Two Years?

It has been TWO YEARS since I posted. Yikes! Lots has happened. I'll never fill you in on all of the in between. So here is where we are now:

Tim is three and a half, looking forward to his fourth birthday. He attends preschool two days a week and LOVES it. Sunday will be his first week as a Sunbeam out of Nursery.

We also have an AJ. He will be two in April, but thinks he is just as big as Tim. He is OBSESSED with anything to do with cars, busses, trains, planes, etc. Especially the Disney Cars movies, Lightning McQueen, and Francesco Bernoulli. 

My parents bought a new house about three miles away from their old house in Bellevue, NE. We are renting the house I grew up in. The boys love having Grandma, Grandpa, and Laura close by.

Jake is enjoying his new career as a science model! Just kidding. Jake has been working at Teledyne Cetac Technologies in Omaha, NE since March. He is a "customer support chemist". When labs order their equipment, he travels out to their site to install it and train their staff on how to use it. He gets to go see lots of new places. Although they keep seeming to send him to cold places this winter, like Canada, Michigan, and Seattle. He does get to go to Texas soon, though!

I have been working for Craig HomeCare since December 2012 when we arrived in Nebraska. I do pediatric private duty home care. Mostly night shifts for children who have tracheostomies and are on ventilators. I have fluctuated between full time and part time depending on our family's needs. Starting this month, I will actually be dropping to "on-call" and working just a few shifts each month in an effort to keep up on homework, housework, etc with Jake traveling so much. (OH yeah, I'm also in BYU-Idaho's online RN-BSN program).

Church is also keeping me busy. I am the Beehive Advisor, so I teach the 12 and 13 girls most Sundays. I was also just asked to come to Girl's Camp this summer as a Level Leader. I'm super excited about that. :-)

That's the quick and dirty version. Now, in no particular order, here are a bunch of pictures from the last 5 months or so.

We'll see if I can manage to make this a semi-regular thing. 

Another way to catch up on us a bit would be to check out the Family Home Evening blog I started as a project for a school class here: http://toddlerhomeevening.blogspot.com/

December

December is going to be a bit of a crazy month for our family. 

Jake is finishing his last semester. So he is busy writing papers summarizing his research, finishing class assignments, helping students for the class he TA's, preparing for finals, working 20+ hours a week at his THREE campus jobs, etc. Lots to do!

I am much less busy than Jake overall. During the days I'm home watching Tim (which does keep me hopping!). Evenings are when I start my running around! I have been volunteering once a week at the Volunteer Care Clinic - a clinic that provides free healthcare for low income and uninsured families in Provo. It is also the busy season for my handbell choir. I have 4-5 performances a week from now until we move.

Oh yes, and we're moving! (So any free time we have is spent trying to pack up our apartment. You accumulate A LOT of stuff once you have kids)

We have to be out of our apartment on December 19th. That's only two and a half weeks, YIKES!

Where are we going?

Good question. We'd like to know, too!

Jake is currently applying/interviewing for jobs. In fact, he has his first telephone interview tomorrow morning  for a position with DowAgro in Oregon. Oregon wasn't our first choice, but a job is a job! So any free prayers you have, send them his way!

In the meantime, we are going to Nebraska for Christmas. The plan is to just hang out there until we have somewhere else to go. Hopefully we won't be in limbo for TOO long. 

December is hectic to begin with, but ours will be even crazier! So as much as I have enjoyed being a bit of a more regular blogger..... the blogging might be pretty sporadic until we get somewhat settled somewhere. 

There WILL be Christmas pictures of Tim though!

Duck Pond

Earlier this week, Tim and I were out running errands and finished up about the time Jake was going to be done on campus for the day. The duck pond is just down the hill from the chemistry building, so went for a visit while we waited for Jake to finish and meet us.

Tim waving "HI" to one of the ducks.

"GUCK!!!"

Halloween Adventures

As you may know, yesterday was Halloween. We started our festivities on Saturday. Tim and I made a (somewhat brief) appearance at the ward party/Trunk or Treat. 

We only went to about a quarter of the cars involved in the Trunk or Treat before Tim got too distracted by the candy he already had and lost interest.

I don't have too many pictures from that night because it was late. And dark. And it is hard to take good pictures when you can't see what you're pointing the camera at. 

Another couple was taking pictures of their ladybug daughter and Tim invited himself along.

Here's what our ACTUAL Halloween consisted of:

Tim picked this gourd out all by himself at the grocery store a few weeks ago. He gave it rides around in his doll stroller.

Grammy McDonald sent us a box (that arrived just in time for Halloween) with some Halloween shaped mac and cheese! There were pumpkins, ghosts, and.... something else. Maybe witch hats? I probably haven't cleaned up/thrown the boxes away yet, so I should check. It made for a perfect Halloween dinner!

We went to visit Tim's Great Uncle Jim first. We stayed to chat for a while and Tim LOVED helping give candy to the trick or treaters that came while we were there. He probably would have happily done that all night long!

Jim and Kathy live on a circle, so we took Tim trick or treating around the circle (only actually going to about every third house or so). The weather was BEAUTIFUL and he was a champ! Luckily, since he was so cute, people didn't seem to mind if he tried to grab two pieces of candy from the bowl or invite himself into their home. Which was good, there's really no way to "practice" for Trick-or-Treating!

We stopped by my cousin's place afterwards. They go all out for Halloween! Smoke machines, strobe lights,  fake scary gates and fences, her husband and one of his friends/relatives (?) always dress up like some sort of creepy grim reapers and scare the bejeebers out of people who come. Her daughters have babysat Tim and they enjoyed seeing him, while he enjoyed running around with all the other kids.

Summary: Tim rocked trick or treating, stayed up way too late, ate too many sweets, and we all had a great time! I'm excited for next year!  

Our costumes. The cowboy family! I made Tim's pants and Jake's vest. I ran out of time to sew my costume,  so we threw this together before we left. I think they all turned out fairly well!

Chemistry Magic Show

Last week was National Chemistry Week in honor of October 23, known to nerds everywhere as "Mole Day". The BYU Chem Department does lots of fun activities during the week, and we took part in a few. 

Last Wednesday, we took Tim to the Chemistry Magic Show. We didn't stay for all of it because it was past bedtime, but Tim loved all the balloons. Even the fires and explosions.

And of course, we got some liquid nitrogen ice cream!

Tim loved to clap for everything! :-)

It's been a while....

This new blogger is going to take some used to. That says a lot about how long it has been since I posted, amiright? haha.

A quick catch up:


JAKE
Needs to take one more class (he's enrolled for it this fall)

He'll walk in the graduation ceremony in August and then officially be done in December.

He is the manager at the chemistry stockroom during the spring and summer terms.

And excitingness:

He is on a cancer research team!

He went to talk to one of the professors about joining her research team when we found out that we wouldn't be moving in April like we originally thought. She has taught some of his lab courses. Even though she told him she has a waiting list of students who want to be on her team, she wanted to take him right away over all of them! She had seen his lab skills and knew that he did good work and wanted him on her team! Hooray! They are working on a treatment for small cell lung cancer (the kind that non-smokers get). They have had good success in fruit flies and are starting trials with mammalian cells.

The professor didn't have enough funding to be able to pay Jake for his work right now (possibly this fall, when she's expecting some more grants). But this is the kind of work that Jake wants to go into once we enter the *real* world. It is worth it to do this for free in order to get the experience.


MARY
I graduated with my Associate's Degree at the beginning of May.

Graduated with honors even! Not bad for having a kid in the middle of nursing school!

I took the NCLEX at the end of May and passed it with the minimum number of questions.

 (For those of you not familiar with the NCLEX, that means I rocked it!)

Now I am officially "Mary Herrington, RN".

I'm still applying for some hospital jobs (I'd REALLY like a position in pediatrics). 

In the meantime, I've hired on with Vaccines on the Go and Mollen Immunization Clinics. Both are flexible, self-scheduling companies that offer flu shots/vaccinations. They're seasonal positions that will just be during the flu season.


TIM
Runs. Eats. 

TALKS.

A partial list of words he says:

Mama

Dada

Boo (Boob, he's still nursing)

Buh (Boo! for when he's playing peek-a-boo)

NAAAAAAH (Meow)

Book

gock (sock/shoe)

No

More

Bah (Ball)

He can play patty cake and kick balls. 

And he loves canned salmon. Who would've guessed?