Wow - so a whole month has gone by. It's rather nice to know we don't have big news to report, because at this stage, unless we won 1 million dollars, it would probably be bad news. But, believe me, when that million dollar check comes in the mail - I will let you all know and dinner would be on us!
SCHOOL
So I registered my baby Patrick for classes, that was so emotionally traumatizing for me - who knows how I'll be when we actually take him to class for the first time. And guess what? I'm registered for classes for Summer semester! My sleep and the cleanliness of our house will suffer - but it has to get done. Don't let my changing of majors fool you, I am determined to get a Bachelor's degree! (I've changed my major 7 times only to end back up at the one I started with, go figure.) It will be 12 credits and I'm super excited. The end goal: A Bachelor of Arts degree: Art and Visual Communications with concentration of photography.
WORK
Matthew is still a Table Coordinator at Nu Skin and has had a very stressful last couple of weeks. Overall, he's enjoying it and has many good coworkers. I am still working graveyards too and still loving it. That's enough about work - it's boring.
Summer!
Summer is on it's way and I am super duperly excited. I have planted some flowers already and even attempted green beans in this little spot - but that soil must be terrible because they started dying the following day. I dumped a bunch of liquid miracle grow on them, let's see if a miracle comes through! We have a trip planned to go to California to see Matthew's grandparents and aunt Suzy - we are so excited! That's going to be the end of May. Stephen is going to be taking swim lessons and Patrick will soon be starting the next level of ice skating classes. (He is so good, he got to skip two levels - yay!) And Matthew would sure love to go shooting a bunch, I'm guessing. That's his newest hobby. William has every intention to keep growing... I try convincing him to stop every day but he won't. We'll see how NICU boy reacts to our blow up pool we use in the summer with cold water. (He hates cold, we're guessing from the comfortable high temp that was maintained for him in the NICU.) But he loves water, so we'll find out!
"Fix it" TICKET
Matthew would appreciate the honorable mention for his lovely fix it ticket. We finally got our van fixed - yay. It was still damaged from the hit and run in October. Anyway, we used my dad's truck while it was getting repaired and once in a while a front headlight will short out - which we didn't know at the time. Matthew has not been pulled over for 10 years and a cop decided it was time to shake things up; however, it was just a "fix it" ticket and the officer assured him there would be no charge. Matthew goes to address the ticket a few days later and, "$40.00 please." He was irate, to say the least - not only upset that there was a charge, but extremely upset that the officer mislead him. He gave his shpeel to the lady and she lowered it to $20.00. AND this stupid thing goes on his record... what's the point of putting a fix it ticket on a person's record? Oh this is a repeat light-outer, he's a menace to society. And it's not even his truck. Sorry, hun.
In the Middle
Stephen's been stuck in the middle, poor guy. Stephen went through this phase for about 2 weeks. He would be destructive to things, including his own toys, make messes - he PEED in the LITTER BOX, broke a mirror... it was making me so sad that we didn't know what to do. Then I realized, Patrick is old enough - we can give him instructions and Stephen will follow. Patrick's also learning to read and took ice skating lessons. William is so tiny, he needs help for everything - eating, holding, diaper changes... I realized Stephen was not getting much interaction. We were in the van and I asked Patrick if he was all buckled up - I don't ever ask Stephen because I KNOW he is because I buckle him. Still, I decided if I'm talking to Patrick - I can't ignore Stephen. So, I said, "Stephen, are you buckled up?" He excitedly said, "yes I am!" So Matthew and I put conscious effort into speaking up with him, hugging him more and trying to teach him things for his level and he's way better now. Lesson learned for us - all you other young parents, hopefully you can learn from our mistake and give attention to the "middle kid" on a constant basis so you don't have that sad, destructive phase.
We love our ward, love our home, love our cat and love having jobs. Life is good. :)
