Finally...

This is probably the happiest post that I have made for a long time :) <----- See, happy! So, for those of you who don't know, Ryan finally got a job. It has been a VERY long road, but we are excited for a new little part of our lives.

About a year ago, I ran over to my parent's house one Sunday afternoon for something. Their home teachers were there, and somehow the subject of Ryan's employment came up. One of their home teachers is the director of PEHP, public employees health plan, for the State of Utah. He mentioned that they might have something coming up and he'd keep us posted. Well, who knows what has gone on there for the last year, but finally, just before Christmas, he sent Ryan an email saying that a position for an actuarial analyst had been posted. They only left it up for about 3 days, and it was right before Christmas, so we were hoping that they didn't get too much interest for it. Just after the new year, they called and schedule an interview with Ryan for January 12th. We prepared like crazy!! We did mock interview together with like every spare moment we had. On January 24th (about the time we were starting to lose hope!) they finally called and offered him a position. It was a good day!

It has been a very long road. It was 21 months, to the day, since Ryan graduated from BYU. We had such high hopes when he graduated, but I guess the Lord had some refining to do on us! I hope it worked... at least a little bit. I do have to say that we have learned a lot. Both of temporal and spiritual things. Ryan spent a lot of time with the LDS employment center in those 21 months. Their "motto" I guess you could call it - the thing they put all over their literature - is "if you are prepared, ye shall not fear". That became our own family motto. We worked hard, prepared as much as we could, and tried to stay as faithful as possible. Obviously, I would never wish for that to happen to anyone, especially not myself, but as with all trials, I'm very grateful for the things that we learned. My prayers now are that we will remember them, and remember these times when we were forced into humility!

We still have a long road ahead. The pay is well below the average for an entry-level actuary, and because of the little hole that we've dug being poor over the last 6 1/2 years, we have some catching up to do. So we're probably not going anywhere for a while. Oh, and first item on the list is a new car so we can have more babies!! :) We're very squished in our car already, and we just can't go on much longer. It doesn't help that we're all like a mile long, so our legs don't fit in anywhere! But some people are happy we're staying. My brother wouldn't even congratulate Ryan until he made sure that the job was in state and we would still be close. Which is a little selfish because he's going to be leaving us soon, but oh well :)

Although a lot of the people that I am most grateful for probably don't even read this, I'm going to say it anyway. I'm grateful for our ward who reached out so much to help us. I guess really he wouldn't even have this job if we didn't go to church because he never would have gotten that connection. There were also several others who gave us names and phone numbers of people who may be able to help. Everyone in our ward was so supportive. I'm grateful for my awesome friends who listened to me complain about dumb little things all the time. Thank you for letting me vent! I'm grateful that my marriage survived, and quite well actually! Not that it was ever in any danger, but I know things like this are tough on a marriage. I'm so grateful that both Ryan and I always managed to turn to each other, rather than pushing each other away in all the stress and frustration. I'm grateful for my babies, who made life so bearable. Ryan and I often wondered whether having Bella, and then Evan, was the wise thing to do in our situation. After having them for a while, we realized that they were the only sanity and comedic relief we had! I'm grateful for their awesome little personalities that make us laugh every day. And last but not least, I'm so grateful to both of our families. I know that a million prayers were said for us by those closest to us over the last couple of years. Our families have been so supportive, both emotionally and financially. Thank you Andy and Sarah for all the clothes you've given us. I know we avoided probably thousands of dollars in clothes for our kids over the years. I don't think our budget would've worked without them! And a special thanks to both of our parents. They've put up with a lot having us so close ALL the time!! And the support financially has been so helpful. Obviously Ryan's parents have allowed us to live in their home for a long time. That has been incredibly helpful!

We are just grateful for everyone who has helped and grateful for this new opportunity for Ryan. And, best of all, we're sooooooooo excited that he got to quit UPS. Next week is his last and it feels surreal. Ryan started that job before we even got married. The real test of our marriage is to see if I can adjust my evening schedule to have Ryan in it! I've gotten very used to my quiet evenings and having those hours while he's at work being the most productive of my day. It's going to be so weird to have him home at night, but I'm so excited! I will no longer be the only sister in the ward that needs the R.S. to provide babysitting for the night Relief Society meeting!! And now we can go to the ward Christmas party together! I know, they seem stupid, but I really have missed him at night. So, the job that was supposed to be temporary, for a year max, we will say goodbye to after 6 1/2 years. And I don't think we'll miss it!

Sorry this got so long. If any of you made it through this, congrats ;) I just feel like I have to say thank you to some people that have helped make this a rewarding and educational experience for us! Maybe my next post will have pictures...

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year

Before I get into Christmas, I thought I'd update those who haven't seen Bella for a while. Her hair was getting really long, and I was getting really sick of it! Because of all the curls, it would get so badly tangled. Even with conditioner, it was taking me about 10 minutes each day to brush it out. Because I'm always late, this didn't go over well for me and my time schedule! So I decided to cut it off. I was really sad, and shed a couple small tears while I did it, at having her curls gone, but I'm in love with the new hairdo! We went from this...

To this...

Now I just brush it out and throw in a headband, and we're good to go. We will miss Bella's curls, but this is definitely a better deal for both of us.

We started the holiday season out with some good fun in the snow. This was the first year we got Bella all bundled up and actually played in the snow. Ryan also took her sledding that day and said she loved it. I stayed home with Evan because we didn't have any snow clothes for him. He wasn't very happy about being left behind.

We also decided to do a gingerbread house this year. I thought it would be fun with Bella. She's finally getting old enough to do some of this fun stuff. Turns out all she really wanted to do was eat the frosting!

This is the side of the roof that Bella did...

And this is Ryan's side...

It was kind of hard for me to not be a perfectionist about it, but I withheld and let Bella just throw frosting and candy all over it and she loved it. She had fun eating all the candy off of it over the next few weeks.

We also decided to take the kids down to temple square to see the lights. Bella thought it was totally cool.

And, true to Bella's form, her favorite thing was the sheep! She's always so interested in the most random parts of things! But we stood here and looked at the sheep for like 20 minutes. Whatever makes her happy!

We got a little tree this year, to fit in our little space! We put it up on the pool table so the kids couldn't get to it. The whole time, Bella called it HER tree. That's the way of most things around here - everything belongs to Bella! We let her have this one!

Christmas finally came!! That last week was crazy busy and I felt like I was never going to get everything done. I ended up not finishing Evan's stocking, but he didn't notice so it was a good thing to drop off the list. We spent most of the evening with Ryan's family, and made a small appearance at my house later on that night. I made the kids pajamas for Christmas and we let them open them on Christmas Eve.

They were so stinking cute, and Bella loved her princesses!

They actually look happy here, but Evan is very unhappy! Bella was tackling him and trying to have a special moment, but Evan wasn't down with that!

Christmas morning!! So, Bella hasn't really figured Christmas out completely. Ryan woke up at about 9:00 and Bella and Evan were still sleeping, which is kind of unusual. Ryan LOVES Christmas, so not having his children wake up excited for it was really hard for him! I just enjoyed the sleep! He finally went in at 10 to wake them up. And then they were excited! Santa brought a lot of new toys that they really enjoyed. Like this new teepee. Santa spent A LOT of time on this teepee on Christmas Eve to get it finished for Bella! When she saw it, she gasped and put her hands up to her mouth. She stared at it for a minute, then said "can I get in it?" She and Evan have loved it since and it made all of Santa's hard work well worth it.

They also got a new car set, Evan got a basketball hoop, and a little Toy Story table with 2 chairs for them. Their stockings were filled with all kinds of fun toys. Santa also brought Toy Story 3, which has been a huge hit since.

After spending some time with Ryan's family on Christmas morning, we headed over to my parents for dinner and more presents.

Christmas joy...

My mom made the pajama pants for all the kids again. That's 14 - yes, count 'em - 14 pairs of pants. Next year it'll be 16, or more if anyone else decides to get pregnant in the next couple of months. I'm not sure how long she'll be able to keep it up at the rate we're all going, but they're cute while it lasts! This is everyone but my brother's kids, who weren't in town for Christmas.

All the girls...

And the boys... (we're a little lopsided!)

The Monday after Christmas, my mom, sisters and I got together for our annual shopping trip. It was a "true" sisters shopping trip this year. Neither of my sisters-in-law could make it this year, which was a bummer. But we had a blast. I took my camera to take pictures of the fun, and ended up with two pictures of Terra! She took one picture of me, but I haven't gotten it from her yet. So much for recording the memories! But this shirt was hilarious. It says "I'm not short, I'm fun size!", which we thought was pretty funny for Terra to put on.

Terra in her awesome heels... These made her about 6'7", 6'8".

Our 6th anniversary was on the 28th. Ryan had a friend get married on the 29th, so we made those festivities part of our celebrating. It was kind of fun to go watch a wedding for our anniversary. After the wedding, we went down to the Gateway and saw a movie and had dinner. My bestest friend (You rock, Katie!) got us a room at her hotel down at the Gateway and we enjoyed a nice night there. It was sooooooo beautiful to wake up to silence! I love my kids dearly, but man they are a rude awakening sometimes! My mom and sister were awesome and watched our kids for us the whole day and overnight.

The next day we went to my sister-in-law's apartment to watch a movie and have lunch. Since she's been on bedrest with her pregnancy, she doesn't get to get out much, so we thought we'd go entertain her. We had a fun afternoon together. There's a picture of that, but I don't have it yet (hmmm, maybe I should've waited to do this until I had all the pictures :)

New Year's was a blast too. My sister came with her kids, Terra was in town, and David invited a couple of friends over. My aunt and uncle, cousin, her husband and baby all came over to party with us. We had tons of good food as we rang in the new year.

So, that was our holidays. ryan took the week between Christmas and New Year's off of work , so we had about a week and a half of no responsibility and no stress. It was wonderful! It was hard to get back into reality. So here we are with a new year. We're praying that this year bring more success and happiness than last year did! We're hoping that this is our year! I hope everyone's holidays were wonderful and full of love and happiness. And I hope everyone has a fantastic year this year!