Friend Wanted: Must be loyal, stable, and fat

I used to have a friend, we were pretty good friends for a while, it was an online thing. We had a lot of laughs and good times together. Then a lot of things happened that made me distance myself from her. She would play what I consider to be "head games" with people. Suddenly people would be locked out of her blog, or she'd delete her blog with no warning. Or she'd watch her visitor counter and call people out who were visiting and not leaving comments. She couldn't stand the thought of anyone not liking her... "how is it possible that anyone could have issues with little sweet me?" She would be posessive of certain friends (ie. me), not allowing room for other friends in that friend's life. She would push me away, hide online, not be around to talk, but then blame me for the distance between us.

I finally had to walk away. I can't have friends like that. I need friends who don't play head games. Who always welcome you in their life and their blog, sweetly and gently. Who don't shove you away and then get mad when you leave. I've found a few good friends like that, and I'll keep them.

Once, she'd asked me what had happened to me, to our friendship. I didn't have the heart to tell her. How do you find the words to say that? I see someone else did recently, aparently they were frustrated by the same things I was (I didn't see how they told her, or if it was put nicely or meanly, I only saw her reaction) and boy did they get a very public reaming from her on her blog. She removed it later. I don't know if she felt embarassed by chewing them out so publicly, or if she decided that she was done being mad. I was a little shocked at the angry lashing.

The old friend has found other friends who put up with her "quirky ways" and love her anyway. I'm glad for that. Everyone needs friends. Just sometimes it doesn't work out the way we'd like it to. I'd like all of mine to be fatter than me, but so far I'm the fat girl in the bunch.

Bummed out

I have been staying with a group of Minnesota photographers for a couple of years. We started on one board, but then when one of our members broke away from that board, we followed him over to his new board, but now he's finding it hard to maintain the board (not judging) and has decided to close it down.
I'm feeling a bit displaced. I guess I have to evaluate what I was really getting out of the board and how I can get that somewhere else.
It was the only group I've been a part of where I felt ok sharing my stuff and that I would learn how to do better, in a constructive way. I considered all of the people there to be friends. We are connected on Facebook, but it's not the same.
Can't make posts for help, or for feedback on images, or see their posts on their projects or deep thoughts.... I'm hoping he will hand the board over to someone else that's willing to keep it going.

Jaeden's Hair

I did her hair again today, so here's a picture of that.
She looks so cute in it! I'm so happy at least one of my girls will let me play.

A New Week!

I picked up another newborn session this week. I can't say enough how much I love doing newborn sessions.
I have so many ideas I want to try, but people seem to be too conservative to want to try them, so I might have to advertise some free sessions to get the images I am wanting.
Today I learned how to do a fun rope braid on Jaeden's hair, but forgot to take a picture. She said I could do it tomorrow for school, so I will remember to take a picture then. I was surprised at how easy it ended up being! I wish Joy would let me try too.
Jacob blessed the sacrament at church for the first time today. He did really well and remembered all of the prayer, or at least read it right... who can tell when they are kneeling behind the altar? hahaha. The kids were busy and when they heard his voice they stopped immediately to listen to him. Kind of a cool moment for our family.
He also had to give a talk today about how he's preparing for a mission, which ended up being a "how to" talk. He did well this time, we could hear him and understand every word he said. Now if we can just get him to look up once in a while next time, he'll be a pro!
Since Joel's been laid off we've been taking turns taking Jake to early morning seminary... boy is it hard to get up at 5 in the morning! I miss Joel working nights and doing that for me.
I miss sleeping in. I had it good.

Sundays are crazy

I thought Sunday was supposed to be a day of rest.

Well, apparently they weren't talking about the Primary Presidency when they said that.

It was my turn for sharing time yesterday. The theme for the week was "The Priesthood Blesses Families". Normally I love teaching the senior primary kids and freeze up when I have to teach the jr. primary. There's such a variety in age and abilities in the jr. primary. Some can read, most can't. So it makes it harder to find activities that can be suitable for all. I also relate better to older kids who get my quirky remarks, lol. But yesterday it was the jr. primary that was my favorite.
I ok'd it with Jaeden first. We first talked about the Priesthood and what kind of blessings come from it. We talked about getting blessings when we are sick, about the blessing of the sacrament, and also blessings before starting school. I then shared the story with them about our family and how we wanted to add more children to it, but it just wasn't happening (I didn't share with them about having a miscarriage). But then a wonderful thing happened and we heard about a baby that was being put up for adoption (I also didn't mention how it was my sister-in-law's and how she didn't want the baby). I told them about us asking to be able to adopt her and how they said yes, they would love for us to adopt her because they knew we would give her a wonderful home with brothers and sisters and that we would love her very much.
I then told them about us taking Jaeden to the Salt Lake City Temple to have her sealed to us.
I asked them if they knew was being sealed meant and nobody had a comment. So I showed them two bags of raisins, one was opened and one was sealed and I asked them what would happen if I tipped them each upside down. Then explained that was like sealing our family, so that when we get to heaven Jaeden won't fall out of our family.
They then colored a picture of their Forever Family.
For the senior primary I started with an electric pencil sharpener, and tried to sharpen a pencil without it being plugged in. The kids pointed out what was wrong. Then we talked about the Priesthood and how it has to come from the proper power and authority.
Joel helped me with the next part. We went through his lineage of Priesthood, having a child come up to represent each person ordained back to Christ, so the kids see how it came directly from Christ, and the proper authority.
Then we played a tic-tac-toe game where they were divided into two groups and had to throw a bean bag at the tic-tac-toe game and pull off a paper with a scripture on it. They had to read the scripture and decide on what it says has to happen for a man to be worthy of the Priesthood. If they get it right they get to keep that square, if they get it wrong the other side gets to guess and try to win that square.
I left them with the Primary President at the start of the game to go see Jacob set apart as a Priest. It will be so awesome to see him bless the sacrament next week. :)
After that we had inservice that lasted until around 6:30. By the end of the day I was exhausted!

Saturday I had a newborn session for a baby born in our ward, she is so, so, so super sweet. I have to finish up a wedding before I can load her session into my program. So I need to work on that today.

Argh!

So I'm having an issue with my computer, I'm not sure what the issue is, however I cannot mix Facebook and Hotmail or my computer freezes up. It's the craziest thing. I can go all over the Internet, so long as I don't go from facebook to hotmail, or hotmail to facebook.

Joel is out tonight at some seminar. He keeps getting calls from one company (from his resume last year too) that he thought was a sales type job, but today they said there were teaching positions too. He's taught as a flight instructor, and also trained in employees, also he's taught Sunday school and the deacons for several years. So he's out tonight to see what it's all about.

My family are just the sweetest bunch of people I know... I love them so much!
My parents outfitted Joel with a new suit, shoes, belt, shirt and tie so he could look sleek for his interviews. That was so super thoughtful of them!

I've also gotten phone calls and emails asking for updates and telling us how they are thinking of us and praying for us.

And then today I got a surprise gift in the mail from one of my sisters. She sent along a note telling me she had been thinking of us and praying for us. Thank you Banana!

I can't tell you how amazing it is just to know how much my family loves us and is thinking of us and wanting to help us in any way they can. We don't hear from the other side quite as much, and even though they live closer to us, they just aren't that way. We've been through other things before, like Joel losing his kidney, and they didn't call or come around or offer help on their own. I'm not trying to slam them, I'm just stating facts and how blessed I feel when my family is not like that.

I'm trying to let my kids know what blessings we have in our lives. Although this may be a tough road, and we will try to shelter the children as much as we can so they do not feel the effects of this storm, I don't want to shelter them from knowing the blessings we receive. I don't want them to go through this not knowing how much their Father in Heaven has provided for our needs. I treasure the biographies that my father has given me of my ancestors. I know they have been through worse stuff than I have yet to experience, but I love the testimonies left behind and the records of their faith and the blessings that come from that faith. It sustains me and gives me strength to face my own challenges. I want my children to have that handed down to them as well. Our lives are rich from our heritage.

Enough mumblings for now.

Photography is dead slow right now. I'm working on a wedding I shot last month, and I have a session in a week for a newborn... .ohhhh I love newborns! But that is about all. I may have a couple of weddings come my way, a couple of people have written inquiring for other people, but nothing solid yet. And ohhhhh I love weddings!

I'm also hoping the winter is shorter than last year... I remember waiting until June before I could get a bride in the water for an extreme bridal. I'm wanting to work with some off camera flash (flashes on stands with umbrellas) at sunset and have a couple of models lined up as soon as it's warm enough. I'm super looking forward to honing my skills on that.

I've had inquiries for family portraits, but have put them off. I should have taken them up on it, but family photography is my worst subject. Everyone wants traditional stuff and I want to take them out to the train tracks, and old barns, or drag a couch out into a field... stuff like that. But they want the stuff they see at Sears and that's just not me and I don't want to do that stuff anymore. So do I do what they want and get paid, or do I do what I want and not get clients?

No Good and a Very Bad Day

Joel went to his interview on Tuesday. It was a good experience for him, but not the job for him. They wanted him to work for commission and sell insurances and try to get people to invest in the stock market. Joel is not a sales person and is not comfortable in pressuring people to make decisions. But it was good for him to get out there and mingle and have an interview, so it wasn't a total loss.
He also talked to his old boss on Monday and found out that there will be pretty much no pension or any extra money to help us out because last year (after their butts were barely saved from Zeiss canning them) he decided that would be a great time to put all his extra money into a restaurant and hotel. So there is no money at all left to help his employees out. That really bites. 18 years at the same company and nothing but a fistfull of bills.
But we will be ok, I know we will. God has always provided for us and I know He always will. I know that when one door closes, He always has opened a window for us. In the mean time the kids are loving having Joel around to play with them. They haven't been able to bond with him like Jake did because Joel pretty much started college when Josh was 2, and it's taken up all his free time for the last 5 years. So it's not all bad :)

The Sweetest 16 year old boy

He'd blush if he heard me call him that.

On Monday, my little groundhog Jake, turned 16. We had cheesecake that night, then on Friday took just him out to dinner at The Outback where we gorged ourselves.

Last night we had family over for a Dairy Queen, Reese's Peanut Butter Blizzard, cake to celebrate.

It's hard for me to believe it's been 16 years since he was born... I used to think people were nuts who would say, "It seems like just the other day he was just a toddler"... but now I understand. It makes me want to cuddle up with my other little ones while I still can fit them on my lap!

Jake has been a huge blessing to our family. He (almost) always has a wonderful disposition. He is the jungle gym for the little kids, always letting them crawl all over him. Even last night at the ward's linger-longer, he was sitting at the table his friends were at, but his little brother and sisters wouldn't leave him alone over there. Often I would look up to see one of the little ones going over his shoulder, or being tickled by him. What a wonderful big brother.

He also helps me out around the house so much, babysitting so I can shop without wild little ones. He regularly helps me with making dinner, making some or all of it.

He has a great personality, I love how he's learned to think for himself and not regurgitate what society and public school would have him think. I love that he looks at issues himself, studies them out and sees what he wants his own opinion to be. He's going to make a great politician some day :)

He also developed his own personal testimony at a very young age, calling upon the powers of his Father in Heaven and receiving direct answers to his prayers. I know he's going to be an awesome missionary.

He's patient, kind, thoughtful, considerate, patient,... oh wait, did I say that twice? Well, that's because it can't be said enough.

I am going to be so sad when he leaves our home for a mission, or college. I'd like to keep this kid around forever.

Short update

Just a short update for those who don't face book with me, Joel was laid off on Tuesday from his job he's been at for 20 years. We've spent the week getting resumes out and fitting him for a new suit, and taking care of finance stuff.
He has an interview on Tuesday which is really neat that he has one so soon, but it has been the only bite he's gotten so far.
Jake should have been ordained today but someone is behind and he hasn't had a bishop's interview yet, so he might be ordained to a Priest next Sunday.