Holidays

I guess I never really posted about Halloween and now that it's past Thanksgiving, I guess I'll just do one big post on the last couple months.

So there isn't much to post about Halloween. We stayed home this year, which was great. We went to a trunk or treat and a ward party. It was fun and got the kids enough candy to be satisfied. Here are a few pictures of the kids... Alex as an army guy and Darek as Captain Hook. I also have to post a picture of Alex in this same costume. I can't believe Darek fit into it already!






Alright, onto November! Most of it has been pretty normal. I got to volunteer at my favorite thing at school... the book fair! It was very fun like usual and I got the kids some great books! I did get to go down to Hurricane and spend a whole week with Beth, Chad and my adorable nephew Gryn. I had a wonderful time down there and sadly got absolutely no pictures. Beth and Chad came back up here with us and we saw Harry Potter over the weekend. Then before we knew it, Thanksgiving was here! My sister Hayley and her family came up on Thanksgiving evening. My boys are always so happy to have their cousins here. They played and played. Hayley and I were crazy and did the whole Black Friday shopping. We left at 9:30 pm Thursday night to go to Toys R Us (which opened at 10pm). We got most of what we wanted there, but were not prepared to have to stand in a 3 HOUR LINE to check out! By the time we were an hour into it, we knew we'd invested too much time and couldn't turn back... but it sure was frustrating. We missed the opening of Walmart and Old Navy. I was able to leave Hayley in line so I could go to Old Navy and see if they still had the free games to give away. But they had given those out long ago, so I missed out. After we finally left Toys R Us at 1:40am, we went to Walmart, and amazingly still got almost everything we had wanted. From there we went to Kohls and did GREAT there! On our way home we stopped at Kmart and I was able to get the two things I had wanted there. We got home around 5:30 (I think) and went right to sleep. It was so much fun and very memorable. But I was very happy to sleep. After I woke up, we went out to Ryan's parents house to celebrate with them. The kids got more cousin time and we all had fun together. Saturday we were able to go see Tangled and then went to Chuck E Cheese in the evening. We all had a great time together. One of the fun parts of the week was that I had Ava (a little girl I watch) for a while during the time my sister was here. Ava has become like one of my nieces. I love that little girl! Hayley's kids and mine are very close together in age. Tyson and Alex are 3 months apart and Brayden and Darek are 1 month apart. I've always felt really bad for Anna because we don't have a little girl her age. Well, it turns out that Ava and Anna are only 1 week apart in age. So they got along perfectly. During Tangled, the girls sat together by us and the boys sat together by Hayley. It was really fun to see them all together. I've decided we really need to adopt a little girl that age. :)

It was a great holiday weekend. The only time I remembered to take pictures was on Friday night. The kids all decided to have a slumber party in Alex and Darek's room. So before they went to sleep, I snapped some cute pictures of them all together.




I cannot wait for Christmas this year!

Good and Bad

I've waited a while to get this posted, but it is something I wanted to mention. So a few weeks ago, Ryan told me that there was a Rad Tech PRN position available to apply for. There have been a few of these in the past and we have kinda passed them by. After talking about it, I told him to go ahead and apply and we'd figure things out if he got the job. Let me explain... A PRN position is an "on-call" position. That means, 1. No scheduled hours (possibly no income) 2. Because there are no scheduled hours, he does not qualify for benefits. 3. The only way to get hours is if someone takes vacation, is sick, etc.

So with all that being said, why do it??? I have gotten this question from a few people. Here are a few reasons... 1. He will have to start at the bottom at some point. Better to get it over with now. 2. When he does get hours, he makes A LOT more than what he was making. 3. It gives him the experience he will need to get the part-time and full-time jobs when they come available.

This has been a very scary step to take. We have cut as many bills as we can and have put ourselves on a very strict budget. My original thought was to go out and get a job. But there were so many things to figure out if we did that. Especially concerning our kids. So we've decided for now to wait a few months to see how things go and hope we can make it. Our kids will have to be ok with not having much of a Christmas this year. The scariest thought for me is the lack of insurance. Luckily, Darek will always be covered. But Alex is not and Ryan and I are not. We'll see how things go.

Ryan is very lucky to have a lot of people at work looking out for him. As soon as he got this position, someone offered him work all of next week. So he'll get around 34 hours just next week. He is very loved at his job and is very good at it. We have faith that all will work out. We don't doubt for one second the decision we made. It's scary, but sometimes you have to take the scary road instead of the safe one. Hopefully there will be a big pot of gold waiting at the end of our road! :)