Ugh.

I might be whining a little bit here, so if you don't want to hear it, stop reading now.

Things are tough. No worse than would be expected I guess, but it's not easy. Jeff's been out of work now for 8 1/2 weeks with almost no leads on a new job. He's very stressed out. I'm working about 30 hours/week at the flower shop. I do enjoy it, I have nothing negative to say about my job, except that we're not used to being in this role reversal. Jeff isn't used to being home with the boys so much, and they miss me. I miss them too. Roman especially is having some trouble with the whole thing.

Kodak hugely screwed up Jeff's termination paperwork causing all kinds of frustrating delays. I'm reviewing the termination agreement we finally got in the mail and they actually want us to sign and have notarized a statement that we received the agreement on or before April 26th and have had 45 days to review it. We didn't get it until this week. It's postmarked Jun 10. I don't imagine we'll be signing that statement.

We still have no answers as to Cobra benefits or any potential vacation pay. I'm afraid our medical coverage is going to lapse because Kodak isn't getting us the paperwork we need. We also don't have dollar answers from unemployment because they too were waiting for information from Kodak which was delayed.

I'm so frustrated. I just need to be able to make a plan. I also need some ice cream.

Black eye

Our church has a large population of young kids and they all love to run around together after the service on Sundays. Our boys are no exception. This past Sunday Trey was running and playing and somehow stumbled and took a bad fall onto a very hard floor. He hit head-first with is brow bone and was in a LOT of pain. He usually bounces back pretty quick, but this one had him out of commission for a while. Thankfully one of our good friends who is also a pediatrician was around and took a look at him, assuring us that he would be fine with a little time and ice. He also approved an adult tylenol for Trey (the only thing available), and Trey was able to take his first ever whole pill, and on the first try! That helped with the pain and he got back to his normal self. These first two pics are from later that evening, the last one is from today (Tuesday), two days later and you can see how the bruising has settled. I don't really think the ones from Sunday really give justice to the amount of swelling he had, so you'll just have to believe me that it was very swollen until the next day.

Turtle!

Trey and I stopped near the road today to check out this huge turtle! This was as close as Trey was willing to get to him, and you can see his hesitancy! I wanted to take the turtle home (away from the busy road) to let Roman see him then let him go in the field or near the river. I put a stick near his face to see if he'd snap and he didn't, so I touched his shell and he didn't move, but when I put a hand on each side to see about picking him up he swung his whole body toward me on one side... enough to scare me into leaving him there. He certainly didn't think he needed my help!

Kidsbowlfree.com

If you haven't already heard of kidsbowlfree.com check it out! We got bowling passes for the kids for the whole summer. You do have to pay for shoe rental though, so it's not totally free. Still a good deal for something fun! The boys and I went today, here's Trey:

And Roman... can you tell how slow the ball is moving already?

Waiting to see what happens...

And the final score, although by the end they weren't really playing by whose turn it was, just by whoever felt like going next. :)

Pillows

Trey has been asking me for a while if we could make a pillow for his bed. He has a standard pillow, but he wanted one made just for him. I came up with the idea to just make a pillow case instead (Alenna, I think your blog gave me the idea, thanks!), and when I explained that he could pick whatever material he wanted he loved the idea. Jeff was gone for most of today and I wasn't working, so it was a good day for a project. We went to Walmart and checked out the material. Trey quickly settled on Transformers and Roman on Lightning McQueen (from Cars). At home I got out my beloved sewing machine and started in. It was a simple project and they were done quickly. Here are the boys, happily settled into bed on their new pillows!

Summertime!

I think it's finally here! (Summertime that is.)

Jeff's parents came for a couple of days this weekend and we made our first trip of the season to the beach at Alum Creek where we had a great time even though the water was pretty chilly.

Check out Trey's pic when Jeff lifted the bucket off the first piece of sand castle!



We also had our first bonfire of the season, complete with s'mores! Yum!


The fire was Monday evening with our friends Clay and Carrie and their kids Logan and Lauren. They spent most of the afternoon and evening enjoying Memorial Day with us - grilling out, walking in the woods, and of course the fire!


Playing in (and on) and "re-designing" the fort:


Me and Moe enjoying the day:


Hanging around and getting the fire going... I think Jeff was collecting more wood:

Roman and Lauren enjoying their s'mores (and the dogs hoping they will drop something!):

Ups and Downs

It's been a while since I've posted. Jeff's still on the job search. I worked a full week this past week at the flower shop where I've been working part time. It's a fun place to work, but I was exhausted from being on my feet and I missed being home with the boys. How do working moms get everything done? Jeff was home with the kids and kept up with some of the housework, but when does the rest get done? By the time I got home from work, had dinner, did bedtime with the kids, I just wanted to crash! I'm not working today so I've done the floors and laundry to get caught up.

For the most part we've really had peace in trusting God to provide a job and our financial needs. Some days have gotten harder as time goes on though. It's been three weeks tomorrow morning and it's harder to remain confident. My knowledge of God's abilities has not changed, but keeping my mind and emotions from wandering away from that is getting harder. It's like the movie-style angel and demon on my shoulders with the one whispering about God never letting us down and the other whispering that it's been three weeks, what are we going to do... some days it takes a lot of effort to keep my focus on the right character.

Anyway. Yesterday of course was Mothers' Day. It was beautiful here. I enjoyed being at church, then came home and took a long nap. I'm not usually a big napper and I didn't want to sleep that long, but I was really worn out. I was served dinner and Jeff even made a cake for me! I think this afternoon we're going to go walk the dam, which was our plan for yesterday afternoon until we all fell asleep!

Happy mothers' day to all you moms out there, I hope it was great!