Christmas Day 2006

Ok I got the pictures, so....

On Christmas Morning, we opened presents, as usual. It was a good thing that the kids had gotten presents from Grandmas and Grandpas or it would have been a pretty scarce Christmas as far as gifts go. Mike, Hyrum, and I all got new matching pajamas made by my mom. They have bright colorful cats on them and cause Hyrum to go into meowing fits whenever he puts them on. I'm going to try to make some PJs for Emily from the scraps that Mom sent. Among the presents that Emily got were new church and casual shoes and some new clothes and blankets. She got her traditional sock monkey from Grandma Sears. It turned out really cute. She got burp rags and bibs and clothes, a cute firefly shaped rattle, and a picture frame with a figurine of a little girl playing with some kittens. Now I just need a good picture of her to put in it. Hyrum made a pretty good haul. He got a new video game for his Little Leaps system which has some great activities for vocabulary building and learning letters and numbers. He enjoyed playing it quite a bit. He also got some new books. Yay! Now I don't have to read "Who Stole the Cookie from the Cookie Jar" as often! He also got a shopping cart and toy food which he pushes all over the house with a teddy bear riding in the child seat. He also got an ambulance which talks and makes siren noises. Luckily for me and Mike, it isn't too loud since he plays with it almost non stop from morning till night. We also got him a really neat fort building kit. All the pieces fit together with magnets and can be moved around and reconfigured in lots of different ways and can be used indoors or outdoors. That afternoon, we tried to play a game of Settlers with Jacob, Joseph, Mom, and Sherwin, but technical difficulties abounded. We ended up playing with Jacob, Joseph, and Mike's brother, Dave. We'll have to try again with Mom and Sherwin later. Mike and Hyrum wasted no time later that evening putting together a large fort with 2 towers that nearly filled our whole living room. We put a pillow inside the fort and Hyrum and Mike lounged inside it while we all watched "The Polar Express" until Hyrum's bedtime.

Christmas Eve 2006

Christmas this year was very quiet. We didn't have the money to go visit anyone and would have had nobody to visit anyhow, so we just stayed at home. In a way, it was very difficult for me. I'm used to having lots of family around for the Holidays. However, it gave us a chance to spend more time focusing on just our own little family. On Christmas Eve, we watched the First Presidency Devotional and the church video "Joy to the World" which is a video of different families reading the Christmas story from both the Bible and Book of Mormon while they show pictures of nativity scenes and different parts of Christ's life. Afterwards, we baked sugar cookies with Hyrum. I wasn't able to find a recipe that I liked for sugar cookies since my cookbook and recipes have disappeared. I'm sure they're still packed... somewhere. We ended up buying a tube of pre-made Pillsburry dough. The instructions were to open the tube and cut the roll in half inch slices, but the dough was way too gooey and wouldn't hold any shape. We decided we would try to roll it out and cut it since gingerbread men shapes (the only cookie cutter we have) are more fun than plain circles anyhow. It took a lot of flour to get the dough to a decent consistency. Hyrum really enjoyed rolling the dough and especially loved cutting out the shapes. We turned the oven light on so he could watch the cookies raise and get all puffy. He liked decorating the baked cookies too, but once he realized that the decorations were just candy, he ate more than he decorated. The cookies weren't all that great. I would have preferred homemade to the Pillsburry, but Hyrum seemed to like them. We spent the next several days hiding them from him so he wouldn't spoil his appetite for real food.

I'll post about our Christmas as soon as I get the pictures off of my camera.

Jessica's Christmas Memories

So, Mike wanted me to post my Christmas memories so it didn't look like this was just his blog. As far as gifts, I usually don't remember all that I got for Christmas since it's always a bit blurred with my birthday gifts as well. We always left the tree up until after my birthday, so all my memories of opening presents are memories of sitting in front of the tree and having snow outside and all that other Christmasy stuff. I do have a few memories I can share, however.

When I was 6 years old, I got a gift from "Santa" that was too big for my stocking. I found it sitting under my stocking on Christmas morning. It was a Cabbage Patch Kid! I was never in to dolls much, but for some reason, I really wanted one. Maybe because all my friends had large collections of them. I didn't care about having a bunch, I just wanted one, and there it was! She had long brown hair in pigtails and blue eyes and when I opened the box and read the birth certificate, I found out her name was Joletta Christine. It was a Christmas miracle!! A doll who's name already started with a "J" so I wouldn't have to change it! (Everyone in my family and even extended family is named with a "J" name.) My oldest brother James helped me with the adoption papers and had me swear an oath to take care of her. From that point on, I took that doll with me everywhere I went. My Great Grandma Rock pulled the pigtails down over Joletta's nose, making a mustache, and gave it the nick-name "George" when I went to visit her -- a joke that caught on quickly with my 2 great uncles Jim and Harland. Uncle Jim even made me a doll cradle that had the name George on it. It was my Uncle Harland who first transferred the name from the doll to me. He called me George from that point on. He even labeled our wedding present, "To: Mike and George."

Another year my brothers and I were welcomed with meows at our garage door. We shared a cat with our neighbors across the street, but it wasn't his meow. We opened the door and in walked an elegant Siamese cat. We let him in and closed the door behind him, but the meowing continued from the other side of the door. We opened the door once again and a scraggly tabby cat walked in. We named the cats Jarvis S. and Jarvis T. (the initials designated their breed) after our home teachers Bro. Jarvis and Bro. Jarvis. As an adult, I've often wondered how they felt about having cats named after them...

I remember trying to wake up every year before my youngest brother Joseph. It wasn't really a competition, but it bothered me that every Christmas morning, I'd wake up and he was already up and opening stocking stuffers. I swear, he never woke up early the whole time he lived with us! One year, he got Donkey Kong Country in his stocking, and since we had woken up so early, we got a few good hours of playtime before my mom woke up for presents.

Most of my Christmas memories are memories of playing board games with my family, listening to carols as we decorated the tree, singing around the piano as Jacob played, and just enjoying each other's company. Every year, we tried to sneak some small present into my mom's stocking as a gift from Santa. Then, of course, there was Christmas morning at my Grandma Sears's house with all the extended family while we were living in East Idaho. We were always late -- something that my grandma bothered my mom about endlessly even though we usually beat my Aunt Jane. Christmas morning at Grandma Sears's house was a tradition that Mike and I still carried on until we moved away. This year, like last, we will be spending Christmas alone. It's kind of difficult for me to be alone like this for the holidays since I'm so used to having family around. But it gives us the chance to try to establish some traditions of our own. Hyrum will be old enough this year to understand what's going on, so I'm excited. It should be a lot of fun for him, and whenever he's having fun, it makes me happy. It'll be a while still before Emily will care about Christmas, but I'm already looking forward to the years when my kids are older and can enjoy it as much as I did.

New photo album

You can find our new photo album @ http://picasaweb.google.com/mike.haddox

Don't try to remember it, just us the link on the right if you ever need to get to it :)

A Christmas Memory

@ work, we had a team meeting. At the beginning of this meeting they had an ice breaker where we stated the most memorable present we've ever received.

First of all, I just have to say that I never knew that so many people received promise/engagement rings as Christmas gifts. Out of the 12 team members that were there, 7 of them mentioned having a promise or engagement ring as their most memorable present o_o

Then it was my turn, and I knew the answer well:

M.A.S.K. Boulder Hill! Based on the stares from people I was getting, I realized I was probably the only 80's child in the group. I had to explain how it was the secret base of M.A.S.K. (the Good Guys) and how when Venom would come along, the boulder on the top of the hill would crush their vehicles. I still got blank stares until one guy said, "Wait! Didn't they have a diesel too?" I was so excited, I replied, "Yes!! That was one of Venom's vehicles!"

I went on to explain how my siblings and I would wake up at 4 or 5am most every Christmas day and just sit and look at the presents and talk about which ones were ours and what we'd guess they would be. I remember that Boulder Hill got us most excited because it said "To: The Boys" and it was so big it could only be wrapped in a black garbage bag.

WebNursery

Visit http://www.growingfamily.com/webnursery/babypage.asp?URLID=8R4L8O4K4I and use O5Q7I0G9T0 as the visitor password.

These are some photos that were taken of Emily the next day following her birth. In one of them, she looks like she's smiling on mom's shoulder and it's amazingly adorable. ... on 2nd thought, I just took the photos from the website and placed them here. The website focuses on getting you to buy of of their photo packages which are over-priced imo.
My favorite photo is #the 1st, followed by the 4th. The others are meh:

KAWAII!!

no caption .. oops, dang it! nevermind Too many grapes...
Bullwinkle: "Hey Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat!"
Rocky: "Again?!!"
Bullwinkle: "Button up my sleeve ......
PRESTO!"
Rocky: "Now here's something you'll really enjoy."

the 1st night home

Jessica records ~3 hours of sleep on and off
Mike records ~5 hours of sleep on and off (I get to sleep when she feeds :D)

Emily was fine sleeping through feedings throughout the day, but not at night, unfortunately. I'm pretty patient when i'm fully awake ...it's the times when i'm half awake that i see myself get a bit frustrated. I just need jessica to slap me awake so i can get my priorites straight :)

Well, in lieu of that, lets get you some updated pictures!!

yay, pictures!

This picture explains itself, but for those who can't tell:

Emily got bit by a snake at the hospital and Hyrum is sucking the venom out of her head.

2 big noses in one shot, we have a good digital camera!Here's Em all gussied up for leaving the hospital.

There weren't many people in the hallways i could stop and showboat her to, though :(

Thought you all might want a closeup.
This way your dreams about the newborn of perfection will be .... perfected!

<3 myson

**warning! this except will be hard to get through. I was much to tired to type grammatically well and now that i'm awake ... i don't care so much to fix it. sorry**

I love myson so much! We were very skeptical about how he would react w/ the new addition to the family ...I mean Emily, not FFXII. We were hoping he be exactly what we named him to be (coming from the Hebrew meaning: noble/exalted brother), and not how he is to the cat. He is nice to the cat and loves her to death, but he also thinks of her as a toy. So, when the cat doesn't do what he wants it to do, he'll swat in the air at Deedee or squash her behind doors ... yeah, even Dave who hates cats probably would be saying, "Ouch." Lastly, he may have been the jealous child that you often see so much, getting angry when baby is in your arms and wanting to be held too; shoving the baby away so he can get the attention, etc.

Hyrum was a gooood boy in the morning when we woke up. He ate breakfast with me which i don't often get to do w/ a 7am work schedule. Then i told him it was bath time and he went and turned the tub on (full hot o_o), got himself undressed, went afk wc, then hopped in the tub --things he normally does, so i wasn't too surprised. By the time i got some chores done and made up this blog, we had to get going to see Jessica and Emily @ the hospital. When we got to the hospital it didn't go so well: Hyrum woke up from a 5 min nap in the car and wanted more, so he wanted me to carry him everywhere and would whine if i did not do so. I didn't mind so much seeing as he had a reason to be cranky. When we got to visit mom, he certainly didn't improve for not having seen her in 1.34 days. I took his coat off and that he did not like. We decided it'd be best to feed the kid before seeing his sister.

--Side-Quest!--
We grabbed McDonald's to pick up some nuggets for him, come back and are welcomed at the elevator doors with an NPC equipped w/ a walkie-talkie in her main slot. Her initial message was, "There's a fire on the ground floor. You will be unable to access the elevators until further notice." I got pretty excited and tried talking to her again, hoping she'd give me a side-quest to vanquish the foes causing the fire... "There's a fire on the ground floor. You will be unable to access the elevators until further notice." -.- However, on the 3rd try, i got a new answer, "There are stairs over to the right you may use."

Before venturing down, i looked at the McDs in one hand and mysons hand in the other and thought better of gaining experience points. So, instead of down, we head up the stairs. Myson was good for the first 2 floors... btw, why didn't they have Labor & Delivery on the 8th floor and Newborns on the 3rd instead of the other way around? After that, he got pretty tired, and rightly so. So, i subbed /NIN and equipped myson(rare/ex) over my right shoulder and headed up the stairs.

Working at a desk job isn't good for muscle development. About floor 5.66 my legs began turning to rubber. I almost certainly gave up at 6.33 but i figured i was at a hospital. Worse comes, maybe they'd spot on camera falling and rush to my aid. Fortunately, we made it to level 8. I grab the door handle and ... locked. I certainly wasn't about to go farm wights for a key drop. I knock on the door and get a reply from the other side, "I can't open the door of the fire alarm will go off!" --now, correct me if i'm wrong, but if there already was a fire in the building, would this really be a problem? Considering they had a sentry @ 1st level elevators, perhaps this was a guard to make sure nobody used the stairwell. I figure i might as well wait the fire out...

15 minutes go by, the food is cold .. i had to unequip myson and he was playing on the steps and knocking on the door every now and then when i hear over the intercom, "Attention all employees. Code F. All Clear." Yay!! I go to open the door ... locked. I knock ... "I can't open the door of the fire alarm will go off!" ... dang NPCs! Maybe she didn't get the all clear message on her linkshell... After 10 mins, i figure enough is enough. I call Jessica to see if they can figure out how i can get in to eat my food, feed myson, and see my daughter. After knocking one last time, i start going down to the 7th floor when the door finally opens up i'm greeted by a Knight of Hospital Security. He let me know this door was a no access door so that newborns could not be stolen ... I got to thinking later that day, that knowledge certainly would have been nice to see posted somewhere.. say, perhaps, THE DOOR!!
--End Side Quest--

It was nice to see my daughter again. Even better when i put Emily in Hyrum's arms.. he loved it! He thought he was carrying and bouncing her and even gave her soft kisses on the forehead. We taught him to say "I love you" with actions of pointing at self, hugging self, then pointing at the lovable object. His version varies to some extend: "I. You!" while pointing to self then lovable object. We don't mind it too much because he only does it to the things we know he truly loves. He did that a lot with Emily. When Emily would cry, he'd put his finger to his lips and shhhh softly.



All in all, i was so proud of myson. He certainly outdid our concerns with knowing that Emily is his sister as much as our daughter. Now comes my next difficult task in parenting... How to tease both kids w/o them picking it up and using it on each other. "Only dad can annoy you!?"

Pictures of thegirl

Mom and her princess

(lol, had to post that so she can kill me later)Dad and thegirl
Doctor Lovelace and Emily
Emily, a nose sucker, and 4 of my fingers
Naked Emily!!
(she'll kill me when she's older, for now, don't let her know this is embarrasing)

Emily Lisa Haddox

Her name was going to be something else --and we'd tell you except that we may have another girl one day and will use it then. For some reason, Emily fit this girl very well.

She is an adorable baby. When Hyrum was born, he looked like me, which made him cute. Emily was born and has the same look as me... good news is, she still looks like a girl too. She does snort just like Hyrum did, but she doesn't cry as much. Mom will be able to tell me how she did through the night later today. Unfortunately, i was not able to stay at the hospital. Hyrum decided he didn't want to sleep over at James's (Jessica's brother) house. So I picked him up at midnight and we slept at home.

We went in to the hospital yesterday morning @ 7.40am. We were supposed to go @ 7am, but you know how punctual I am. Normally I'm a very calm fellow, however, the excitement of delivering our daughter got me nervous and I was running around all morning making sure I didn't forget thing... naturally, I did. I finally went to get Jessica after 5 miles down the highway-- just kidding :P

It was a scheduled delivery. We were suppose to induce the day before on Dec. 5th, however after waiting for the hospital to call all day, they were not able to get us in. Once there, with the pitosin(?) Jessica was supposed to deliver around noon. After noon, they expected it to be 3 or 4pm. After 6pm they moved us into another room since they were closing that side of the hospital wing. That seemed to strike something because Jay went into hard labor at around 7pm-ish.

@ 8.10pm we had our daughter. Though the whole experience was great, as one would expect, i still had the same great/best feeling of happiness and miraculousness when lil-girl Haddox came out of the womb just as when Hyrum did. Then being able to hear her cry her first cry .... (my eyes are swelling as i type :D)

She weighed in @ 6 lbs 14 ozs, smaller than Hyrum, but longer than him @ 19.74" in height. I forgot the measurements of her crown, but she didn't have as much a wrinkly head as Hyrum did.

Unlike last time, i was able to cut the umbilical cord. It wasn't too hard to do, but the first cut squirted blood all over my shirt ... souvenir #1.

Events on her 0st Birthday

• On the news, they gave the "Iraq Study Report" or something. Apparently, other countries are moving out of Iraq seeing as they are having a Civil war. Oddly enough, we are placing more American troops in Iraq to help train their infantry... So, which side are we training in their civil war?!? Well, this post isn't about politics .. just to say it happened w/ the comment, "Silly Bush."
• Our 2% Milk expired that Sherwin purchased for breakfast during the Thanksgiving weekend. I actually used it when Ethan, Issac, and Piper stayed the night

Ok, i do need to get going. I was silly enough to leave the hospital last night... I grabbed a cookie, a bag of chips, string cheese, and a Diet 7up --however, i left my cell phone. Good to know in crisis, i know where my priorities lie. Needless to say, I haven't been able to talk w/ Jessica at all since leaving last night. I just hope i packed the right clothes for her and Emily.

A big thanks to James for watching Hyrum. He's a good boy, but also knows how to be disobedient and a pill. A bigger thanks to Heavenly Father for overlooking my imperfections and blessing me with a beautiful daughter. A pre-thanks to Jill as she's coming down to help Jessica while I go make $ @ work.

Pictures next blog :)