My Handsome Little O' Man

First Haircut

Before:

 

After:

God's Provision

I alluded to a bittersweet blessing a couple posts back and by no means meant to be cryptic. It's not my style to be secretive, but the reason I didn't reveal what was going on was because Joe had not yet told his students what was happening.
 
Our blessing was a new job for Joe. It was bittersweet because it meant leaving a great school and great students, but it was also an answer to prayer. For the past three years we have been monthly dipping into our savings just to survive. It's humbling to know that every month's paycheck is still hundreds of dollars short of your absolute necessities. I cannot tell you about many times we were blessed beyond our expectations in how God provided for our needs. While I would never choose to be in the situation we were in, I learned so much through it. Above all, again and again, we were shown just how good God is, and that when He promises He will provide, He will. But all that to say, after much prayer, we knew we needed to start pursuing other job opportunities.

This pursuit might mean having to move out of state to find a teaching job or having to work somewhere outside of the field of education. I was willing to move, but I love our church and we have an amazing small group we attend, and I hated the thought of leaving. I prayed and told God I was willing to leave, but if possible, could we please stay in Salem? Then one Wednesday night, two months into the school year, Joe got a phone call from a friend from church who told us there was a job opening at an online school, but it closed in three hours. So Joe jumped on the computer and finished his application just in time. It was a shot in the dark, but what's one more job application? The next day, Thursday, he got a call and did an interview over the phone. He was then asked to come in for a face-to-face interview on Tuesday. The interview went great, but the new school would have to wait a minimum of two weeks before Joe could start, so that his current school could find a replacement for him. Because of this, we were unsure whether they would want to hire him. However, later that night he got a call: they wanted to hire Joe and were willing to wait the two weeks. Since it was an online school, he would be working from home, and there would be about a $10,000 a year "raise." Joe's current school was amazing and agreed that it was a God thing, and not only let Joe leave, but sent him off with many well wishes. We couldn't have asked for a better reaction.

It has been three weeks now and things are going great. Joe is still working at catching up with all the grading he inherited coming in halfway through the semester, but so far he loves his new job. I am loving that he gets to eat lunch with us, and most days is off work before 4:00. He is loving that he gets to sleep in later and has a much lighter workload.


And because what's a post without some pictures:

All Hallows Eve

This year I decided to let the kids wear their costumes all day. Grace loved it. Owen went through three costumes. Good thing I decided to go cheap this year and basically use what we had in the closet.

Costume #1 - Dr Who (my favorite)
    Reason for change - Major spit-up

Grace's 1st and only costume - Ballerina
Costume #2 for Owen - Giraffe (Grace's old costume that was too small anyways)
    Reason for change - Wet through diaper during nap time

 
Costume #3 - Football Player
   At this point I decided to stick a jersey on him and call it good. He of course kept this one relatively clean until bed.

 

We stayed home for the night and I grossly underestimated the amount of candy we would need. We were out by 7:30. Sorry neighborhood kids. We however didn't have any incidents akin to this one.  So sorry Lyndsey. Guess southerners are a bit more intense then the trick-or-treaters in the northwest.

Grace also tried her hand at Wii boxing for the first time. She's better than I am. :)