Pockets and Little Sis

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

open house at School

We had an Open house at school tonight and a mini-performance by Pocket's class. I didn't have time to edit the pictures but didn't think you would care :>

Sweet Girl in her Christmas Shirt

William was very shy and didn't want to participate. He was compeltely able to sing the songs and had told me the word to the poem they said several times over th past week. Silent as a mouse though tonight.

Got to pet a donkey and a pony in the staged inn.

Little Sis apparently is not as afraid of Santa as I thought she would be.

Saturday, December 1, 2012

Freckles the Elf

Pockets and Little Sis got a package on the front porch today. It came with a letter from Santa and a small elf doll named Freckles.

Daddy read the letter outloud from Santa so that we could all hear.

Per Santa's request Freckles was part of our Advent lessons tonight. Crazy kid!

Little Sis loved playing with Freckles today. Here she is putting her back in bed for the night.

The two sweethearts are excited to see if Freckles makes a good choice tonight.

More than likely she will be on her best behavior tonight, but will probably have a slip up in the coming days when they are not expecting it. :)

Here is a copy of the letter that Santa sent.

Dear William and Adalynn,

First of all I have to tell you that I think you are both very special. I know you are filled with love for each other and your parents, but more importantly, you are learning to love Jesus. Did you know that I believe and love Jesus? Well, I do!

Because I believe in Jesus I have to tell you something very important. You know that whole naughty and nice list that everyone is talking about? Well the truth is, I don’t really have a naughty and nice list. Because I believe in Jesus, I have learned about grace and being saved from what we deserve. I know you are learning about Jesus and his grace for us too. Like when you make a bad choice and when you choose sin, Jesus gives you grace and loves you still! And sometimes I know your parents give you grace too… like when you deserve to be disciplined, but they give you another chance! Nobody is perfect but I know that Jesus loves us all the time no matter what. I also care about you and want to give good gifts to you no matter what. So you don’t need to be worried about being naughty or nice for me to come to your house. If you believe that I will come to your house and leave you a special surprise, then I will come!

The second part of this letter is to ask you a favor. I know that you and your parents have been doing the Advent lessons to learn more about God, his son Jesus, and the reason for Christmas celebrations. These are important lessons and I know that you are learning a lot. I have a special friend of mine that would like to hear these lessons too. This is Freckles the elf…..

She is a dear friend of mine, but recently has been struggling to make good choices. I have explained grace to her several times and explained why Jesus had to come, to rescue all of us from sin, but she still needs to learn more. I thought that if she stayed with you until I come on Christmas Eve, that you might be able to include her in your advent lessons so that she could learn more about how Jesus loves us. I know that you both are learning to obey God because he first loved you. I care about Freckles dearly and want her to know that God loves her too.

One important thing about Freckles is that she is an elf and elves are not the same as humans. Freckles stays still during the day, but moves around at night. You can talk to her and play with her though just like Monkey and Jingles. Freckles loves to take adventures especially at night, but this is typically when she can get in trouble too by making bad choices, so you will have to check on her each morning and make sure that she is still in her bed.

When I told Freckles that she was coming to stay with you, she jumped up and down with excitement! She really thinks you guys are a lot of fun, and she can’t wait to learn more about how you treat each other, how you love God, and more about Texas. It is really cold here at the North Pole, so she is excited about the warmer weather.

Have Fun! I’ll be back on Christmas Eve to pick up Freckles and will drop off a surprise for both of you! If you happen to not be at home though for Christmas Eve, just bring Freckles with you on vacation and I will pick her up wherever you are!

Thanks so much,

Santa

Saturday, November 17, 2012

Pictures

A huge thanks to Laura H. a friend of ours in Lubbock for taking some really sweet famly pictures. I tried to pick some of our favorites to post here.

Simple and sweet holiday picture

Little Sis is so photogenic

Just a few more family pics!

Pockets is such a cheeser. He was so exctied to
wear his boots.

Not even joking that these are the only two pictures of sweet little girl alone. This is exactly how she acts all day long.

Now here is our favorite pic of the session and the main reason why we had them made...

Saturday, October 20, 2012

Long time to see

It has been several weeks since I have written anything and I am sorry about that but like always, time is short. I have been working almost a full time schedule with ECI and I have picked up a few private therapy kids too. Ryan has been working from home while the kids are at Parent's Day Out and being a wonderful Stay at Home Daddy the remainder of the week. Plus then you add soccer games on Saturday and all the chores for the house and that just doesn't leave a lot of time for relaxation.

Hopefully though, I will have more time at home soon and Ryan will be fulfilled by his work. That right Ryan got a job!

When we moved here, Ryan felt that he really wanted to make a career change, but knew that getting into something that he had no experience with would be difficult. We decided to look into both civil engineering firms (what he has done for ten years) and commercial construction companies (what he really wants to do). We made a budget and determined what amount of money we would need to pay the bills and determined our minimal salary we would accept. Right away when we moved here he got an offer from engineering firm #1 but the salary was significantly lower than we needed. Soon after that Ryan got an offer from construction firm #1 and the salary was only slightly below so we thought long and hard about and accepted their offer hoping that there would be a chance for salary adjustment in the near future. When Ryan called to accept the offer (only two days) they said that they had changed their mind. Month after month passed and no offers from from anyone. All the construction firms (#3, #4, #5, #6) in town kept saying the same thing "if we win this next project you are who we will be calling" but apparently it was never the right timing. Somewhere in early 2012 we got an offer from engineering firm #2 but again the salary was significantly low. What Ryan was making in 12 hours a week at home was what he would be making working 40-50 hours at this firm.

At this point we feel like idiots! We had two houses at that time, two kids, only two part time jobs and yet we were turning down jobs for full time work here in town. We just have to say that we felt very strongly that we were living God's plan for us at that time. We were not pleased with the circumstances, but knew we were following in obedience.

Well, now for the exciting news. Last Wednesday construction firm #4 who Ryan had interviewed with almost 2 months earlier called and asked if he could come in for a second interview. Luckily Ryan was available that same day and they scheduled for that afternoon. During the interview, they talked about his responsibilities and such and then offered him the job and quoted a salary above the number we had in our budget! They then asked if he could start that coming Monday. With huge excitement Ryan accepted the offer. He is now a Project Engineer for Minnex Commercial Construction. He assists the Project manager with paperwork tasks, getting submitals, and watching timelines but he also works on site to assist the Superintendent in work orders, changes in the plans, etc. He is soooooooooo excited. Although he would have accepted almost any job with a construction firm, this job is exactly what he wanted.

As for the rest of the family, I turned in a request to my company to decrease my hours but this will not be effective till Nov. 1st so we found a college student here in town to watch the kids after school two days a week and worked with both kids teachers to have them take the kids home the remaining days. This first week was an adjustment, but well worth it!

Not the best picture, but this was taken first thing in the morning before I went to work at ECI and the last day that Ryan would be a stay at home daddy!