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My photography class seriously sucks...it is boring! the only thing i like about it is that i get to edit my pictures on photoshop for a while. But i will soon be getting photoshop so then class will be ultra boring.

I am rocking my new job! I am constantly getting compliments from my supervisor, his boss, and people from corporate. It is kind of ridiculous! People are coming to me for help and i feel like every day someone new tells me how awesome i am. : ) it kind of makes me want to try harder so that i can "keep it up" ya know. I even accidentally hung up on someone and our Quality Assurance team happened to be listening to the call and when they sent my evaluation they started with, "yet another great call from beth...she went above and beyond...she did an excellent job...but she accidentally hung up on the customer...She continues to do a great job!" I mean seriously! and everyone else is getting horrible/neutral feedback so its not like they just are positive all of the time. So it makes me feel happy, but pressured.

Ty is a lot happier since he is going to school. I think he would rather not go everyday (mon-fri) but he really enjoys playing with kids his own age and he is better behaved since he is happy. He has also decided that basketball is his favorite sport and (besides him being short) he is really really bad at it! I feel like every person has one or two things that they are really good at and i am just too eager to find his. I think sports-wise it might be track, he loves to run (more then normal 5 year old boys) and he never runs out of energy or gets breathless. Its amazing! I'm excited to see what type of hobbies he will have too, i wonder what he will be good at...

We might have a roommate...We have an extra bedroom downstairs and James' sisters' boyfriend has abusive parents and doesn't have a place to live as of last week. James' parents asked us if we would be willing to let him live with us until he can save up to afford his own place and i think we are going to. He is super nice and works two jobs and is planning to go to school soon so he wont be at the house very often and pretty much besides going upstairs to the kitchen we wont see him. But it is kind of weird because Ive only known him for a couple of months and Jake has never met him but i think i am pretty intuitive and i can tell that he is a good kid so i know that Ty will be safe. And Ty knows him too and likes him so that is good, and its only for a little bit. But i think it would be the nice thing to do, he literally has nowhere to live and we have an extra room, why not?

blog titles suck

Hello blog!

I am so excited about my job, I've been here a week an a half and its really awesome. It's with First American and over 7200 people applied for my position and i was one (out of 34) people who got it! And i am the youngest one by fffaaarrr here. I rock! And it is right down the street from our house! The only thing that sucks is that it is a full time job which means ty is in daycare, but he is having so much fun. I am really really grateful that for the last year i was able to spend time with him, and i think he is grateful too.

We had a trip to Disneyland scheduled for next month but i am not allowed to take vacation for another month so we are going to postpone it until September, which is fine. But we havent been to a disney park in two years!! It is extremely ridiculous! That is way too long! But at least we are able to change our reservations. The last year has been ridiculous over-all but we have learned so much!

- The most important thing is that family is way more important then any job you have. Working a part time job was an amazing decision. Spending more time with Tyler was invaluable.

- How to save. Part time job came with part time money. Even though we ended up living with parents for most of the time we still had to control our money a lot closer. We had to make sure we had money for our down payment on the house (which sucks because we are really bad at saving) and we had to constantly pay for inspections and such for our many houses that fell through.

-Even though things really really suck, i always have jake and ty to make me happy and they are there to remind me that we can get through anything we need to as long as we are together.

- be grateful for the material things you have, because they could be sitting in a storage unit for 7 months.

a year is not really that long in a lifetime and i am so grateful that we had an opportunity to overcome challenges and learn things along the way. And now we have this amazing house that i am so in love with. And we are all very very happy!

In order to keep pushing myself to save our money (because it is really me who spends all of it) jake and i decided that if we keep continuing to contribute to our savings and also save up for a vacation we will go to New York next year! I am in love with NY, i want to live there more then anything. If james wasnt in ty's life i know that we would live there, maybe i will convince ty to go to NYU so we can move there in 13 years (yikes!). The reason why i dont want to take ty is really kind of selfish, and not like me. But because jake and i never got to officially date before ty i feel like there are parts of me that i havent gotten to share with Jake. There are really only 4 or 5 major things that i want to share with him that i want to be just me and him experiencing together like people do when they are dating. One is disneyland and we went to disneyland once without ty (i know, i'm a horrible mom) but ty has since been to disneyland and disneyworld. Broadway is also another part, which is easy because of the shows that come in town in Tempe, so jake has been to several of those. Music is another one, hard to experience but we were in band together so we've got that covered. And the last thing on my list that i am really passionate about that is a big part of me, even though i dont live there is New York. I feel like i am meant to be there and i want to share the passion i have for that city with jake and share everything with him. It is kind of hard to explain unless you are me, its hard to completely share who you are and get to know your partner when you are dating and you have a kid, its probably why people say you should wait until you get married, but i have no regrets. So we are going to NY for 4-5 days and then when ty is a little older we will take him, because i want him to experience it too.

Another thing that since ty is going to go to school in Aug. i feel like i now have time to go to school myself. I am not going to do more then two classes at a time and i am not going for any type of degree but i really enjoy college and i love learning new things. So after my photography class i am going to sign up for a summer class (if i can) maybe an online class and def. a fall class. I am really excited to take some psychology classes that i have been dying to take for years and some philosophy classes. It makes me feel better about myself to have my brain working at something once or twice a week. lol.
That is all...

happy happy

The last couple weeks have been crazy, non stop (isn't life always like that). Jake is working so hard since i am not working right now, so i am the one who is putting together our house, which is the way i want it anyways. But i also have ty and am babysitting a one year old, so its crazy, but fun. I am in LOVE with our house, it is beyond perfect, and way worth the wait and crap we went through to get it. It fits our style and is just amazing. I dont think a lot of people would prefer to live in a 3 story condo but, it is perfect for us. Living without 90% of our stuff for 6 months made us realize that we dont need 1/2 of the stuff we own. So we have been giving away a ton of stuff, and it feels soooooo nice to get rid of stuff i've had since high school that i will never use again. Our house looks a lot better too without all of the crap too.

i got offered a job today, it was one i wanted to get so that is good. But it is a full time job, so that means ty needs to go back to daycare until aug, when school starts but i've been at home with him for almost a year so i am ok with it. And hopefully i can get a schedule in the morning so that i can pick him up from school like i want to.

Not living at our own place has made me slack off on my photography, which has bummed me out, but i felt like i couldnt do what i wanted in someone's house. So now that we are here i am going at it full swing, i bought a new lens (a cheap one because right now i dont have money for what i want) and we are buying a better computer and photoshop within the next month or two so that will be good. I feel like i am getting better, but i freaking need to work a lot more to be where i want. I dont think i've ever been naturally good at anything and i think that i have an eye for photography so i really want to run with it and learn as much as i can. I am taking a photography class at PVCC and it is a joke. i would have dropped it but i missed the date to do that. I already know everything the teacher is teaching and he doesnt really critique our pictures he only wants to see the bad ones so he can show us how to fix them, but i already know how to fix my pictures. And i already know all of the technical things too that we are learning. But if anything i get a dedicated time to photoshop my pictures every week. And we do have weekly assignments so it is forcing me to take pictures of things i hate. The first week was a self portrait and i absolutely hate those, it's harder then people think, especially if you are trying to be creative (which i usually try to be). So i got this...

I dont think it is that great but it was way better then anyone's in the class (that i saw), so that made me feel better. Next week is landscape, which is my other thing that i hate!!! After that everything else should be easy though (i hope).

To celebrate everything in life in the last couple weeks we are going up to flagstaff this weekend so that will be really fun. Ty has been begging to go and see the snow, he keeps wearing his snow jacket around the house!

i'm not saying i'm the best parent in the world but...

i think our world would have way less problems if people were good parents and weren't so self absorbed in their own life. when i had Tyler it wasnt the ideal situation, but when i first laid eyes on him i knew that it wasn't about me anymore and it was hard to adjust at first because your whole life all you know is you. But i did realize pretty quickly that, i would much rather spend my time with Ty then anyone else in the world and nothing else mattered. A lot of people i know (young and old) dont agree and would rather go hang out with their friends and leave their children with someone else. I guess the main person who does this is James, on his weekends he will go out with his friends and leave tyler and michael to spend 1/2 of the day, the whole night, and the next day at his parents. He has 6+ nights a month to go out without the kids and he does, but he continues to do it when he does have the kids and doesnt see a problem with it. I call him sometimes to see if i can pick up ty early and he tells me he ran to the store or somewhere and the kids are at home with his girlfriend. I dont understand why this has to happen either, when i need to run to the store i either take tyler, or ask jake to go. I just called James now to see when he is coming to pick up ty and he said he needs to wait for his girlfriend to get home so he doesnt have to take mike. I asked him why he didnt want to take him and he said, "i dont want to." Why is it so hard to take him? He is 5, he gets dressed by himself, gets in his car seat by himself and that's really all he has to do, just sit in the car.
I am also babysitting for my friend while i find a job and her boyfriend got fired and doesnt have a job but is still having me watch her while he cleans the house, gets his car fixed, and runs errands (all coming from him). He also never once has said bye to his kid, and everyday he says he will pick her up early and he never has. (its been 3 weeks of this)
I just do not understand this mentality that a child is too annoying to do everyday things that people do all the time with children. James asks me all the time if i ever need a break and need to be social. I tell him that he has Ty every-other weekend and on wed. nights for dinner, that is like 10 nights a month!!! And in my opinion it is wwwaaaayyyy too much! I hate that tyler is away from me that much, i would rather Ty only go over to james' once or twice a month. If i want to do something with friends i wait until those days, and if they want to do something on a different day when i have tyler, i pretty much say no, unless its a special occasion. I dont think he understands how incredibly lucky he is to have as many days as he does with out his kids, most parents dont get to go out ever, and for him to be complaining is completely ridiculous.

PS. I also dont understand when people call their children bad words, not like cuss words but like 'brat' or 'bad' If you dont like the way you raised your kids you should change something about it, not call them names, it's not their fault they act the way they do, its yours.

PSS. I also dont understand why some parents refuse to read any type of parenting book, or website or anything. I know several parents who think that their motherly instincts will just kick in and they will know how to take care of their kid, umm no, you wont. You will not know that its incredibly important for you child to be on a schedule and the reason why your baby is crying is because you dont have a bedtime routine, or that around one they should stop drinking out of a bottle because it will mess up their teeth. You are dumb for thinking you can just know everything.

My life can now resume

I haven't written in a while because i was starting to feel like this blog was a jinx. Every time i wrote something about the house something would go wrong the next day. . .

But we finally got the keys to our condo and everything is over! Thank God! In between now and my last blog the following things happened:

- a pipe burst in Jake's parents house and black mold got everywhere, therefore we moved into my parents house..ugh. we have slept on an air mattress for the last month.
- we picked out a school for tyler to go to. I am really excited about it, I'm so glad that we live in a world where i can pick what school he goes to based on test scores and stuff. James wants Ty and Mike to go to the same school and Mike needs to go the same school as his cousin (same age) so we looked like a bunch of hillbillies coming to the school for three 5 year olds all connected in a weird way.
-The company i work for decided to file bankruptcy and called us at 6am to tell us the company no longer exists, not to come in to work, and that we aren't getting paid for the last two weeks we worked. That was awesome. Luckily Jake makes way more money then i did so its not a huge deal and i already have 3 interviews lined up : )
- Ty turned 5! He is a full blown kid now, not a baby or a toddler or any of that, i feel so old. He had so much fun getting presents (of course). I got him a MP3 player because he kept taking mine, it was his favorite gift and he plays it all of the time. : ) I like getting him things he likes.
-I signed up for a digital photography class at PVCC, it starts on Monday and i am excited about it. I have learned most of the photography from groups on-line and i have learned a lot but i want some people contact.

I think that is it. I can't wait to get into the condo so i can put up pictures! And not live with anyone else. This whole thing was really horrible and i am glad it is over!

the economy sucks balls

So ty and i had an amazing day today, we went to this awesome place in chandler that is an indoor play area, that he loves and we spent 4 hours there having fun. And ty was happy all day and we had a really good time. I came home tonight, put ty to bed and read all of the crap mail that we get and one was from his doctor place that he goes to. As everyone knows, ty was born with a cleft lip and pallate. When ty was born the nice nurses gave me all of this really helpful information about welfare and every state program that i could possibly use, (which i obviously needed at the time). one of the things they gave me was a brochure for a place called CRS which St. Joseph's hospital is a part of and it's also a state funded program. If your child has a birth defect you can take them here and they will help the child until they are 21 with the birth defect related issues. And i think like 80% of the people got everything for free (surgeries and everything). It may sound like just a doctors office with specialists, but this place has every type of doctor in one building and they all work together on the patients, with one file and they talk to each other and stuff. They are really good doctors too, they all have regular offices somewhere else and come in to CRS a couple times a month. Ty's cleft effects him in so many ways that these are all of the following people he sees there:

1. plastic surgeon

2. ENT

3. Speech Therapist

4. Dentist

5. Orthodontist

6. regular pediatrician

7. Genealogy councilor (for parents and for him when he's older)

all of these people work with his cleft and all of them are fantastic. About 6 months ago we got a letter saying that Az. was cutting the budget a bit and that we would start having to pay co-pays just like a normal doctor. Which is fine, i don't like the place because it's free, i would probably pay more then a regular doc. visit because of how awesome it is. (btw, not everyone has to pay co-pays, just the "rich" people...yeah i qualify as rich...dumb) So we had a couple doctors appointments, paid co-pays and then some, and today i get a letter saying that State funding has completely been suspended for CRS and we will be dis-enrolled as of 12/1/09. But people who still qualify for welfare can still go, for completely free. Now i don't care about the people who are on welfare, they obviously need it, just like i did before, but i was paying anyways why am i now not allowed to go?? Ty still needs to have so much work done and i am so upset that i have to go get different doctors, and that all of the stuff wont be coordinated. We will probably still go to his ENT but it is literally impossible to go to his plastic surgeon because he doesn't accept private insurance. I feel like we have to start all over again and it's sad that the state are cutting the wrong things. I know they cut daycare funding, foster care funding, health care, and my mom who works for the state took a big pay-cut too. Those are all really important things and i feel like they are being stupid.

I guess i just feel like we had a plan to take care of everything until he was 21 and now we dont have that option and i am kind of scared to take him anywhere else, i just want everything to be fixed for him.

picture time

This weekend was full of pictures, just the way i like it. On friday i went to see 2 cast memebers from New Moon and it was freaking sweet. I went by myself because tickets were $75 and jake had work. I got a picture with both of them (but i wont have it until friday) and then they did a question and answer session which was super fun.

<--- this is charlie bewley he plays Demetri and he is super cute!!

This is daniel cudmore ---------->

he plays Felix and he is really really big. (he was also in the X-men movies)

Then on saturday we went to my sister's last state marching band festival, they did pretty good.

Then on sunday i did some pictures for my sister for senior pictures. that was so much fun! She is so photogenic, i hate her!

So we should move in to our new house next weeek which will be amazing. i cannot wait. Other then that nothing is new.