Perks Cont.

Perks of Having an Unemployed Husband:
1. He is his own boss
2. He can have time off whenever he wants or needs it
3. I have a babysitter 24/7 for when I need to run errands, go to appts, work...
4. I have extra help with the kids
5. We can go to the Temple anytime we want
6. The "honey do list" can get some attention
7. I'm sure there's more... :)

P.S. THANK-YOU to everyone for all your well wishes, prayers and sweet comments. It means a lot to us to have such great friends and family. We are so grateful to all of you for your love and support during this time!!!

Perks

One of the last perks from Kyle's work were free tickets to a hockey game that he got last week at work. The Everett Silver Tips played the Spokane Chiefs. Kate was excited to go watch people ice skate. That's all she talked about. We tried explaining the game of hockey to her before so she wouldn't be scared when players got smashed up against the sides or from the loud cow bells that the crazed fans used. She was fine and the game had her attention for about 5 minutes and after that she was interested in the girl's dippin' dots behind us, moving from seat to seat and eating her candy. Preston kicked a guy in front of us a couple times so I'm sure they were glad we were behind them.

They are in a trance watching the mascot!

I took this picture so after 5 attempts we got this one and Preston is only partially cut off- not bad.

We stopped at a store before the game so she could pick out some candy and she chose these. She was in heaven. She wanted to eat the whole bag- I didn't let her. :)

The hockey game (and Kate's fingers in the lower right corner- once again her fingers found a way into the picture!). We have no idea who won because we left after only an hour. Preston was getting squirly and super whiny so he needed his bed. Good thing the tickets were free!

Kate wanted to wear her gloves. It was chilly in there so we were all bundled up.

Reality

Well... this isn't good news at all, but it's reality for a lot of people right now. Kyle got laid off from his job on Monday! Horrible, I know. He came home around 11am on Monday and I was just thinking he was coming home for an early lunch so when he walked in and said he was laid off I thought he was kidding. I finally believed him when he showed me the paperwork stuff they gave him. I was pretty devastated and had my fair share of crying and being emotional for the next couple of hours. Kyle had a really good attitude about it. He kept telling me it will work out and be fine. His main concern was health insurance for the kids since our insurance was now ending at the end of January. He even handled it well when they told him. When they told him he said, "well, it's no one's fault." I would have been more upset, but then again it's really not their fault, it's the housing market. He even made it past several lay-offs over the last 15 months at his work. (He worked for a home builder as a project manager.) They even paid him a compliment by saying they would like to hire him back when the market turns around, but they know he will be taken b/c he's smart and a good guy. Hmpf. He better be hired by someone else by then. :) There's another guy in our ward that is out of work and watches his two kids and I joked that Kyle and him can start a daddy daycare or do playdates together. Ha! Gotta have some humor in this mess, right?

So now I am the sugar mama. I'm only working 2x/month right now, but today the dentist's wife, who is a hygienist in the office, offered to give me her 4 days that she was scheduled to work next month! She is happy to have a break, but that was so nice of her. I will probably look into temp hygiene work as well. Thank goodness for my education!!! The Church encourages us to get an education and this is exactly why- to get through times like this.

We will get through this and we just have to have faith that all will work out fine. It's the unknown that is scary and always wondering "how long will it take to get a job?" If we knew that answer I think we'd enjoy Kyle's time off a bit more. Maybe take a road trip... do lots of fun things... you know, the stuff you do with time off. :)

Video of Preston

This is a video of Preston playing outside with his ride on toy. When he is actually on it he goes backwards. And he's already fallen over while on it. Preston will say "hi da da". We are working on the "hi ma ma" part now. ;)

Kate's infatuated with getting a hand, face, foot, body, you name it in the way of the camera when I'm taking a picture. So at the end of the video that is her hand and her giggle. She thinks she's funny. Let's just say her timing isn't always good. You know how it is when you are trying to get "the right picture" and a hand gets in the way. Not funny then, huh?!

Magnets 101

Kyle got a new calling at church as the Gospel Doctrine teacher for Sunday school. He's a bit nervous. :) He teaches twice a month and tomorrow is his first time. My Mom had this calling a few years ago before she started teaching seminary and my younger brothers and sister wanted her to get released because she would always quote scriptures to them. Well, the other day Kyle started to quote a scripture to me about some day-to-day thing and so I had to laugh. It reminded me of the joke with my Mom and how she used to do that! It must be something with that calling. HA!

Preston browsing through The Friend magazine. I just thought it looked cute.

This is a face when he whines and wants me! You can see a fresh wound by his left eye. One of many to come, I'm sure. I cut his hair on my own the other day and I think it turned out pretty good. It's a good thing he's so blonde b/c it hides mistakes well. He actually sit still during the hair cut. He would cry every time I turned off the clippers to change the guard. You'd think he would cry when I turned the clippers on!

Kate wanted a picture taken of her! This is her ultimate cheesy smile. Her latest thing is talking about wanting to go to Disneyland to give all the princesses a hug.

These are some magnets I have been making today. (The picture is sideways for some reason and they are on my old metal pan- it looks gross. :)) They were so easy and fun to make. I bought all the stuff to make them a couple years ago to do with my family, but we never did them. So just the other day I pulled the stuff out and started making some. On the fridge, they look much cuter than just a regular magnet.

All you do is use a clear gem stone thing (I bought them at Target) and glue (you want to use a clear glue, I used a dimensional magic glue) on a cute piece of paper to the back. You want to place glue on the flat part of the gem, put the paper on and then put glue on the back of the paper as well and smear the glue around with your finger to cover the paper and seal the edges. Let it dry and hot glue a round magnet to the back. Done! You should make some.

Bubble Buns, Cupcakes and Snowballs

This is what happens to little boys that have big sisters that like to dress up!!! He was NOT happy about it either. It was pretty funny (and cute) though.

We had a primary activity on Saturday morning. We wanted to center it around the new theme for the year "My Eternal Family". We called it a Family Fun Day and had each kid bring a family member whether that be their mom/dad, sister/brother, or grandparent. When they first came we had them play "Who am I?" where they have to guess the name on their back- we used church names. Next, we had a FHE lesson on families and why we are on earth with families and how we can be eternal families. Then the fun began with the games.


I grew up playing Don't Eat Pete and thought it would be fun to teach the kids this game. First, we let the kids play it so they would learn it and then they got to make their own board game by coloring the different faces. We sent them home with some M&M's and marshmallows so they could play with their family. You play the game by putting a M&M on each face. One person leaves the room and everyone else chooses a face to be Pete. The person comes back into the room and starts picking up one M&M at a time, but if they start to pick up the one that is on Pete everyone says "Don't Eat Pete!" Their turn is over, but they get to keep all the M&M's they picked up.

Then we played the Barnyard Animal Game where each person chose an animal, except a rooster. Then they wrote down 5 numbers between 1-20. When I called off a number they would make their animal sound if they had written down that number. It was funny hearing adults and kids make all these animal noises and the barnyard was noisy!!! Once all 5 of your numbers were called you would act like a rooster and say "cock-a-doodle-doo" to claim your prize, which was a sucker.

Time for a snowball fight! We actually got this idea from another primary in our stake. You put two tables on their side and have rolled up socks to be the "snowballs". Then you let the kids go at it. They L.O.V.E.D it! These pictures are of the kids 7 and under. We put the older kids in a different room since they would want to throw harder, which they did. :)

The "intense" snowball fight in action. On the way home Kate said, "I had fun throwing snowball socks at my little friends." Too cute.

After the snowball fight, we figured they would be cold (not really, they were actually sweaty!) so we had hot cocoa and bubble buns (cinnamon pull-apart bread that is divine).

Pretty cupcakes from Hello Cupcakes- a cupcake boutique- however they weren't that good. The chocolate one's were dry and the frosting wasn't very good. The carrot cupcake was the best- very moist. It was fun though to experience. I met up with my Mom and Marci at Marci's house to hang out for the afternoon after the primay activity. My mom came over to help Marci paint her bathroom, listen to her teach her lesson in RS at church and to just hang out for the weekend. We went to lunch at Indochine (an asian restaurant with an AMAZING seating design and a pretty waterfall next to us.) Then we did some shopping, visited a friend and had lots of laughs. I didn't get home until 11 pm! Kyle was nice enough to be home all day with the kiddos.

My Mom and Marci drove up to our house after church and I made lunch. We had chicken cordon bleu, broccoli, rice pilaf and rolls. We ate hot fudge pudding cake for dessert and visited. My Mom made sugar roll out cookies shaped like hearts with Kate and then us girls, along with 2 of my friends from the ward, went to North Seattle to listen to Julie Beck, the RS General President! We were so excited. We got there an hour early and had awesome seats 7 rows back. We were able to shake Sis. Beck's hand before and after! The talk was really good and she talked about finding joy in motherhood, finding joy in being single and ways we can improve ourselves by setting goals and serving the Lord. There was more to it and that's a horrible summary, but it was good. :) What's fun is that during her talk we learned about her and her husband (who was there) and she shared things about the church and how things are ran like with the church welfare system. Stuff like that is interesting to me and makes me like her and the church even more. It was a great spiritual boost for all of us there.

Better Days

My last post was about all the crazy things Kate can do it one day. She has actually been good since then. No major incidents to report. :) She has made some cute comments lately.

We have started to read the Book of Mormon reader for little kids to her and she told us one night while reading a story "this is my favorite book." She calls the scriptures "scrippers" so we think it's pretty cute that the "scrippers" is her favorite book.

She also randomly will say to me or Kyle "you are my best friend". I'll take that comment any day.

She's been big into doing puzzles lately so we have 4 different puzzles out that she is constantly putting together and then taking them apart to redo again. She's getting pretty good at them.

This week we have gone grocery shopping, ran a few errands, I worked and Kate had preschool. I do a co-op preschool with 2 other moms and it works out pretty well. We just alternate who teaches and the girls love it. On our way to pick up Kate after preschool, I told Preston, "we are going to go get Kate" and then he pointed to her carseat which is next to him and patted it. It was so cute. He's understanding more of what we say which is nice. We can tell him to get a toy or a book and he will go get it. He's walking everywhere now and started right before Christmas. We were outside the other day and he had a hard time walking uphill and even downhill. I was laughing just watching him. He loved being outside and walking around, but after a few falls he was getting frustrated. It will be nicer this summer that he can walk instead of me holding him!

One of Those Days

It was one of those days yesterday. You know, the one where your 3 1/2 yr old tries washing her brother's hair with bathroom cleaner and a sponge. A day where your 3 1/2 yr old will not take a nap and only has a short "rest time". A day where your 3 1/2 yr old rips the flaps out of an adorable flip-up book meant for her brother. A day where a 3 1/2 yr old threw tantrums and was defiant to any instructions. Yeah, it was one of those days.

Reception, Baptism and now Home

Well, we made it over the pass last week. I was getting worried because all passes to Eastern Washington were closed most of the day last Thursday. Snoqualmie finally opened at 8 pm on Thursday, but the kiddos were in bed so we left early the next morning. We had Jeff's reception Friday night and then on Saturday we had Kathryn's baptism in Moses Lake. We left after the baptism to come back. We almost got stopped coming over Snoqualmie for avalanche control, but thankfully we didn't and made it home in decent time. I didn't want to get stranded on the mountain waiting for the pass to open. We had fun though in our 2 short days over there. It's nice to be home, but I have A LOT of organizing and laundry to do.

Kate "tuving" behind the four wheeler. She loved it and while tubing she would pick up snow and eat it like it was a leisurely ride or something.

With Kathryn at her baptism. She looked beautiful in her dress and Melanie did a good job on her hair b/c it looked just as good after the baptism. There were LOTS of people at her baptism. She definitely had a lot of family support which was so nice to have.

Preston being goofy at the reception. He drooled red punch on his shirt and spilled a plate of won ton sauce all over his sleeve. He was a mess by the end of the night. Thank goodness for bleach.

Here are some pictures of Jeff and Sadie's reception (or open house, whatever you call it for the boy). The table when you first walked in. Then the food table in the distance.

The view when you walk into the room. My Mom did a good job decorating it. Jeni helped her and she borrowed a lot of things, but it turned out to be really warm and cozy. The gazebo was really pretty and I loved the ambience of the low lights. The food was yummy. Since it was a 5:00 reception my Mom served food and dessert. She made won tons (550 of them!), kalotches (roll dough wrapped around a little smoky sausage- 250 of those!), tortilla pinwheels, veggie tray, lots of chocolate covered almonds, cashews and peanuts, red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting and cranberry juice mixed with pop punch. It was yummy. It was fun to see family and friends. I am lucky to have grown up in such a nice community. There were so many people that helped out. It was a fun evening.

Happy New Year!

We had a nice relaxing New Year's Eve. We slept in and lounged around in pj's for a while then decided to go eat at Ivar's Landing restaurant and see the water in Mukilteo. Dee Ann was excited to eat some yummy fish while visiting here. I'm still salivating over the delicious creamy clam chowder and warm sourdough rolls. Mmmmm. Kate was entertained by the seagulls that were perched out the restaurant window.

Brrrr... It was cold out near the water.

After lunch we went home so the kids could take naps and then went bowling. Kate has gone once before and loved it. We only did one game, but that was enough for her attention span. I have to say I bowled my best game ever of 177!!! I was excited. Kate would look down the chute to watch for her ball to come back and once it did it would scare her. I have to admit that we wore our bowling shoes that we acquired for our Halloween costumes. They worked great and saved us $7. :)

They had arcade games at the bowling alley and Preston loved moving the steering wheel and pushing buttons. Cheap entertainment. ;) Kyle and I played a game of air hockey.

Holding her 9 lb bowling ball.

Stuck on the West Side

I don't mind snow. I actually like having different seasons to enjoy so I like living where I do. However, I am not liking the snow today. We got up this morning and I was hurrying and getting ready and packing bags when Kyle comes up to tell me there's no rush because the pass is closed. Great... We wait a couple of hours and consider going over another mountain pass that is supposed to open around noon, but then find out that it is closed indefinitely as well. There was a storm that went through the mountains last night and I guess we should have left yesterday. We are heading over to my parent's house because Jeff and Sadie's reception is Friday night and my niece is getting baptized Saturday night. We also have Dee Ann, my mother-in-law, here visiting with us and she needs to get back over there because she flies out of Tri-Cities on Sunday. She's from Las Vegas so she's not liking the snow either, but I don't think she has ever liked it. HA! :) So...we are waiting and hoping that tomorrow we can make it over to my parents. We shall see if the pass opens... I don't really want to drive down to Portland and around that way. That would take forever.