So, you know that you haven't posted in a long time when Xanga email's you that they miss you! So, I've decided to post. Things have been quite busy since my last post. With 3 boys, I just don't think life will slow down again until they are out f the house in say another 18 years!! Yikes!

Anyways...Bailey has been in swimming lessons, Carter has been jealous (but definitely NOT ready to be in a class). Something about not wanting to listen to the teacher! :) So, to make it up to him, I have been taking him once/week to Target to get an Icee! You'd think it was Christmas! The boy loves them- especially if they are red! Hayden has been his usual cheery self- smiles and all. If I ever need a pick me up, he's the one that'll do it! Such a loveable little guy. He just turned 1 on March 30th! It's going to be hard leaving the baby stage. They are just so stinkin cute at this age. But, we are definitely done and not going back! I'll just have to spoil other friends babies!

Ministry is going well. Just busy. Usually at this time of the year things are starting to slow down and we can finally catch up with other things that have fallen by the wayside. Not this year! It has been a see how you can catch up with God kind of year!! Good but challenging. I'm definitely looking forward to taking a sabbatical this summer even if I don't really get to. Ben gets 30 days to work on his personal development and he's going to give me a day too. Nice! :) I just hope that I don't want to kill him by the end of the summer! Usually when he has this much time, he finds projects around the house to work on and then I have more work to do! Let's hope that won't be the case this time. What I am going to enjoy is more time to spend with him, more time for him to spend with the boys (probably playing Star Wars on Playstation) and in general a more relaxed summer without a lot of travel.

Here are a couple of pictures from Hayden's 1st Birthday! As you can tell he loved his smash cake. In fact, he at half of it! We were able to celebrate with family on Easter, so he had an Easter bunny cake. He was the only one of the 3 boys who actually ate it! The other boys didn't want to get their hands dirty! I guess we know who they take after!

It has been fun to see Hayden's personality start to take hold. He does a lot of things that I do. He likes to twirl his hair through his fingers ( I always do that). He's very laid back and likes to be with people. He's always smiling and in general plays well by himself, which as a 3rd child he gets plenty of. Poor guy! Anyways... here are some pictures.

OK.  So I got a wide range of answers to my previous post, but overall I think that what I pay sitters (for the town I live in) is pretty good.  So here are some of the answers that I got.

$6-6.50 for 2 kids per hour

$7          for 3 kids

$8-8.50 for 4 kids

$9-10    for 5 kids

Here’s another one of the going rates for baby-sitters:

$4 per hour for one kid
Every extra kid would add an extra dollar per hour:
2 kids = $5 per hour
3 kids = $6 per hour
4 kids = $7 per hour
And so on . . .

We are also experienced with the MOPS (Mother of Preschoolers) organization. MOPS is more of a “child care” situation (i.e.. A situation where you have a group of kids from multiple families being watched). They pay their MOP caregivers $8 per hour.

Also, a friend from a large inner city said that she has to pay $10-12/hour because of the location but when she was out at CSU she paid $8/hour (she has 4 kiddos).

And then there are of course the people that responded that said that they get their childcare for free because they have students who'll do it for free.  I don't have that for the most part!  Darn it!!  Although, I do have one sitter who has done it for free!  Thanks Lexi! :)

All in all, I'm glad that I got more info on the whole pay for sitters thing.  I would be interested to know how much a nanny (non-live-in) gets paid to watch the kids for a day/week/month etc.  So if anyone knows that let me know.  Thanks!

Also, if you are a babysitter...what do you charge?  You can also email me or send me a facebook message if you don't want to respond publicly.