Life during a strike

So it's been a week now that Navistar has been on strike. It's been interesting :) Here's a few of the things going on now that Tom is home:

- Tom babysat Friday afternoon while I went out for a "girl's afternoon". He not only had our 2 girls, but he had 2 extra boys as well! For Camden's sake, I took him to a friend's house for fear that he'd get stuck w/o ANY attention since Tom had 4 others to keep an eye on!

- Tom babysat yesterday afternoon for a couple hours as well, this time getting paid! Who knew Tom was such a good babysitter?

- Tom sent me out yesterday morning to go job hunting! I've been told I need to get a job, and quick! Nevermind that it might interfere with his nap schedule, or his interviewing across the United States! :)

- Not much new with the girls...when Mackenzie got home from school today, she (& Jenna) & 2 of her friends were outside coloring. A few minutes later I looked outside & this is what I saw...


Of course nothing picked up, and they were off to someone else's house to play & probably leave a mess there as well! Where did we go wrong teaching our kids to pick up after themselves??

On a more serious note, Tom has some tough decisions to make even in the next day or so. He has an offer from a company in Memphis, TN and he has to let them know by tomorrow whether or not he's going to accept, plus he's had 2 phone interviews with another company in Alabama. Please continue to pray for our family as we take each day & decision one at a time. It's so hard to know what's best!

STRIKE!

Just wanted to let everyone know that as of 5:00 today, the union is on strike at Navistar. (It's being called an Unfair Labor Practice strike) So, Tom is officially on strike, although he doesn't actually have to walk the picket line until tomorrow night at 12:00 a.m. He gets the 12-6 a.m. shift. Lucky him...

We'll keep you posted as to what's going on. Although interestingly enough he & a few of his friends from work have already made plans for tomorrow afternoon to play computer games at one guy's house. Sounds like it's all fun & games for him for right now.

In the meantime, he's been getting contacted by a quite a few different people about various jobs (none of which are in Ft. Wayne of course), so please pray for wisdom for him as he makes decisions about what he should do & what's best for our family!

Thanks!

Sick

Tom took this picture of Camden Saturday morning:


But, he is actually doing much better now. No more yucky eyes. On the other hand, every kid on the street has been sick, and of course they're always in & out of our house as well as everyone else's houses, so it was bound to happen that they all shared what they had. There have been 5 kids on the street that have tested positive for strep, and one of those is Jenna's little friend, who also had 2 ear infections, and pink eye. SO...I guess it was our turn. Mackenzie tested positive for strep yesterday (she makes #6 on the street) & Jenna woke up with pink eye yesterday. So, although Camden is feeling better, now the girls are on medicine, but both seem to be doing better already. Hopefully they won't pass their "stuff" to each other! I keep telling them to keep their hands off each other & their brother & to wash their hands often :)

Whose fault is it??

Ok, so I'm taking a fun poll....make sure you put your 2 cents in!!
I forgot to tell you all about a funny (?) thing that happened over the weekend. On our way to Cedarville on Friday, we stopped in Springfield to get something to eat for the girls since they hadn't had dinner. Here's where the story begins:

Person A was driving, and Person B was napping in the front seat. Person A parks right in front of the door, gets the kids out to go into Arby's, and put the keys in the front cup holder since person B was staying in the car. Person B wakes up, looks everywhere for the keys, doesn't see them, and locks the van since the laptop is sitting in the backseat. And so...the keys are locked in the van!!! Mind you this is the gray van which does not have keyless entry or an extra key anywhere but on the key rack at home.

So the ongoing discussion that night was whose fault was it that the keys were locked in the van?? What do you think? Person A, Person B, or both since Person A should have kept the keys with them, and Person B shouldn't have locked the van until they knew for sure where the keys were?

More from the weekend

My sister & I took the kids to Chuck E. Cheese's while Tom and Dave went to a guy's night out for church.
Here's Jenna with some b-day hat we found:

And here's Jenna with Chuck E.:

This is the cake we had back at my sister's:

Jenna blowing out the candle:

And lastly, G-ma & G-pa Palmer came for dinner last night & we "celebrated" again with cupcakes this time:

A busy weekend

This weekend we went to Ohio for Homecoming at Cedarville as well as to celebrate Jenna's birthday with her cousins. It was a busy weekend with lots of fun stuff to do!

Saturday morning we went to the Homecoming parade where the kids got tons of candy:


Camden wanted Tom's sunglasses:


Here's Mackenzie climbing a blow-up obstacle course:

Poor Camden

Well, Camden has taken his turn getting sick. Well, not really sick, but a cold - in his eyes! Poor kid started with goop in his eyes on Saturday, and yesterday (Monday) he looked miserable, but he was actually pretty happy overall. Tom snapped a picture of him at dinner last night & you can kinda see how his eyes are all red, and his nose is runny.



Today, he woke up & his eyes weren't yucky, but he had this mysterious "boo-boo" under his eye. It's the weirdest thing! The only thing I can think of is that yesterday under this same eye, it was really red & puffy by the time he went to bed, and he either rubbed it so hard or something that it popped. I just cut his nails Satruday, so I can't imagine that he actaully scratched it that bad! I know it sounds gross, but I have no idea how else he could have gotten it because he didn't have it when he went to bed!

Hour by Hour....

For those of you wondering about Tom's job, well, he's actually still working. Ever since Monday morning, they've been told to continue to come into work. The negotions are taking place on an "hour by hour" basis. At first I thought this probably meant they were close to getting this contract thing taken care of. I've since learned that's probably not true!! It's now been 3 days, and each day he has to check in & it's the same old thing....negotions are on-going hour by hour. So who knows what this really means. Mainly just that our lives are somewhat on an hour by hour basis as well! He may be on strike tomorrow, or he may not....it's anybody's guess. Kinda frustrating. I guess I should just be thankful that he's still got a job.

Camden standing??

I was sitting in Camden's room with him tonight while he played. He discovered the baskets on his changing table & was getting into those & checking out the stuff in them (socks, samples I got in the mail & never used, and pacifiers that he was never interested in). Anyways, he was having a ball, and so I decided to snap a few pictures. Then, I thought I'd see what he'd do with some sandals on. Low & behold, for some reason when I stood him up to see how he looked, it was like he was ready to stand by himself! So I snapped a quick picture....