Am I going crazy or do I really want to go back?

Back to Anthony Travel, that is.

ATI has really been on my mind a lot lately. My friends, my old job, what a great company it is, and just memories in general. Some of this has been sparked by finding some old work friends on Facebook. And, some of it is because I think about how much $$ I used to make there and how much we're in debt now because I chose to quit and stay home with the boys. A few nights ago I had a dream of working at ATI again and it was a good dream. I couldn't get it out of my head at all. On a whim, I decided to pull up their website to see if they were even hiring. If they didn't have any positions than it would be easy for me to just toss the idea aside. Low and behold, they are hiring for an Event Manager, which is what I did when left there doing.

So, I made the call! I called my old boss. Maggie and I left on great terms. She understood my need to leave at the time. We still exchange the occassional email, Christmas cards, etc. She was so surprised to hear my voice and even more surprised when I told her I was considering coming back to join them.

Rejoining ATI would be extensive traveling again, which is one of the sole reasons I had to leave. With a 3 year old and a newborn baby at home, the traveling was just not an option for me anymore. But, not that Maddox is 2 1/2 years old and Leyton is in Kindergarten they are much more self-sufficient and Kris can easily handle them while I'm out of town.

There are tons of advantages for rejoining ATI. 1) The money, of course. This could really help us pay down our cc debt and get us into a new house much quicker 2) Full insurance benefits. I'm on a plan now that works for our family, but full benefits again would be tremendous. 3) I could start contributing to my 401K again! 4) I could quit my 2 jobs and not work nights/weekends again (except for when I'm traveling of course).

The disadvantages. Well, there are some, but there more hurdles than disadvantages. 1) Getting Leyton to/from school and after school care. I think I have a plan of action for this if I go back to work. 2) I'd have to pull Maddox from his preschool and enroll him in a full time daycare. Not the end of the world, especially since he's older now. He'll thrive wherever he is. 3) Ugh, I'd have to tell both jobs I'm quitting. Neither of them will be happy about that. :(

So, I'll post when I have more news. I am going in next Friday, I believe to do an 'interview'. I guess it's just protocol and following procedures. I can't expect to literally call and them say, come in, you start on Monday. ;)

Christmas thru the eyes of a child

This has got to be one of the best Christmas mornings we've spent as a family! Now that Maddox is almost 2 1/2 he really got into the Christmas spirit this year. Leyton, being 5, was so into Santa and the mystery's behind him. Don't get me wrong, it's not all Santa and his reindeer's. Both my boys know that we are celebrating Jesus' birthday as well. Leyton even asked me how old Jesus was this year...uh...how do you answer that, lol! Maddox loves to read his nativity book and see the pictures of "baby Jesus". Too cute!

This is the letter that Leyton wrote to Santa on Christmas Eve.

The boys woke up about 7a on Christmas morning. Still starry eyed and sleepy, they dug into their stockings to see what Santa had left them.

Santa also left about 5 presents for each child to unwrap. In addition to the 'Santa' presents the boys had plenty to open! So many in fact that everytime an 'adult' opened a gift, they each had one too. Needless to say, they had a great Christmas. Leyton's big gift of the day was the infamous 'DS' that he told Santa he wanted. Maddox's big gift from Papa Steve and Gma Kathy was his new ride-on Jeep. Here's a few morning pictures from our Christmas morning.

Our Christmas Holiday

It's been such a fun, relaxing week for us. I somehow managed to get off work from the daycare for the week so I decided to spend some much needed quality family time back in Oklahoma. The boys and I drove up on Sunday afternoon. Monday we went to see my grandma up in Perry, OK. Whew, SMALL TOWN AMERICA. This is a representation of just how small it really is:

After Perry we spent the rest of the afternoon playing with my cousin's kids. All the boys are really close in age and just have a blast together. Tuesday Leyton and I caught up with the flowergirl, Molly, from my brother's wedding and went to a movie. Molly is my brother's wife's neice and is also 5. After the movie we hung out at Kris' grandparents for a while and then went over to my MIL's house to see Kris' sister and my sweet niece, Kyrsten. Here she is sporting her new tutu that Aunt Trin bought her:Wednesday, Christmas Eve we spent the better part of the day and evening in Tulsa. We celebrated the holidays with Kris's mom's side of the family. It's always a great time and I hate that we only see them once or twice a year. Here's a few pictures from that day:

Christmas day gets it's only blog post entirely. :-)

Kris had to go home on Christmas night, but the boys and I stayed in Guthrie until Saturday morning. I wanted to spend more time with my bro and SIL before they went back home to Denver and Leyton's cousins were coming back over to play on Friday. It was a fun filled week and I'm so glad I got in all that quality family time.

Hug your kids a little tighter today

It's been a hard week. On Monday morning I received word that a 4 year old boy that attends the preschool I teach at passed away in a car wreck on Sunday night. It hit so close to home because I knew the mom and kids fairly well. Amber and I used to be in the same local moms group and attended several playdates together. Not only that, Amber's 2nd grader attends Leyton's elementary school and she is just about as active as I am in the PTO. I'm just surrounded every which way by this tragic story. I've received emails from the preschool director, the elementary school principal, parents in Leyton's class and fellow friends who know Amber and her children.

Amber had all 3 of her children in her minivan on the way home from attending a birthday party. They were struck by someone who ran a red light. The vehicle hit on Brett's side of the van. Amber's 2nd grader is still in the hospital with a shattered leg. He's already had one surgery to pin his shin back together and he will still need more. Amber and her 2 year old daughter were unharmed.

This tragedy has really effected me. I drive thru that same intersection everyday when I take Leyton to school. All week I've been afraid to even drive my car with my children for fear that a tragedy like this will happen to me. I'm buckling the boys up extra tight, giving them extra kisses, and telling them I love you even more.

Here's is a small story on the accident:
Amber and her 3 beautiful kids were in a horrible accident yesterday evening heading back home from a party at the 380/Lake Forest intersection. It is with a very sad and heavy heart to report that 4 year old Brett wasn't able to fight through his injuries and passed away at 2:47 am this morning. Many of Amber's friends were at the hospital shortly after the accident and were able to give this amazing little man our love and many many tears before we had to say goodbye.

Andrew has a serious injury to his shin which will require several surgeries to repair the damage, one of which he had early this morning and came out like a trooper. He will be in the hospital at least a week undergoing surgeries. Amber and Danielle were not injured in the accident. Chris was in town and was able to be at the hospital shortly after the accident took place.

Yay for the weekend!

Thank goodness today is the start of the weekend for me. I had such a craptastic week that I really need this break this weekend.

So, the week started with Kris leaving to go out of town on Monday. I'm used to him traveling, so that's not a problem, it's just this time I wasn't able to ask off from my night shifts at the daycare which means the boys had to be up there all week while I was working. So, Monday and Wednesday nights the boys didn't get in bed until 1030p. Very stressful. Leyton does fine at night, but is just a bear in the mornings when he has to get up for school. Maddox on the other hand is a bear at night because he's used to going to sleep at 8a.

On top of dealing with that, Maddox has really gotten worse with his biting. He started biting his brother about 3 weeks ago. Bad bites too! Then, last week he bit a little girl at the daycare. And, this week he bit 3 times at the preschool! I feel just AWFUL everytime he bites. I do not want to have the 'biter' kid everyone talks about. :( Wednesday night while at the daycare working he attempted to bite a kid. Luckily, the kid caught on and got away from him and bit him back!! He came running to me and I gave him no hugs and love. I'm hoping this will help teach him a lesson. Actually later that night he tried to bite his brother. Since I was there when it happened I marched him to the bathroom and bit him on the arm. I hate that I resorted to biting him and it made my stomach turn to have to do it, but at this stage in the game, I'm desperate and I want him to STOP it. There was no biting yesterday at school, so fingers crossed it worked.

TGIF!

Sleep Issues

Poor little Maddox, he's never been a good sleeper. The first six weeks he was so colicky and would only be held, my mommy, no less. Daddy just didn't have the bouncing, shhh'ing, rocking thing down to calm a colicky baby. Well, the colic disapated and turned into a typical baby who just wakes in the middle of the night. 2 and 3 nights he would wake up crying. We tried everything from feeding him before bed and even feeding him cereal in the middle of the night to keep his belly full. The kid just doesn't sleep well. By 18 months Kris and I were at our wits end. He's was still waking up once a night even then. Maddox was 21 months old before he ever slept thru the night without waking up once. Now at 27 months, he is still waking generally 3-4 nights of the week crying. He'll either wake up and yell from his room for mommy or daddy to come bring him a cup of milk, or he'll wake up from nightmare.

Last night for example he fussed/whined/cried in his sleep for a good 15-20 minutes. When I finally determined it wasn't going to stop I went in to pat his back and calm him down. You could tell he was still asleep, but just crying out. It was so sad. :( I got him quiet and calm and within 20 minutes he was up crying again. This time, yelling in his sleep (like he was fighting with his brother or something?). I decided to go ahead and bring him to bed with me and wouldn't you know, being with mommy the rest of the night I didn't hear a peep out of him. He slept quiet and calm the rest of the night. I guess having the safety and security of mommy next to him helped him sleep.