Announcing... Samantha Ali McEvoy

Announcing the birth of Samantha Ali McEvoy

Sami was born March 9th at 6:34pm. She weighed 7 lbs 1 oz, and was 19 inches long.

Her brother and sister love her, and we are all excited to have her in our home. I am feeling really good, and have had a really fast and fairly easy recovery. Our only real challenge has been getting sleep. Sami seems to have something that bothers her at night, and she spends hours grunting and crying, and nothing we do seems to help much. The good news is that she sleeps great during the day and is very well behaved during the day! :) Unfortunately, that doesn't help Josh much. I would think she just has her days and nights mixed up, but it isn't just that she's awake at night. She really seems uncomfortable or like something is bothering her. Hopefully we can figure it out soon.

We have all been enjoying the warmer weather this last week or two. We go on walks almost every day, and when the girls and I walk to pick up Mitchell from school in the afternoons, we stay and play on the playground for a while. It has been really fun. One of these days I will have to remember my camera and take some pictures. Lizzy loves the playground, especially the slides, and she has no fear. She will try all sorts of new things, and go places she shouldn't go being as small as she is, and I really have to keep track of her so she won't kill herself! She would live at the playground if she could, I think.

For your viewing enjoyment.

Hello all, this is Josh again. As Tania has already mentioned I started at Ceramatec a few weeks ago. So far I am enjoying working there. My job works well with both my schooling and Tania's work. At work I mostly run different presses laminating parts together. I would tell you in more detail what I do, but you would be more confused than if I just leave it at that.

Tania is getting ready to pop, and hoping Samantha comes sooner rather than later. She will continue to work until the baby is born. After the baby is born Tania will be able to go to church with us for a few months, that will be a pleasant change for me.

Mitchell started first grade about the time I started work, and seems to be enjoying it. I like it when he comes home and can actually tell us things he has learned while at school. I think we should start sanding his knees with sand paper, because they seem to wear holes in his pants in about two weeks. It's a good thing we buy his pants at shopko, and can take them back.

Elizabeth just turned 2 last week. She continues to be a little angel. She plays with Mitchell's learning toys a lot and can recognize quite a few letters in the alphabet. She seems to be following in his foot steps. I wouldn't be surprised if she is reading by the time she is three or four.

Both of the kids get complimented weekly on how well behaved they are in church. Everyone thinks they are the cutest kids ever. Which makes me kind of proud of them. Everything seems to be going really good for us right now.

A few weeks ago I finished putting together a slide show movie of our adventures on the truck. I figured this blog was started about the truck so a movie about the trucking would fit well here. I hope you enjoy it.

FYI- I tried to make the pictures go along with the words of the songs. I also tried to make the transitions fitting to the pictures and the songs.

Hooray for good news!

So once again we are long overdue for an update. It seems like we just get busier and busier everyday, and I just don’t ever have the time or energy to update the blog. We’ll see how it goes today.

The first piece of exciting news is that after about two or three months of searching and applying for five or so jobs each day, Josh finally got a job and started working! He is working at a company called Ceramatec where he runs a machine to help make some sort of high tech “wafers” that are used in energy things like special batteries. They also do a lot of energy research there. He is enjoying it so far (he has been working there for about three weeks now) and likes the people he works with. This job is very helpful to our finances and equally as important, it will allow me to take a maternity leave when Samantha is born.

My due date is quickly approaching, and I only have about a month and a half left. I am doing pretty well, but getting very uncomfortable, and after cleaning the bathrooms the other day, my hips were so sore I could hardly move for two days. I don’t really know why either, because Mitchell was super helpful and did all the scrubbing of the floor around his toilet. I did sit on the edge of the tubs to scrub them, but I wouldn’t have thought it would make me so sore. I am still working full time at the hospital, and other than the difficulty moving around, and my belly getting in the way when I try to lean over the cribs to reach the babies, I am doing pretty well. I really enjoy my job, and I am glad I work where I do. If only I weren’t so exhausted all the time… As far as how the baby is doing, all appears to be going well. My first ultrasound showed that the placenta was too close to the cervix which can be dangerous during birth, but the follow-up ultrasound we had a couple of months ago showed that was no longer an issue. But of course we couldn’t just leave it at that because then we wouldn’t have enough stress in our lives, so they became a little concerned that she had too much fluid around her heart. We had to come back in three weeks and have her looked at again, but luckily this time the doctor said the amount of fluid was measuring within normal limits. That was a relief. So as of a week ago, Samantha was measuring about a week ahead of schedule and weighed approximately 5lbs 1oz, and appears to be healthy.

Our other big news is that Mitchell finally got moved up to first grade. Today he is finishing his second week, and he seems to enjoy it. I feel like the things they are learning are a lot more age and development level appropriate for him. Kindergarten was such a waste of time for him, and I am glad he can finally learn things in school. He enjoys having more recesses and getting to eat lunch in the cafeteria each day. Eating in the cafeteria was a “dream come true” for him.

Lizzy is just as cute as ever. She is saying more two and three word sentences. She loves to sing and be sung to, and whenever you sing a song she knows, you can pause at any time and she will fill in the next words for you. She especially loves You Are My Sunshine, I Am A Child Of God, and the ABC’s. She can also recognize about half of the alphabet, count to 13 (although she always skips 7) and hit a few extra numbers between 13 and 20. She will be two in about a week and a half.

Well, that about sums it up for now. Sorry the pictures are so random, but all the other ones are on our other computer, and I can't get on the internet on that one...

Announcement

Well, for those of you who don't already know, the kids have been making a little stir lately with their cute shirts...





I am 22 weeks along as of today. That is 2 weeks past halfway, for those of you not used to counting pregnancy time in weeks. We have had an ultrasound, and everything points to a very healthy little girl! We are so excited! I haven't been nearly as sick this time as I was with Lizzy, which has been a huge blessing since I have to work right now.


I am still loving my job at Primary Children's, working with the babies. Josh is still enjoying school. He is taking Math, English, Sociology, and Drafting. He is doing really well in all of them, and will most likely get A's in all of them. He really likes his math teacher, and that has made a huge difference. This teacher explains all the concepts really well, and also explains the reasons for doing what you are doing, which is something that has been lacking in all of his previous math classes. Josh is also looking for a job right now that he can do in addition to school to help out our financial situation, and get us ready for when I have the baby. He hasn't had any luck yet, but hopefully he'll find something soon.

Mitch still enjoys going to school to see his friends, but the actual schoolwork the class is doing is so far below his level that he is bored. The only thing he can tell you he has learned in school is about the word "conflicts". That is all he has learned this whole year so far. The teacher sends him home extra books to read for homework (while the rest of the class practices their letters) but then it is just us teaching him. It is very frustrating to us to feel like everything he is learning is coming from us, and we would just pull him out of school and homeschool him, but we want him to be able to interact with the other kids still. We still might be able to get him moved up to first grade, but we'll have to see. At home he is learning how to add and subtract numbers with ones, tens, and hundreds columns. The kids in his class are learning their numbers 1-10. He is a smart boy, and a good helper to me. His sister adores him. Here is a picture of the two of them on Halloween.
Lizzy continues to grow cuter every day. She says new words all the time, and has become quite the conversationalist, especially on the phone. She is slowly working on the potty training. She runs everywhere she goes. Anytime anyone blows their nose, she says bless you. She likes to say hi to people, but anytime they try to talk to her, she stares at them like they are crazy to think she would think of talking to them. So silly. Here is a cute picture of her in her pretty dress.

School

Well not much has happened since the last time I wrote. Mitchell started Kindergarten about a month ago. He is very excited to be going to school. He is really far ahead of the other students because he can already read books by himself. Mitchell's favorite thing about school would probably be that he gets to be around lots of other kids and play with them. He definitely gets that from Tania not me. Mitchell's school isn't very far from our apartment. Most of the time we walk or ride our bikes to take him to and from school. This is a picture of him on his first day of school. As you can tell from the picture he has been growing a lot lately. His pants that fit him three months ago now make him look like he is waiting for a flood. Just before school started we bought Mitchell new glasses. The other glasses were broken in every spot that can be broke. Mitchell is doing really good.

Elizabeth also seems to be growing a lot lately. She is finally able to wear clothes that are actually for her age which is 19 months. She is just as cute as ever. She can already talk really good. She can repeat any word you say. She can even repeat hard words like sustenance. If you say hello she says "hello." If you then ask her how she's doing she says "good." At church she seems to enjoy going to nursery. I have never had to force her to stay there, and she is never crying when I leave so I think she does pretty good. This is a picture of her on our bed.

Tania is still working at primary children's medical center, and seems to enjoy it. I think working with kids like she does that have medical rap sheets as long as the rap sheets of America's most wanted criminals would be incredibly stressful, but she seems to love it. I'm glad because the kids normally need a lot of attention, and who better to give it to them but Tania.

I also started school again this fall at the Salt Lake Community College. I am enjoying it so far. Living in Utah isn't that bad either. I don't have to memorize very many street names because of the grid system that the streets are set up on. It makes finding things, and places that I have never been to before really easy. Well I just thought I would write a little to let everyone that keeps asking when we will update our blog know what is going on. I will get Tania to write again soon.

Playing at the apartment

Well it has been a while again. This is Josh trying to give an update since Tania always forgets to. The last couple of months the weather has been very good for playing outside. Our apartment complex has a swimming pool that we have been trying to use frequently. Mitchell loves to play in the pool. He still doesn't quite know how to swim on his own, but he is getting there. We bought him diving sticks, and a kick board to keep him entertained. He loves to play with both. The only problem is he doesn't want to share them. Elizabeth is just like Mitchell she loves the water. One day we were going to go swimming, then we couldn't because something came up. Elizabeth started crying when we were taking her bathing suite off of her. Normally she never cries when we take it off. We bought a floating animal for her to sit in so she can play in the water easier. she loves to splash, and even stick her face in the water. We often stay in the pool for several hours, and if Elizabeth is tired she sometimes falls asleep sitting up in her floating animal. I would say our kids take to water like fish.

A few weeks ago I took the kids to play in the sand in the volleyball court. After the kids were done in the sand they decided they would like to play in the rocks. These picture are of them.

The kids seemed to have a lot of fun.

Well I guess I should tell all of you about Tania and I. Tania is still enjoying her job at Primary Children's Medical Center. So much in fact that it is one of the reasons we are still living in Utah. Tania also loves to swim in the pool Just like the kids, and even cries sometimes when it is time to get out. OK so maybe I'm exaggerating a little. I will start school again here in a few weeks for the Fall semester. Hopefully it will go as good as the last semester did. For those of you in Idaho we will be headed up there soon for a visit. We leave after Tania gets off work on the 28Th of July, and will head back on the 7Th of August. Tania still plans on telling more about our trip a couple months ago. So keep waiting maybe she will write soon. Josh

Engineering Project

This is a project that I had to do along with three others from my engineering class. We had to design and build it. All it had to do was climb stairs, which as you can see it did very easily. This semester is now over and I will be taking the summer off. After the presentations were over, the teacher said that whoever wanted to pit their stair climber against the other ones had his blessing, so everyone took them out in the hall to try to have their projects push the other ones. Ours went up against one that probably weighed 200 lbs because it was made out of solid steel, but ours pushed the other one backwards a few inches until the belt popped off the other one. As you can guess, we were very happy that ours defeated the other one.