Moving

Please excuse my long absence. I've been extremely preoccupied.

We are preparing to move. This moving process involves buying a house in a different part of the state and waiting for the house to be built. We are hoping to be moved by the end of July. Ben has already started his new job, so we are apart while I finish packing up the rest of our belongings in our St. George apartment.

We have a place picked out and things seem to be working out well, but I'll wait to post the specifics when things are a little more settled.

As we drove away to head back to St. George, after dropping Ben off at his job yesterday, Paige cried, "Oh, no! What'd we do with mine Daddy? I never get to see mine Daddy!"

She's been missing him. I've tried to explain that this separation of a week won't be nearly as long as the others, but I'm not sure a 2 year-old can really understand that.

Mothers

Paige woke too early this morning.

I groaned when my mother brought her to me.

Paige had slept in Honey & Papa's large walk-in closet (we stayed overnight at my parents' last night; Ben is out of town). My mom said Paige talked in her sleep all night and had been awake for awhile talking to herself before bringing her to me. I think she might have a fever.

I stayed in bed, trying to hold onto the last remnants of sleep, while Paige lay next to me inhaling her morning sippy of milk (which my mother kindly fetched from the fridge). I was grumbling to myself about having to wake up so early (and on Mother's Day no less), anticipating the point when Paige would finish her milk and demand that I "GET UP!", when Paige suddenly stopped drinking, rubbed her hand gently across my face, and said seriously, "I love you, Mom." I smiled at her with my eyes closed. Then she cupped her little hands under my chin and demanded, "look at me." I opened my eyes. "I need to give you a kiss." And she planted one right on my lips.

I thought to myself, "she is totally worth it."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Now I think I better go rub my mom's cheek, tell her I love her, and give her a kiss. She's making me pancakes right now. And probably got even less sleep than I did, since there was a little girl talking in her closet all night long.

Tag, I'm it!

My lovely sister, Noelle, tagged me so I decided to comply. I think this particular tag should be called "post an unflattering picture, RIGHT NOW!", because that's what you have to do if you get tagged.

Thanks a lot, Noelle.

Hey, at least I learned how to take a snapshot with my internal webcam.

so here are the rules:

-take a picture of yourself right now, no primping or preparing. just snap the picture.
-load onto your blog.
-tag 3 people to play… remember if you are tagged on another blog we will all be heading to yours to see if you played along.

now i'm tagging:
Heidi
Jill
John

"I gonna be a big sister!"

...that's how Paige broke the news to her daddy several weeks ago.

Yep, I'm pregnant!

(another thing at the top of the blessings list)

12 weeks along.

One friend, when I told her, wondered aloud, "was Ben even back by then?"
Uh, . . . yes.

Baby's due November 6th!

Thanks

Thank you all for your kind comments, phone calls, listening ears, and prayers. This has been hard for me, and your support has been SO appreciated.

It seems like every day I hear of another family that's struggling - several are losing homes they can no longer afford because work has slowed, and several where the husband/father was recently laid off and is scrambling to make ends meet. I have one friend who's graduating from a top law school this spring with no job prospects (out of ~300 new graduates, only 40 have jobs lined up) and tens of thousands of $ of school debt to pay off.

So, I guess what I want to say is I'm sorry for complaining. Times are tough for a lot of people, and truthfully we still have so much to be thankful for.

I'm counting my blessings these days, and one thing near the top of the list? . . .

good friends.

Ugh

This is really hard for me to write.

After finally arriving at the end of a very lengthy, I mean looooooooong, drawn out, disjointed, interrupted by a deployment, grueling hiring process which we fully expected to end happily, Ben was recently notified by FBI headquarters that they won't be hiring him as a special agent after all. No reason stated. Even his applicant coordinator was surprised.

While we always knew this could happen, we are still trying to wrap our heads around it and figure out what to do next.

If you look at the big picture, I guess this is pretty small potatoes. But that perspective is a little difficult to keep in focus when you have no real income and you're not even sure what you want to do in an economy where people are struggling to keep jobs that they actually already have.

Still, we're trying to remain optimistic, keep our minds open, and spend a lot of time on our knees.

Bedtime

Paige skipped her nap today and therefore was a little overtired at bedtime tonight.

We listened at her door as she yelled for us from her crib:

Aghhhhhhhhhhhh! Get me out of here! I'm TRAPPED! I'm trapped in a cage!!!

Ha! Love it.