Catching Up

So, here it is again, another catching up post. I've been woefully bad at keeping this blog up to date, but I'm going to try to do a better job. A few things in my life have necessitated that I drop some things that were taking up precious moments that I needed freed up.
However, some big changes are on the horizon. The biggest, is that my work schedule is about to be changed significantly. For the last 6.5 years, I've been work 4 nights a week, Monday through Thursday, many semesters from 5 until 9. During the summer, my classes run from 6 to 11 pm, 4 days a week. However, starting at the beginning of spring 2012, I'll be working on Mondays and Wednesdays only. My class load is the same, it's just all crammed onto those two days which means that I'll be teaching from 4 until 9. Most of the time when I mention this to folks, they comment that it will make for a long day, but what they aren't considering is that I'll be off the other 5 days of the week.
A lot of the reasoning for this was so that I would be home with the kids at night more nights per week. Since Jes started his new job back in October, we've been employing babysitters 4 nights per week so that I could get to work on time. Aside from the financial implications of this, the kids were having a really hard time not having one of us with them at night.
Secondly, Caleb's school is taking up a lot of our time during the day. We have MOPS on 3 out of 4 Mondays of the month and Piper takes dance on Wednesday mornings. Caleb really needs to do school work in the morning to be able to even attempt a level of attentiveness, so unless we get up and do school, we are struggling through the afternoon before I have to frantically pick up around the house, make dinner, go get our babysitter (half the time), and get to work. (Sorry about the run on sentence. My life is like a constant run on...)
The last reasoning behind this is somewhat selfish, I'm just tired. Six and a half years of working all day with the kids and then having to go to work after that makes a girl tired, so hopefully this change will remedy these situations.
I've thought about updating here and have been pretty quiet on facebook but I've been keeping a secret and am not good at not saying anything, so I just didn't post at all.



Here's our secret. We got a kitten, but not for us, he is for my parents.

We took him to their house on Sunday and they named him Maverick, which is fitting considering my dad's love for all things related to the basketball team. He is just the sweetest, snuggly kitty and I was afraid that we would have trouble leaving him. Piper has had the hardest time with him not being at our house. Every time we talk about Christmas (we are going to my parents'), she asks about Maverick. I think she may be just a smidge more excited about seeing him than she is all the presents!