SHE'S HERE!!!!

INTRODUCING MY BEAUTIFUL NEW GRANDDAUGHTER:

AVA GRACE BENNETT

NOVEMBER 9, 2009

6 LBS. 3 OZ

19.5 INCHES

BLACK HAIR

It's been a great weekend and I have so much to share but it's

after midnight and I'm exhausted!

More to come!

SPOOKTACULAR HALLOWEEN!

Another Halloween has come and gone and it gets more fun each year now that our family has a little one again. But before I talk about Logan I have to talk about my award winning daughter, Brein!

She dressed up as FLO the Progressive Insurance girl this year and it was a hit!!! If you ask me it was the perfect costume for Brein to wear.

FLO:
BREIN: I think Brein makes an adorable Flo!
Here she is winning her Best Costume Award at Institute:

Good job Brein!!!!!

Now, onto Logan, cuz Halloween is all about kids!
Logan stayed with us on Friday so that Mommy could get some rest.

She's about to deliver a new baby and she desperately needed a break.

We took Logan to the pumpkin patch and he was in heaven!!!

The kids has had a ton of practice posing for pictures

and he did a great job here!

He was excited about the tractor that he

got to sit on and have his picture taken.

Our cute little scarecrow!

Logan is definitely a man when it comes to shopping.
He walked right into the pumpkin patch and picked up the

first pumpkin he saw and said

"I WANT THIS ONE!"

No wasting time looking around for him!

He got to decorate his pumpkin with stickers
(which he later peeled off in the car- oh well)

NICE JOB!

The three of us got to go on a hayride around the farm but
we were sad cuz all the animals had gone to bed. Bummer!
When we were leaving the pumpkin patch Logan happily said to us

"THANKS GUYS!"

After some dinner and a bath it was time to

wear new Halloween jammies that

Mommy bought.

What a silly kid!

On Halloween Day we took Logan home and
he got dressed up as BATMAN and we all went to

their ward Trunk - or - Treat.

Batman and Mammaw

The Bennett Family

at Trunk - or - Treat

It was a wonderful Halloween!!!

What a week!!!

Last Friday (Oct. 9) was a big day at our house. Lindsay came up for her ob/gyn appt. so I took Logan to the park. He had such a fun time running from slide to swing and back to the slide! What a cutie he is. The weather is perfect here now for playing at the park.

That night we had a baby shower. Our new baby Ava will be arriving sometime in November and we are so excited to get her here. We had a zebra themed shower since Logan has always referred to Ava as "Baby Zebra" for some reason. We had beautiful pink, black and white decorations including cupcakes and a diaper cake. Lindsay's wonderful sis-in-laws did the food (which was YUMMY)! So many people came and supported Lindsay. Thank you everyone!

Brein and her friend Britt did a bow making station. We matched the ribbon to some of the outfits that we had already collected for baby Ava. The bows turned out great. I was sure glad my Aunt Barbara was here from Utah. She's a pro at bow making!

Ava got her first Barbie already thanks to Aunt Leah!

Logan even got a gift! Thoughtful Wendy Cortez.

So many wonderful and cute things for baby Ava!

"A daughter is one of the most beautiful gift this world has to give"

Thursday, Oct 15 was my last day at the job I've had for 7 years. Due to the fact that I needed full time employment with health isurance benefits I am no longer at the dermatologist office. It was a sad day to say good-bye after 7 years. They had a going away party with a cake and yummy food.

Back office girls: Lacey, Alisa and Vanessa

Front office: Kathy, Barb, Me, Lynda, Melina, Heather and Barb

Now I am working at a eye care facility called Prime Eye Care. I am doing front desk and so far I am really enjoying it. The people are super nice and have been very accepting of me. I'm slowly transitioning from dermatology to eye care. It's quite the change but it will be great.

I'm grateful for this new adventure in my life. I know that once again the Lord has put me where I need to be at this particular time in my life. He blesses our family with tender mercies and I know he is aware of me and my family and our struggles.

WHEW!!!

I'm tired just reading about it! Hopefully, the next week won't be quite as eventful.

I could go for plain old boring again!

Big Announcement!

There has only been one session of General Conference so far but I just don't think it's going to get better than it was this morning. President Monson made a huge announcement that I really didn't ever think would happen.
My hometown of Brigham City, Utah is going to be getting an LDS temple!!! I'm so excited! I love Brigham City with all my heart. I never saw myself leaving there. I will always consider Brigham my "home" and to think that now there will be a temple in Brigham is so amazing!

Brad and I have speculated all morning about where it could be including the posibility that the church would renovate the Tabernacle into a temple like was done with the tabernacle in Vernal, Utah. I don't care where it is - there are many wonderful posibilities. If you have some ideas I'd love to hear what you think!

Change is in the air

First of all, October has arrived and suddenly the days are cooler here and it's so awesome! Summers are long here and when we finally get a hint of Fall it's very refreshing!

However, that's not the only thing that's changing. First of all, I want to thank everyone for the support they have shown to us since my last blog post. It means so much to our family to know so many people care and are concerned.

Well, since that last post I have been blessed with new employment. For the past 7 years I have been working for a dermatologist part time and I have absolutely loved it. They have been so good to me but now with our new life circumstances we find that we need health insurance so I began applying for full time positions. I was applying on line like crazy and I got a call on Monday from an eye care facility asking me to come in for an interview. I went there on Wednesday, interviewed and was offered the job right then. I have accepted the job and turned in my 2 weeks notice to my current employment. I'm very sad to leave the people I have been working with but the goal is to help keep our family afloat while we work on getting things in order. I feel extremely blessed and know that the Lord has directed us in this new path.

We still are not entirely sure what the future holds for our family. But, we do feel the love of the Lord in our lives daily. That never changes. He is our one constant. We are moving forward and continue to trust in the Lord with all our hearts.

We are excited to listen to general conference this weekend. The words of our Prophet and other leaders always bring us so much peace of mind and additional direction in our lives - which we need at this time.

UNEMPLOYMENT SUCKS!

In August of this year, the number of unemployed persons increased by 466,000 to 14.9 million, and the unemployment rate rose by 0.3 percentage point to 9.7 percent. Since the recession began in December 2007, the number of unemployed persons has risen by 7.4 million, and the unemployment rate has grown by 4.8 percentage points.
Recently, here in the Phoenix area, an estimated 600 to 800 people lined up in the hot sun outside the Hilton Hotel to apply for 60 jobs at a new In-N-Out Burger. There were people lining up many hours before interviewing began - people from teens to out of work corporate executives.

Our most recent adventure in unemployment began in March when Sprint Nextel had another layoff. This one was much bigger than ones in the past. Basically, Brad's division was dissolved and he was one of 10,000 nationwide to be let go.

From the very beginning we have felt so much peace and comfort in this trial. We have come to the realization that this is our trial in life. We have fasted and prayed much needing direction from Heavenly Father. We have sought comfort at the temple and tried hard to have a positive attitude.

It's now been 6 months since the lay off. Brad has been working hard - extremely hard to seek employment and keep our family financially stable. He's had an incredible attitude this time - it's like night and day. He's been my rock and we have grown closer as a couple in helping each other through this trial. We feel the love of the Lord in our life and see tiny miracles happening in our life daily. Our children have been an comfort to us also. Our 2 year old grandson prayes nightly for Papa to get a job. (How can we go wrong with that sweet little guy on our side?!?)

We have both sensed that there are some people out there that do not understand what we are going through. If you've never been throug unemployment challenges, well, yay for you and I hope you never have to! If you have, I'm sure you can relate to our life circumstances at this time. It's hard. It's depressing. It's humiliating. It feels like it's never going to end and you feel completely alone.

We have friends and family members that are frustrated and ask why Brad just doesn't go get a job that can give us a paycheck. GREAT QUESTION!! This is our 4th go round with lay offs/unemployment. We are seasoned pros (unfortunately). But here's the thing for all of you who are confused as to what we are doing to help ourselves or are frustrated that we "just don't go get an income": We are trying. Brad is working his butt off. He spends hours at his desk making phone calls each day. He's out hitting the pavement and putting himself out there for rejection - over and over and over. For each and every job opening there are hundreds hoping for the same job.

Our motto these days is: Proverbs 3: 5 "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.

Some days are better than others but we are keeping our thoughts positive and taking each day as it comes. We know that the Lord has a plan for our family. We are so incredibly blessed. We see so many other families suffer from unemployment and our hearts and prayers go out to them. We pray that they also will be able to find work and continue to take care of their families.

Having the love and moral support from our friends and extended family is incredibly helpful. We love you all and are grateful each day for you.

Brad & Mel

Labor Day Weekend

I hope everyone had a fantastic and relaxing long weekend. Ours was good - a mixture of busy and relaxing. Saturday morning we woke up to a storm. It was raining, thundering & lightening and the wind was blowing. That just doesn't happen around here near enough so when it does it's a real treat! Well, except when this happens:

We think it was the wind that broke this huge branch out of our tree in the front yard but Brad wanted to take care of it before it became a bigger problem. We don't have a chain saw so he just used his truck to seperate the branch from the tree. It took a little bit of the shrub thingy next to it too. Oops!

This big part of the tree completely filled up the trailer. While Brad worked on hauling it off to the dump I got busy cleaning up in the house. I completely cleaned my bathroom which was long overdue for a good cleaning. After that I rewarded myself by reading this book for the rest of the day. It was a great book and I highly recommend it.

Sunday was, of course, church then nap, then one of the yummiest dinners we've had in a long time and then we watched a movie together as a family. I think it was called "State of Play".

On Monday morning Brad and I got up and got busy canning the Utah peaches that a ward member had given us. He said he thought about bringing us candy but thought we could use the peaches instead. I think Utah peaches are as good as candy! We did 2 batches and now the kitchen is a sticky mess but well worth it!

When the peaches were done we got cleaned up and took a little drive. Okay, this next bit so reminds me of my parents or our friends the Kings but we had a fun day. We drove to Payson (AZ not UT) and had lunch at a little mexican resturant called El Rancho. YUM!!! It's well worth the drive. I know it seems crazy to drive 70 miles to have lunch but we had such a nice ride up there and had some good conversation and lunch was delicious!

We also decided to drive home the long way to see something we've never seen before. We drove around Lake Roosevelt and past the dam. It was beautiful! It's so pretty up there and now I want to go camping! Then we came to a fork in the road. We could either keep going onto Globe or cut off and go past Apache Lake, Canyon Lake and out to Apache Junction. We made the decision to go past all the lakes. We didn't know it when we got started but most of the road was dirt and bumpy and by the time we got home I was completely exhausted but it was a fun and adventerous way to spend the day. We sure do live in a beautiful state.