The "Baby"

At not quite 15 months Natalie has outgrown size 2T!  My little "baby" is getting way too big, way too fast!  I can't believe she's a size 3T already!!!!  I would type more but I think she wants to break my laptop again!

misc. blog

It's been a busy last while around here.  Keith has been working and I've been knitting hats for Sub for Santa along with a few other things to help out.  I've had Ashlyn and Karlie helping me with stuff at home and Natalie has helped me by going with me to the church.  Today there was another cute little baby about her age that she really enjoyed playing with.  Our church is doing gifts for 438 kids so really I've only done a small part in it all.  To see everything coming together has been very rewarding for me. 

Aside from that we bought a new fish tank.  I know, we're poor and shouldn't be buying something like that.  The thing is that the stand that we have for our current fish tank is starting to give.  It's a lot less expensive to buy a new fish tank now than it would be to pay for the damage after our current tank collapses.  Plus, once we finally get everything switched out we (and by that I mean Keith) can reinforce our current one so that it is once again sturdy and sell it making up the difference.  Keith painted the new stand black with white underneath so we could antique it.  It looks awesome!  He still has to do the canopy for it and we still need sand before we can start it cycling. 

In other news, I have a job interview tomorrow for a job I probably wont get anyway.  I'll try my best on my interview just like I always do, however, I do really enjoy being home with Natalie and being here when Ash and Kar get home from school.  I seriously don't know how Karlie would ever get her school work done if I weren't here.  She has such a hard time staying focused.  Some people have an easy time with school, not my Karlie. 

Also, you may have noticed that as of this blog I have changed my policy on writing kids names on blogs.  I'm still not posting pictures, but I figure that the only people that read this are either complete strangers that randomly find my blog or those of you who I've personally given my blog address to. 

Well, we've had a really busy day with church, life, Keith getting home late from work, so now it's time to eat dinner with Keith and go to bed. 

All time favorite poem

The Touch Of The Master's Hand
Myra B. Welch

 

Twas battered and scarred, and the auctioneer
thought it scarcely worth his while
To waste much time on the old violin,
But held it up with a smile.
"What am I bidden, good folks," he cried,
"Who'll start the bidding for me?
A dollar, a dollar, then, two! Only two?
Two dollars, and who'll make it three?
Three dollars, once; three dollars, twice;
Going for three . . ."
But no,
From the room, far back, a grey-haired man
Came forward and picked up the bow;
Then, wiping the dust from the old violin,
And tightening the loose strings,
He played a melody pure and sweet
As a caroling angel sings.

The music ceased, and the auctioneer,
With a voice that was quiet and low, said:
"What am I bid for the old violin?"
And he held it up with the bow.
"A thousand dollars, and who'll make it two?
"Two thousand! And who'll make it three?
"Three thousand, once; three thousand, twice;
And going and gone."said he.

The people cheered, but some of them cried,
"We do not quite understand, what changed its worth?"
Swift came the reply:
"The Touch Of The Master's Hand."

And many a man with life out of tune,
And battered and scarred with sin,
Is auctioned cheap to the thoughtless crowd,
Much like the old violin.
A 'mess of potage,' a glass of wine;
A game - and he travels on.
He is 'going' once, and 'going' twice,
He's 'going' and almost 'gone'.
But the Master comes and the foolish crowd
Never can quite understand
The worth of a soul and the change that's wrought
By the touch of the Master's Hand.

Getting ready for T-Day and more

The big feast is almost here!  Today I have brownies to make, a house to clean, missionaries to great, a drive out to Keith's new work, and a celebration dinner.  Man, I'm tired just thinking about it all!  On the plus side the house wont take too long and neither will the brownies.  We have new missionaries who don't suck as bad as the last ones did.  Kind of strange how we have Mormon missionaries and Catholic classes.  We learned about the 10 commandments from each group last week.  The Mormons have hand signals to help them remember the order of the commandments and the Catholics have a much broader view of how far each rule stretches.  I always thought from watching TV that once you become a Catholic you can just quit going to church except for on Christmas and Easter.  It turns out that they are really stringent about going to church and living a life filled with good works and good thoughts for others. 

Would you look at that!  I jumped topics completely in my effort to sit and relax a little longer before it's time to get down to business.

As I'm sitting here I'm trying to think of other things to write about.  There aren't a lot of exciting things these days.  Little spats with neighbors, applying for crappy jobs that I'll never get an interview for anyway because there are no new jobs right now, kids, housework, and that's it.  My life in a nutshell. 

I think I'll upload my old blog on here now.  I wish I had my really old blog...the one I accidentally deleted! 

Miracles

For a long time I had given up on God.  I thought that he hadn't helped me out and if he existed at all it was only to spite me.  Recently Keith and I started going to church together along with going to class and praying.  We started this right around the time that I lost my job.  When I lost my job I had done everything possible in order to keep my job.  Everything was lined up perfectly so there was no way that I would be fired.  The night before I prayed and put it all in God's hands.  I knew without a doubt that if I got fired anyway it was because I had a reason to be home.  Since being home I have found that to be true.  I've spent so much time with my kids that I've never had with them before.  I was here when my baby first walked.  I was here when she first talked.  To me that's a miracle. 

With the good, there is always bad.  We've had quite the financial struggle recently.  We've been extremely worried about Christmas and what to spend on the kids.  We had already decided that we don't need anything ourselves and that we aren't going to do any family gift exchanges.  Even still we've been praying to get through this. 

Two weeks ago we went to our class and accidentally got signed up as the co-chair people for the group Sub for Santa.  We had one other person helping us with this but we were quite scared when we were assigned this.  It really didn't help when the announcements barely explained what the group was trying to accomplish and also in the announcement everyone was told to see this other helper and not us so she got more of her list done so we just knew we were going to have to buy what was left on our list.  That night we left class with heavy hearts thinking that our girls would have a DI Christmas while we were paying for these other poor kids to have a better Christmas than our own kids would be getting. 

Last week when we got to class we were still quite discouraged because there wasn't anymore class time to gather what was left of the gifts.  I had planned on arranging with people to meet them to gather anything they signed up to buy if I could.  Sadly, no one signed up for anything.  I had talked to the Deacon at the beginning of class and asked him to make another announcement but when break time came no one else signed up.  Keith and I had already prayed asking that we make it through this season and left everything in God's hands so if need be we would pay for all of the gifts ourselves and trust in God to find a way to make it the rest of the way.  As it turned out we were given enough money in class to buy everything we needed and plenty to donate to Sub for Santa so any of the other kids that weren't already bought for can get presents as well.  This was the first miracle.  I cried when the money was placed in my hand. 

Today the other two miracles happened.  First, Keith got a new job working for the same company so he'll still be able to finish his degree that he started working on.  That's only half of the good news.  He'll be working twice as far away in distance but the hours are much better so he'll be able to sleep in an hour and still get home from work at least two hours earlier than he currently does.  He'll work "normal hours" for the first time in his life and he'll be making the same pay as he was before when he was doing all the overtime only now he won't be working all the overtime.  We're really excited!  He's been wanting a change since I've known him.  This is also a great career move because he no longer has the fear of losing his job when the START treaty is over and he's working in a field that coincides with his degree.  He could actually get great promotions with this job!  The second miracle today is that I found out that I can make my ex pay child support without taking him to court by simply applying for the Office of Recovery Services.  They will garnish his wages and that's the end of that story.  I'm sure that he wont be happy to find that this is what we're doing now, but then I wasn't really happy when I found that he could just quit paying for months.

So, life is coming together at last.  We are still relatively poor, but at least we can see the light at the end now.  We've had faith and put trust in God and found that God is watching over us and taking care of us.  It feels good to have God and family together in life.  We're very blessed.

Odds and Ends

Today I'm hanging out with the baby while everyone else is gone.  I took a picture of her with these cute little hair things in her hair.  Now here I am with them.  =)  Right now I'm really wishing that we would abolish the never post pictures of kids rule.  I would love to post the picture of the baby next to this.  Obviously she wins the cute award!  I made these hair clips last night and A. and K. each have one that match too (only theirs have leaves).  I haven't made clips in a while, maybe I'll start again.  That was kind of fun.

This is my frog habitat.  I have 26 frogs. 

This is what one looks like up close.

And this one is named skeletor because he's mishaped and skinny. 

These are my pets.  Keith has his fish and his dogs, I have my frogs.  All 26 of them.  That's right, I decided I'm not sharing them!  lol

I'm still unemployed these days.  I've been looking for work but prospects are pretty dim out there.  I have to admit, I've enjoyed being a SAHM though.  (Well other than the part where that means we're broke.)

Oh, we have a new roomate as of recently.  It's a mouse!  I can't wait for it to move out! You know how our dogs are Rat Terriers?  Ha! 

Well, that's about all I can think of right now.  It's time once again to chase around a little baby monkey!

Here we go again

Well, I'm starting over for the last time.  I wont be forced to close down again and I won't let anyone make me run anymore.  This is it.  I'm taking back my power.