I hate potty training. seriously. why can't they be like cats, you stick them in the litter box a couple times and they get the hang of it. I never had problems potty training a cat.

We are moved into our new apartment now, sorry no pictures yet. I've been busy cleaning, unpacking and organizing. Sadly, Ryan was told that they've changed their minds and have decided that they can't afford to hire him. He had been hired, originally, for a farm manager position, but they had him doing hard labor farm work, with the promise that they would put him in as a manager come December. So now we are back on the job hunt. It's very frustrating, and being on our own again makes it harder, but I don't regret moving out of the in-laws and into our own apartment. It will be hard, but we will be okay. It's nice to be our own little family again.

Ethan is doing really well with talking and is trying to learn to read also. He's started saying his own prayers, and its fun to hear what he wants to pray about. I've started potty training him and it is going relatively well. It's not fun, but it hasn't been too horrible this time around. I've tried to potty train him a couple times before and he just wasn't ready. This time he seems to be getting the hang of it and I think it won't take him terribly long either, but who knows.

I've got several clients lined up for my portraits, and so I'm excited that my art is starting to bring in some income, even if it's only a little at first.

Thats about all I have to blog about. We don't have internet at our apartment yet, inernet is really expensive out in Rupert, but it looks like it will be something we will just have to give in and pay and arm and a leg for, since we need it for job hunting.

Wanting Feedback.

There are two things I have almost always known about myself, and those are that I want to be a stay at home mother, and the second is that I want to create and sell art. I am wanting to make a home business out of my artwork, but I don't really know what kinds of artwork people would actually be likely to purchase for their homes. My sister Heather suggested that I take a survey to find out what people are interested in paying money for. I am aware that I will most likely not make a great amount of money doing artwork, but it is what I want to do and it's something I can do while staying home with my children.

What kind of artwork would you realistically buy for your home?
The following are ideas of artwork that I could make and sell: Landscape paintings; Portraits; Storybook Murals to hang in childrens rooms; drawings or paintings mounted on objects such as shelves or wooden blocks (coffee table kinds of things); handmade books.

If anyone has any other ideas or likes the ones I posted please respond to my post. Don't worry about having to commit to purchasing anything, I just want to know what you think.

New portrait finished

This is Tabitha, a co-workers daughter who was married in the Twin Falls ID LDS temple a couple of weeks ago. I need to find some quality fixative to spray on it so it won't smudge when they scan it to put on my CD (for my portfolio). Once I have a saved copy it will go to Vicky and she's very excited for it. After seeing the finished drawing she decided she wanted to pay me to do one of her other daughter also.

Portraits

If anyone is interested in paying for a PORTRAIT to be done of their CHILD OR WEDDING PHOTO, ETC. please let me know. I can do portraits in PENCIL, CHARCOAL, OR PASTELS. The price would be $20 for pencil, $30 for charcoal, and $40 for pastels. They are done on 25 3/4 in x 19 3/4 in Cansom paper, and are studio quality. When we get into our own apartment in the next several weeks I can attempt to do oils also. PLEASE LET ME KNOW if you are interested.

Ryan got the job, and we are moving!!

This last week Ryan got a job for a huge farm. The job is supposed to be an assistant manager position, however they are so busy right now with harvesting that they do not have the time to train him, or really do anything with him, so they put him to driving tractor. However, he has spent all of his time in the shop fixing farm equipment. The job currently does not pay well at all, but we are hoping and praying that as soon as harvesting is complete they will be able to promote him to the assistant manager position. We are so ecstatic that he found a job, he has been looking since March. Right now the hours are incredibly long, and so he won't be seeing much of ethan these next few weeks as he leaves around 7 am and gets home around 11 to 12 at night. We thought that he would just commute for the first while until we knew for sure that the job was permanent, but we've changed our minds and decided to take the chance and move out there, so that Ryan won't have to get home so late. It will still be late hours, but not as late. We found an apartment, it's a duplex that his aunt owns. I am so excited to move. It has been over a year since we have had our own place, and I really miss being on our own. I will be cleaning and painting the place for the next couple weeks, after I get off work, and also I have to start looking for jobs in the area we will be living. I will post before and after pictures of the place we are moving into, because it is in desperate need of cleaning and paint (the last tenants were not very clean) and so we are expecting that the transformation will be pretty extreme. I am very hopefull and praying very hard that this job will work out.

Job hunt, little vampires, and a sick child.

I feel like blogging about something but I don't have anything too interesting to blog about. Ryan has had several interviews for jobs lately, so we are hoping and praying that he will get a job soon. My job is going well, I really like it. It can be a little crazy though, for example we think one of my little ones is teething becuase he bit 7 children today, and it wasn't out of anger he would just randomly tackle them or lean in towards them and sink his teeth in. I decided to nickname him my little vampire, and tried to keep him seperate from all of the other children. It was kind of comical in a way when we were outside and I'm running (on tv they would show it in slow motion....) in and out through the toys yelling "NO!!!!" trying to get to him in time to stop him from biting a little girl, and he stops and looks up at me so innocently with this look that said, "what?".
I got home from work to find Ethan sick. He's happy and playing but can't keep anything down. I really hope it doesn't last long, whatever he has, it's so not fun to be sick.