Family Update: Cleveland Rocks

My brother Derrick is home from Uruguay! We're so excited to have him back, but maybe not as excited as Jay, he won't stop talking about how much soccer he's going to play with Uncle Derrick. A lot has happened in 2 years. Here is the funniest picture from the airport, when Carly met her Uncle Derrick:



Alright, it's update time.

As far as our family goes, we're still unemployed, and still pretty bummed about it. Our lease for our apartment ends at the end of the week, so we were forced to make a decision about where to go. We've decided to stay here in Ohio for at least 3 months (we're not ashamed to admit that this tourism video for Cleveland was the basis for our decision). We're signing a 3 month lease on a house our friends have abandoned in favor of a fabulous house they just purchased (for the price of a VCR). They had 3 months left on their lease, so we're going to finish up their lease on a 3 bedroom house and then re-evaluate our situation when it comes time to move again. We're excited to have a yard for the summer, and an extra bedroom for Carly.

We're striving to be optimistic, but some days we struggle quite a bit. We have no idea what the future holds, and it causes a lot of anxiety. We know that our situation could be much worse, and we are so grateful for our relatively stable financial situation and the opportunity to have a fun summer break with the freedom to do fun things together as a family.

Since our lives are boring, here's onto the kids:

Jay:

• It's true, he read the flight instructions for half of the flights to and from Albuquerque. He asks what every picture means, over and over again.
• Thrives solely on frosted mini wheats, chicken nuggets, and waffles
• Asks Why? to every question, and everything that's not a question
• Still not potty trained
• Pretends to be "Firefighter Jay" most of the day
• He jumped up in the middle of Primary to tell everyone that he was the "best singer". Another child jumped up after him and Jay thought he also screamed that he was the "best singer". He completely freaked out and had to leave Primary. (We tried to tell him that everyone could be the best singer, but he's smarter than that. He said "No Daddy! If Noah says he is the best singer, then I CAN'T be the best singer!) We also found out later that the whole ordeal was a misunderstanding. The boy didn't say "I'm the best singer," but rather stood up to tell everyone "I'm going to Sea World!"

Carly

• This girl sure can eat! She already eats a million things Jay has NEVER, and yes, I seriously mean NEVER, tried in his life, including: beans, cheese, corn, and avocado. (I'm now convinced it isn't my fault that Jay ate baby food until he was 2 and still won't eat. Seriously, I didn't know babies just ate what you put in front of them and didn't gag and throw up.)
• She's decided she doesn't like 1 food: peaches. Yep, she even loves all the veggies.
• She army crawls everywhere. I'm convinced she'll never crawl normally. It's pretty darn cute, and she's super fast!
• She is fearless! She just dives into the bathtub on her belly and scoots around with the water splashing all over her face. (Jay's kind of a wimp when it comes to water)
• She's seriously adorable

Overall, we're all doing just fine. At least we're not Detroit.