Updates

My family will be very happy to know that I finally posted a couple of pictures of our boy! It has been tricky without high speed internet, because I have a lot of cute pictures I have been wanting to put up!

We are doing well and have a few updates. As you probably know, Jonathan had to quit his job (see previous post) and has been job searching in the Boise area, and we are staying with his family in Adrian, Oregon. It has been a bit frustrating and we have been applying to jobs and sending in resumes like crazy. Well, he did find a job! We were way excited, obviously, however it doesn't pay nearly enough. We knew that it probably wouldn't pay quite as much as we wanted when we applied (it is one of those "depends on experience" things), but we had our hopes that he had enough relevant experience for us to at least be able to scrape by with it. It is a job in an optometry office (ironic) and it is mainly a sales job (selling glasses), but since there are only three people who work there (including the optometrist) he will be doing all sorts of things, including probably making the glasses, which is way cool! We also thought that since that is the case, he would probably get paid an ok amount, since opticians, we have heard, make pretty good money. Well, like I said, he got the job, but he was only offered the BARE MINIMUM amount that was listed. Jonathan was able to talk him up a little, but only 50 cents higher. When Jonathan called me and told me that he got the job, I said "Yay!!" and then when I asked how much they would pay him, he said "you don't wanna know." My husband knows me all too well. :) But, any job is better than no job, so of course we took it.

He had his first day today and really enjoyed it. It is a bummer that the pay is so low - it is definitely enough to pay all our bills right now, but definitely not enough to pay rent. And we are so dying to get into our own place and figure things out. So, he is working there as of today, and we are continuing our search/hoping he'll bring in TONS of revenue for the company and get like a five or six dollar raise. Hey, it could happen, right? :) Anyway, we are really grateful that he at least has A JOB right now.

I have lots of fun pictures of a fun little spontaneous "photo shoot" we had the other day down the road in a pretty little area with some pretty leaves. I actually got a couple of the pictures to load, and will definitely load more later. Isn't he just the sweetest boy? Like my Dad always says, "he's a dandy!"



James is growing like a weed. His favorite thing lately is to look out the window to try and see the dogs and the cats. He gets SO EXCITED when he sees them! He is a great waver and will wave on cue whenever we say "bye bye." Today he was "talking" to my Mom on the phone (aka listening to my Mom talk to him!) and he waved "to" her, it was adorable.

He is my little buddy, and I actually think that in some ways he is a little miniature me! He has this new smile where he smiles so big and squints his eyes shut - which is exactly the way I used to smile when I was little (except my face was a bit more chubby!) I wish I had a picture of me to put next to this one so you could see the comparison!


My parents tell me that when I was little, at mealtime after awhile I would just kind of sit there, not eating much, until they tried to get me out of the high chair - then I would start shoving food in my mouth like crazy! James often does the exact same thing! Just when I think he's all done, I try to take the food away and he just wants more!

Another thing I did when I was little (and I actually have a memory of this) - when I was taking a bath I couldn't STAND for there to be dirt in the bathtub. I would FREAK out and yell "DIRT! DIRT!"and my parents would scoop out the dirt. (Makes me sound like a clean freak or something, but that is totally not the case, anyone who knows me well can attest to that!) Well, the other day I was giving James a bath and he was sitting there playing, when he all of a sudden stopped what he was doing and looked into the water. He found a little speck of dirt and pointed at it! I just had to chuckle to myself.

The other day I went and visited our cute friend Karli, who is in Jonathan's parents' ward. She was so sweet and uploaded some digital scrapbooking software on my computer for me and showed me how to get started. It is SO much fun, I am totally hooked and have already made like 15 or 20 pages. Thanks so much, Karli! Our little boys are close in age and played so cute while we did the computer stuff.

In other news, my best friend Janina had her baby this past week!!! I'm not going to give any of the stats or info, because I know she'll want to tell everyone on her own blog and stuff, but I just can't contain my excitement for her ANY longer and just HAD to say something about it! :) I talked to her on the phone today and it was so much fun. Love you, Janina!

So, all in all we are doing well. :) This has been quite the interesting couple of months for our little family and I have to say that I definitely have learned a bit about faith and relying on the Lord. It is hard sometimes but I know that things will work out somehow. I've been reading the conference talks and they help SO much! I just love Elder Perry's talk and it has actually helped me a lot. I just love this part -

Those of us who have been around a while—and Elder Wirthlin and I have been around for a long time—have recognized certain patterns in life’s test. There are cycles of good and bad times, ups and downs, periods of joy and sadness, and times of plenty as well as scarcity. When our lives turn in an unanticipated and undesirable direction, sometimes we experience stress and anxiety. One of the challenges of this mortal experience is to not allow the stresses and strains of life to get the better of us—to endure the varied seasons of life while remaining positive, even optimistic. Perhaps when difficulties and challenges strike, we should have these hopeful words of Robert Browning etched in our minds: “The best is yet to be” (“Rabbi Ben Ezra,” in Charles W. Eliot, ed., The Harvard Classics, 50 vols. [1909–10], 42:1103). We can’t predict all the struggles and storms in life, not even the ones just around the next corner, but as persons of faith and hope, we know beyond the shadow of any doubt that the gospel of Jesus Christ is true and the best is yet to come.