Back from the Hiatus

As anyone who faithfully follows us knows, we have taken an extended amount of time away from blogging. During that time our family has grown in leaps and bounds!! Abigail is now 7 months old and changing more and more every day!

We are doing something new in our house for childcare this year, its an experience on its own, but all in all the Lord has blessed us with this opportunity and we are fortunate to have found some wonderful college students to help us out. The kids are still getting used to having different people here with them on the days that we work, but they really seem to love each of them, and through this they are learning so many fun things from each of them. As far as Mom and Dad are concerned, this is an awesome thing, as it keeps the kids home, and we don't have to transport to and from daycare at such odd times and during such extreme cold temperatures.

We started out our childcare search through our Alma Mater, by contacting an instructor for their elementary education major. Through this, we got to know an amazing girl, who was our sole provider through the summer. She has stepped in and taken over one day a week for us until next semester, and the kids love having her back in the house on a routine basis.

Our next source was a prior sitter of ours, Stella, she referenced a girl she had known for years that is an elementary ed major, saying she would be a great fit. Was she ever right! We love her and she fits in great in our home, sadly her class schedule doesn't have the greatest fit for our need, but we try to utilize her whenever we have off-hour need.

Our final source was through a website called Care.com (http://care.com), it is a website that was created with a sole purpose of making compatible matches for care taking. On the site you can find dog-sitters, care takers for ill/elderly family members and childcare providers. You pay a fee to utilize the site, but through that fee you are able to get a background check on each person and they also will check references for you.

Jeremy completed the dining room closet, for us to set up for childcare providers and our friends gave us a set of book shelves they were no longer needing, with both of these items we have been able to create a child-friendly space that our sitters can utilize to keep our children busy.