Happy Birthday, Braden

Today is my baby's first birthday. We threw him a little party yesterday to celebrate.

He didn't really like his little cake. He stuck one hand in the frosting and was done with it. I think he might be a clean freak like his mother.

He spent most of his party standing at the back door trying to go out and play with his cousins. He looks like a little boy to me in that bottom picture. I don't know what happened to my baby!

Here are some things that Braden is doing right now:

• He went back and forth with crawling for a little bit, but now he is a full-on walker.



• He says "uh-oh", "no", "dad", "mom", "hi". And he waves while he says "hi" which sounds more like "i".



• He loves my in-laws new cat, and he squeals every time the cat somes around.



• He likes to eat Pop Tarts for breakfast. I send Pop Tarts with Rebecca and William every morning for breakfast when they go to my sister's house. A few weeks ago he let my sister know that he wanted one too. So he sits in his high chair and eats his own Pop Tart.



• Going along with that, he's not a fan of baby food. He wants to eat everything we are eating.



• He is a thumb sucker like his big sister. We pushed the binky, but through the night he would put himself back to sleep with his thumb. And now he wants nothing to do with binkies.



• He's ticklish, and he giggles when anyone tickles his belly.



• He is a little lover, and he'll still lay on me every once in a while and drink his bottle.



• He's still not quite sleeping through the night. He will about three nights a week, but the other four nights he wakes up at 4 am for a bottle.



• His hair has lightened up, and lately he reminds me of my nephew Ryder:
  
  

• He is such a joy in our family. I couldn't have asked for a better accident.

Happy birthday, Braden! I love you, Shoobie!

Old School and Back to School

• I am done with Google Reader.

I have decided it is too much pressure for me. I was limiting myself to reading blogs for only one hour a day, but when I didn't get through all of the updates in my Reader account, because I never did, those extra few updates would nag at me after my hour was up. So I am back to the old school way I used to blog - going down my list of blogs one by one to check for updates. It's made blogging fun for me again. I'm sure I will go back to Google Reader as soon as I am sick of what I'm doing right now, but for the time being, I am finished with Google Reader.

• Kevin is going back to school. He just applied for UNLV.
  
  

He has decided that he wants to be a physical therapist. He is so excited about it, and so am I. I think this career is such a good fit for him. When he was getting his EMT certification for the fire department tests, he loved all of the medical stuff he got to do. And he has taken a lot of the prerequisites already, so he doesn't have to start from scratch.

Construction was never what Kevin wanted to do, but the money was good, so he got stuck in it. It's going to be hard to be starving students for the next few years, but I think when we look back, we are going to be grateful that Kevin lost his job when he did.

It happened to us

Kevin lost his job today. We have a few different plans for what to do over the next few months, so hopefully we'll be okay while he tries to find a new job.

Thanks to the government and paying extra taxes in 2009, we have a big check in the mail that is going straight to savings. No thanks to KHS&S and their crappy severance package, we could have had a lot more money in the bank, but at least they gave us something.

This is completely unexpected and hard to handle, but I think we are already seeing that this is going to be a good thing for Kevin and for our family. I never felt like this job was a great fit for Kevin anyway. What better time than this for him to figure out exactly what he wants to do and start working towards that.

We welcome any word of open job opportunities.

I think we sold the Camry at the right time

I just got this email:

Dear Emily B,

Toyota has announced an approved plan to fix accelerator pedals on recalled vehicles to ensure customer safety. The replacement parts for the recall have started to arrive. We will be working extended hours to ensure replacement as quickly as possible. You will be notified by mail if your vehicle was involved. In the meantime, if you have any questions, please contact us. For the latest information, please click on the following link to Toyota's Newsroom. http://www.toyota.com/recall/

Fletcher Jones Toyota understands the concerns of our customers. We are working closely with Toyota Motor Corp. to correct the issue as quickly as possible. We will continue to closely monitor this and will send out email updates as soon as they are available.

If you have any further questions or concerns please don't hesitate to contact one of our Service Coordinators at (702) xxx-xxxx.

Thank you for your understanding and patience.

Sincerely,

Joe Tortomasi
General Manager
Fletcher Jones Toyota

If we would have waited just a few more weeks to sell our car, we probably would have gotten less money for it, if we could've sold it at all. Plus, I'm glad to not have to deal with this recall mess. Sorry to all you Toyota owners out there. Especially you, Jessica.

Lately...

...I feel like I'm living in Utah:

(picture taken in my neighborhood in Las Vegas)

I love all of the snow on the mountains.

And this isn't even half of what's been on those mountains over the past couple of weeks. It makes it feel like we actually have seasons here.

Guess who found the camera?

She did get some lovely self-portraits with it. She also got lots of pictures of the rocks and dead grass in the backyard, but those pictures have been deleted. The self-portraits we will keep.

Loving My Job

Especially since Kevin has been working in Sacramento during the week for the past four months. I can reveal this on my public blog now that he is back. All of you blog stalkers out there can come on over because my husband is home, and he's home with a job so secure that he's not going anywhere any time soon.

He was asked to work in Sacramento about a month after I started working. At that time, I really started to wonder if my answered prayer to go back to work was a miscommunication. I was already feeling a little overwhelmed with three little kids and keeping up with my job responsibilities, and this request for Kevin to work in California seemed like something that might throw me over the edge.

But I have to say that my job is what has kept me going for the past four months. It was a tender mercy given to me to help me cope with Kevin being gone. I was forced to get up and get ready 4 out of 5 mornings during the week. If I wasn't working, I probably would have spent each day of the week in my pajamas, which would have lead to me not getting anything done. I seem to be more motivated during the days that I'm dressed and ready to go. And my job also gave me enough of a break from my kids during the week that I didn't want to throw them out the window by the time Kevin flew back in to Las Vegas every Friday.

And as if helping me get through this tough time wasn't enough, this job is also a lot of fun. I love the students I get to work with. They brighten my day every morning. And it's nice to feel like I can still do something besides change diapers. Being a stay-at-home mom is wonderful, and I love that I get to stay home with my kids, but I started to feel like I was losing myself. I love to hear when other moms find a new hobby or outlet because I think it's so important that we set aside a little bit of time for ourselves.

I'm not sure if my friend Emily still reads my blog, but I really have to publicly thank her for cleaning up the upper-level math mess at American Heritage before I got there. I don't think I would have enjoyed this job as much if she hadn't straightened things out the previous year. And I've told her that I would love for her to come back and work with me some day. She has a baby coming soon, but maybe in a few years...

I've been asked to come back and teach next year, and I'm so excited to do so. This really is one of my favorite blessings.