Pink Slips

It has been a little stressful this month. March 15th is pink slip day if you work for a school district. Basically that means that by March 15th the district must notify you if you might be laid off for the following school year. The California budget is not so great and education (and so many other things) are really taking a hit. Time are extremely tough. I was a little bit worried, in terms of other school psychologist in my district I have not been there long and I don't have a whole lot of seniority.
Thankfully I made it through and did not get a pink slip. I am extremely greatful. Many of my friends did, however, get pink slipped. My boss included. My heart goes out to them all and I am praying that they all get their jobs back; not only for their financial situations, but also for the students. We need teachers and staff members, these kids are the future and they deserve a good, solid foundation.
I am not a union employee, but I am a member of the management group in our district and the board decided we would all be taking a 2.7% decrease in pay, however we would work five less days, which equals out anyway. I will definitely take that over a pink slip and if that pay decrease can save some teacher and administrators than awesome.

Words

Ethan has become much more vocal these last few weeks. At our last count his vocabulary is up to 5 words. He is now saying "mama," "dada," "dog," "ut-oh" and "hi." We were a little unsure about the dog. We thought he might be saying dog but we were't sure (it sounds pretty close to dada), until this last weekend. We went to a friends house who has a cat. Ethan thought it was fun to chase the cat around (the cat definately had other ideas). As he was chasing the cat he said over and over "dog, dog dog." He defiantely says dog. Maybe we should start working on cat. Maybe the cat hissed at him because he was call her a dog...no it was probably because he was was chasing her around.

On a side note, Ethan has terrible season allergies (we learned this when he was three months old... ah genetics). Right now he is going through an allergy attack. He is not sleeping so great because of it. Pray he feels better soon. We can't give him Benedryl...it makes him extremely hyper and he will stay up all night long. Poor little guy.

Control

Sometimes life just gets overwhelming. There are good days and bad, it is just part of life. During the bad days it can be hard to remember that God is in control and what I want may not be part of his will at the moment. He has it all planned out and will take care of everything in his time. For myself it is important to try and focus on the positives like: I did not get a pink slip, when so many close friends and coworkers did, meaning I will have a job next year; we have a home; Ethan is great and healthy; Chris and I are healthy; we have a great support system; and Chris's business is doing well. Right now life is just busy. At times it seems chaotic, but I shall take it in stride and know that what I want may not be in God's will for us now. So I will sit in the still and listen for his voice to direct my path.

Lazy Saturday

This was the first Saturday that we did not have any real big plans. So we just had a lazy Saturday. Here are a few random pictures we took of Ethan today. Just thought I would share.

Lunch with the French!

Karen and Kayden left Shane in France and came out for a USA tour. The was Kayden's first trip to San Diego at the weather was beautiful for her. It was so nice to see Karen and meet Kayden over lunch.



Ethan was very excited to meet Kayden. Unfortunately the little guy was under the weather with a cold. I know, why would I take a sick kid out, but they were in from France and only had this day to see us, it was this or not for another year. So Karen and I decided he was well enough to go to lunch and we would sit him and Kayden on opposite sides of the table. He admired her from afar.

Birthday Celebrations

It has been a while since I last posted. Life has been a little crazy, busy, whatever you want to call it. We celebrated my mom and my birthdays, we were all sick, my best friend from Washington came to visit (poor girl, she got to hang out with a sick one year old; not exactly how we planned the trip), and we visited with our good friend and her little girl who live in France).

My mom and my birthdays are 3 days apart. We always have an awesome time celebrating our birthdays.

Ethan had a wonderful time helping me open my presents. I think he liked all the crinkly tissue paper.

My mom made a fantastic chocolate cake with raspberries on top. I love raspberries. I even blew out all the candles on the cake. It was a nice day trip and was quite relaxing, which we needed since we all ended up getting sick shortly after we got home.