Aaron has an official start date now. He will start in his new job on April 7. So we are moving Thursday or so. I'm feeling very anxious and unprepared. Even though much of our belongings are packed away in boxes, my house feels messier than usual! I wish I could just skip the next two weeks or so.
I'm just glad that my brother's family is moving into our house. If we had to sell or find someone else to rent, my stress level would sky rocket. But the way things are working out, it can be attributed to nothing else than a perfectly orchestrated plan from Heavenly Father. We are blessed.
So, fare thee well, Caldwell! We will miss living here. Not for Caldwell, but for family and friends. Ah.
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Dry skin
Morgan has eczema. Right now his left knee seems the most effected. For several months now his knee has been opening and bleeding. It's either bloody, or scabby. And he constantly scratches it. I've tried many things to help, but it just won't heal up. His knee is actually looking much better in this picture than it has for awhile. Sorry if this is too gross to post! Any ideas about how to help? Lately I've been using neosporin then covering it with the gauze and a baby sock with the toe cut out. (And yet Morgan STILL manages to get to it sometimes.) But if anyone has any ideas, I'm open to them!
Helping Daddy
We have a car that has been in our garage for over a year. Problem with the timing belt, and haven't gotten around to fixing it. Well, since we will be moving in about a week, it was suddenly very necessary to get it up and running if possible. So my wonderful mechanically inclined husband has been spending a lot of time fixing it. Morgan loves to be outside, or even in the garage, so Aaron had him out there with him. Being a very observant child, Morgan found some tools and started working on his own project. He'll be changing tires and oil in no time. :)
So tired
This is at my parents house the Saturday before Easter. Morgan hadn't had a good nap and after a lot of play and excitement he was exhausted. This made him cranky and needy, which made it difficult for me to play basketball with my siblings. So I deposited him with his Dad. Thanks Aaron! He was soon asleep. He must have been very tired to sleep like this. He never sleeps in our arms. Only the carseat or his bed.
Easter
Happy Easter! We do the Easter basket stuff on the Saturday before Easter in an attempt to not distract too much from the real meaning of Easter. I don't know if it works at all. Anyway, Friday night we had my brother Chris and his wife Christine over. They are going to be living in our house when we move, so everyone around here is very lucky. They weren't planning on staying over night, but by the time we finished playing games and stuff, their kids were asleep and it was late. So they just stayed. :) That meant more fun in the morning after the Easter Bunny had visited. We had to be a little creative with easter baskets, but that was no problem.
I got the picture moments before he took them off. He likes them, but he likes to hold them most.
All attempts at getting a picture with all the kids wearing the glasses at once was a complete failure.
Chris and Christine have a new puppy. She didn't mind the shades.
Later that day we had an Easter egg hunt at my parents house. We scattered the eggs across the lawn and sent out the toddlers with their baskets. I was pleasantly surprised at how quickly Morgan caught on. He had a blast as he hurried to an egg, picked it up, put it in his basket and moved to the next one. He acted as though he'd been doing Easter egg hunts every day of his life. When all the eggs were gathered, Morgan, with his basket of goodies in hand, walked straight inside, found a nice spot on the floor, opened an egg or two and indulged. He's so cute.
Morgan shakes the eggs and knows they hide something. He quickly figured out how to open the eggs. If we didn't watch him, he would put as much candy in his mouth as he could and devour it swiftly. He's a little candy monster. He gets that from his mom.
We wanted to get Morgan some sunglasses for Easter and all we found was a four-pack, which worked out great for sharing with Kaien and Emmy.
I got the picture moments before he took them off. He likes them, but he likes to hold them most.
All attempts at getting a picture with all the kids wearing the glasses at once was a complete failure.
Chris and Christine have a new puppy. She didn't mind the shades.
Later that day we had an Easter egg hunt at my parents house. We scattered the eggs across the lawn and sent out the toddlers with their baskets. I was pleasantly surprised at how quickly Morgan caught on. He had a blast as he hurried to an egg, picked it up, put it in his basket and moved to the next one. He acted as though he'd been doing Easter egg hunts every day of his life. When all the eggs were gathered, Morgan, with his basket of goodies in hand, walked straight inside, found a nice spot on the floor, opened an egg or two and indulged. He's so cute.
Tight spots
We have a futon upstairs that has a gap between it and the wall. A perfect tunnel. Morgan LOVES to crawl behind it. But he frequently gets stuck and screams in terror until Mommy can rescue him. I've tried a few times to get a good picture of Morgan behind the futon, but have failed. These are the best I can offer.
Friday, March 21, 2008
Where the deer and the antelope roam
Last week, Wednesday night, Aaron couldn't sleep because he couldn't stop thinking about the job opportunity in Dugway Utah.
Thursday morning we decided to take a trip down to check it out. Friday we left for Saratoga Springs Utah, (near Lehi) to stay with some of my family.
Monday we drove the hour and 20 minutes to the middle of the desert where the Dugway army post is, seeing deer and antelope on the way. We talked to an uncle of mine who works there, and he showed us around English Village, the part of Dugway that people live and where Aaron would be working. We learned that there is a complete housing freeze there for an undetermined amount of time. Sad. So we drove the 45 minutes to Tooele to look for housing there. We were only looking at rentals because we would still own the home here in Caldwell. But Tooele has NOTHING! The place is big enough, bigger than Caldwell, but nothing is for rent! All the apartment buildings are restricted income so we wouldn't be allowed to live in them. We called property management places, looked in the newspaper, drove around neighborhoods, but still couldn't find a single house fit to live in. And we weren't being picky. So, a little dejected, we drove back to Saratoga Springs.
We talked to my uncle with whom we were staying and he told us that we could pretty much have our pick of house in his neighborhood for $1000-$1200 a month. He lives in a brand new neighborhood with beautiful and big houses up on a little hill over looking a lake. Sounded good to us. So we drove around their neighborhood. These houses had been built with no one to live in them, and now the builders and owners were in a tight spot. The rent was actually closer to $1500, but for the houses, it was amazing.
On Monday Aaron also met with the owner of the company that he'd be working for. She gave him an offer letter, and Aaron accepted.
Tuesday we looked for a place to live some more and Aaron got fingerprinted for the beginning of an extensive background check they are doing on him. Top secret clearance is necessary.
Wednesday we placed a deposit and signed papers, then drove home. It was our anniversary.
This is the house that we were inches away from renting. It's huge and so cute, and way too big for us, but we wanted to live there anyway. We looked at a lot of houses, but this was probably my favorite. $1500.
This is the townhouse that we ended up settling for. I say settling, but that is only because it is smaller and less extravagant than all the other houses we looked at. It's still cute, has 3 bedrooms, 2.5 baths and an unfinished basement. It will only be temporary though. We are still going to try to move to Dugway when the housing freeze is over.
So, we will be moving between the 1st and 15th of April. There isn't an official start date yet. Yikes. We have lots to do.
Thursday morning we decided to take a trip down to check it out. Friday we left for Saratoga Springs Utah, (near Lehi) to stay with some of my family.
Monday we drove the hour and 20 minutes to the middle of the desert where the Dugway army post is, seeing deer and antelope on the way. We talked to an uncle of mine who works there, and he showed us around English Village, the part of Dugway that people live and where Aaron would be working. We learned that there is a complete housing freeze there for an undetermined amount of time. Sad. So we drove the 45 minutes to Tooele to look for housing there. We were only looking at rentals because we would still own the home here in Caldwell. But Tooele has NOTHING! The place is big enough, bigger than Caldwell, but nothing is for rent! All the apartment buildings are restricted income so we wouldn't be allowed to live in them. We called property management places, looked in the newspaper, drove around neighborhoods, but still couldn't find a single house fit to live in. And we weren't being picky. So, a little dejected, we drove back to Saratoga Springs.
We talked to my uncle with whom we were staying and he told us that we could pretty much have our pick of house in his neighborhood for $1000-$1200 a month. He lives in a brand new neighborhood with beautiful and big houses up on a little hill over looking a lake. Sounded good to us. So we drove around their neighborhood. These houses had been built with no one to live in them, and now the builders and owners were in a tight spot. The rent was actually closer to $1500, but for the houses, it was amazing.
On Monday Aaron also met with the owner of the company that he'd be working for. She gave him an offer letter, and Aaron accepted.
Tuesday we looked for a place to live some more and Aaron got fingerprinted for the beginning of an extensive background check they are doing on him. Top secret clearance is necessary.
Wednesday we placed a deposit and signed papers, then drove home. It was our anniversary.
This is the house that we were inches away from renting. It's huge and so cute, and way too big for us, but we wanted to live there anyway. We looked at a lot of houses, but this was probably my favorite. $1500.
This is the townhouse that we ended up settling for. I say settling, but that is only because it is smaller and less extravagant than all the other houses we looked at. It's still cute, has 3 bedrooms, 2.5 baths and an unfinished basement. It will only be temporary though. We are still going to try to move to Dugway when the housing freeze is over. 
So, we will be moving between the 1st and 15th of April. There isn't an official start date yet. Yikes. We have lots to do.
Vroom vroom!
The other day we were getting the car packed up for a trip we were going to take. I let Morgan out into the garage with me. I opened the front passenger door to put something in it and left it opened while I went back inside for another load of stuff. When I returned I found Morgan driving the car. He crawled in by himself and made his way to the drivers seat.
Aaron was going to pull the car out of the garage to the driveway, so he had Morgan help. My little boy is growing up so fast! Already driving a car. :)
Aaron was going to pull the car out of the garage to the driveway, so he had Morgan help. My little boy is growing up so fast! Already driving a car. :)
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Thank-You
I have several things to blog about. I just need time to do it. I will hold off on most until I get some pictures uploaded.
Morgan has learned to say thank-you. It sounds more like tay-too. One day we had some lemon head candies that Morgan loved. I would give him one and tell him to say thank-you. Occasionally he did. Later on he would see the bag of candy and say "thank-you". I think I taught him that lemon heads were called thank-you. But we kept working with him on it and now he is a very polite boy and says thank-you when people give him things. It's adorable! He also says thank-you to ask for things. If he sees Aaron or I eating something that he wants he will hold out his hand and say "tay-too" over and over until he gets it. Ahh, we're learning.
Morgan has learned to say thank-you. It sounds more like tay-too. One day we had some lemon head candies that Morgan loved. I would give him one and tell him to say thank-you. Occasionally he did. Later on he would see the bag of candy and say "thank-you". I think I taught him that lemon heads were called thank-you. But we kept working with him on it and now he is a very polite boy and says thank-you when people give him things. It's adorable! He also says thank-you to ask for things. If he sees Aaron or I eating something that he wants he will hold out his hand and say "tay-too" over and over until he gets it. Ahh, we're learning.
Friday, March 7, 2008
The me that can see!
Well, I finally got glasses! I haven't been able to see well for about 2 years now, but on Saturday I went in for an eye exam, got my prescription, choose my frames on Monday and got the glasses on Thursday. YAY!
I was told my vision was either 20/35 or 20/40. The lady didn't know exactly. All I know is that now when I take my glasses off I am appalled at how much I CAN'T see. Everything is fuzzy and undefined. It's like a miracle every time I put the glasses on. I can read street signs before I pass them, I can watch tv, Aaron doesn't have to read subtitles to me, I can see what the kitchen clock says when I am still in the living room. Ah, life is good.
When I first wore them, walking back to the car in the parking lot, everything seemed small. People were short, cars were short, and the ground was much closer, making me feel short. But I could see wrinkles on faces, read license plates and see the individual pebbles on the pavement, so I couldn't complain too loudly.
How could instantly improved vision not have been higher on my priority list?
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Job update
Well, so far this whole being without a job thing has been lots less stressful than I would have imagined. Aaron spends at least 4 hours a day working on freelance projects (which pay more per hour than his other job) and they keep becoming available. Really, he hasn't had to look for work. People he knows keep calling him with projects and websites to do, so he is keeping busy and we still have money.
Also, my uncle told us about a job at the place that he works. The pay is EXCELLENT and the it is a government job, so the benefits are great. The downside is, it's in Utah. We would have to move. Another downside is that it's at Dugway. That is a military base in the middle of the desert. Dugway proving grounds. Aaron would have to get a very high clearance status to work there. Top secret stuff? But it's close to nothing. About an hour from Tooele and an hour from Lehi. Middle of nowhere. But because of that, he would receive an additional $3000 bonus every year for travel. This is almost too good to pass up, financially. But really we haven't looked for anything in the area. We don't need to make that much money, and would definitely rather to stay near family and not have to hassle with selling the house in today's market.
So there you go.
Also, my uncle told us about a job at the place that he works. The pay is EXCELLENT and the it is a government job, so the benefits are great. The downside is, it's in Utah. We would have to move. Another downside is that it's at Dugway. That is a military base in the middle of the desert. Dugway proving grounds. Aaron would have to get a very high clearance status to work there. Top secret stuff? But it's close to nothing. About an hour from Tooele and an hour from Lehi. Middle of nowhere. But because of that, he would receive an additional $3000 bonus every year for travel. This is almost too good to pass up, financially. But really we haven't looked for anything in the area. We don't need to make that much money, and would definitely rather to stay near family and not have to hassle with selling the house in today's market.
So there you go.
Saturday, March 1, 2008
And now, the not so good
Yesterday I was home with Morgan and my sister's kids. It was about 1:30 when I heard the garage door open. Strange, Aaron shouldn't be home for another 5 hours. But in he comes saying, "I've got some good news and some bad news. The good news is that I get the rest of the day off." It was here that I interrupted with my correct prediction of the bad news. "Did you get laid off?!" Zounds! And thus it is.
Aaron was asked to attend a meeting while at work yesterday. After the meeting he went and packed his things and went home. The bad kind of meeting. So we spent the afternoon together and took the kids to the park. But now comes the serious work of finding another job.
Fortunately Aaron is a skilled graphic designer and web designer/developer. There are a lot of freelance projects out there for just that, so until he has a regular full-time job, there will at least be some sort of income. As it stands though, the next month or two will probably be very financially tight. I blame this on myself. When it's my turn to say the family prayer I often include a petition for help to become better at managing our finances and such. I guess we are about to get a huge lesson in it! I hope we learn well and learn quickly and can move on.
Aaron was asked to attend a meeting while at work yesterday. After the meeting he went and packed his things and went home. The bad kind of meeting. So we spent the afternoon together and took the kids to the park. But now comes the serious work of finding another job.
Fortunately Aaron is a skilled graphic designer and web designer/developer. There are a lot of freelance projects out there for just that, so until he has a regular full-time job, there will at least be some sort of income. As it stands though, the next month or two will probably be very financially tight. I blame this on myself. When it's my turn to say the family prayer I often include a petition for help to become better at managing our finances and such. I guess we are about to get a huge lesson in it! I hope we learn well and learn quickly and can move on.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
