Friday, October 5, 2012

Time for an update.....

Well it has officially been over a year and a half since I wrote on here and thought maybe now that life is slowing down a little I should update the old blog.

The Stuemke's have had a huge year this year with lots of changes in our lives.  We went from a one income house hold with a full time student to a household with 2 incomes coming in!  We moved from Southern IL to Central IL.  We became a family of 4.....we got a Schnoodle! No more babies yet.

As for each of us individually:
Chet: Quit working at SIU and took a job with a company called Kruger seeds.  When he went for the interview I told him just go listen to them and see what they have to say.  I never in my wildest dreams thought they would offer him enough to make it worth us moving.  Guess what....they did and then some!  He interviewed for the position the middle of April had it offered to him 2 days later and we moved the end of April so he could start on May 1st.

Carder: Where has my baby went to?!?!?!? He has gotten so big and so smart!  He is about 39 inches tall and weighs in at about 38-39 lbs and he will be 3 in November!  I remember him being so small and helpless and now he is so independent.  He has potty trained himself and pretty much doesn't let me help him with anything anymore.  He tells me I can get my food or I can put my clothes on mommy! I wish so bad he would slow down!  He is so smart too.  He knows his ABCs, can count to 30, knows his colors, shapes, too many dinosaurs to name, the planets, how to spell quite a few words, and can almost write his name, plus who knows what else.  What do you do when your child gets smarter than you?

As for me:  I moved to our new house after I finished nursing school.  Carder and I drove back and forth from Carterville to Taylorville every week and then stayed in Southern IL with some friends of ours while I had classes.  A huge thank you to Justin and Lisa Miller and Brandi and Evie Yagow for letting us crash at their houses for a while!!  Once done with school I started applying for jobs and hated the idea that most of the hospitals were going to make me go through 16 weeks of classes before I started to work.  I finally started working on my birthday at the end of June at Decatur Memorial Hospital.  I have to say I absolutely love it!! I started in the float pool and was trained on 5100 where I worked with alot of neuro patients and really enjoyed that.  Then it was time to switch to a new for for training but before I could switch my boss called and offered me a full time position on the ortho floor.  I took it and love where I am now!  I hope someday to go on to get my Nurse Practitioner and become a first assist.

As for the whole family we are just settling into our new life in a new home in a new town enjoying life and all that it is bringing our way.  We have two crazy dogs that rule our lives and one wild child that makes all the decisions.  We keep tossing the idea around of adding another one to the mix and we are shocked that when asked Carder tells us yes he wants a baby sister.  I guess we will see about that as time goes on.  Maybe we will maybe we wont.  First it will be an appointment with Dr Paul to see if its even safe to try or not.  I dont want to put another baby at risk.  I still beat myself up on a regular basis for all that Carder went through, but I knew we had to because I was not going to give up on him!  So who knows we will see I guess!

I guess now I have updated everything now I have to decide if I should change the name of the blog or leave it the same since technically Chet is no longer a Milkman.......I guess I will have to figure out a new clever name for it!