Some changes....

Here are a few of my most recent pictures from my phone.

 Evie found this giraffe mask at St. Vincent's thrift store the other day. She loves it! Except we can't find it now. It must be at Grandma and Grandpas. Which brings me to my next point. We are going to be moving back in with my parents the first of October. The lease on our house goes until the end of September. Evie is pretty excited about it. She sometimes says in her prayers: "please bless us to move in with grandma and pampa." I think the Lord heard you on that one, Ev's. It's going to be kind of hard. But hopefully it will be just temporary. We were kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place anyway. Our rent is pretty cheap here, but since they have it on the market, the price they have it set at would by no means be for an "investment property." Both Owen and I feel/felt like we weren't supposed to be in this house any longer. Almost like we are being forced out....I don't know if it's so our family can be ready to move at the drop of a hat in case we do get a job out of state, or maybe its just how life needs to be for us for a while. In any case it will be nice to not worry about rent and utility payments.

 Our primary program is coming up at the end of September and our singing teacher is awesome! She always has really fun games to play during singing time. This one was an american idol game and the sunbeams sang "I am a Child of God." You can kind of see Evie up there in the pink dress next to her cousin Lilly. We are going to miss them when we move out of the ward :( Evie already has her part memorized for the program - Owen and I are so proud of her!

 Evie found this little headband hat at the store and wanted me to take her picture with it. Let's not forget about the umbrella :)

 Zayne loves wearing these rain boots that he got from our friends in Moses Lake - and Evie's CLEAN, but too small panties on his head! Haha!

 Of course, Evie had to get in on that pantie hat action :)

We went to my brothers house the other night to watch the BSU football game. The girls had fun playing!

My handsome little nephew! He is quite the character :)

On another note - we have officially been turned down for every job we have applied for and interviewed for. It is really discouraging. Owen is at an in between stage - meaning that he has too much experience to be considered entry level, but not quite enough experience to beat out other people that have more experience. And so we wait for someone willing to hire him. It's frustrating and at times depressing. One of the only things that keeps me going, besides for the fact that I have no other choice, is knowing how absolutely wonderful it will be when we get a job offer. If we didn't know the bitter, we wouldn't know the sweet. I also can't help but hope that we will be able to stay here in Boise. And so if we get turned down for some really good jobs out of the area, I just keep thinking that maybe Heavenly Father will bless us with a really good job - here in Boise. Our faith and patience have definitely been tried. You never know how strong you are until something happens that tries your faith. Luckily or unluckily, which ever way you look at it, I've been blessed with a family that knows what it is like to go through unemployment. My dad lost his job when I was a freshman in high school and we had some really rocky years. My sister's husband also had some unemployment streaks and is now moving to Alaska to be a medical sales rep after 5 years of rough circumstances. One of Owen's sister has been through it with her husband and she has been so helpful and supportive to Owen. The truth is - no one can truly understand what it is like until they have experienced it themselves. If it was that easy to get a job we would have found one already. To explain a few things:

1. You might ask why Owen doesn't get something, anything. Well, Owen can't just get a job sweeping floors or working in a warehouse at a company he would like to get on with. He is overqualified. We couldn't even get an interview for a job like this because he has a four year degree and 5 years of experience. And I'm pretty sure there are plenty of people out there that ARE qualified to sweep floors or stock back rooms so why would they waste their time hiring someone they know wouldn't stick around for the long term. AND I don't think it is as easy as it used to be to "start from the bottom and work your way up." So it's not like we are shooting for some management position - we are looking for the same thing he has been doing, and unfortunately it's kind of a specified career and a little hard to come by.

2. We have talked about changing careers all together. What if there is a totally different industry that Owen would enjoy but all he has ever done is agriculture? The problem with that is then his experience up to this point would be thrown away and we WOULD have to start over, from the bottom and we have decided that that isn't really where we want to go.

3. Why don't I get a job? Well, I have a job. I'm a full time mom of 2 young children. AND I have a part time job with a foreign exchange student program, for the time being, and works out very  nicely as some extra money on the side. I do have a four year degree, but unfortunately the line of work I would be dealing with is not something I enjoy - even remotely. Every time I decide to look for jobs for myself or look into going back to school to pursue a Masters Degree - I get a VERY clear feeling that it is not what I am supposed to be doing at this point in my life.

So what I am saying is - please don't judge us until you have walked anywhere close to where we have walked :) It's very easy to say what you would do if this situation ever came up in your family, but believe me, it would be harder than you think.

I still have faith that Heavenly Father has a specific course for us. There has to be some reason that we ended up back here as suddenly and perfectly as we did - but for what? Hopefully we find out soon. The suspense is killing me ;)

Goodbye summer part 2 :)

A couple of weeks ago my sister in - law called me and asked me if I would be willing to go to the mall to see if they had a cardigan she had bought, but in a different size. I can't remember the last time I had been to the mall and I was feeling pretty depressed - so I wasn't feeling that excited to go. Then I decided that it's not too bad spending someone else's money for them, so I asked my sister if she wanted to meet me. I ended up going into the children's place and found a pair of monster slippers for Zayne, a pair of flip flops for him AND these super cute sunglasses:

 

I got my whole purchase for a whopping $3.15! Um..pretty sure you can't beat that! I was pretty happy with my purchases AND Evie got a headband at a different store for $1.00! AND there was only one cardigan left in the size my sister in law wanted! My mood turned completely by the end of the night - so thanks, Rochelle, for asking me to go to the mall for you - it's exactly what I needed :)

One of my favorite things about my smart phone is this game  ^ . Owen always says to me: "Why don't you power down your little word game? I'm sure your friends will understand." (you know that commercial with the pig on the plane and the stewardess says that to him?) anyway, it always makes me laugh when he says that! But this particular screen shot is the highest word I have ever played and I was pretty proud - so naturally I had to document it.

I love this girl and she loves that "future missionary" tag that Grandma and Grandpa Johnston gave to her :)

So I may or may not bake on a weekly basis to cope with life right now. This Sunday we decided to make cookies for Evie's Sunbeam teachers. She loves them and they are so, so good with her (and the rest of the kids!) They are like a grandma and grandpa age - so the kids love it! I'm the other Sunbeam teacher and my favorite thing about being in there is being able to watch Evie during Primary. I love it!

Zayne really wanted to help, too. We don't have a boy apron for him, so until then he's gotta wear one of Evie's :)

These  two make us so happy! I couldn't imagine life with out either of them:)

 Zayne loves the monster slippers I got him! This little guy is such a sweetie! He is growing so big and so fast :( A month or so ago he decided it was his job to throw his diaper away whenever I finished changing him. He holds it up to his little chest and marches it to the garbage! His other big thing right now is getting a play purse or bag or anything with a handle and putting it on his shoulder and then waving "bye bye" and then disappearing and coming right back to do it all over again! He is also getting 4 of his back teeth all at once :( He's been pretty cranky about it - especially at night time. He is still nursing and I don't know how I feel about weaning him yet. I probably should, but he's still little to me and I really don't want to give him cows milk. So, we will see how it turns out.

This girl loves Oreos! The other night I was nursing Zayne before bed and I came out to find this! She said I got 4 Oreos - because I'm 4, Mom! Great. more than 100 grams of sugar before bed - this should turn out great ;) She is as sweet as those cookies!

Evie got a baby alive doll from Grandma and Grandpa Ogden for her birthday. Zayne thought it was fun to drink out of the baby doll's bottle! I have never given him a real bottle before so I don't know exactly where he got the idea from...but he sure thinks its fun!

We finally got Evie to ride on her bike the other night! I'm hoping she overcomes the fear of it. I think we had to bribe her with a wagon ride around the block if she rode her bike down the sidewalk and back - and she did! I was really proud of her!

My little Miss Evie on the first day of her last year of preschool! I can't believe she starts Kindergarten next year. It makes me too sad so I don't think about it!

 Evie's teacher is such a wonderful person. She knows all about our situation and I was so hoping that Owen would have a job by the time preschool started again, so that we could put her in it. But it obviously hadn't happened and so I was going to have to not do it this year. I cried about this decision. It made me so sad to think about taking away something that made Evie so happy. When I told Miss Staci that we wouldn't be able to do it this year she told me that she had lots of laminating jobs that she doesn't have time for and said she was willing to trade me 1 day a week for it. Talk about a tender mercy from the Lord. It might not seem like much - but it meant the world to us.

 

And she was serious! I'm already loaded up with work and I'm loving it :)

Lucky kids :)

We have been spending a lot of time at grandma's recently. The kids love to play outside. It's nice because it's a big yard with a nice big driveway and lots of sidewalk and the kids just love to ride trikes and wagons all over :)

Our fun cousins that will be moving to Alaska in about a month. We are going to really miss them.

 

 These two little boys crack me up! I love this age! Archie is 6 months older than Zayne, but I can already tell they are going to be best friend cousins :) We celebrated Ruby's birthday this last week. She turned 5! Here are some of the kiddos enjoying some cupcakes!

 

Evie loves to get messy when she eats her cupcakes! She also only loves the frosting :)

Goodbye summer

It's so sad to think that summer is over now :( Well, maybe not the hot weather, but the swimming. My brother's neighborhood pool was open for the last day of the season on Labor Day.

 

 This was one of the last times we went swimming. Zayne had fun playing with daddy, while Evie and mommy had fun in the pool :)

 

 He decided to eventually get in :) He loves  his Aunt Charity!

This was on Labor Day. We left Zayne home with daddy and just Ev's and I went swimming. We were literally trying to outdrive the huge storm that was coming. We made it just in time and Evie was able to enjoy a couple of cold hours swimming with her cousins - we never saw any lightening, just really dark storm clouds....

Summer seemed to go by really fast this year. I am really hoping that next summer treats us a *little* bit better :)