At the Children's Museum in Indy.

Riding the "train" at the Children's Museum with her new BFF Shannon- Alann's cousin.

Being a transformer.

The water table.

Alex's FAVORITE spot. He loves water.

He really liked this box for some reason.

At Beth's Wedding

Me and the pretty bride.

Happy kids

"helping" make brownies

Funny face

I feel like not much has been going on, but a lot has happened lately.

After our trip to Indiana, things calmed down a bit. The next weekend my best friend from college got married, so we headed out to Columbia for that. That was a fun little date for us. We got a sitter. It was nice to have some time to ourselves. We always drive around Columbia when we are there, but so much has changed that it isn’t the same town anymore.

As far as job prospects go, I was working for Leapforce, and was quite happy. I enjoyed the work, I made some awesome Swagbucks (because I had lots of search terms and I could watch SBTV in the background, something I always forget to do when I am just surfing the web), and then my contract got terminated out of the blue.  They just sent me an email one day saying that my quality was too low and I wasn’t performing as they expected. This was a bit of a shock to me. I started in the beginning of June and got terminated in the beginning of August. I did 18 hours in June (my first month) and only about 9 in July because there was never any work. August was looking awesome, I was getting an hour a day, and then bam, terminated. I still don’t really understand why. Every way I had to measure my quality was good. My tasks per hour were fine. I didn’t have a lot of revisions, which meant that I agreed with the other raters as well. So I don’t really know. I sent them two emails asking for proof or records that show any secret tests they ran on me, and I haven’t even gotten a response. So, so much for that. If I recommended it to you, forget it. Not worth the time or possible sudden termination if it something you are counting on for income. I have to say, I was a bit adrift for a bit there. I’ve now been fired twice in my life. And I’ve only had 4 real jobs (jobs that didn’t end based on seasonality anyway). The first time it was a company layoff, and I was WELL paid for a receptionist. This time really hurt, especially because they haven’t responded at all. Plus I felt good doing something to help our family finances (other than manage the outflow of course). My etsy shop is more for fun than profit.

Now I have a new job. Alann hired me to be his Online Marketing Director. Basically, I’m in charge of keeping his online presence up for his company. I only get paid when Provident finishes a project, but that’s okay. It’s something. And if it brings in business for the Management side of it, than it’s good for us anyway.

As far as Alex goes, he had his 15 month checkup. He is 25 lbs, I don’t remember height but the nurse remarked he was tall. He is a lot like Claire. He doesn’t talk much, but he understands a lot. He says ow and loud and milk. He gives lots of kisses, and is in a biting phase which is not fun. He’s a very sensitive boy, and if he thinks he is in trouble, he starts crying. So I have to be careful in discipline with him. A sharp tone usually just makes him cry. He follows Claire everywhere, but is blissfully content to play by himself too. On the rare occasion that he is awake and she isn’t, he will happily play with toys by himself. He moves from toy to toy. He loves the kitchen set and loves to cook there or in the kitchen with my pots and pans. I’m glad my cast iron pans are nice and seasoned because my other non-sticks are getting a little scratched from being played with. I would buy some cheap thrift store pots for him to play with, but I don’t think he would go for it. He also loves cars and says “vroom!” I’ve got an awesome Christmas present in mind for him involving cars. I bought a set of hair clippers so I can cut Alex’s (and maybe Alann’s) hair. He hates the scissors, and won’t really sit still for it. But he did a good job with the clippers. Now I just need to perfect my method and lengths. I cut off all his curls and most of his summer blond. It made me a little sad, but I know it is still there. His hair has already lightened up a lot with the little we’ve been out this week. And the curls are getting going again too.

foos. It’s funny to hear her talk to the dogs. She calls them Nee and Ta-er. She tries to tell them to get off the stairs if we are going down to the basement. They don’t listen. She loves to open the door and let them in or out. She also loves to feed them. Alex is starting to get in on feeding animals too. I can see when they start getting regular chores, feeding the animals will be on there. She is starting to be a really good helper too. She helps me unload the dishwasher (not a problem since most of what we use is plastic these days). I usually remove the utensil drawer and anything heavy or breakable and then she pulls the rest of the dishes out and brings them to me. She helps set the table for meals and is working on clearing the table.  She of course still LOVES to help cook. Her favorite phrase is “by self!” meaning she wants to do something all by herself. Drives me insane sometimes, but that’s a two-year old for you. She often picks out her own clothes and dresses herself. She did a really good job sitting for her most recent hair cut and I was able to cut about an inch off. It looks like I cut a lot more, because it is lighter now and curls a lot more. Just like her mama. It curls like crazy when it is shorter. Or humid. She is currently in LOVE with princesses and My Little Ponies. I can’t decide which  she likes better. She has some princess posters in her room now. Today while we were at Sears she saw a Princess bed set on one of the little beds. She had to get in it and pretend to sleep with the princesses. But Alann started her watching My Little Ponies: Friendship is Magic series and she LOVES it. Pinkie Pie is her favorite. It’s an amusing enough show, and it doesn’t bother me any so I let her watch it. She already loved horses, and now it’s even more. She has started playing with the bucket of ponies that we have (most from when I was little). She has also started playing more imaginatively lately. She makes up stories for her games now. She was playing the other day with her princess castle and her princesses and some cars. I don’t know what the story was, but I did hear her talking, than I saw one of the cars kiss one of the princesses. When she plays ponies, she has a mommy pony and a daddy pony and a baby pony. I also taught her Red Rover at playdate last week, and she plays that with her animals now. She doesn’t really understand the rules, but has fun playing.

So that’s about it. As always I have 500 sewing projects and no time to do them. Someday the kids will be in school and I can sew to my hearts’ content, right? Yeah right. By then I’ll have other things to do I’m sure.