Change of Plans

After a lot of thought, prayer and discussion, Evan and I have decided that our plan to go to Austin for graduate school was not right for our family at this time. We've decided that Evan is going to apply to be an officer in the Air Force and we're so excited for this new chapter in our lives!

While thoroughly exploring the option of living in Austin, and feeling like it just wasn't right, we started talking seriously about the military. Evan set up an appointment with a recruiter to talk about his chances of becoming an officer. After the meeting with the recruiter,  Evan took the Air Force Officer Qualifying Test a few weeks later and did great! After getting his scores back we felt like we have a really good chance of him getting into the Air Force as an officer. So we fasted, prayed, and discussed this option and we both feel like it's the best option for our family and we're both really excited and happy with our decision. 

I'll try to answer all of the questions that seem to be the ones most people ask:

• Applications for the next selection board of officers will be due mid September. The board will make their selections sometime in October and we should know whether we've been selected in November or December.
• Evan does not have to take a physical fitness test, just a physical exam.
• Evan wants to be a pilot and wants to fly C-130's, C5's, and all the big planes. I can't remember which ones they are.
• If Evan is selected he'll have to attend Officer Training School in Alabama for 9 weeks. After that, hopefully he'll go into flying school. 
• If Evan is not selected to be a pilot, we will try again as a non-rated (non-flying) candidate. Unfortunately, you can't apply for both rated and non-rated positions at the same time.
• I know, I'll be alone a lot. It sucks, but I think with being able to visit family often, being busy with Finn, and the fact that I can do hard things will make it not so horrible.
• The pay is not too shabby, especially with housing allowance to help us out. 
• The Air Force deployments are usually shorter than other branches of the service.

That's all I've got for now. Wish us luck and keep us in your prayers that Evan will be selected.

Crafty Aspirations and Failure to Launch

I sit here and I think, I could probably make a super cute blanket out of this fabric, or paint a cool design on this canvas, or make an awesome collage with my new Cricut. Then I think, Finn! Don't eat that bug!, or Finn! Don't pull those cords!, or Finn! Please stop clawing on my skin to get to my phone on the other side of me.

I don't know how people do crafts AND have children. I really, truly don't. When I have time to myself (when Finn is napping, or having a bottle), I'm cleaning, doing laundry, taking a shower/getting ready, balancing the checkbook, trying not to fall asleep myself, etc. I know Finn goes to bed early, but once he's asleep, I just want to hang out with Evan and chill.

So to those mothers out there who craft, clean, shower and have kids...You are awesome!

Travel, Disappointment, New Opportunities, and Hair Plugs

Recently we made the trek to Austin to find our new home. For those of you who don't know, Evan got accepted to graduate school at the University of Texas at Austin. 

Anyway, so the plan was to go to Austin, look for houses, put an offer in and we'd be moving into our first (owned) house and be poor for the next 6 years. 

As usual, things didn't go according to plan. Right before we got out there we found out that we couldn't get approved for a loan on Evan's student salary (you'd think we would have expected that since the final part of the plan was to be poor for the next 6 years), and we'd have to find a place to rent and try again once Evan received regular paychecks. 

It also didn't help that we were staying in a hotel we deemed The Crapwood Suites, where their motto was "Friendly and Clean" but really should have been "We're Cheap. You Get What You Pay For". We got a screaming deal on Hotwire (screaming for dear life) for $36 a night and later read reviews that someone got bedbugs there. We felt itchy and paranoid the entire time. Rest assured, we didn't bring any little friends home. 

The day after we arrived at the Crapwood Suites, we put on our game faces, (despite our feelings of dejection, hopelessness, and overall crappiness), and looked for apartments and duplexes. Anything we could get our grubby mitts on for a decent price. If you're ever looking for cheap rental housing in Austin, I'd highly recommend taking your search elsewhere. We saw some real dumps. They were awful. We looked at a duplex in a neighborhood where someone had been shot the previous week, a complex that had a "Lock your car, Take your keys, hide your belongings," sign in the drive, and some overall crap places to live. The "low income" apartment housing was $800+ a month, for complete crap. I know for you Californians this is chump change, but when you consider that a mortgage payment would have been around $500 a month, it's ridiculous. 

Needless to say, we were disappointed. It felt like we had exhausted our options and it felt so hopeless. We finally found a decent place for a decent price, but it was probably one out of 40 that we called or looked at. I called them to see if the unit was still available and they had rented it out and a smaller one is available now. 

Everyone told me Austin was an amazing city and I'll love it. I just saw a city. A plain old every day city with a street full of bars and semi decent bands. I guess when all you see is low income housing, any city can look like the poops though. 

This process has helped us to consider other options and look at new opportunities and try to see the positive side of things. 

We did eat at lots of food trucks, we went inner-tubing on the Colorado river in Bastrop and got to swim at my sister's fancy hotel pool (bug free and everything)

 

It was great getting to see my sister and her husband and my niece who's a month older than me. They live in Houston, only 3 hours from Austin. Always a plus having family near by. 

While we were gone we left Finn with his grandparents and it was terrible being away from him! We missed him so much! After a week of not seeing him, he didn't grow that much, though his hair was much thicker than when we left. Did my parents use Mane 'n' Tail? Hairplugs? We may never know. But he sure is cute and we're glad to be back with him. 

All in all it was an interesting trip and resulted in some big decisions needing to be made. We're glad we went and were even more glad to be home. 

Austin, you're weird. 

All About Baby Emails and the Stress that Follows

When I was pregnant I signed up for all of those weekly emails that told me what to expect that week of pregnancy. I was hoping that I'd show symptoms for weeks in advance and that I'd stop being pregnant a month before my due date. That didn't happen. While I did show advanced symptoms,  I was right on track for my due date. Sad.

Anyway, now that the boy is finally here, I still get weekly emails from these places telling me what my baby should be doing.

 
Baby should be rolling over both ways? Crap! He gets stuck on his tummy and gets mad and won't go on his back again. Is he slow?

Baby should be sitting unassisted? He just slumps over, and then his fat belly gets in the way and he cries and/or falls over. Is he retarded?

Baby should be holding his own spoon? What? He's 6 months old! He just bangs himself in the eye with a spoon. Is he falling so behind that he's going to be the drooling weirdo in the corner when he's 6 years old?

Baby should be able to drink out of a cup? Ok, maybe he can do this one, we just have to try it out. Maybe he's not retarded.

Baby should be crawling? He's so behind! He only rocks on his hands and knees. Is his brain not functioning at the 6 month level?

Baby should be saying "ma" and "da"? He's only saying "guh" and "uh". 

Am I a bad parent? Am I hampering his success? Will he fail to thrive because I'm not pushing him to do these things yet?

Oh the stress!

Evan pointed out that these emails are at least helping us to know what we should be practicing with him, so I guess I'll keep reading them. And stressing that my baby is challenged.

Even if he is "challenged", he's pretty cute.

Best Day EVER!

The day has finally arrived...

Finn can hold his own bottle.

The Little Mister

I can't believe my little Mister Finnster is four months old. I actually can't believe I have a baby at all, let alone a four month old. I went on a trip to California and as I was waiting for Finn's car seat to come along the luggage belt I thought how odd it was that I own a carseat. And a baby to put inside of it.

Anyway, we have such a funny little guy. He's "talking" all the time now. He's a noisy boy! It's adorable when you're awake and talking with him, but at 4 in the morning when you just wish he'd go to sleep, it gets slightly less adorable and more just plain noisy.

 

We went for his 4 month well check a few days ago and he weighed in at a whopping 17.75 pounds and 26"! He's huge! We're so happy that he's healthy and thriving. We don't even mind having to carry 18 pounds plus the weight of the carseat everywhere we go. Here's Finn hanging out with his cousin's cousin who was born 2 days before Finn. It doesn't look like it, but Finn's got about 6" on this little guy and about 10 pounds.

 Here are a few things I want to remember about our little man:

• When he gets on his tummy he's starting to scoot around, he can't figure out how his arms play into all of it, but he's getting darn good at rocking back and forth. Followed quickly by a shrill scream into the blanket/carpet to say "would someone PLEASE just flip me over?!?"
• He lays on his side all the time because he's too heavy to push himself the rest of the way over. The doctor confirmed my theory that he's too fat to roll over, maybe someday here soon.
• He has a set of lungs. When he gets hungry, you know it. He's a shreiker.  

• We gave him rice cereal for the first time a few days ago. We thought since he love to eat so much that this would be a dream. I envisioned feeding him with his cute little spoon and he'd smile and smack his lips. Instead we got this:

 

 

 

• He has the cutest little laugh. It's not the normal giggle that most babies have. It's more of a huh huh huh huh. 

• He's started to wear himself out and just conk out wherever he lies.

 

• He has the cutest little smile. 

• He's such a good boy. I took him on an airplane, all around San Francisco, on multiple Target trips, to do LOTS of shopping in California and he didn't fuss or cry at all. He just played with his little toys and smiled a lot. He's the best baby.

I just love my little guy. A little girl in the store said, "Mom, that's the cutest baby I've EVER seen". I have to say I agree.

Power of Prayer, Tithing and Faith

I don't usually get too spiritual on my blog. I just feel weird about it, but I had to share this experience because it was just so amazing.

Evan and I have been struggling to make a decision on whether I should/can stay home with Finn. If I stay home we'll be extremely poor and eating beans and rice for dinner every night. If I go back to work I'll miss all of Finn's milestones and he won't have the benefits of a parent with him all the time. In the middle of all of this stressful decision making, even more stress came our way.

In the fall we borrowed some money to buy a car. We bought a great little 2005 Honda Civic Hybrid that we got for a great price. Little did we know that after 8 years and 80,000 miles, the hybrid battery has a reputation for going out. This battery costs between $4000 and $5000 to replace. And the warranty ends at,  you guessed it, 8 years and 80,000 miles. 2013 marked 8 years for our car and it's at 83,000 miles. When the battery starts to go out, a cute little light comes on that says IMA. Well, the IMA light went on a few days after Christmas. We were super stressed. We still owed money for this car, we were going to have to pay close to what we paid for the car just to fix the battery and we already had very little money to live on. What were we going to do?

Well, we prayed about it, A LOT. Then we paid our tithing, which was hard to let go of when we have so little money. After praying and paying tithing, I had faith that everything would work out, one way or the other and I'd probably have to go back to work. Evan took the car into AutoZone to get the diagnostic codes the next day and took the codes with him to the Honda dealership. It was the $5000 battery that needed replacing. The person at Honda told him that in November, Honda had extended the warranty for the battery to 9 years and 96,000 miles and they would replace the battery for free.

We know that our prayers were answered and truly feel like we've experienced a miracle. We're so thankful for prayer, tithing and our faith.

In case you were wondering-- we decided I'm going to stay home. I just have to finish out this last month of work and Finn and I will be hanging out all day every day. Woo!