Our Five Year OId

Parker's birthday is today. He would be a whopping FIVE years old. In many ways it just makes me sad.... I totally different phase of life begins, I feel, around five years old. They are in or nearing starting school, they seem to be "older" around that time. It makes me sad to think of all that I am missing. What would be be doing? What would he look like? How tall would he be? What would he want to be for Halloween? What would he want for Christmas? How would he be with Tyler? What would he think about Lincoln coming in two weeks? How much would he know? What would I be teaching him? What would he teach me? .... the questions go on and on. I will never know. I just miss him so much.....

Back in July I showed photographs of Parker's first year of life. Below are photographs from November 2004 until his death in July 2005. I hope you get a little more of a glimpse of our son. Thank you for reading this blog.



Here is Parker all bundled up at the Corn Maze in Pleasant Grove. He was worn out by this point. The other is a photograph of me with Parker after the Utah Jazz game we went to. He loved going to the games and cheering! Goooooooooo Jazz!



Thanksgiving .... and with his Grandma McUne. I am thankful for my son! I am thankful he will always be my son. I am thankful we have the opportunity to be an eternal family if we follow the commandments. I look forward to holding my son in my arms again. I don't ever want to let go. It is too hard to have empty arms... I hold onto the time I had with him.



Every year the MacArthur family has a Christmas party where the kids do the nativity scene for us. The younger kids are the "animals". So, we had Parker be a cow. I am sure there were cows in the stable. We made a sign that says "I am a cow. I came to see Jesus". Parker ran around everywhere. He loved playing and being with his cousins so much!



Here are some more pics of us around Christmas time. Here I am holding Parker, waiting in line to see Santa. The next is all of us making our first gingerbread house. The last is Parker with Santa. We had a lot of fun together. Really this was our only Christmas together as a family. Parker's first Christmas he was only two months old and slept through the whole thing. We are so glad we got to have one solid Christmas together. Some parents don't even get that. I don't take holidays, etc for granted anymore. Each one I try and store every detail in my brain and my heart... just in case.



Parker had a wonderful time at Christmas. He loved pulling everything out of his stocking. He also LOVED his drum set. We still have it and now Tyler loves to play with it. The last one is us as a family waiting for Santa. We don't have a lot with the three of us together as I am usually taking the photographs. I am glad we have some.



2005 began... our last months with our son. Here are some photographs with Parker with his favorite "Uncle Biden". Friday and Parker had a wonderful relationship together. Parker loved to follow him around. He played with his cell phone ALL THE TIME. Here is Parker at Lori and Fridays' wedding. He looked so handsome! After the wedding Rodger, Parker, and I blew up a zillion balloons! We wanted to fill the whole room up, but we realized it would take FOREVER and take a ZILLION balloons... so we settled for what we have here. Parker had a blast jumping around in the balloons after Lori and Friday got back from their honeymoon.





Here is our last holiday together where we have photographs of Parker... Memorial Day... ironic, huh? We went camping at Mantua, up by Brigham City. Parker had an incredible time. We camped in our little two man tent. I remember Parker getting cold as it rained half the night. He was curled up by my face. Needless to say I was VERY uncomfortable. We survived the night and Parker had a great time throwing rocks into the puddles. Mantua will always be a special place to us.

..... The night has gone too fast... I will have to finish the rest of my blog tomorrow.... Parker, turning FIVE... to be continued.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, PARKER!!!!!!!!

Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It's Off to Work We Go

Well the doors are finally being opened a little for us to get back on track financially. This isn't the solution to it all, but it will get us in the door to make enough to be able to pay our bills and get a savings again. So, this is the story:

Rodger will be starting work on Tuesday, working a temp-to-hire position with Nestle (Stouffer's) located in Springville. He will make a little more then what he was getting through unemployment. After working there for a few months he would then get hired on by Nestle and be able to jump into other positions within the company that are in his line of career work. In the meantime, he has a few other possibilities that he is pursuing that would allow him to make more then Stouffer's and get him in his career field immediately. So, either way, at least he has something lined up and will make progress. There are so many of the jobs he has applied for that have had 30-50 people applying for them that have more experience he just couldn't get his foot in the door. So, at least now he can get rolling.

Then for me, I have had to put in two applications per week to get my unemployment. But, being pregnant people just aren't going to hire me (of course, legally they can't say anything) ... so once my unemployment runs out in December, that would be the end of that.

But, I applied for a job for a website designer. Most of my experience is in graphic design but I know some about website designing... not a lot though. So, I didn't expect a phone call from them (Stores Online). But they called me last week and I had an interview last week. They wanted to hire me, but with the baby coming, and I would be our a period of time with our new baby, they wanted me to go a different route within the company. So, they set up an appointment for me to interview to be an At Home Chat Representative. Through this I could work from home, once I complete a three week training (that will start this Monday). This way I could take a little break once the baby is born. Through this I could learn their web building software and become better and faster as an At Home Chat Rep or later transition to be a Website Designer again (and make a lot more money). The web designer position is an in-house position so that is the advantage of the At Home Chat position, even though it pays less.

So, they called and offered the position to me today. I took it. It will still allow me to be with my children (wow that is odd to say... I have never said that before) and also still pursue my Medical Transcribing/Coding Certification I am working on (hopefully to finish next summer sometime). I hope over the coming year a lot of doors will open for me to bring in money while still being at home. We will see what doors God wants to open.

Thank you for all those who have supported us during all these months of unemployment... stressful times. I want to get my saving back up so we don't drown so much if this ever happens again (Lets pray it doesn't... no fun!).