Unemployed

Paul called me Wednesday afternoon telling me he was coming home early because he got laid off.  We expected something to happen for about a half a week or so because his employer had an all-employee meeting (which Paul wasn't invited to because he was a contractor) saying that they were going to do some "corporate restructuring" and they expected to either hire on or let go of all contractors.  We thought Paul had a good chance of getting hired because his team only had four people including his manager, two of them being contractors, and they were in the middle of a project that's supposed to roll out this year.  Well, Paul and the other contractor on his team were let go.  It's not fun being suddenly unemployed, but Paul is not too upset because he wasn't in love with this job anyway.  

Our plan is to stay in Pittsburgh through the end of July since that's when our lease ends.  Then we'll put all our stuff in storage in Pittsburgh and head west to stay with Paul's parents while he looks for a job.  We expect Paul to find a job faster than last time because the job market seems to be better than 6 months ago and Paul now has some job experience.

I have complete trust that God knows what things we have need of and that He will provide them to us at the right times.  I am grateful for all the blessings we have and for all the blessings to come.

Eating Dirt, aka Playing in the Garden

Dirt on finger: check

Finger in mouth: check

The verdict:

Time for some posing:

Service

One of my friends in Vancouver has this quotation framed in her bathroom.  It's a good to remember whenever a friend needs a favor.  The author, Marjorie Pay Hinckley, was the wife of the former president of the LDS church.  She was known for her sweetness and great sense of humor.

"I don't want to drive up to the pearly gates in a shiny sports car, wearing beautiful tailored clothes, my hair expertly coiffed, and with long, perfectly manicured fingernails. I want to drive up in a station wagon that has mud on the wheels from taking kids to scout camp. I want to be there with grass stains on my shoes from mowing Sister Schenk's lawn. I want to be there with a smudge of peanut butter on my shirt form making sandwiches for a sick neighbor's children. I want to be there with a little dirt under my nails from helping weed someone's garden. I want to be there with children's sticky kisses on my cheek and the tears of a friend on my shoulder. I want the Lord to know I was really here and that I really lived. "

— Marjorie Pay Hinckley

Andrew Sillyness

Here are just some silly photos of Andrew over the last few months.

Looking like a green ghost in Paul's shirt:

Wearing Paul's socks on his hands.  This one was actually Andrew's idea:

My favorite, Andrew sticking Q-tips in his ears every time he gets a hold of them.  (I've now put them out of reach).  When he leaves it there he reminds me of Frankenstein with the bolt sticking out of either side of his neck.  Cracks me up every time!

 

Now, for a few notes about what Andrew is up to these days:

• He has learned to say the most important of toddler words--"no"
• He loves "reading" books more than ever before.  He'll point to picture after picture for you to name what it is.
• He's always trying to carry more things than he can at once because he finds a collection of objects that he doesn't want to put down.  He especially loves to hold as many sippy cups as possible.
• For a long time he has pointed to every bus that drives by, and he loves it when Paul takes him for rides on buses.  Recently he's started waving at each bus as it drives by. 
• He loves picking dandelions and having us blow on them.
• Paul has been teaching him to bring me flowers when they return home from their pre-dinner walks.  He used to always get too distracted on his way from the front door to the kitchen, but now he can make it all the way to me and hand me the flower.  

Garden Update

Our garden is growing!  Our tiny corn patch gets taller every day, our basil is getting bushy, and we have a few little green tomatoes.  The carrots are definitely the slowest-growing, and we've lost about 5 or 6 carrot plants to some little digging critters, but I'll plant another round in the next few days.

Falling Water

Yesterday we drove out to Falling Water, a house designed by the famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright.  It was built between 1936 and 1939 for the Kaufmanns, a wealthy family who owned a department store in downtown Pittsburgh.  It was built as their year-round weekend home.  The Kaufmanns' son donated the house to the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy in the mid-1960's, so it's basically a museum now.  One of the most unique things about it is that it is built over a waterfall.  You can learn more about Falling Water at http://www.fallingwater.org/1/home if you'd like.  The house is about 1 1/2 hours from Pittsburgh, so it was a perfect day-trip for us.  In the above picture we are standing on a bridge that crosses the stream over which the house is built, with the house behind us.  The part of the house you see is the living room and living room terrace.  The house is made of glass, stone, concrete, and steel.  It has tons of windows and terraces.  There was a living quarter for each family member (mother, father, and adult son), and each living quarter had its own terrace.  The sight is out in the woods, so it was very beautiful and serene.  I can see the appeal this place had for the Kaufmanns, coming from their daily life in the city.  Of course, back then Pittsburgh was still the smokey steel city.

 

Andrew and Paul on the terrace outside the living room.

You can see that there are stairs that lead from the living room down into the stream.

The house is fully furnished with original furniture and artifacts once owned by the family (and some reproductions), so children under 6 are not permitted to enter.  So, while we took the one-hour guided tour inside, Andrew played with rocks in the stream by himself.  Just kidding!  Paul walked around the grounds with Andrew while I took the guided tour inside.  Andrew did get to play with some rocks, though, as you can see by his full hands above.  

Here's a view of the house from the opposite side.  You can see how it juts out over the waterfall.

The Power of the Cookie

Now, I don't usually buy cookies at the store.  I always here my mom's voice in my head, "we could make that at home".  Plus, store-bought cookies usually aren't as good as home-made, and if I were to start buying cookies they would become too easy to acquire and I would eat cookies way too often.  No, if I really want cookies I'll go to the trouble of making them from scratch.  

However, several weeks ago at Institute (the weekly scripture study class and potluck lunch I attend) a few of us ladies were talking about chocolate and how much we love it.  One sister said that Giant Eagle's bakery has triple chocolate cookies that are so good that she and her husband actually considered them when making their pro/con list for deciding whether to move to Pittsburgh  With a recommendation like that, I just had to try them.  So, Saturday when we were out doing errands as a family and had to stop at Giant Eagle for a few things to make it until the next big grocery trip, we got some of these famous cookies.  They are chocolate cookies with white chocolate chunks and semi-sweet chocolate chunks.  And yes, they are great.  

* * * * *

In other news, over the last couple of weeks I've renewed my efforts to teach Andrew some sign language.  I've been concentrating on "more" and "milk".  He got to the point of signing them after I do sometimes, to copy me.  Saturday night we had a break-through when he signed "more" spontaneously in order to get more of something.  And what was it he wanted more of?  The triple chocolate cookie, of course.

Daddy's Boy

Andrew has a little cold and we had a pretty rough night last night because of it.  He woke up around 1:30 am and I rocked him some and then put him back to bed, only to have him wake up again just a couple of hours later and refuse to put himself back to sleep.  I went in and got him and tried everything I could to calm him down, but he was pretty miserable.  It seemed he just couldn't get comfortable in my arms.  He finally started pointing occasionally, as if he wanted me to take him somewhere.  I couldn't really figure out what he wanted.  After about 45 minutes I finally took him into our bedroom to put some clothes on so I could take him for a drive.  Paul was awake, and had been pretty much the whole time I was trying to calm Andrew down.  He took Andrew and Andrew immediately put his head down on Paul's shoulder and quieted down.  So, Paul took him into his room, rocked him to sleep, and put him back to bed in a matter of about 5 minutes.  Andrew just needed his daddy.  It's no secret that Andrew loves his daddy and loves spending time with him, but this is the first time that he has absolutely required his daddy in order to get to sleep.  I'm just glad he finally went back to bed.  Of course, he woke up again about 10 minutes later, but thankfully he was able to put himself back to sleep on his own.  Let's hope tonight is more restful for all of us.

Playground Under the Bridge

All the photos of playgrounds may get boring to you, but I just had to post some pics from the park we've been going to lately.  I just love the bright red and blue of the equipment in the photos.  This playground is tucked away at the very bottom of our neighborhood under a freeway bridge, maybe a mile from our house.  The bridge overhead is great because it provides a lot of shade to about half the playground.

 P.S. I just found out that Blogger has updated their blog post editor so now it's way easier to add photos to blog posts, hence all the photos in this post.