Holidays

I've been a stay at home mommy for over 2 weeks now and I totally forgot how much I really enjoy it. I remember going back to work and it was kind of nice to get a break from the kids, but I really did miss this and I feel like my kids grew up so much while I wasn't around it's insane. I'm so glad to be home again. It is definitely my preference. It's not easy and I due to Tyson working so much more I'm definitely having to pick up the slack, he really is such a helpful person and he still can't go to bed if there are dishes in the sink, no matter what time he gets home.

Baby is doing good and as far as they can tell her feet are straight, I'm praying it stays that way. Not that I don't love Shriners, but I'm so looking forward to being done with them, as far as Jackson is concerned, next year. They really have been amazing and so supportive, it's just a drive. I don't mind this once every 9 months thing so much as I did the once a week thing. Anyways, Charlotte is right on track (actually a little ahead of schedule) and weighing in about almost 2 lbs. I'm holding to my theory that she's gonna be big.

Thanksgiving was fun, it was busy! Sometimes I wish Tyson's family and mine weren't so darn close. It's hard to have to go to everyone's house every holiday, it doesn't make for a particularily relaxing day. That said I'm holding Thanksgiving again on the 16th at my parents and my in-laws are coming. I really wanted a Thanksgiving with the food I want! Deep fried turkey (it really is amazing), real stuffing with sausage and probably mushrooms, we are doing English roasted potatoes (with a deep fried turkey it's kinda hard to do gravy and I swear they are the best potatoes ever), sweet potatos (probably along the lines of Texas Road House, already did my other for the regular holiday), corn casserole (never had it, but it was all over pinterest and I'm anxious to try it out), and a few other things here and there, oh and pie, homemade cream pies! Are you hungry yet?

I think we are done with our Christmas shopping (mostly because I major lack of self control yesterday) It's not going to be really anything big in our house (mostly due to lack of funds), but I think it will be nice and the boys should be pretty happy. It helps that they don't really understand the whole idea of presents yet. I don't think I'll be so lucky next year, but we'll see. One of the things they do understand is Christmas lights, Christmas trees, and Santa (well the decoration version anyways). I love that they are at an age where they are starting to understand holidays and get excited about them.

Well I think that's all for now, have a Merry Christmas if I don't get my act together to write before then.

Updates

- Our baby girl is doing great and I've kinda got the feeling she is going to be huge, which probably isn't a bad thing when she has 2 older brothers who I'm sure will be ready to attack her at a moments notice.
- My last day of work was Wednesday, and I am officially a stay-at-home mommy! I'm in heaven and it's not even been a whole 2 days yet. I'm thinking it will really hit me when it's Monday and I'm not up and running to get the boys to the babysitter and me to work on time.
- Tyson is working on overload, probably at least 50 hrs a week the past 2 weeks, and school, I'm so proud of him, and I think he actually likes to be busy, but the new schedule is definitely catching up to him. I'm excited we are gonna get some down time this weekend.
- Sad new, that I'm sure you've all heard, Obama won, and my/our country has gone to pot, literally. Also Hostess is closing down, and I had to go buy boxes of zingers, twinkies, and cupcakes this morning, I was sad that they were out of Ho-Ho's and Ding-Dongs. No I'm not a big junk food eater, but it's a part of my childhood that my children won't understand and that is very sad to me. Twinkies are also one of the reasons I knew my sister in law well long before my husband. Also very sad is those thousands of workers now out of jobs right before the holidays. That was our life last Christmas and I wouldn't wish it on anyone. (Is this what Obama had in mind, because if so he's succeeding wonderfully?) I'm just very glad that this holiday season is going to be vastly different for us than the last one.

Good luck to all of you in need of a Christmas/Holiday miracle, I hope you get everything you need and that you are able to appreciate all that you do have.

Good All Around

So on the 16th I gave notice, my last day of work will be November 14th! I have 8 working days left, sometimes I wish I could get it over and done with, but it will be good as long as I can work my regular schedule for the next 3 weeks. I'm so glad October is just about done because my work schedule was nuts!

Tyson's job is going great, he really seems to like it. He get's about 16 hrs at the school and can do more at home and his hours are going to start going up at Famous, so it's really starting to look like everything is working out. I really need to have more faith. I feel like I keep going though this same trial. Everytime I think we are about to be totally screwed something works out, I'm hoping this time it really sticks, because I'm getting sick of it! :)

On the fun side of things, I finally got my act together and made my boys Halloween costumes, (they are buns, because mommy has a "bun in the oven", I made one for my shirt too with a little bow on it.) It's probably the only year I'll get away with it, I'm sure next year they will really want a say in what they are. I also made some Amish Friendship Bread, which is one of my favorites, but man it's such a pain just because it's a 10 day process. Saturday we went to our twin group Halloween party, followed by the Halloween train in Heber, then back home, Tyson had to go to work, then my parents came over for dinner, then lastly the ward Halloween party and Trunk or Treat. It's been fun the last month or so because the boys are really starting to understand and get excited about holidays, they loved saying, "Trick or Treat," and they made me really proud that almost everytime they said "Thank You."

So anyways, things are improving and you can probably tell because I think these posts are definitely getting more upbeat.

Finally, some good news!

We went to Shriner's today, my son Jackson was born with clubbed feet, so we've been doing this for just over 2 years now and they told us 1 more and we should be done! They said his feet look perfect and they got a kick out of watching the boys play together, they also gave the boys pumpkins which absolutely thrilled my little men who are just infatuated with Halloween. We also went to Bruges, which is this tiny little hole in the wall place that has the most amazing waffles (leige) on the planet, it's part of our Shriner's tradition.

After that I went to a funeral (not the best part of the day) it was very nice and I will miss Tex, (my uncle's father, not my grandpa) I honestly can't remember ever seeing him without a smile on his face.

After that I got to hang out with my mom and my boys a little bit while Tyson was at school. We had fun and my boys just love their grandma! Tyson got called in early to work (which I'm a little sad about, I really wanted to have dinner with him, but we desperately need the money, so ultimately I'm grateful). While on his way to work he got a call about an interview last week and got told he got the job! I don't know too many details, but it's at UVU, which is where my hubby is half the day anyways and actually after some training time and stuff they said he could probably do it from home. It's part-time, which is kind of what we've been looking for, his other job is in the evenings, so he should be able to do this earlier in the day and get everything done. Also this should allow me to come home! I told my boss last week I really wasn't planning on being there past November. I had put off saying something for a really long time, I just never felt timing was right, then all of the sudden it felt ok to put it out there. I'm so very excited. Really we are hoping for something a little more permanent, but I if we can just make it to the end of the year, well really till we get our taxes, we will be good for a while longer and I'm starting to feel much better about things. Yay! it's about time!

Bulletpoints

- We are having a girl! Can't wait to meet you Charlotte!
- We actually grew our own pumpkins this year, I have 3, granted I'm still gonna have to buy one to carve, whatevs
- Tyson's still looking for extra/new work, we are saying lots of prayers
- Still can't wait to get away from my job. Might have to do with being accused of being a thief because we ran out of pizza 1 night last week, first time ever (my immediate supervisor told them they were nuts, which they were/are)
- After tomorrow I get a 7 day weekend, with a UVMOM's night thrown in there somewhere, and if I'm really productive maybe I'll get my kids halloween costumes made
- After 7 day weekend I'm gonna not have a fun 8 days, but oh well
- My TV shows are back, yay! I know, I'm totally pathetic, but really I have very little to look forward to lately
- General Conference this weekend, I'm in desperate need of some inspiration, bring it on!

Semi rant and ready for 2012 to be over

Here's the rant, sorta... So I'm on medicaid, I get WIC, we had food stamps, but I've never taken straight up financial aid. I used to look down on these people, and I'm kind of getting the drift that some people close to me feel the same way about me. I know there are people that take advantage of the system, but I am absolutely not one of them. I'd gladly give all these up for my husband to have a semi-decent job. As it is, that is not the situation, we both work, part time because he can't get a full time job and I still have children I want to care for. My husband is also in school. We are poor, do I wish we weren't, absolutely. Here's the thing, I think people see me talking about it and I think I come off a little too happy about the help, like maybe I am taking advantage of it. Well I guess you are right, I'm taking help, it's humbling, I wish we didn't need it, I wish we could get decent jobs, and I wish we could actually make some of our own choices. Here's what happens, yes I wasn't paying for groceries. We take home 2k-ish a month, we make a house payment, half of that is gone, but hey we didn't forclose and screw the bank over for 150k. We pay for electricity, phones, gas, city bill, car repairs, gasoline to go to work (I've put almost 2k on a credit card for gasoline alone), medical that medicaid doesn't cover, dental, food, small payments from debt involved with school and loss of job. If I didn't take the help I'd be in debt for a lot more than that, and you know what sucks more than being poor, being poor and believing I'll never get out of that hole. That's why I take the help, I need to feed my family, the doctor is a necessity. Do I seem happy about it, probably, because I'm so incredibly grateful that something in my life is being taken care of and not financially taking me down that hole even more. Sorry if I offend you by being appreciative.

Now count down till the end of the year. I spent all day at the hospital with my family. My dad had surgery yesterday and it seemed to go fine. This morning when my mom tried to wake him up, all was not fine, he would not wake up. He is doing much better now, but he's in the ICU and under constant monitoring because if he falls asleep his O2 levels drop and that's when he goes unconscious. So yeah this combined with the rest of the crap I've already written about, I'm so ready for this year to be over, bring on my baby, my lack of job and hubby's graduation in 2013 and I'll be a happy camper.

So here's the thing, if you are reading this, please reserve judgment, I know I'm a mess.

I've been having a hard time lately. Like a really hard time. My job pretty much makes me miserable and I literally can't wait for the day that I can quit. I dread every Monday morning and it's all I can do to survive Sunday nights. I'm almost embarrassed to say I think I've had a blessing every Sunday for the past month (at least) just to be able to survive the next 3 days. That said I've also felt like God has been picking on me and my little family.

We are pregnant, and I'm still just thrilled about that, but that seems to be the only thing going my way these days, and that was after we spent thousands of dollars that I really didn't have to spend. Tyson's tuition has been up in the air for over a month because he was approved for a pell grant last March only for them to change all the freaking requirements over the summer, we think we finally have that figured out (crosses fingers).

Tyson was out of work for 4 months at the beginning of this year and we've both been working to just survive and we've still gone into debt every month just paying for the gasoline to get to work to try and keep our home and take care of our family.

Then Ty's car broke down and it's pretty much unrepairable. We've been borrowing a car for month from my in-laws, then my car decided it's possessed and it honks randomly at people and my locks go off, we can't drive it at night because we don't have headlights, and we've been trying for a month to get the part (this started as soon as we got our notice to reregister, we had to pay for that, but it's still not registered because it won't pass safeties).

At our last doctor's appointment they couldn't find the heartbeat and I had a 20 minute one sided arguement with God telling him that if he took this baby I was done. Thankfully they pulled in an ultrasound and baby is fine, but I feel like I keep having this arguement. "God I can't handle anymore" and his response seemed to be repeatedly "You wanna bet?" and then he puts me through some other type of hell.

I can't even keep track of the amount of prayers I'm saying a day and the only response I seem to get is that you have keep going and my ways are not your ways. I find this insanely frustrating, I apparently have this insane desire to know why. According to Tyson I've spent more time crying the past few weeks than I did in my whole last pregnancy, and I'm NOT a crier! Aren't I doing what I'm supposed to. I'm paying my tithing, I paying more in fast offerings than I actually spend on food, and I'm pregnant it's not like I can even fast. I'm going the temple at least every other week. I'm praying, reading my scriptures, we are doing it as a family and a couple. What more are we supposed to do. Tyson is constantly looking for another job or a better job. He doesn't want me working almost as much as I don't want to be. I miss my babies, I hate that they are just fine with me dropping them off and basically disappearing for 3 days, sometimes more. I'm physically exhausted, emotionally exhausted, and if something doesn't pay off soon I really my lose my mind if not a few other things. (It doesn't help that my boss is back to work tomorrow from her vacation). I keep seeing this "joke" on pinterest that says "I don't know about you, but I've wanted to run away a lot more as an adult than I ever did as a kid." The problem is, I still have these stupid broken cars, so not a whole lot of transportation to pull that off with. Things have to get better right?