It's been awhile

Okay, so it's been a really long time since we updated the blog. So I guess for an update, we'll post pics and brief description. Hopefully it will get us going again. I figure will go most recent and then go backwards. See how far I get tonight.



First up, Rian's first Birthday!!!! Rian turned one yesterday and enjoyed eating cake all by himself. The otehr kids are more interested in playing with his new toys than they are in playing with anything of theirs, but that's always how it works when new toys come home.



Before that, Christmas! It was a full house this year as you can tell from how many stockings are hanging one the mantel. I realized that we didn't take any pictures from Christmas day, all video so that may or may not be added later. But it was a good Christmas and the kids had fun, and that's what matters.




Halloween!
This year for Halloween the boys (Mike, Ben, and Joshua) wanted to go as the three musketeers. Then Ben and Joshua watched Disney's Three Musketeers with Mickey, Donald, and Goofy as the Musketeers. Suddenly they needed Daddy to be Captain Pete (the bad guy) and Rian also became a musketeer. Morgan went as their Princess, and she was very much into the part.



Family Pictures. Once again we went to Sears and we were very happy with the photographer and how well she worked with our kids. It's not easy to get 4 children all cooperating at the same time, but she did a good job.









Well, we'll have to end there tonight as it's getting late. We will try to keep up with this better!!

Tons going on!

Wow, I wish I would have made more posts because now there seems to be a cornucopia of events to catch up on.

Probably the largest is our upcoming move. 2 months ago we spoke with our landlord about the possibility of working out a rent-to-own scenario to buy our current place. Granted, it's to small and neglected but the area's nice and the property values continue to go up. BUT, that changed when he committed suicide.

Yup. Committed suicide.

Apparently, he was going through a divorce, and was living out of his car while his would be ex-wife left their three children oldest 10 or 11 to babysit her younger sister and 8 month old brother. So he moved his retirement and savings into his brother's name, placed their home and our place in a trust with his father as the trustee, then shot himself.

If that isn't a horrible enough story, his father happens to be a doctor. Who works in the emergency room. And was working the day Kory committed suicide. At the hospital the ambulance took him to. And pronounced his own son dead.

Heart wrenching.

But this left us in an awkward situation, Dad wasn't interested in being a landlord but didn't want to not rent to us because Kory would speak highly of us. We weren't interested in trying to buy the place under these circumstances because we were convinced that the ex would scratch for everything she could possibly get and we would rather avoid that.

So the search began. Then as luck would have it, a twin home four houses down from us on the opposite side of the street was for rent. It would be perfect! 3 bedrooms, 2.5 baths and an unfinished basement. Helen went and looked at it, and liked it, we put in our app and waited. And waited. And waited. They were happy with our references and us. The landlords lived in the area and were familiar with the work that had put into our current place. BUT! We have 2 cats. And we were given a line something like "We'd like to meet with all the applicants". Which is a form of no. Eventually, we decided that we couldn't afford to wait and kept looking. Several home tours later, and nothing.

Then I found an ad in craigslist and sent an email. We went to look at it and Helen had already decided no. The ad was listed as a condo but mentioned having an upstairs and a downstairs so we were intrigued.

It had everything we were looking for except a garage. 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, gas kitchen, fireplace, end unit overlooking a play area and the landlords were quite fine with us having cats. We snatched it. It was in the middle of utah county, in a city were we do a lot of teaching.

But let us take a moment to compare the move in costs:

Rent down the street: $1100
Deposit: $800
Pet Deposit: $1000
Move in: 1st & last months rent + deposits

Total move in: $4000

Townhouse in AF: $1000
Deposit: $800 over 4 months
Pet Deposit: $0
Move in: 1st month + 1/2 deposit

Total move in: $1200

Hmm.... what's the better deal? Hmmm... I wonder.

So, we're moving!

We actually have both places for the month of June, we felt it was better to get the place we liked while it was available rather than risk losing it.

On other news, Rian is doing great. He holds his head up, has started pushing himself up and has been cooing.

Ben's last day of 1st grade is today, Josh's last day of preschool was last Friday. We have short video clips of their end of the school festivities that we'll be posting shortly. Morgan is almost totally potty trained! Every time she goes to the potty, she gets starbursts depending on if she goes #1 or #2.

I've been working both jobs relatively consistently. My night job has been difficult, mostly because it's so easy and I've been focused on selling instruments and such during the day.

Helen's Mother's day gift was to be a participant in an English Horn Masterclass that happens annually at BYU. She's wanted to go the past couple of years but it's never been in the budget or she didn't have an instrument. But this year, with both jobs and the tax return, I felt it was time. Plus, I'm always looking for things that are for her. I don't like getting her gifts that aren't really for her. A toaster for instance or the carpet cleaner. No one can use this gift but her. And we were able to use the symphony's instrument.

When I was thinking of enrolling her in the masterclass, there were 4 slots available. Over 2 months before the event. I could wait.... I'm sure I could. But I played it safe and booked it. Then a week later, sure enough the remaining slots were gone! Hooray for not dragging my feet!

As for me, I've been pseudo promoted in the orchestra to principal clarinet. The current/former principal has been on a downward trend lately and is struggling with it so is stepping aside. I was able to play in the pit for My Fair Lady and got my name on a couple of gig lists. It was fairly stressful. Imagine being given music that is two-thirds solo/melody that you have seen for less than 2 hours and perform the concert. Oh yeah, lets make it difficult by making the music hard and throw in some cuts and such. And... good luck, don't suck.

Thankfully, I didn't suck. Yipee! And hopefully I'll get calls for gigs from it.

Well, that about sums up the past 6 weeks or so.

There will be videos and pictures up shortly of the kids!

So ends day one.

Life has just gotten far more hectic beginning this week. Well, I suppose it began two weeks ago. After a band rehearsal, one of our Alto Sax players who is the Band and Orchestra Manager for a large music store (not the one I worked for previously) approached me with a job opportunity.

Their Road Rep had finished a degree in computer science and had accepted a job offer. So they needed to fill his position. I was fairly interested. I had done that same job approximately a year ago for one of their competitors. It was fun and stressful but could take some long hours. So I knew what I'd be getting into.

Long story short, I had an interview, they seemed honest, paid decently (salary + commissions) and an employee discount is always nice. So I decided to accept the job and gave my current employer 2 weeks notice.

We had been experiencing a bit of turn over lately and my news, was not good news for my boss. Then two days before my last day, he made a counter offer. A promotion with a 25% raise + benefits. The catch? They couldn't justify having the two of us on the same shift doing pretty much the same things, so I'd have to move to another shift. Evenings was out, I do to much performing to make that work, now graves however, I'd done those for about 7 months and having some one responsible during the night would make things flow more smoothly.

I accepted, it would allow me to participate in my performance ensembles, go to school, teach, the whole shibang.

Now I had to tell my would be employer that my current employer had made a counter offer and I had decided to stay where I was.

I made the phone call.

Ring.

Ring.

Ring.

A thought.

What if I worked both jobs? The hours are such that they would never overlap. It would mean some long days, some possible hellishly long days but if I could do it, even for only a little while, it would be essentially a 255% pay increase with benefits AND commission, not to mention my discount.

The big drawbacks as family time and performance time now. My schedule is roughly midnight - 8am, 10am - 7pm, Monday - Thursday, then midnight - 8am on Friday and 10am - 6pm on Saturday. So spending time with Helen and the kids is limited to 7pm - 830pm (excluding the days I have rehearsals or performances, from one to three times per week), Fridays and Sundays.

Performance time is tougher now that the largest portion of sleep comes from 8pm - midnight. And losing up to half that sleep time to a rehearsal or concert can mean a very groggy next day.

I'm expecting to get about 6 hours of sleep a day. Some days slightly more, some slightly less. Four hours sleep from 8pm - 12am, then another 1.5 from 8am - 930am, and an hour during lunch.

Sounds extreme?

If someone offered you a 255% pay increase in exchange for 2 hours less sleep per day, would you take it?

Having survived on a shoestring budget for the past, oh, 7 years, we don't know what to do with all this (potential) money. Pay off all debts is #1. If we live off of our usual budget and apply the extra towards those debts, we will have no debts in a very short amount of time.

Of course, we would like to buy a house and do need a new van but we aren't as inexperienced as we were 7 years ago. We plan on taking it slowly and seeing if this will actually work before we get into a mortgage then realize that we can't make it if this proves to be to much.

1 tooth down 19 to go.

This morning before church, it happened. He lost his first tooth. Not without some effort on his part.

He was a little apprehensive and confused at the blood with out pain but a few good rinses and everything is all good.


Before!



After!

Children...1...2...3...4?

I've been a bit lax on keeping everything up to date on the blog. Let me sum up the past couple of weeks.

Sleep
Mike to work
Kids to school/babysitter
Helen to hospital
Kids picked up from school/babysitter
Dinner
Rehearsal
Helen to hospital
Sleep

Do that for 2.5 weeks Monday - Saturday, substitute school and babysitter for Church on Sunday and you know what we've been up to.

We did have some issues with our nursing staff, orders not being followed, etc but all in all it went well.

And today, we brought Rian home.

He weighs in at just over 6 lbs. They gave us oxygen for him but it's suggested, not required. He's breastfeeding well and taking bottles.

He came with two monitors, one for his heart rate and the other for his breathing. But in every other respect he's a normal baby... eat, sleep, poop, repeat. We'll have more pictures of him up shortly!

In other news, Ben has been especially excited. Not because Rian came home, that was only mildly exciting and it meant he had to be quieter. He's really excited about the two loose teeth he has!

The lower front teeth.

But this causes a dilemma for us. Helen was raised with the Tooth Fairy, I was raised with the mouse. I'm sure you're all familiar with the Tooth Fairy and her grossly underpayment for teeth. Now the mouse on the other hand, instead of placing your tooth under your pillow and getting a quarter once, you place the tooth into a glass or jar of water and leave it out for a week. Each day that week the mouse will come and leave you money in the glass/cup. Each day leaving a larger and larger amount. It always starts with a few pennies and a nickel or to but on the last day includes at least one dollar bill AND change.

Over the course of the week you make out significantly better than that cheap skate penny pinching tooth fairy.

But the dilemma is... which one do we use?

This is not a bill.

Over the weekend we received a statement from the hospital, tallying Helen's six week jaunt in the hospital.

The 7 or 8 page document (I don't exactly remember) details everything that Helen was given. From the five cent stool softener to the actual delivery.

All in all, the total cost for her care was just shy of $80,000. Now keep in mind that's just Helen. That's $1,904.76 per day, $79.36 per hour. Rian's costs are approximated to be AT LEAST double Helen's daily costs and possibly upwards of $10,000 per day.

Thankfully, we're covered and SHOULD have to pay 0. Should...

Currently, Rian's been getting a little congested, so they're running some blood work to see if he's getting a cold. Which would be not good. Then starting saturday evening, he started having a couple apnea issues, particularly after feedings. So another gamut of tests are going to be done and it could be as simple as he's spitting up. So, no need to be concerned yet.

We'll keep you informed.

Almost totally in the clear.

Rian gets bigger, stronger and healthier every day. His PDA is gone and they've upped his feeding amounts and have started "non-nutritive" feedings, to help teach him how to nurse. Sounds like fun, except for Helen, as you mothers who have breast fed and pumped know, to pump for 20 minutes, then have to try to have a baby nurse for another 20 equals very tender areas.

They've made it even more interesting because the non-nutritive feeds are to happen twice a day, at least 3 hours apart. Oh, and they're scheduled for 1:30am, 4:30am, 7:30am, 10:30am, 1:30pm, 4:30pm, 7:30pm and 10:30pm. You pick 2 and eventually they'd like to move it up to 4 feedings. As it is, Helen's up every 3 hours pumping.

But things get tricky when you consider, we still have 3 kids and I work. So finding the times to go is getting difficult.

Ben goes to school @ 8
Josh goes to school @ 8:15
Josh gets out of school @ 12:00 (no school for Josh on Fridays)
Ben gets out of school @ 1:15 on mondays, 2:15 Tuesday - Friday
I normally see Rian in the evenings after the others are in bed.

So, the 7:30 would be possible, but I'd have to go to work almost an hour late. 10:30 is possible if we can find a sitter for Morgan every day and not have gone to the 7:30, 1:30 is out because of kids getting out of schools, 4:30 could work, I'd be able to watch the kids and maybe even start dinner, 7:30 is right before bedtime and occasionally I/We have rehearsal, then 10:30 is my time. I didn't even mention 1:30 and 4:30am... that's called sleep.

That about raps it up for the past few days. They're going to take him off of his oxygen soon and that's the last thing he's on, and it's very little at that.