Another Update

I feel bad because I never blog anymore. So many things have gotten in the way and my life has gotten so busy! I want to update on everything, but I don't know if I can remember it all.

I'm home with Annabelle while Mitchell is at the priesthood session of conference and Joseph is playing with a friend. It's so lonely! I think that I'm spoiled because Mitchell and I spend a lot of time together. It's going to be hard when he gets a real job and works normal hours because I always want to keep him for myself.

We've really enjoyed conference so far. It's wonderful to hear so many inspiring messages. I'm excited to hear more tomorrow. I have to admit that I'm also excited that I don't have to wake up for our 8 am church. It really is just a terrible time for church to start!

We are expecting Baby Ellis #3 in November. My due date is the 27th, but I think the baby will be born the 18th. Both Joseph and Annabelle were born about 9 days before their due date, so I think this baby will be similar. I like patterns in things and I decided that this baby has to be born on and even day because all of our birthdays are even. The 18th would be a perfect number because it fits between Joseph's 16th and Mitchell's 20th. I also wanted the baby to be born in November because then we would have October, November, December babies. But it does mean a lot of presents all in a row. And I'm always pregnant in the summer...

We've been having a pretty difficult time lately. We stopped getting food stamps at the end of February, but Mitchell still doesn't have a job. He went on a field trip to LA at the beginning of the month that cost a lot of money and then buying groceries has put a huge dent in our bank account. It's so hard when we don't make any money of our own. We are hoping that Mitchell will start some work sometime in April. The company that his brother works for is supposed to start giving him work and it will all be done from home. If he can start doing that, we will make more money than we ever have before, but we don't know when he's starting. One thing that's sad about living on only student loans is when we run out of money at the end of semester. It just happens to be that Easter and our anniversary are at the end of this semester. We think we might be able to go to a movie for our anniversary, though, so that will be fun. Mitchell has class the whole day anyways. We are going to have Easter dinner at Samantha's house and that will be fun, too. It's good for us to learn to sacrifice things that aren't necessary, even if they are things that we really want and feel like should be a part of these special times.

I'm hoping to be able to remember to blog more often, but I always say that and never do it. Maybe if I keep my fingers crossed...

All By Myself

Mitchell just left on an Illustration student field trip to LA. He will be gone until Saturday night. The longest we've ever been apart since we were married is about 1 day, so this is pretty huge for me. The kids have never been away from Daddy for more than a day of classes. It's definitely going to be a big adventure for us this week. I don't do very well being alone, especially with my depression, so I'm going to be trying to do lots of fun things with the kids. It doesn't help that I think I have an ovarian cyst because I've been in a lot of pain the past couple days and I woke up with a sore throat today...

I'm going to take this time to get a lot of work done that I normally wouldn't do because I would rather be spending time with Mitchell. The kids and I are going to go to the zoo and the park and do other fun things. And Mitchell is going to be visiting a lot of studios that he would love to work at someday.

Mitchell's Many Projects

I'm blogging two days in a row! Yay!

So, Mitchell is taking photos of a bunch of his artwork right now. He's applying for several different things right now.

 The coolest one is a paid internship with Blizzard. If you don't know who Blizzard is, it's like the Disney of videogames; they are the ones that make World of Warcraft. It would be so amazing for him to be able to work there for the summer. I'm REALLY hoping that his is able to get the internship.

He's also applying for the Visual Arts Department Talent Award. It's pretty much a scholarship and it's based entirely on the student's portfolio. I'm not sure how much the award would be, but I think it pays tuition for a semester or something like that. It would be great to take a semester off from adding to our student loans.

The last two things he's working on are shows at the school. One is for life drawing, which he is very talented at. And the other is the Sketchbook Club show. I believe all he needs to do is pick out the pieces that he wants shown and then they will be in one of the galleries at the school. It's pretty cool thinking that he will have his artwork hanging in the HFAC.

We are also looking at finding him a job. I found several job postings on the school's website. He might be able to get some freelance illustration or graphic design work from one of them. It's been a year-and-a-half since he's had a job, so it would be really nice to actually be earning money again.

And for practice, Mitchell is doing free portraits for members of our ward. The first piece that he is working on is a portrait of a couple in their Halloween costumes. They dressed up as the Joker and Harley Quinn from Batman, so it's right up Mitchell's alley.

After reading about the lives of some artists he admires, Mitchell came to the conclusion that having your spouse involved in your work will bring you closer together. So, I am working as a sort of secretary/partner with Mitchell on many of these projects. I've been finding out a lot of the information for him and I remind him of deadlines and requirements. I'm also the one that set up the ward portraits. It's kind of fun for me to be planning and organizing all of these things for him. We are trying to make his art and work "ours" rather than just "his."

Preschool

A couple weeks ago, I started a preschool for Joseph. He's had two little friends coming and a third will start coming this week. It's been really fun to have and I like planning little lessons and activities. I have a theme for each week based on a book that I have called "Slow and Steady, Get Me Ready." This week's theme is "Up and Down" and we will be reading books about ladders, playing chutes and ladders, and (hopefully) playing on the playground outside.

Tomorrow, I am starting a little playgroup for the 1-year-olds in our ward. The activities will be based on themes from the same book. For this group, the week's theme is "Homes." I built a little fort out of a block/bookshelf type thing that we got from Walmart and the kids are going to play in it.

It's really fun for me to have these things to focus on and plan, especially since I'm not going to school myself.

Tomorrow

I'm about to go to sleep, but I wanted to tell you all that tomorrow is National Popcorn Day. So make sure you eat some popcorn. :)

Happy New Year!

I know I'm two weeks late, but I guess it's better late than never. I didn't realize how busy life was going to get for me even though I am not taking classes. It's been a very big adjustment for me to be home all day again. I feel like a two sided person; one side of me wants to be the best stay-at-home mom in the world and the other side wants to do her own thing. I'm trying to make sure that I schedule time for myself as well as the kids every day ( I have to have schedules to survive...).

I'm planning on starting a little preschool next week. It will mostly be focused on Joseph, but I've invited some moms from the ward who have children that are Joseph's age. I think it's going to be really fun; I just have to make sure that I don't overboard trying to make elaborate lesson plans or anything. I've written "teacher" for What Do You Want to Be? questions for nearly my whole life, but I have to keep from getting to excited at this stage. I'm hoping to homeschool the kids, so I will get to make fancier lesson plans later on.

We took Joseph in for his 3 year old check up at the beginning of this week. He's not doing as well as he should be. He's hardly grown at all in the past year, and by "hardly" I mean less than 2 inches and less than 5 pounds, although it could be even less than that. He will be seeing a GI next month to make sure that there are no underlying problems. We've been trying to get him to eat more at his meals, but sometimes it feels like a war zone. Hopefully, we can figure things out so that he can start growing again.

Yesterday, we were able to buy a countertop dishwasher! I'm so excited! We found a listing on ksl.com for someone that was selling one in Orem. I'm so glad because now it's so much easier to do dishes. Mitchell has been really great and has been doing most of the dishes since we got it. It's such a load off of my shoulders.

Tomorrow, we are going to Ikea and buying a bed frame. For almost a year, we have been sleeping on a 4-inch memory foam topper that just lays on the ground. It's not as uncomfortable as it sounds, but it causes problems because the kids think it's a tumbling mat. A week or so ago, someone in our ward gave us a feather bed topper and we put that on top, too. So it's softer for us to sleep on AND for the kids to play on. A few days ago, I just decided that I was tired of being jumped on and somersaulted on and headstand-ed on while trying to sleep or rest, so I told Mitchell that I need a bed frame. We figure that once we have the frame, Joseph may try to do a somersault on it and get hurt and then he won't do it again (at least, that's what we hope). We went and browsed at Ikea today and decided to get something from there because we could really use the storage space that their beds provide. I love Ikea because everything is just meant for living in small spaces, which is totally what we are doing. I'm excited to get a bed tomorrow!

I made New Years' Resolutions for myself, but I think I might post them another day. I have two sleeping children, a warm bed, and a not-busy husband, so I'm done typing now.

Impromptu Sleepover

Samantha and Athena are sleeping at our house tonight. Apparently, Ogden had some crazy super strong winds and the power-lines that supply Samantha's block with electricity were blown down. She and Athena will be staying here until the power is restored and they have light and heat again. We'll see how it goes in our super, tiny apartment... Poor Samantha has to sleep on our loveseat. Joseph and Athena tend to have "custody battles" over their toys. And Annabelle loves it all. Maybe I can get some good pictures.