Arts and Crafts.

Three of 'em!
Last Thursday and Friday I had an excuse to stay home with the kiddos! My babysitter was on vacation. She will be next week too, but I couldnt get it off (hmmf!) but a friend at work has a daughter home from college that will be watching them at my house - yay!
So, while we were home I got to try out a craft that I found in a magazine. Here are some pics, you can figure it out.
Why did I need a magazine article to discover this cute little project? I think I had more fun with it than Jonathan did though. I did most of it, though I let him think he did. I have always been bad at letting children do their own projects. I think the end result should look like it does in the magazine. Bad Mama! Actually I think this project may have been a little old for him. Probably best for a 6 or 7 year old...or 28 year old.
The second project, however, he did complete. And I am sooo proud of him. I asked him to draw a picture of him and Daddy for Father's day. He really delivered. It is amazing how it seems like just last week he would draw a line or a circle and say that was a person (no eyes, nose, arms, legs, nothing). As you can see here, though, Daddy has eyes, nose, mouth, and even ears. Big deal to me. In my kindergarten entrance exam I forgot to add ears to the man I was told to draw. I got docked for it. Anyway, not only is there a whole face, but he made sure Daddy had clothes - complete with buttons! And he made a TALL Jonathan. Not quite sure why his head is in two parts - he does have a double crown in real life.

And the last project (so far) for the weekend...
A photo prop. I went yard-sailing this morning and found two old wooden chairs. One for $2 and one for $3. I had a hard time choosing a color for the $2 one but finally decided on Ocean Blue. Jonathan loved it and offered to "model" for me to test it out. He was so excited he didnt even let me move it off the cardboard before he jumped up and started posing. Isn't his expression so cute in this?

I have two photo sessions next weekend: One with a single mom with two small children (that's what I got the chair for), and the other is a mainly indoor maternity session. I got a new strobe for lighting and am having a hard time finding the time to get the lighting nailed for the session. Hopefully I'll get it down before my subject gets here on Saturday! Watch for flickr posts next weekend!

My little Razorbacks at play

My little Razorbacks at play
Originally uploaded by Sweet Portrayal

Chuck went to Arkansas last weekend to take his Arkansas Boards exam and meet with some podiatrists wanting to hire in Little Rock (yeck!) and another in Fayetteville that wants to sell his practice in Siloam Springs (meh!). He brought back razorback snouts for the kids and they just loved them and I loved getting some fun pics of them. Why cant they sit together and be so cute without a snout on!!?

finally!

melt-a-mommy
Originally uploaded by Sweet Portrayal

i got her to look up! and boy am i glad i did. look at those eyes!

I'm a gardener!

Well, not really. We don't own our house, so I cant exactly uproot the bushes to plant a garden (not that I would have the time), but I did buy a few plants to pot. I got two cherry-type tomato plants and Chuck bought me two chili pepper plants. I potted them and have been carefully watering them daily and guarding them from the kids. They have really grown fast and...lo and behold...I counted TEN little green tomatoes on the tomato plants today and saw two tiny peppers on the pepper plants! I am soooo excited. Given, after buying the plants, the soil and the watering can (the pots were already here at the house) they have become a little economically unwise. What can I say - they better be good tomatoes! Hopefully the bunnies that hop around the yard most days dont end up eating them out from under me!! We'll be able to enjoy a nice salad or two, or three.


Oh, and I included a picture of the place we recently moved to. Much better than the old place. My advice...if you have kids...dont do a townhouse.



And this last way-too-close up picture is of me with my "new" haircut. I hated it the first day, was okay with it the following week, and since then it has grown into a little unmanageable mess. But...it could be worse!

Valedictorian

Two weekends ago now, I got to go see my oldest niece, Emily, graduate from high school. As she was a valedictorian of her class, she got to give a speech. Of the five speeches given by the valedictorians hers was by far the best! I was sure that my sister had helped her, but no, the graduation was the first time she'd even heard it! Graciously, my beautiful, smart, funny niece gave me the transcript to post on my blog:


On the box of the board game The Game of Life, it reads, "Where will your choices take you? You made it through high school, now what's next?" According to the instructions the object of the game is to "travel the path of LIFE making decisions, building a family, earning money (and paying some too), buying homes, and collecting LIFE TILES."
The first decision is made right at the beginning of the game: College or Career? By now most of us have already made that decision and found that the choices are many.
Once we decide what path to take, we spin the wheel and move our number of spaces. Some of us get high numbers like 8, 9, or 10, and move quickly. Some of us get the lower numbers such as 3, 2, or the sometimes dreaded 1. But we take what we get, move the spaces, and read what the space says, hoping that it is good news. Sometimes it is! We may collect money for something like writing a Best Seller! But sometimes we land on a "bad" square and have to pay fees for a surgery.
Those little yellow squares can bring joy with a "NEW BABY" or the can bring grief with the two words: "LOSE JOB." Sometimes we land on them and sometimes we don't.
During our jounrey, we often come to stop signs, and even though we may still have moves left these stop signs represent times in our life that we will have to make important decisions, and we must stop. We may be choosing our career, getting married, or buying a home, al the while collecting LIFE TILES.
LIFE TILES are what I consider the most important part of the game. The game instructions tell us that LIFE TILES are "all about family activities, community service, and good deeds." The way I like to describe them is by calling them the "memorable moments." We have already collected some from high school, and most of us may be collecting one right now. Just like in the game, we never know the true value of these moments until we look back on them years later.
So, here we are, at the beginning of the game. We are about to start a great journey. On these crazy, winding roads I wish you, the Class of 2009, the best of luck. I pray that God is with you, on the good spaces and the not so good spaces, and that He guides your choices at every stop sign you come to. Remember that the most valuable part of this wonderful Game of Life is not the speed that we move but the memories we make at every turn.

Ah...that's my Emmy!
We were all soooo proud of her!

Congratulations Emily!!

A hard decision

It really is for the best. I almost cry writing this though. However, I do feel like part of the reason I cry is because I can imagine that just about everyone I know will think that it was the wrong decision and that I am a bad mother. But then I tell myself that I have to stop worrying so much about what other people think.
Here it is:
I'm going back to full-time.
Chuck and I have been considering it for a while now but I never could make the decision to do it. I wanted to at least wait until summer was over. Unfortunately that wasnt up to me. Last Friday my boss came up to me and told me to let her know within the next 5 minutes whether I wanted full time. Literally. You see, the budget gets passed by Congress and then the money is carefully dispersed and trickled all the way down the pipelines to our office. The decisions are trickled down too. So in some place far far away they decide to offer full-time to part-time employees in certain districts. Generally, all those employees want full-time. But they have to take it right then and there or it gets passed on to another district, or piled up to create a whole new position. They only offer the choice every so often, when they have money. So I had to take it now or never.
And here's why I chose to take it:
Reason #1: I love having my Wednesday's with the kids. I can relax a little bit too. The problem is, one day in the middle of the week doesn't do much for routine. Sometimes we go to the park, sometimes we go play with friends, sometimes Daddy is home too, sometimes we watch too much TV, sometimes we make a craft (okay, not that often because I'm just too busy to plan it), sometimes we go grocery shopping, sometimes we do nothing while Mommy cleans all day. I haven't been able to establish anything concrete (besides going to the donut shop - bad!) because Wednesdays have become that catch-all day. It's like the dining room table - nothing belongs in that space, so anything and everything ends up there - and it's a mess.
Reason #2: I know it's taboo, but I have to address it. I make good money, and one day a week really adds up. If I wasn't making good money, then it would be a no-brainer - heck, I'd quit and start that photography business. I would just love to get laid off - I know that is really insensitive to say because so many people are getting laid off and it just ruins them, so I'm sorry if that offends anyone, but I am just being honest. I would love to be laid off and then I would have no excuse and no regrets. I could start my own photography business because I would HAVE to - and I would find out just how lucrative the business can be while setting my own hours and having fun. Unfortunately (for my dreams), I have to take the safe road and feel blessed to have a good job that pays the bills and provides health insurance. I also have to plan for our future when Chuck finishes his residency and we need seed money to start his business and put a down-payment on a house and start paying off his loans.
Reason #3: Even though I am going to be full-time I will still be able to spend time with the kids now. We are going to be closer to the kids daycare after we move this week which means that Chuck can actually take the kids to daycare or pick them up most days. That means I can go to work earlier and work eight and a half or nine hours a day and build up "credit hours" that I can use as vacation. I will also be building up more regular vacation pay when I am full time. In all honesty, I could easily take 2 or 3 days off a month (as opposed to the four I get working part-time)to spend with the kids.
Reason #4: Even though I am just working four days a week right now I am still given the same workload as before, except that I am not interviewing on that fifth day. Keeping up with that workload has been very stressful. I also had to mentor a trainee (which has since been changed because we lost another worker) and I was not able to get to my work. I have actually been pretty good at not taking this home with me, but when I am at work I am not happy because of the build-up of work. I don't expect this to be solved by going full-time because everyone has been overwhelmed with all of the work. With my extra day a week though, that will help our office in some ways which makes work for me as well as my coworkers more bearable.
Now, all this said, I will also say that even though it does make sense it still tears me up. And very honestly, I will say that I do fear being judged by others as being greedy or not caring about my kids enough to stay home with them - I know some people have those thoughts because I read it on their blogs, or comments on their blogs. It tears me up to think that I am doing the wrong thing by my kids and it only makes things worse when I think of other moms "sacrificing" to stay home with their kids. Believe me, it is just as much of a sacrifice for me not to stay home.
Here are what my kids get by me not staying home:
1. Routine, as I mentioned earlier
2. Social interaction - this is really important to me. I was raised in the country and my mom stayed home with me, which was great. But one thing I did lack was that social interaction - maybe why I'm not the best at it these days!
3. My children have no problems leaving me. Most of the time. But that doesnt mean they aren't super happy to see me when I come back - and they always know I'll be back.
4. They've built up quite an immune system.
5. They can see a doctor whenever they need to. I can feed them, and they have a nice place to live - very important as we have lived in some not-so-nice places (the suspected drug-dealing-3x-drive-by-shooting house in Zion IL to be exact).
6. We don't get tired of each other. Even just one day a week - those Wednesdays that I had - I would honestly be fed up with Jonathan by the end of the day. He generally would fight taking a nap and then he would be cranky the rest of the day. Again, the lack of routine made it hard to enforce a naptime. When you work full-time you cherish each moment you have with your kids - no matter how naughty they are.
I could go on, really, but I wont. All this said, I do want to say as well that if I had my choice I would be a stay-at-home mom. I think - I have never been one, so I couldn't guarantee it. But, the harsh reality is I HAVE to work - bottom line. I have been through it so many ways - what could we cut out, how could we save, this that and the other. I have to work. And while I have to work, I might as well make the best of it.

Woe is me.

I should be posting pictures from a photo session yesterday with a 3 month old and 5 year old, but that will not be happening. I went to the basement Friday night to "rehearse" for my session and practice with my new lighting. To make a long story short I never got to rehearse because the camera would not work - it wouldnt accept the memory card. Three memory cards later it is still not working. Needless to say I was unable to do the session. The really said news is it may cost up to $250 to get it fixed. The other sad news is I was actually wanting to get a new camera sometime soon but I haven't saved up enough yet. I'm hoping to be able to get the new one in about 6 weeks...which is the same amount of time it may take to get my current camera fixed. So...this possibly puts me out of commission for six weeks. :( Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!