Twisted FHE

Last week, our Family Home Evening was beyond awesome. First off, the new Nursery manual is FANTASTIC and the lessons and activities are so blasted easy and quick, perfect for a almost-3-year-old-going-on-24. We did the 3rd lesson on prayer (Solei is really good at asking for blessings, but not so quick with THANKING Him for our blessings:) and the opening activity was just perfect. You should try it - I just colored some pictures of things we should ask for or be thankful for (food, home, family, scriptures, car) and she had to chose what bag to put them in - the We Ask Thee bag or the We Thank Thee bag (there were some repeats, like food and such). It went over so well!

Then for our activity, we dug out the Twister game we got for our wedding, put stickers on Solei's right hand and foot so she'd know the difference between left and right, and played Twister. She loved it!

photo dump

I still have no idea how to bring y'all up to speed, so instead I'm posting a crapload of pictures that might tell something about our lives now.

Here's Jared and I meeting Forster for the first time:

The boys in our family:

He's got the "seriously??" look down pat:

He's kinda sweet. I think he looks like my side of the family.


This is what he looks like most of the time:

This was high-larious. The dudes just hanging out.

His first sink-bath with dad - he was quite kind and trusting for most of it. I love the look he's giving dad - "Um, I trust you - for now."

Afterwards he didn't cry (like he does at every bath now), he just clung to daddy, all confuddled.

All him:

Solei has been pretty dang good with him. he doesn't interact much, but that never bothers her, she can carry on both sides of a conversation anyway :)

Baby boy hacks

Size comparison of feet - a 2 year old, a week old, and a way too old. He's put on weight and as of his doctor's appointment last week he was up to 7 lbs., but MAN is he still so super tiny!

One interesting thing we've found about having a boy is that he does NOT like having a soilded diaper, for even a second. This is bothersome because he howls the second he's dirty until we fix it. Man, Solei could sit in her own filth for hours... that was nice ;) But something we've also noticed is that no brand of diapers will stop him wetting himself and it seeping up his diaper and around to cover his entire back. Gah. LOTS of pajama changes. We finally remembered something someone mentioned once at a baby shower that has been working about 80% of the time - we put about 3 cotton balls around the waistband of his diaper and it stops the free-flow and we don't have to change the whole outfit, just the diaper.

Any of you have any more tricks for baby boys we should know about?!

New kid

So have you heard? We had a kid. I'd blog about it, but there's just too much to say, so instead I'm going to be lazy and leave you with a link to my fabulous sister-in-law Jane's blog with pictures. I started getting contractions around 10pm on Sunday (the 16th) night, we went to bed and by 1:30am I couldn't sleep through them anymore, so we packed up, headed to the hospital by 2am, and had a baby by 5:12am Monday morning. Apparently I'm pretty good at making human beings. Our ward has been beyond amazing in helping us out, and the care we got at the small area hospital was fantastic. He sleeps pretty consistently in 3 hour stretches at night and passes out right after eating, so we're not as sleep deprived as anticipated. We feel very blessed. Now we want visitors. GOBS of them, come up and see us!!

Toot!

I'm not tooting my own horn here because it's was actually Jared's idea, but I submitted his latest brilliant parenting move over at Parent Hacks and they used it! Parent Hacks is chock full of brilliant and simple solutions to weird parenting issues and I'm a big fan. Go over and check out the idea I sent in that was actually Jared's idea but they used my name so I feel cool :)

Wisconsinites...

It's official. We are Wisconsinites (or whatever we call ourselves). We have a permanent residence with a real street address and I now own a snow-blower.

We've been working to find a suitable place to live and the only thing we could find was a split level deal that someone had built and had been trying to sell for the last three years. Well, the realtor called us the other day and told us he had a nice ranch with a fourth room in the basement just a few doors down the street. We signed the paperwork on friday (after a brief tour) and now we have the perfect house. Now, how to pay for it while we sell our house in ATL... If ANYONE wants to buy a house, please buy mine.

Since we have a yard (that actually overlooks a farm no less) we must care for the yard by mowing and clearing snow. So, I turned to my old friend Craigslist, who didn't let me down. Saturday morning we went to a farm (a real dairy farm) and bought a self-propelled mower for a mere $25. The nice people even gave our Daughter a nice little tour of the place. The mower is going to be perfect.

Our Back Yard

Daughter pets a 3 day old calf

Then She rides the tractor

And checking out the chickens

That afternoon we purchased a real life snowblower. Seriously. We found one on the craigslist. Something that I never thought that I would ever own. I am official now. Now we just have to wait a few weeks for snow so I can break the thing in.

Work has been going well. The more I learn, the more terrified I am. I just keep finding things that are either broken or that need to be totally re-done before we can take over control of things at the end of the year. I am enjoying work and i work with a lot of nice people.

SO - we got callings. Reva was called to be the primary chorister. It's a calling that she has dreaded forever. Now she has it. She went to primary today to check it out and freaked out a little.

I was also given a calling. After a one month break, I was called to be the ward mission leader - again. This is the third time I've had the calling. Hopefully the third time's the charm. I think I need to write a book. Our ward has not had a new convert since 2006. Our full-time missionaries were removed from the ward a few months ago. This will be fun.

In other seemingly random news, there is a gentleman who has been in the area forever who is from Puerto Rico and a member of our ward. He was recently married to a nice woman who moved here from NYC. It just so happened that she is from Brazil. SO, we had a good old time chatting after church (we were the only people left in the building except for the clerk and bishopric member doing tithing deposits). We were all a little more relieved that we had some kindred spirits.

That's all for now.

Road trip!

The stars aligned this weekend, and we got to visit a whole lotta people we love - Nana and Papa, the Hachtmans and the Smiths (plus Lyndel :). The drive to Iowa City to visit Jared's sister's family is only 3 hours from our new town, so we took a 3-day weekend to have a blast with them. The drive was lovely - we didn't realize how beautiful this part of the country is. Or how smelly. Jared is convinced there are entire farms out here dedicated to stink. Stink Farms, he calls them. Regardless, we persevered and got to Iowa City Friday night and passed out. The next day, we hit the town - it's a really cool place! Although perhaps our tiny town makes everything else look cosmopolitan...

Saturday night Nan gave us adults a REAL treat and offered to watch the girls while we went out and watched the new Harry Potter movie. We all gave it as many thumbs up as possible, and the girls REALLY enjoyed their girls night in :) Nana barely survived, and we're especially grateful to her for the night out!

Sunday we went to church and rested. There was a brief period where all 3 girls were asleep... it was magical...

The girls loved all the Nana attention!

That afternoon we took a quick jaunt to the Mormon Handcart Park.

As we walked up to this sign, Solei cried out - "The Book of Mormon!" We couldn't understand, until she reached up and showed the word "Mormon" to Elisabeth and explained that word meant "Book of Mormon." Dang, they didn't even teach her that word on Sesame Street... she's way to observant. We'd tried to explain about the pioneers and such before we got there, and at one point on our walk, she walked up to a man and told him "My ancestors walked across the plains!" Wow.

Also, the night before, the girls had watched some princess-y Disney movie and when they found a stone bench, they took turns laying down and having the other one kiss them to "wake" them up.

Then Monday, we had a super treat and got to go to Nauvoo and see the sealing of one of our favorite families - the Smiths!

It was an incredible experience and we are so grateful we got to witness it - AND see our fabulous friends again.
Especially exciting was that Solei got so see Sierra again - she talked about it non-stop on the way there. We were lucky enough to get this adorable picture:

I especially liked that THIS was what it took to get that adorable picture :)

One very sweet moment was when Solei and Sierra were playing on the steps of the temple, and Solei told Sierra "You were sealed to your mommy and daddy in the temple today!"

I can't believe the things she actually picks up on... Anywho, we're so grateful that it all worked out and we got to play with all the peeps we love. We need more excuses!

Longest Post Ever

Sorry this is so long in coming. As you will hear, this has been a whirlwind month or so. With all the interviews that I had, I only received one job offer. NUK USA offered me a position as their supply chain manager. In all honesty, this is a miracle for a number of reasons. First, the economy is horrible and everyone who is working should be very happy. Second, this job is perfectly aligned to my skill set and experience and if I do well, there is huge opportunity for me to advance and move on (NUK is owned by a huge European conglomerate called Total and they own a lot of different things). Third, did I mention the economy was horrible?

The bad parts of the job were this. First, it is in Reedsburg Wisconsin. For those of you who know us, we are NOT small town people and Reedsburg is a town of under ten thousand people. Moving from the 8^th largest metro area in the USA to small-town Wisconsin: not our idea of a step up. Second issue was our home in GA. Because we were planning to stay put for a while, we bought a “fixer upper” in the best school district we could find. We had done some fixing upping, but we were far, far away from sell-ready in this market. The though of selling the home in it’s current condition and in the current market was a potential hit we could do without.

Since we were without options (and career-wise this was a good move) we got to work fixing up our home to sell. A photographical presentation is available here (thanks mom): http://monkeyseatbananashome.blogspot.com/2009/06/miracle-transition.html

It was 3 straight weeks of 15 hr days with hammer in hand. Our ward came over one night and painted. We had 20+ people painting away. We had all sorts of mishaps like breaking the water main, cutting the phone line, cutting the cable line, and some paint spills, but the end result was an amazing transformation. Our realtor could not get over how different the home looked from its previous incarnation. So, away went our things into moving boxes and then into a truck, on the market went the home and off to Wisconsin we went.

We must stop here for a minute to say, that we were crushed with the idea of leaving Atlanta and our friends. We had great friends and family close. It really was the perfect situation. We shed tears as we said good-bye and miss our friends terribly. No more free baby-sitting, Our Daughter had to leave all her little friends behind, and just when our ward started getting more interesting – off we went.

We pulled into Wisconsin on July 3^rd after an unpleasant day on the road (traffic was a mess). We got our own little furnished apartment and started to get settled. We’ve tried hard to get into the community and find fun things to do the first week we were here. On the 4^th there was a parade in a local town (a town with just one street and maybe 20 homes). The picture is of a huge cow that they pushed cow patties out the back of. The patties were advertising for the cow chip tossing contest coming up...

We had a blast at the ward 4^th of July picnic. Our Daughter even won the contest for most patriotic outfit (the wife dressed her, I wore my commie t-shirt). We had a slip-and-slide, great food, and talked to lots of great people. The Church is a great vantage point for fireworks in Baraboo (where we live). So we enjoyed that too.

Sunday was nice, we had a nice time in our TINY ward. So small. So very small. The wife already has a calling as a primary chorister and the bishop already has two callings that he wants to give me, but isn’t sure exactly

where I need to end up. Wonderful people.

This week I spent at work and getting settled in. I manage people who have been working for the company since I was literally 2 years old. How do you manage someone who has been in the SAME JOB (not just the same company) for 25 years?? This could be challenging… Working at NUK is a lot better than the last two jobs I had. My boss is logical and progressive in his thinking. He is not overbearing and, more importantly, he is a thousand miles away. The staff at the plant is great, they are doing a great job and really need no “fixing”. The job that I have is actually a little more complex than simply managing older people. My job is to transition the entire supply chain from “Company X” (who owned the plant last year) to NUK (who bought the plant this January). It’s a HUGE job and will take a lot of work from me specifically. On the plus side, “Company X” is still performing the supply chain functions and I just need to replicate them at our facility. AND – this is a huge opportunity career-wise.

So, this week we immersed ourselves in Wisconsin culture. We went to the county fair – where Our Daughter rode her first carnival ride and was scared to tears for all but the first 20 seconds. She screamed that she wanted to go home the WHOLE RIDE. The video is funny but painful at the same time, so it most likely won’t be posted anytime soon. We had funnel cake and saw all the show animals. Best of all, it was a short 3 minute drive from our apartment.

We also went to the outlet malls. They are just 10 miles up the road. You know you live out in the middle of nowhere when you live by the outlet malls…

The Wife and Daughter went to see The Circus World Museum. The Ringling Brothers are from the town of Baraboo, where we live, and they still have a presence here. The Circus World is like a stand-alone circus. The girls saw an elephant stand on a ball (the only one in the world who can do the trick) and a tiger act.

The big event (besides us buyi

ng a car on Saturday) was going to the demolition derby. This really deserves a post of its own, but I’m lazy. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so here's 2 thousand words worth of pictures. Two words: It Rocked. Demolition derby is a huge thing here. It went from 7:30 to after 10pm (we had to leave to take our daugher home). We sat close enough that the big trucks actually flung dirt on us.

Here's the kiddo playing on a tractor at the fair:

Hopefully the wife will start posting again too...

33 times

We celebrated Jared's 33rd birthday this week with a Nachoooooooooo Libre party and I made this video of the Top 33 Reasons Jared Is Awesome to celebrate his 33 turns around the sun.

Job Hunt Update

So, as you may or may not know, I was laid off a month ago.  We have been very prayerful and have looked very diligently for opportunities for employment.  Our hope is to be able to stay in Atlanta.  Due to some great friends helping out I've had good leads - including options in Atlanta.

Right now, here's where we stand.  I am being considered for a position just outside of Madison WI.  It's a job supporting a newly purchased plant as a supply chain manager.  Yesterday I had an interview with the CEO and if I go to the next step, I plan to be one of 3 candidates who they will interview in person.  I should know very soon.

Job two is in upstate NY, just outside of Buffalo.  It's the same type of role.  I'm not sure where I stand in terms of other candidates, but I spoke with the recruiter extensively and she is recommending me for the job.

Job three is with a global manufacturing giant.  The job is in Houston and would support their Wind Energy division.  It's getting lots of stimulus money and the business is growing.  I fly to Houston next week sometime to interview.  

I also had a phone interview with the SR VP for Supply Chain for a HUGE local home improvement store in ATL.  Hopefully he liked me enough to carve out a place for me.

My in-laws are having a special fast for jobs this month as all but one of us are either unemployeed or on shaky ground.  We are praying for a job that would not make us move, again.  We'd appreciate your prayers.

Vacay

On this, our awesome trip to Colorado, we have done many awesome things. Mostly soak up all the Gamma time we can get.

There has been hiking:



There has been gardening:

There has been an AWESOME excursion to the pool:

There has been a "very first ice cream cone" experience:

He was just as shocked as you are:

And there has been mommy time.

Life. Is. Good.

Happy Mother's Day

Man, I'm glad I got the mom I did:)

a few things....

Most of you are already informed on the comings and goings of our family, but I'm going to still give a recap of a few latest happenings for y'all:

First, a few weeks ago, Jared got laid off. It was a bit of a surprise, but not at the same time. We're excited to be job searching again and have Daddy around all the time. We are REALLY hoping to stay here in Georgia, but the unemployment rate is pretty high so we're keeping our options open.

We're tightening our belts, too. Something interesting I noticed today - the last few months we've been trying a different approach to food storage. We have our 72-hour kits and emergency preparedness stuff, but we were told that a good idea to getting that 3-month supply is to just buy twice as much of your staples and usual foods when you go grocery shopping and you'll eventually have a nice little supply of food you actually eat. We now have a decent amount of the canned veggies and pasta and such on hand, so not having to grocery shop very much has been nice and comforting when you eye every penny going out more carefully. I wondered if we were nuts the last few months when we'd buy a big pile of one item and wonder when we'd eat it all, but now I'm grateful for our small stockpile :)

Oh, and speaking of food, there's a website I like that I wanted to share - http://mealplanningmommies.blogspot.com/ . It's a simple blog some nice ladies out there have where they plan meals and put them all out there - always simple, they give you the cost per serving and even put pictures of every step up! I haven't made too many of their meals, but I love the way they blog and make it all so easy and understandable - and it gives me ideas of my own.

Now, this last weekend was one heckuva whirlwind for us - my brother Quinn got married in San Diego and Jared and I flew out Friday, got there just before the ceremony, then flew back the next (EARLY!) morning and I rushed out to play a gig that night. We knew it was going to be exhausting but we also knew it would be worth it. It was wonderful to go to the temple and be around so much family and celebrate a new member of our family.

She is really, really short compared to Quinn and the rest of the family:

Quinn was really happy:

And I couldn't get enough of how beautiful it was, and mainly how GOOD it smelled on the temple grounds!:

I didn't get any family shots because - well, trying to get my family together to do anything really is like hearding cats. It drives Jared completely bonkers. But it was so, so good to see everyone and feel that happy feeling you can only get when the whole family is together. Our newest sister-in-law - Mara - is actually from Brasil so now Jared has someone to make snarky comments about the rest of us with in Portuguese. He still has to watch himself though - I still know about 4 words in Portuguese and I'm not afraid to use 'em.

Solei is still the smartest, weirdest and funniest kid we know. Her reading vocab has grown and she'll not beg us to help her "build a word." She can spell her name and loves learning new words to recognize - like sun, fun, mommy and daddy, cat, dog, etc., but she keeps begging us to teach her "bum." Weirdo.

Oh, and in case you didn't get the memo, I'm 5 months along now and the baby in my tummy is a dude. Still processing that - but please do NOT try to cheer me up about it - I was an only girl with 3 brothers so the idea of having to deal with a little boy is NOT something I relish. And if you tell me I'll love the boy when I meet him, remember I couldn't really stand Solei until she could talk - not a big fan of the baby stage, remember? Cool thing about Solei is she advances so fast, she is always quickly becoming something I can handle and dig. We do know Heavenly Father gives us no more than we can take, so we're expecting another genius kid (I'm REALLY hoping for a clone of my younger brother Dallin).

OH - and this is good for a laugh. A few weeks ago during Family Home Evening, Solei did something completely unexpected during lesson time and PAID ATTENTION. I was just shocked and realized I had to make this story about Easter and the ressurection good - but was unprepared since Im not used to her paying attention to my stories. How do you explain coming back to life to a 2 year old without her assuming really odd things about death?? I muddled through it and even Jared thought I'd made it as easy to understand as possible, as well as engaging (hey, she was paying attention!) When I got done, I asked her if she understood me, and she nodded her head gravely and whispered to me in a serious voice -

"Daddy's going to kill us."

WHAT?!?! I couldn't stop laughing and Jared was completely befuddled. Now, she adores daddy and knows he's wrapped securely around her little finger, so where she came up with that, we'll never know. But she took comfort in the fact that later we could be ressurected. I think I need to work on my lessons...

And, okay, one more bit of toddler hilarity - today I was standing in front of the silverware drawer that we was trying to open. She told me to move - which I didn't do, and reminded her (for the 74th time today) that NOT how we talk when we ask for something, so she sighed and said "May I PLEASE have a get out of the way??" This time it was Jared's turn to laugh.

And now you're all up to speed! We know we're not the only ones in the unemployment boat, and we're praying for those of you who are with us in that. Here's to hoping for good times ahead!

Deliciously religious!

Need a laugh? Check out these Book of Mormon stories, by a bunch of marshmallow peeps.

Easter dressy

Happy Easter!

Today was just spectacular and a very happy day. Jared spoke in church - wonderfully, I might add, we had pretty Easter dresses to wear (Solei and I, not Jared) and had an Easter egg hunt! It's late or I'd write more, but for now here are some pictures Jared took of our Easter finery: