Still busy...

So, I tried to quit my job like I mentioned in my last post, but that didn't go so well. My boss talked me into working one day a week. I was kind of OK with that. Then we had a meeting this week about the holiday season. I was informed that I would probably be working 12-15 days in a row and that I wouldn't be allowed to request any days off. WHAT??!!! Sorry job, but my family and my sanity are way more important than a few extra bucks for Christmas. I think we can live without a flat-screen tv.

Since I have been working less I've actually had time to work on my house. Things are finally getting put away. I've done various home improvement projects and it's finally starting to feel more like home. I will add some pictures soon.

The last week has been less than fun. Joseph and Andrew had the flu (I'm pretty sure it was the Swine Flu) all week, and now I have it. Yuck.

Now that I am for real quitting my job, I am doing what my husband has been trying to convince me to do for years - start my own business. So, I am going to try my hand at photography and graphic design. I've done some minor projects and I have some requests to do senior portraits. I thought that it would be fun to do invitations, graduation announcements, birth announcements, etc. besides the photography. I may try my hand at blog headers/designs too. I feel pretty confident about it. Here's a sample I made:

I did the photography for this couple's sealing a few months ago, so this isn't a real "save the date." Just working on some ideas. Tell me what you think!

MIA

Sorry folks. I have been gone for quite some time. I wish that I had something super exciting to fill you in on. Unfortunately, here is the story of the four weeks I've been MIA.

• Week 1: Work and homework.
• Week 2: Work and homework.
• Week 3: Work and homework.
• Week 4: Work, homework, 3 tests, 2 speeches.

Things have been pretty rough around these parts. I've had no time for anything that I want to do (blogging, sewing, photography), and I've barely had anytime for things that I need to do (like the fact that I've lived in my house for 2 months and I'm still not unpacked).

Anyhoo, I've been losing my mind, so I came to the conclusion that something has to go. So here's the list of things that keep me busy.

• Family - I certainly can't get rid of them, although sometimes I could use a break from screaming kids!
• Church - Definitely can't get rid of that either! I'm in the RS presidency and I have had no time whatsoever to devote to my calling.
• School - It takes up a lot of my time, but unfortunately it is a necessity for me. If we ever want to be out of debt, I'm going to have to have a career. It stinks. I wish that I could afford to stay at home, but I can't.
• Work - The bane of my existence. Brad gets home from work at 4:30 every afternoon, and I have to leave at 4:35 to get to work on time. Usually, when I come home he's in bed. Not good. I make barely more than minimum wage and I work my rear-end off with little to no reward (I'm thinking it's closer to no than it is little).

So, work has to go. It's for the best. If I am going to have to work to help support my family, I don't want to work at a fast food joint at the mall for the rest of my life. Which is the reason I need to finish school and do it fast!

Anyway, my blogging will no longer be on hiatus. This is my journal. It's how I keep track of all of things my family does. It's our memories. So it's important to me to keep this up, even if it isn't important to anyone else. So I think y'all will be hearing from me a little more often. One can only hope, right?

Milestones

Two important milestones this week:

1. Joseph started kindergarten.


2. I turned 25, which means that I am half-way to being "over the hill."
   

Kindergarten:

Joseph's first day of kindergarten started off great! He has an amazing teacher, is going to a wonderful school, and is thriving. We're so happy that he's doing well. After I left Joseph's school, a friend and I took a little road trip. We ended up getting lost and had to frantically call around to get someone to pick up our kids from their first day of school. I felt so bad that I wasn't able to be there to pick up the poor little guy from his first day of school, but he seemed to emerge unscathed.

The handsome little guy before his first day of school.

Joseph and his friend Mackenzie. Thankfully her mom was able to pick Joseph up from school and the two had a good time playing together until I was able to get home.

Joseph trying to do a "K" in sign language. We thought that it would be cute to take a yearly photo of him holding up the number of fingers corresponding to the grade he's in. So, "K" for kindergarten, but it didn't work out quite as well as we had hoped.

My Birthday:

For starters, my awesome present - Brad bought me a t-shirt from the season 5 finale of The Office. Woohoo!

And, my parents pre-ordered season 5 on DVD, so I should be getting that in a few days. It's being released on September 8th. Squee!

My parents (as shown below)...

...threw an amazing party just for me!

All of this, just for me?? Not really. We actually went up for their annual company picnic, which just happened to fall on my birthday. It was loads of fun, and a great way to spend time with my family. Tons of food, games, and good times.

Grandpa with a Spongebob pinata.

Joseph had a great time painting (including painting himself).

He also had fun carrying around this bowl of pretzels and "serving" everyone.

This kid had a blast playing in a mud puddle.

On the way home, we stopped at Cabela's. The kids were amazed by all of the taxidermed (is that a word?) animals.

And that ends our fun week!

In other news, Brad LOVES his new job! We feel so blessed to be in this area. Brad feels like he hit "the job lottery." We are really enjoying Parkersburg. Everyone is SO nice here. We like being close to family and we are making new friends. Thanks to everyone - Joseph's teachers, Pleasants County schools, our new friends, and our family - for making us feel so at home here. We know our prayers have been answered!

Being Tested

The last two weeks have been a serious test of my patience. I don't say faith - I know Heavenly Father gives us trials for a reason and he'll help us through the difficult times if we remain faithful and follow his commandments. So I just need to be patient and wait for the light at the end of the tunnel.

For starters, we moved into our new place. It's wonderful; a three-story townhome with a finished basement. It's in a great neighborhood, it's affordable, and we love Parkersburg. However, a few days after we moved in, Joseph decided that it would be a good idea to dump an entire bottle of laundry detergent all over the brand new carpet!!! It took an entire week of late nights to suck up all of the detergent, and now our carpets smell all mildew-y.

On top of that, I got a part-time job to help our family out a little. I'm working as a shift-manager at a restaurant at the mall. I work evenings, and by the time I come home every night, I am completely exhausted and I smell like a disgusting grease ball. I miss being home to spend time with my family. I know that this is for the benefit of our family, but it's hard to feel like I am being of any benefit when I am not home to cook nutritious meals, help unpack and organize our new home, help out with bedtime, etc. Even when I am home, I don't spend any time with my family because I am exhausted from working, so I spend most of the day sleeping. I feel like I am going through this vicious cycle of caffeine highs and total exhaution meltdowns.

To further add to the problems, out truck broke down, and it cost more than my first paycheck to fix it, and I had to pay for the traffic citation that I received the day we moved from Martinsburg to Parkersburg, leaving us flat broke. Ugh. But, I don't want my driver's license suspended and/or have a warrant out for my arrest and we need to have our truck to finish moving all of our stuff out of my brother-in-law's basement.

So things have been a little rough around here. I really could use some prayers and the support of family and friends right now. I know these probably seem trivial, but I feel like I am being tested to my absolute limits right now. Having a meltdown surely won't help anything! Thanks to all of those who read this blog. Knowing that I have friends and family who care really means alot. I hope my next post comes bearing better news. Until next time, please keep me in your prayers. Thanks!

Five

My beautiful baby has turned into such a handsome boy. Where have the years gone? I remember the day he was born, and the many sleepless nights that followed. I remember his first steps and his first words. In a few weeks, we'll get to experience his first day of school. I couldn't ask for a more special, talented, handsome, wonderful child. What an amazing five years this has been. I can only hope he knows how much his mommy and daddy love him! We are so thankful that he is a part of our family.

Five is a special number, so we had to have a special party! Grandma and Grandpa drove down to visit on Sunday, and we had our annual BBQ -- for the past five years we have had a cookout for his birthday. It's become a family tradition. Joseph's primary teacher has the same birthday, and she also happens to have some kids who are friends with ours, so she helped us celebrate.

The birthday boy with Mommy and Daddy.

The Grillmaster gets the party started!

Joseph and Andrew were very anxious to eat the cake. Joseph picked out a Wiggles cake this year. Usually I make the cakes, but since we're still living out of boxes I have no idea where all of my cake decorating tools are.

Having fun with the Haroldson family.

Opening his presents from Mommy and Daddy: A Spiderman guitar (the kid has a serious guitar obsession), a Spongebob lunch box and backpack, a Spongebob DVD, a Berenstain Bears DVD, some Spongebob books, and his favorite book EVER -- If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.

However, Mommy and Daddy's gifts were pretty insignificant compared to Grandma and Grandpa's gift: A Power Wheels Ford F-150!!

Joseph taking Aiden for a spin.

What an amazing gift! Joseph is very blessed to have grandparents who love to spoil him rotten!

Last but not least, Joseph's very sweet cousins made him a cake today. They also made him homemade pizza, and Aunt Darlene got him a fabulous gift -- an entire ream of paper to have all to himself!

Happy fifth birthday, Joseph! I love you, kiddo!

Moving Take One

I've called this post "Moving Take One," because in a few weeks we'll be moving again. For right now, we are living with Brad's brother and his family until we can find our own place. So, I'll take you on a little journey of our first move, and the past few weeks with our family.

Step 1: A visit with Grandma and Grandpa. The Sunday before we moved out, I decided to take a trip with my boys to visit their grandparents. Even though we're living closer to them now, I knew that it would be a while before we saw them again because of the chaos involved with moving our family from one end of West Virginia to the other. We had a fun visit, and are excited to get the chance to visit with them again once things settle down a little.

Joseph and Andrew, happy to be with the Grandma and Grandpa.

Step 2: Loading up the truck and heading across the state. Neither easy, nor fun. I much preferred spending a lazy Sunday afternoon with my parents and my little boys.

It turns out that it is not very easy to load a 75-year-old piano into a 24-foot moving truck. It took an hour-and-a-half to load the piano because the wheels on the piano happened to be a fraction of an inch too short to make the piano go over the lip on the ramp; thus, the movers (aka, the Elders Quorum) had to come up with a strategy to get a 1000 pound piano up a 10 foot ramp without killing themselves or my piano. Luckily, one of the ward members in attendance lived around the corner and happened to have a bunch of two-by-fours and a very strong son and they were able to get the dang thing on the truck.

Brad looking slightly unhappy about the delays caused by the piano, which he despised before he had to load it into the big ol' truck.

Elder Hester using Elder Van Lydegraf as a bench while he played the piano for the inhabitants of our street.

Once the truck was loaded, Brad and I got the house all cleaned out and headed on our 5 hour trek to Parkersburg. Manuevering the 24-foot truck which was also towing our pick-up truck was also not an easy task. I followed Brad in our Honda. The truck would only go 40-miles per hour over the steep mountains between Hancock, MD and Morgantown, WV (which is about 2 hours of the 5 hour trip when you are actually going the speed limit). To make matters worse, I missed a red light (without my knowledge) while trying to make sure Brad got through a difficult intersection, and got my first ticket ever. EEk!

But, we arrived in Parkersburg safe and sound. Quite a few members of the Parkersburg ward showed up to help move our belongings into my brother-in-law's basement. Amazingly, it took about five minutes to move my piano and about a half hour total to unload the truck.

Step 4: Chaos!!!!!!!!!! My in-law's home is constantly filled with new and interesting people (and a couple of pets, too). I'd estimate that on a daily basis there are about twelve people in the house, and it seems like someone new is there visiting/staying every single day. It's been quite an adjustment for our little family. Joseph and Andrew have been a little overwhelmed. I have been too. I actually think the boys have handled it better than I have. We're really enjoying our stay, but we're pretty anxious to have our own home. Hopefully we'll be in our own place by August 1. It's nice to visit with our family, but I'm eager to get myself and my kids back to our regular routine.

Emily - one of the many visitors in the home. She has actually been quite a blessing to us. We appreciate the endless hours she has put into drawing pictures for Joseph.

Joseph and Scotty (again, another visitor in their home) proudly displaying their superhero costumes that Emily lovingly made them.

Ian, the dog. Ian has been very subdued throughout this whole process. I guess he's used to the constant influx of new people in his home. He also seems to handle Andrew and Joseph pulling his tail very well. Overall, I don't mind Ian - although, I don't care for him so much when he barks his head off at 7 am.

However, Bella the cat does not handle her new roomates so well. Her ears are always slicked back whenever she sees Andrew and Joseph, in nervous anticipation of being chased throughout the house (which happens about every five minutes if she's in their sight). She's taken to hiding until they're asleep.

A little more chaos. My in-laws hosted a 4th of July BBQ at their home, complete with about 20 unfamiliar faces for Andrew and Joseph. It was actually enjoyable chaos, though. There was yummy food, fun activities, and our own little fireworks display. Andrew and Joseph got to enjoy their first sparklers. Joseph was much more interested in them than Andrew. By the time it was dark, Andrew was too tired to care. It was a fun day, though, and it was good to meet some of the families in our new ward.

Now that you've read this post, I'm sure you can understand why it's been a while since I've posted anything. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be posting some pictures of our new house (keep your fingers crossed). Until then, good night!

New Job!

I am so happy to announce that we are moving! YAY! Brad was offered a new job teaching for St. Mary's High School in Pleasants County, WV. I won't say much more than this has been a terrible year for our family, and we are happy to get a fresh start.

My in-laws, Darlene and Bryant, were gracious enough to allow us to live with them for a few weeks so that we can find somewhere to live. We are happy to be living near family. We are trying to find a home to live in a little town called Williamsport. It would be about 15 minutes from work and from our family!

We are also happy to have the experience of living with our Stake President's family -- Brad's brother Bryant is the stake president of the Charleston, WV stake of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It will be a great experience to see how he runs his home on a daily basis. I know that they will be a good example to our family -- I will really enjoy learning ways to make our home a more spiritual place!

I'm grateful to Heavenly Father for helping us to learn and grow through our trials, and thankful for the new doors that he has opened for us. I know that this job is truly an answer to our prayers and I feel very blessed!