Family

December 21, 2008

Noah--I think I caught him a little off guard. He looks kind of confused and surprised. :)

We went to Omi's to get the rest of our stuff that we had there, and Mya decided she wanted to try to ride Daddy's scooter. So cute!

Another week has gone by incredibly fast! I think we are ready for Christmas, finally. I am still trying to finish making one last present for Toby, but I'm not sure how that is going to pan out since he is off until this Saturday. Hmm....we'll see.

Daddy taught Mya how to eat her Jello with a straw. She loved it!

Daddy put Noah's hair up like Alfalfa from The Little Rascals. He almost looks a little skeptical.

So, Toby's work schedule has changed yet again. They are going back to the 14, 7 schedule, which I am quite excited about because I like it better than the other one. I like the idea of having a full week off to do pretty much whatever we want and not having to worry about him taking off work to do it. We have also found out that starting January 1, we will no longer be receiving a per Diem and our insurance rates have changed. Also, with the new schedule, Toby will be getting less hours. The per Diem is a $30/day allotment for food that we used to get for every day that Toby worked. I believe the price of our insurance has gone up as well as our co payment. Plus, we are now taking out money for a flex spending account for our medical expenses. While the changes are a bit inconvenient, we really don't mind so much. The changes are due to the oil business not doing as well. The company is doing whatever they can in order to not lay people off, so that when things start going up, they don't have to rehire people. In which case, I have no objections. I would much prefer my husband to have a job with reduced benefits than for him to not have a job at all, as I'm sure anyone else would.

My brother, Jeramy, had a couple of weeks of leave from Iraq. On his way back to Alaska, he had a layover at DFW, so the kids and I decided to go and see him. Mya warmed up to Uncle Jeramy fairly quickly. We get to see him again on his way back. We're very excited!

This past week we also celebrated my birthday. We were going to go on a date, but since we were out and about shopping, we just decided to take the kids to dinner with us. We went to a place called Sweet Tomatoes. We used to go to the ones in Utah, and I figured it would be a safe place to take the kids. Hopefully, one of these days soon we will actually be able to go on a real date without the kids. As much as I love them, it would be nice to have a night out with just Toby and me.

I think Noah looks absolutely adorable in this outfit. My handsome little man!!

This was at our ward Christmas celebration. It was called A Night in Bethlehem. They had the cultural hall all set up like a market back in Biblical times. We had to take a tax of one can of food per family member. Once we paid our tax, we received "money" to play games and buy refreshments. Then we had a program that the Primary children put on that was basically a dramatization of Luke 2. It was very spiritual. Oh yeah, we got to dress up like they did back then. :)