Back in the Saddle

It has been an amazing week for our family. Thad was contacted last week by Rain for Rent here in Bakersfield and interviewed with several people. Last night we got the call offering him a job as their Director of Construction Management. Basically this amazing opportunity was dropped right in our laps. Rain for Rent till now has been a rental/fabrication company and would like to expand to a service company. The problem is that they have no Construction managers or project managers in any of their branches across the country. And since amazingly enough this national company was started right here in Bakersfield and still holds headquarters here, they wanted a Bakersfield guy to develop and run this new branch of their company. They were really impressed with Thad's knowledge and we realized again just how much the Lord has been guiding our little family. Had it not been for Thads experience in Fillmore, he would not have gotten this job. We hated him being in Fillmore at the time, but now have to be very grateful for the things he learned on that job and the people he made contacts with.
About a month ago I told Thad that we really needed to learn whatever it was the Lord wanted us to learn from him being unemployed quickly, so that he could get another job. And I think now, that Heavenly Father is still trying to beat the same old lesson in to my head. Patience, and faith that He really will take care of everything. That His plan will always be better than my plan, and that he is fully aware of each of our individual needs. Now, the fact that I realize this is what I'm supposed to be learning will probably not stop me from stressing and worrying the next time one of my plans for life has been derailed, but I promise to try to have more faith and trust so that we don't have to keep re-learning lessons.
So yay! Thad is gainfully employed!
To celebrate we drove up to Fresno today and took the kids to the Zoo up there. It's a very nice little zoo and the weather was perfect. We saw elephants, monkeys, zebras, tigers, bears, giraffs, seals, sting rays, and lot's of birds and reptiles.

Andi with some Lazy Kangaroos.


Sammy concentrating on the Zebras

Thad and the kids in "the Rainforest"


Going back to last week, Sammy has started doing the Mowgli crawl for some reason. It looks painful on the hips, but he's very fast with it, as you can tell from the blur of the picture.


He also got Roseola for a couple days. He was a little fussy but for the most part was a trooper. Here is a close up of the poor little guy.

Close up of his polka dot tummy.

Andi has made the leap from tricycle to big girl bike with training wheels. We have had two skinned knees so far, but we finally got a helmet and knee pads and hope that will lesson future injuries.
I can't express how grateful we are to all of our family and friends who kept us in their prayers these last 4 months, and especially for Renee who made sure, yet again, that I had a means of income. We feel very blessed and are excited for Thad to take on this new challenging position.

Another week goes by

Our latest "growing pain" with Andi is sharing her toys with Sammy. What's funny is that we have the biggest problem with her baby toys and things she hasn't played with in months and months. As soon as I pull it out of storage or the bottom of her closet for him she wants it and more importantly doesn't want him to have it. Like this bear chair for example. She hasn't used it in quite some time, but now she and Sammy have to sit on it together because she can't stand to have him on it all by himself.


She is very good about playing with him outside and is teaching him all kinds of fun/dangerous things. Like how to climb up the slide.

He did crawl all the way to the top, but I had to put the camera down at that point to make sure he didn't crawl off the edge of the play house.


And now we have some before and after of the bathroom. This is the original before, like before we moved in. Don't worry, the walls and cabinets were painted since the week we moved in, but the tile and new fixtures are what we have just finished working on.


And here is the after. Note the gross linoleum on the before, and the lovely tile in the after.


This is what is behind the cute curtain now. before it was one of those solid plastic things.


And here's a close up of the new floor. And Thad was right, it really did take no time at all. He had it all laid in one day, and after the 24 hour required wait time had it grouted the next.


And this is the new piece of wall decor in my bedroom, painted by my very talented friend Chelsie. I gave her a color scheme and she came up with this. I am actually going to be make a quilt and drapes with these colors and re-decorate our bedroom with this as the inspiration. When? I don't know. But it's on my list.

New Discoveries

If you hadn't noticed from the blog re-design I'm back. Not because anything fabulous happened and I'm back at home during the day, but because Thad was over the blogging fun and I kept having to pester him to update "our family journal." So I took it back.
Sammy has made all sorts of new discoveries lately. He likes to help me unload and reload the dishwasher.


He likes to splash in water, not matter where he finds it.


He likes to watch Baby Einstein videos, and will sit there zoning with a goofy little grin.


He likes to drink bathwater, but don't worry, he only likes it fresh from the faucet.

I saw him do that and of course had to grab the camera, and realized that this little guy knew what I was doing. He kept taking drinks over and over, but in between drinks he'd look at me sideways like this to make sure I as still watching and taking pictures.


And then when he was done he had to come get a close up shot.

He's such a happy fun little tank of a guy.
Andi has been doing some interesting things lately too. First, she likes to wear hats, and when we leaves the house she usually needs to have a hat, her sun glasses and her purse, meaning she looks something like this for her trip to the grocery store.

She has also decided that it is no longer fun to smile nicely for pictures and ends up doing something like this.In project news we put a new light fixture in the entryway. There has been this gross gold one, but it was one of those small projects that just kept getting pushed to the bottom of the list because it would take no time at all. This is the before.

And this is the after. Of course Thad couldn't just switch fixtures, he had to re-center and cut a new whole for a new box and new wiring, so it would be perfectly centered on the tile.


Today's project. Tiling the bathroom floor! Again, he says it will take no time at all, but I'll let you know how that goes.