better than that and she took her first crawl steps two days before turning six months old. Go Evie! She started solid foods about a month ago with rice cereal but didn't really take too kindly to it. We waited a bit and tried oatmeal instead. She handled that much better, just like her sissy did. She's gotten pretty good at eating from the spoon. Not a pro yet, but more of it stays in that out. She even started bananas and applesauce and is happy to be expanding her palette. She sits up very well and can pretty much get to where ever she wants to go. I bought a walker/playstation for her and she is practically zooming around the house now, following Abby where ever she goes. It's pretty funny to watch. The only thing I'm having difficulty with is that she won't laugh. Oh, she's the happiest most socially smiley baby on the planet, but she will not laugh for me. She gets the happy squealies and can smile so hard it almost looks painful, but no giggles. It gets me down sometimes because I want to hear those baby giggles, but I'm sure she'll laugh when something is funny enough. Next stop: carrots and squash with a side of walking!

Preschool: Success

She did it! After a rocky start to the preschool year, Abby went and graduated this week. She did have quite the hard time when preschool started. We fought tears and separation anxiety when drop off time came. But, something happened to give her confidence somewhere down the line and she has been doing wonderful! She went from crying and holding on to my leg for dear life to walking in all by herself. She has beautiful handwriting for her age and has learned so much. She's even pumped about kindergarten. At the little program/graduation, I will once again admit, that I did get a bit emotional when she walked across the stage for her little diploma. And when they played the photo montage to touching music, I cried. Not a lot...but nevertheless, I did. Her last day of school was today and they released balloons into the sky to celebrate their last day as preschoolers. We'll miss her teacher, Miss Cindy. I just hope that she's still teaching when Evie heads off to school. My baby is growing up! I'm so proud of you Abby! You've come so far.

Releasing balloons on the last day. Abby has the pink one.

Abby and Miss Cindy.

The Graduating class.

Dinosaur Stomping song.

Abby and her best buddy, Natalie.

Space Woes

Guess who's almost half a year old? That's right! Miss Evie is almost there. And what has happened, you ask? The dark circles under my eyes have overtaken my face. She has begun to dislike her sleeping arrangements. The crib, like usual, is in our room. It's so easy to get to her when she wakes up for those midnight snack runs when she's just a few feet away. That's how breastfeeding goes. With Alex and Abby, it was the same deal. But right around this time with both of them, I had to make "The Move". Yep. The big one. They leave the comfort of their not-so-sleeping mom's ever watchful eyes and move into their own room. They sleep better. I sleep better. It's all part and partial to the growing process. You gotta leave the nest. Albeit, in small steps. But nevertheless. It must happen. Right?

So, Alex moved into that room at this age. Abby moved into that room at this age. The same room...the only other room in the house. It's a teeny tiny office space sized room. We manged to remodel it enough a couple of years back so we could fit Alex and Abby's beds in there together. It's tight. Very tight these days. So tight, in fact, that they don't really get to play in there as there is little room to actually do much playing. So as both brother and sister made "The Move", we had hoped that Evie would make the move as well.

Dilemma: There's no more room to remodel. Back when I was preggo with Evie, Josh was working. Working well, I might add. And we were ready to make a move to a house that didn't compete in the Smallest Housing Contest. Right as we were about to go for it and complete the need for space, Josh's job made like a dead fish and went belly up. We're out of room.

Oh, I can keep Evie in the room with us indefinitely, I suppose. It shouldn't be too awful, right? But it's already biting me in the butt. Actually it's biting me in the bed. I'm exhausted. Every time she wakes up or stirs at night, she sees her mama sleeping just a few feet away and cries. Angrily. Loudly. All...night...long. She's gone from peachy keen sleeping pro to I-ain't-gonna-sleep-without-mama-holding-me girl. I'm so tired. So now the question of the hour is whether or not to go for the bunk bed route. It's concerning. Alex has night terrors and nightmares all the time and gets out of bed a lot at night. Not exactly a safe candidate for top-bunk sleeping. Abby is still in diapers (shhh...don't tell anyone) and having a heck of a time kicking the problem and so needs access to the bathroom at night. Also not a good candidate for top bunk sleeping. As I am trying to avoid midnight runs to the ER for broken bones as a result of falling, I've hit a snag.

Three kids in one tiny room. I never thought we'd get to this point. I always assumed we'd move up in life and avoid snags such as these. Josh is jobless. My kids keep getting bigger (which is awesome, don't get me wrong about that part). And my house is getting smaller. I'm so tired...in so many ways. I wonder if the attic can be remodeled?

Pink Rag

Evie has a friend. We've lovingly named it the pink rag. Josh found a pink handkerchief some time ago and gave it to Abby thinking she might find some use for it. She ended up not caring one way or another about it's existence and it got shoved into the bottom of a toy box. I'm not entirely certain how Evie ever found it or how we ever had the thought to give it to her, but she instantly fell in love with it. She sucks on it, chews on it, holds it...pretty much anything that a baby can do with it, she does. It's super cute how she is constantly holding it in her mouth and I can't stop taking pictures of it. I thought that the third kid wouldn't get as many pictures taken but it's become apparent that this is most definitely not so.