Quick Update

There's not much to tell yet, but I thought the blog needed an update since Mike updated the look of the page. My mom sent out an email to my family about Emily recently, so I thought I'd explain in my own words. Last Friday, I took Emily to the doctor for her 6 month checkup. The doctor says that she looks really healthy, except for one tiny little thing... Emily has lost weight since her 3 month appointment and is now down to only 10 pounds. The doctor asked a lot of questions like what she eats, how often she eats, how much she eats, if she likes to eat, had she been sick, had I been sick, even what her poop looks like (yes, I know.. yuck!). He couldn't find a single thing wrong with any of that information. We're assuming that even though she nurses often enough that she may not be getting enough milk in her feeding sessions, so he's having me try some things. In two weeks, we're supposed to take her back to be weighed again, and if there's no change they'll have to run some tests to make sure everything is alright with her digestive system. However, the doctor is confident that she is just fine since those types of problems usually present themselves at birth and she has been fine up until now. I'm sure that everything will turn out to be just fine since she is basically a very healthy baby aside from being terribly skinny.

In other Emily news, she has started rolling over and is so proud of herself! She even tries to get her knees under her, but she's still just a bit too wobbly to manage that for very long. She loves her brother and is crazy about the cat. Despise her small size, Emily has a deep hearty belly laugh. Not the tiny little giggle you'd expect from such a little girl. It always cracks us up to hear her laugh, and we all have a lot of fun trying to get her to do it.

Hyrum is talking a bit more, but he's still not speaking in sentences and doesn't use clear words like other kids his age. He is very smart, however, and has a great memory. His current favorite game is pointing out colors around the house. Red is his favorite color. He loves having a nice back yard to play in and spends hours running around, loading his dump truck with rocks, picking strawberries, and taking his stuffed kitty down the slide with him. Every night, he begs to run through the sprinklers. I cannot stress what a great brother Hyrum is! Whenever Emily cries, he runs to her and talks to her or tickles her belly with her stuffed cat until she calms down. It's a little silly, but he even loves to brush her hair and put barrettes in it after she has a bath. I bet he can't wait till she's old enough to play with him. He misses his Grandmas and Grandpas too. The other day, we were driving around town and pulled up alongside another car at a stoplight where he saw a man who he must have thought looked like his Grandpa Crooks wearing a baseball cap. He got so excited and started shouting, "Grandpa! Grandpa!" When the light turned green and the car started pulling away, he got a little bit upset saying, "No! No!!... Bye.." It makes me wish we lived closer both to my parents and Mike's.

Mike got a lawnmower for Father's Day this year. Our old hand-me-down one which worked just fine cutting down thick weeds at our house in Ammon finally gave up the ghost. It mowed the front yard and half of the back yard before it quit and wouldn't start again. We got tired of always having to borrow a mower from James or from our landlady. We were able to find a used refurbished mower with a full warranty at Home Depot. It really is great to have a nice yard to enjoy. Now what we really need is hedge clippers... Kind of makes me wish we had just agreed to pay the extra $25 a month to have all the yard work taken care of for us!

Settlers Park

Mike is still loving his new job. The company Mike works for sells playground equipment to parks and schools. It's his job to talk to installers, maintenance crews, and equipment buyers and sellers. On Wednesday, a maintenance crew had to be sent out to Settlers Park here in Meridian and Mike had to be there to represent the company. He was so impressed with the park that we decided to take the kids the next day. We invited Hyrum's friend Emily from his Sunbeams class and her mom to come along with us. I had never seen the park before and was amazed at how large and how nice it was. The park isn't quite finished yet and has several coming attractions such as climbing rocks, a fishing pond, splash pad, sand pit, 23 acres for 8 youth baseball fields, and a bunch of other plans I don't remember in the making. I mean, this park is HUGE!! They even put up a large screen and show movies one night a week.

The kids had a lot of fun! We started at the regular playground which they call Adventure Island. It's basically several yards worth of jungle gym equipment. Hyrum and Emily especially enjoyed the slides. Hyrum liked the bigger slides, but Emily got a little scared. We hit the swings afterwards, but again, Emily was afraid to swing, so she just pushed her mom and Hyrum.

Before too long, we ditched the standard playground equipment for the main attraction and the biggest reason we had come. Water Odyssey! It's like running through the sprinklers, but better!! They had all sorts of different types of sprayer including water cannons you can aim at your friends and a pirate ship's mast that fills up with water and tips to dump sheets of water on those standing beneath it. Here are a bunch of pictures.

An unsuspecting Hyrum pokes his finger in a pressure release sprayer...

... and gets his first drenching of the day!

Mike apparantly thought that Hyrum wasn't already wet enough. He wanted to really soak him, but decided that the "Dumping Buccaneer" was a bit too much water for such a little boy.

So he lined him up under a smaller version... Miss!

After watching all that water splash down, I was surprised that Hyrum was gullible enough to let his dad reposition him once more for a direct hit. It scared him pretty badly at first, but after a few seconds of panic and a hug from his dad, he decided it was pretty funny.

After getting hit with that final bucket full, Hyrum was cold and wet and tired and we headed home. But we had a lot of fun and it was all free! We'll definitely be going back!