Bringing up Allie

It sucks being old and having to make adult decisions. We're now into month 4 of Loren back working in the Union and frankly, I think we're both getting sick of it. We've hit the road where we need to decided whether or not to stay with the Union or go back trucking. I know and always have known what I want us to do, but I think Loren has a harder time with the decision because he is the one supporting our family financially. We really miss trucking though. I miss the people he was working with, he misses the work, we both miss being able to talk to each other whenever we wanted and we really miss our family being able to hang out at the pit whenever we wanted. There are the obvious perks to the Union like amazing health insurance, better money if Loren works over time, and a company truck BUT I feel like the perks to trucking outweigh the union's any day. Yeah it's a little less money and more hours, and the health insurance isn't as good but the environment is what we love. I love being able to go to work with Loren when I want to, I love being around the trucking family and I love that if Loren has to work on one of the trucks at the pit, I can easily take him some dinner and let the kids (Allie for right now) run wild and get dirty while I hang out with my husband.

Both Loren and I agree that it's more important to be happy and have a little less money than to be unhappy and have more money. I know Loren HATES working in the city and in the cold. And me knowing this makes me unhappy.

Well, I guess now it just comes down to when he'll be driving again. They're trying to decide whether or not to buy another truck, whether or not to get rid of the guy they have working for them and blah blah blah...business stuff. Hopefully he gets back into it soon. We can totally make it work. We already did for a good 8 months, why can't we now? Loren's just worried because we have two more kids to worry about now. And that's totally understandable. We just need to make sure we save for the off times and really stick to our budget. If we get our debt paid off in the next couple of months like planned, we'll be much better off. We don't have car payments and we're almost debt free. I don't see why it wouldn't work. Plus, I'm hoping to get back to cleaning a couple days a week so there will hopefully be some extra money from that.

Besides all that business, we really haven't been doing much of anything. It's been stupid cold the past couple days and Loren is off work for the whole week so we've just been hanging out. I've been cleaning and taking care of kids while Loren has been working on little projects here and there.

The wind is terrible so we had to put blankets on all the windows and wrap the babies up good so they stay warm. Out patio door sucks so with the wind whipping, we've had issues with snow getting in the house. We live right next to a big field so that makes the wind much worse.

Allie is spending the day at the in laws today so I'm hoping to get some sleep and maybe do some shopping on the buy/sell/trade sites. I've been pretty lucky lately with finding some cool things. I got Allie a bunch of Octonauts toys yesterday along with an awesome camo snowsuit for $30 all together. I'm also on the hunt for some clothes for Ray so I'll be searching through the albums.

Well, both babes are sleeping so I think I'm going to lay down for a bit. I'm really wishing we had a heated blanket right now.