Sometimes we just have to slow down in order to let life catch up for us.
I think anyone with two or more kids that are still young (let's say less than 7-8 years old) its just too much effort to get stuff going on the side that don't involve your 8 hour work day. Something's got to give if we want to be more than superficially involved with our kids lives when they are young.
The flexibility you have right now is really not to be taken lightly. You have no commute and you can control your schedule somewhat.
My recommendation would be to beef up your RoR skills and start applying for remote work that you could do alongside your day job. At some point, with enough experience you should be able to get a full time remote job making what you are now.
The only way to do that is ruthless time management. This starts with waking up early in the morning - 5 or 5:30 AM and going from there. Weekends would also include waking up this early and getting work done. Your "free" time would essentially be the time with your family. Any other time would involve pursing your goals. So, no TV, no hanging out with buddies unnecessarily.
All this is hard but that's what we get for wanting to raise a family and make something of ourselves. The light at the end of the tunnel for this is that once your kids are older and much more self sufficient, you can basically be a rocket with your habits and accelerate fast.
