Emily's 4th Birthday

Monday the 6th was Emily's 4th birthday. We weren't able to go anywhere, but we did get a cake and open presents at home. The cake was... an adventure. Mike had bought a tube of frosting to write on Hyrum's cake, but we didn't have a writing tip to put on it, so we never used it. Thinking that I had learned from his mistake, I found a section of writing tubes in the cake decorating section. No tips needed! What I didn't notice was that the set of tubes I picked up were for tinting batter and frosting, not for writing. Really, it's not my fault! I blame the stocker who grouped it in with the other icing tubes and the package designer who decided to put writing tips on the tubes. Anyhow, the box I picked had orange and green which, according to the box, should have matched the cake I picked out. I used the orange tube and tried to write Emily's name. The gel came out uneven, goopy, and red. Mike tried to fix it by tracing over the lettering with the green tube. It came out uneven, goopy, and black.

And it used to be such a cute cake too! Rats.

Since the writing was just concentrated food coloring in gel form, it dyed our mouths green.

Hyrum picked out several toys to give Emily, and finally settled on a stuffed Hello Kitty wearing a black cat costume. Emily thought it was a bat. Mike and I gave her a new pair of mittens and a Strawberry Shortcake play set. She got a Strawberry Shortcake doll last Easter, and it had a cardboard cutout of her pink polka dot cat as a decoration in the box. Emily loved it so much that she kept it and played with it, but she often said she wanted a real cat figurine. Mike and I found a sale on a cute set which included the cat. She was very excited about it.

Because of my mom's knee surgery, Emily got birthday presents from her grandma the same day that Hyrum got his. She got two pairs of "sparkly" pants and a very cute tambourine. She's very proud of her tambourine playing skills, telling everyone that she knows how to hold and play it. She calls it, "my instrument," and even pointed out another tambourine player in the symphony. She's constantly trying to get Hyrum to play a concert with her on the new recorder he got from my mom.

Here's Emily's birthday video. Credit goes to my mom for recommending that I use this song. Sadly, because of the song, youtube is posting ads on my video. Just click the x to close the ad so you can read the subtitles.

The day after Emily's birthday, Mike took her to the hospital for an imaging appointment. She has been getting frequent bladder infections for a few years, the most recent one lasting about a month and a half despite trying 3 different types of antibiotics.

Before the doctor came in to discuss the results of the imaging with us, Emily told the nurse that she needed to talk to the doctor about her hiccups. Both the nurse and doctor were great, and played along.

Nurse: "When do you usually get hiccups?"

Emily: "Every time I go to daycare."

Nurse: "Ok, I'll make sure to tell the doctor when he comes in."

Nurse: very seriously to the doctor "Emily is concerned about the hiccups she gets whenever she goes to daycare."

Emily: "Yes, and Cruz teases me because of my hiccups. Cruz is my boy at daycare."

Doctor: "Boys like to tease you at daycare?"

Emily: "Yes, they're very noisy."

Doctor: "Boys are bad news. Don't you agree, Dad?"

Mike: "Yes. Boys are very bad!"

Doctor: "You stay away from those boys and tell them to be quiet, and your hiccups will go away."

The x-rays showed a level 4 (highest level) reflux from the bladder up to the kidneys. Normally, it's a one way path from the kidneys to the bladder, but on her, the fluids were not only leaking back up from the bladder, but completely filling the left kidney. As her doctor put it, "a bladder infection is not the end of the world, but a kidney infection is." He asked us to schedule an appointment with the urologist ASAP to discuss surgery. He said that there might be an option for a new injection which has had some success in other patients. We're meeting with the urological surgeon on Wednesday to get his opinion. In the mean time, she's on suppressive antibiotics to keep her from getting a kidney infection. I don't like the idea of my little girl in surgery, but I hate how she's so sick all the time, and surgery is certainly better than kidney failure.

Thursday, we met with Hyrum's teachers about updating his IEP. We've been frustrated with the lack of communication from his school. They didn't even have a parent/teacher conference at the end of the trimester! They finally got around to getting him in the appropriate classes when his IEP expired and he was up for reevaluation. After lots of testing and paperwork, they arrived at the same diagnosis as the psychologist -- PDD-NOS. They told us that he is a bit of a dilemma for them because he is miles ahead of his class academically. They said that he is ridiculously smart and talented. No matter how often his teachers tell me that, I still love to hear it! The problem is, he no longer qualifies for an IEP based on developmental delay or academic difficulties, but he really does still need special help. Luckily, they were able to qualify him based on a lack of problem solving language skills and social behavior. Basically what that means is that he is unable to communicate his frustration and work out problems when things don't go his way, and he cries a lot in class. They decided to continue giving him speech therapy and add behavioral counseling with social skills groups. A lot of my doubts and fears about the attention he's been getting in school were alleviated in our meeting, but I still wish his teachers communicated with us better.

That's all the news from Pocatello for now. I'm planning to put up a video of us decorating our house for Christmas, but that will probably have to wait until after finals week. Until then, I hope you enjoy the pictures and video from Emily's birthday!

Hyrum's 7th Birthday

November 17th was Hyrum's 7th birthday. I can hardly believe that he'll be baptized in only one year! We had planned to go bowling with my mom and step-dad the following weekend, but a large snow storm changed those plans for us. Instead, we stayed in Pocatello and took the kids to the skating rink. They had a blast! Hyrum goes to the rink with his school about once a month, but I think he usually plays on the playground equipment and arcade. This time, we made him skate. Emily was adorable. Whenever she fell down, she'd just jump back up, smile, and say, "I really need to practice more!" We probably would have never been able to drag them home if the rink hadn't ended their skate session.

Hyrum thought this was a very funny cake. So did a lot of other people who stopped by our table at the rink.

Among Hyrum's presents was a watch from us. He loves it! We also gave him a flashlight which you can see around his neck in the videos. Emily picked out a ball with Buzz Lightyear, a green alien, and glitter floating in it to give him.

Here's a video of the kids skating. The limbo was so cute. There was no rule about staying on your skates as long as you didn't touch the bar. Hyrum came in second by crawling on his belly. He had everyone cracking up. The girl who won stayed on her skates the whole time. She was incredible!

After the skate session is over, they have the kids put on their regular shoes and dance to this song. You can tell the older kids know the routine quite well. I put some clips of his dance in the previous video, but I wanted to post the whole dancing video just because it makes me smile.

Jessica's Birthday and New Year's

My birthday was December 31st, and I turned 30 this year. It's funny because I don't think of other people in their 30s as being old, but when it's me...

We had a small party at home on my birthday. Hyrum and Emily got me a necklace. Mike got me some gloves, a hair dryer, and an antenna for our tv. The best part of the day was when I went to see my mom at work and my step-dad was there. You'd think my kids would know Sherwin well enough to know that he loves to tease, but I guess Emily is just too gullible. For your enjoyment, here's the condensed conversation.

Sherwin: Well, it's your mom's birthday. Should we give her birthday spankings?

Emily: NOOO!! Don't give her spankings! She'll be good and happy, so please don't give her spankings, Grandpa!

Everyone in the credit union could hear her panicked yelling. One guy in the corner was trying to pretend he wasn't eavesdropping, but his whole body was shaking from suppressed laughter. Most people openly laughed and commented on how cute the kids were. It made my day.

New Year's Day brought with it a lot of snow. In response to this, my mom issued a challenge to all her kids and some of Sherwin's. The contest? Who could build the best snowman! We took on the challenge along with Mom and Sherwin and Dale. I was jealous of the kids' new snow pants and grateful for my new gloves by the end of the very cold and wet day. As always, if you want more pictures, they can be found on Facebook.

And the finished product:

Ta-da! It's a cat, in case you were wondering.

Meow!

Now, lest you snowman purists out there say, "That's not a snowman, it's a cat!" yes. We know. However, it was constructed in the traditional 3 part fashion. The hind quarters were the largest ball, the medium one is the shoulders, and the smallest is, of course, the head. Mike named him "Dave" since his brother loves cats so much. Here is my mom and Sherwin's entry.

RAWR! It's a bear.

...with a golf club.

I'm guess the bear didn't have a great game. He looks a little upset. Dale had piled up some snow to make a sculpture, but hadn't gotten any farther before the deadline. So, who do you think won? Comments?

Although this didn't happen on either my birthday or on New Year's, it's still worth mentioning. Dave and Hilerie, if you're reading this, you might want to skip down to the next part. BSU beat TCU in a great Fiesta Bowl! Congrats Broncos!

Well, now the holidays are over. Hyrum is back in school, and Mike and I start the semester tomorrow. Wish us luck!

Emily's Birthday

Ok, so I tried to do December all in one post, but I'm having troubles getting blogger to upload any more pictures. I guess I'll break it up into a couple posts and see if this works.

On December 6th, we celebrated Emily's 3rd birthday! We had the party at my mom's house with the 4 of us, my mom and Sherwin, and Sherwin's son Dale. We had a great time! I think that playing with Emily's pop beads after she opened her presents more than made up for the missing birthday cake. Here's a video of the night.

Sorry that all my videos have J-pop music in them, but I don't currently have any good songs in English on my computer. Besides, the title means "Empty Your Pockets." Rather fitting for December, don't you think? Poor Emily had a bad cold, but I still think she gave a stunning performance!

Here are some of my favorite pictures from the event. If you want to see more pictures, I've posted more on my Facebook page.

Emily greedily looks over her pile of presents

Emily plays with her new friend, Zebra. Aren't my kids so creative with their toys' names?

My mom gave Emily and Hyrum matching bedspreads for their birthdays. I think that when Emily first saw hers, she thought that it was Hyrum's. She caught on when she saw it on her own bed at home that night. She was pretty excited that their beds matched.

Emily gets a kiss from Dad. (look at all that jewelery!)

Emily gives a kiss to Dad.

Emily tries to escape Dad's whisker burn.

I can't believe that my little girl isn't so little anymore! She's excited to be in Primary now, although she had a hard time letting go of Nursery. Hyrum assured her that she'd have a lot of fun and get to sing a lot. That helped. I think I uncovered her real fear this morning when she told me that she thought she had to grow up to be a boy in order to go to Primary. She didn't believe me when I told her that it's for both boys and girls. Good thing I had Hyrum there to back me up. She always listens to her brother.

Summer and Fall

Let's see... in our last episode, I had just gotten a job at Qwest, Mike was doing well in school, and things were looking up. Well, that's only half true now. Mike is still in school, but I lost my job at the beginning of August. I was concerned that I wouldn't make my quota coming out of training, and that's exactly what happened. I don't have any hard feelings though. Qwest treated me very well in my short time there, and my coaches and trainers fought hard to try to keep my job in a review board. All those that worked with me directly knew how good I was on the customer service end, and felt that I was still a good fit with the company. But after what my trainer said was the longest review board meeting she had ever been in (over 2 and a half hours), it was a corporate decision to let me go. The rest of the summer sped by in a blur of homework and unsuccessful job hunts.

Early in the summer, we went to visit Mike's family. His sister's family owns some property which they fittingly call "The Land" at Starvation Reservoir in Utah. The kids had a great time playing with their cousins. We made stick horses, went 4-wheeling, swam in the reservoir, and played the most physical game of spoons I've ever seen. Hyrum still talks about how Ken threw him in the river. In fact, it was what he talked about for his part in the Primary Program in October.

Making stick horses.

Hyrum and his horse (photo swiped from the Golding's blog)

Hyrum started kindergarten in mid August. He's loving it so far, and doing really well! His teachers are all great! In his first parent-teacher conference, I was told that he leads the class in reading and math. His teachers think he is quite brilliant, although he can't communicate it well. He is still doing speech therapy and is talking much better now. It's hard to believe that only a few short months ago, he wasn't speaking in sentences. Now he's quite a chatterbox, although his speech often sounds labored and mechanical. His speech pathologist referred us to a private speech and language clinic in Idaho Falls. He has only gone for 2 weeks now and is still in the testing phase, but I am anxiously looking forward to his continued improvement. Sitting in the waiting room during his testing, I feel blessed that his condition is mild, and that he has met good teachers along the way. There are so many other kids with many more problems than him. In fact, I feel a little guilty worrying so much about his speech when he's clearly better off than nearly all the kids there.

Hyrum's first day of school

The end of summer brought the start of the college football season. Mike had bought season tickets for Boise State before I lost my job. Mike and I went to the opening game against Oregon and got to watch Boise start yet another perfect (so far) season with a great win against the Ducks. We also got to witness the "Punch Heard Round the World" in person. Since then, Mike has taken each of the kids individually to games, and we once went as a whole family to sell our tickets and watch from the warmth of the basketball arena. On that trip, the kids got to go out on the blue turf, pet the Boise State Bronco, and wave as the band walked by about two yards away. They loved it! Hyrum thinks he wants to be a football player, and Emily is in love with the "pretty horse named Bronco."

Hyrum and Mike at the BSU/Miami (OH) game

Emily after the BSU/UC Davis game

If summer was a blur of homework and job hunting, fall has been a blur of sickness. There hasn't been a single week since October when one or more of us hasn't been sick. We had a good Halloween despite all four of us having the flu. Hyrum asked to be a super hero, and Emily asked to be a pink star. I decided it would be easier to make the same costume for both of them and convinced her to be a pink super hero star... whatever that means. I didn't want them to be any specific super heroes, so I made them their own style costumes and crests. I was planning to make them super hero capes for Christmas, but I guess this saves me the trouble.

Hyrum's school didn't allow costumes, only crazy hair. Here he is with green hair. Yes, it was green even if the picture doesn't show it well.

These are the crests that Mike and I designed for the back of their capes.

Emily with her star wand. Do super heroes have wands?

Criminals beware! Super Emily is coming for YOU!

This is as tough as Hyrum can manage to look.

He may look scrawny, but he's surprisingly strong. *cough*

November 17th was Hyrum's 6th birthday. Six! I can't believe it! We celebrated his birthday on the following Saturday. The only present he asked for was a fish. We kept him locked out of our room for a couple days while we set up an aquarium and let the water cycle. I thought he was getting suspicious because he kept catching glimpses of the towel we draped over it. Saturday afternoon, we moved it to his room and put the fish in. I think he was afraid to acknowledge that he really got fish. When we brought him to his room and told him his present was inside, he very purposefully avoided making eye contact with the tank and searched his room for a wrapped gift. We had to confirm several times that the fish were his before he allowed himself to get excited about it. Since then, he has spent a lot of time watching and studying them. Now Emily wants a pink one for her birthday next week. That evening, my mom invited us over for dinner, cake, and presents. He got a new bedspread from my mom, a puzzle from Emily, and church socks from Mike and me. I'll try to post a birthday video like last year, but it took me a long time to put that one together, so no promises.

Hyrum is still avoiding looking at his fish tank.

DeeDee thought it was her birthday.

Yesterday, we had Thanksgiving with my Mom and Sherwin. Sherwin's son Dale and daughter Suzanne were there as well. We had a nice time eating, chatting, and playing games. I can't wait to see Mom's and Suzanne's pictures and videos of Sherwin, Dale, and Mike attempting to do the "stunts" from the Cranium Family Fun game.

After four months of unemployment, I'm still looking for work. However, Mike and I have decided that I will be returning to school full time this spring. I have wanted to go back to school ever since leaving, so I'm very excited. However, I'm also terrified. What am I thinking!? It's been almost 9 years since I left Ricks! I hope I haven't forgotten everything. Also, I'm worried about living off of student loans and financial aid with both of us in school full time. I spoke to the music department, and they seem to think I should be able to do a work study in the music building to help supplement our income. I just hope it's enough. So far, the plan is that I'll continue my degree in Music Education, but I'm apprehensive about the amount of time I'll have to spend away from my family. Music is a very time intensive major. I've been arguing these points in my head since Mike brought up the idea about two months ago, and it has caused me an enormous amount of stress. However, after making a shaky decision last week, I've received several reassurances that I'm doing the right thing. It almost reminds me of when I was at Ricks and struggling with my choice to be a music major. I had my answer then, and I have my answer now. So wish us luck!

I hope to post again after Emily's birthday, but let's be realistic here... I'm lousy at keeping this thing updated! Heck, look at the banner at the top of the blog. Emily was a baby in those pictures, and she's going to be 3 next week! I'll do my best to be better about posting updates, but if you really want to know what we're up to, just give us a call.

Let's Review Part 3: Jessica's Birthday etc.

My birthday was December 31st. We had my mom and Sherwin over for dinner. I made salmon, and Mom made a cherry chocolate cake. Mom and Sherwin gave me towel racks for the bathrooms and a step-stool so I can reach the cabinets in the kitchen. We watched an old movie called The Court Jester and played pinochle.

Mike gave me my "present" the next day. I knew he was up to something because he kept secretly taking calls. Sometime between 5:00 and 5:30, my friends Lezhai and Melissa came with their families. Shortly after, Dan and Carissa and their girls came. Finally, Sandi came with her husband Nathan and daughter Annalee. In all, we had 9 adults and 11 kids. The kids went off to destroy our play room while the adults ate and chatted. Lezhai and Darnell had to leave early because their daughter wasn't feeling well, and they had to pick up their two boys from the movies. The rest of us played a great game of Cranium. Mike and I used to entertain a lot, but we haven't had friends who were into parties and games since we moved to Boise. It was a lot of fun to do that again! The only down side is that we left our vacuum in Nampa by accident and can't clean the chips out of the carpet.

Mike's niece Caryssa will be attending BYU-I this coming semester. We went to Rexburg on Saturday to help her move in. I can't believe how much that city and campus have changed. We'll be glad to have her nearby, and plan to have her over for dinner sometime.

Saturday the 3rd, my brother and his wife had a baby girl. Congratulations, James and Tessie! She's beautiful!

On Sunday, I found my Aunt Zelma (She's really my grandma's cousin, not my aunt) is in my ward. She was so excited to see me there since she hasn't seen me since I was very young. Still, she knew who I was immediately. I guess my grandma tipped her off that we were moving out near her. She seems to be a very positive, bubbly person. I've been told she is a very talented person. It was nice to meet her.

Next Monday, I start work, and Mike and Hyrum start school. I'm a little apprehensive about how all our schedules will work out... or not work out. Wish us luck!

Let's Review Part 1: Pre Christmas

I said I would post again after Emily's birthday on December 6th. Well, if you didn't notice, it's now January 6th. So now I have to go back over a very eventful month and try to remember it all. Sadly, I never had the time to make Emily's birthday video, so pictures will have to do. I also don't have any Christmas pictures or pictures of my own birthday. Sorry. It's been a really crazy month.

We had been in East Idaho until 3 days before Emily's birthday, so we weren't able to plan much. Emily loves anything pasta, so we took her to a local place in Meridian called White Water Pizza and Pasta to open presents. Among her presents were bottles for her doll and Dora and Boots figurines which she loves to hug.

She also got a Dora umbrella, a doll stroller, and a mini stove/oven play set from my mom which is now her's and Hyrum's favorite toy. I didn't take many pictures of our trip to White Water, but took several videos. However, my camera was dying and the videos turned out badly. I'll see what I can do to clean them up. Maybe I'll just take new videos of her playing with her presents or something so I can make a video for her.

Mike and I finally moved out of our apartment in Nampa on Saturday, December 13th. We had planned to move out on the Thursday before, but U-Haul did not have our reserved truck in time so we had to push it out for the weekend. Lucky us -- It started a light snow as we loaded the final boxes in the truck. After cleaning the house and vacuuming the last Easy Mac noodle off the dining room floor, we drove out of Nampa at about 5:30pm. We got a call from both my mom and my step dad while stopped at a gas station in Nampa. They both warned that we shouldn't come because of a bad storm. However, everything was packed. There was nothing left to go back to, so we pushed forward. The roads were icy from the first snow of the year and many Boiseites had no clue how to drive in it. This was the cause of 12 accidents beyond the Vista exit which left us at a dead halt for 1.5 hours. Once it started going again, it was by no means fast. I think our average speed was 35 mph and at one time I topped it at 45 mph to pass someone. By the time we got to Mountain Home, 3 hours from when we left Nampa (normally a 1 hour drive), we took shelter in a Best Western and waited out the storm that night. It continued to storm all night, but the roads were mostly bare by the time we got away from the Mountain Home area. They got bad again around Pocatello and increased in severity all the way to Shelley. We got to Shelley white-knuckled and exhausted.

There was a little time between when I arrived in Shelley and when Mike came with the U-Haul. I took that opportunity to shower and unwind from the drive since, as soon as he showed up, we had to hit the road again to go to my Aunt's house in Firth for my Grandma's 90th birthday open house. I adore my Grandma Page and was so glad we were able to honor her in that way. My dad was also at the open house. I haven't seen my dad since the summer I was pregnant with Hyrum. He got to meet Hyrum and Emily for the first time ever. Once they got over their initial shyness, they loved him.

Monday started a week of madness. We had gone ahead with the move from Nampa because we were supposed to have our apartment by no later than Tuesday. U-Haul had agreed to let us keep the truck a few extra days for free when we let them know of the situation. The truck would be due back on Wednesday. However, on Monday, the apartment manager told us our application was rejected because we would make too much money with Mike having a part time job. This was a load of bull. Her numbers were all speculative. There was no way Mike could make as much as she assumed he would while going to school full time. She returned our holding deposit to us, and we began the search for a new apartment. We looked all over Shelley and Idaho Falls the following few days, but nothing looked as good as the apartment we had originally applied to.

On Tuesday, Mike went back to the apartment office and begged the manager to review our application, saying he wouldn't be making that much at part-time. He even went as far as to tell her he wouldn't work if it came down to getting the apartment or not. Living in Shelley was a priority to us because child care in Idaho Falls is twice as expensive as we can get in Shelley. The manager agreed to look over the application again, but said she couldn't promise anything, and told us to keep looking since our U-Haul was due back the next day.

Mike tried to follow up with her on Wednesday, but she was screening his calls, and wouldn't answer. We called U-Haul and told them we needed to extend the rental on the truck at a rate of $40/day.

Thursday, Mike finally got a hold of the manager who told us that she had been up all night working on our application and didn't foresee any problems. Worst case scenario, we could move in Friday morning at 10:00. This was great news because if Friday came and went with no apartment, we wouldn't be able to sign a lease and move in until Monday. Keeping the U-Haul over the weekend would be very costly. The apartment manager had already deposited our $300 security deposit check (without giving us keys or a lease).

10:00 came and went with no word. Mike called at 11:00 to ask what was going on, and the manager told us that the compliance manager had rejected our application because she needed a slew of ridiculous paperwork. For example, she saw that we had a foreclosure on our house, but for whatever reason said she needed proof that we no longer owned the house. We didn't have this paperwork. She also asked for proof that I wasn't a student because I had student loans. Well, duh. Of course I still have student loans. That doesn't mean I'm going to school, just that I did at one time. She also wouldn't accept my letter of hire from Center Partners even though it supplied all the information she needed. We were so sick of the run-around they were giving us, and took matters into our own hands. I went to Center Partners and was told that they couldn't fill out the paperwork the apartments needed because I wasn't yet an employee, but that they could send a letter to the management with the exact same information that was in the letter of hire that they wouldn't accept before. We asked HR to go ahead with that, but had little confidence that the manager would accept it. We had no other choice. We also called my student loan holder who said that they could just look online to prove that I wasn't a student, but that no documentation existed on the matter. In the end, Mike and I had to sign an affidavit saying that we no longer owned our home in Ammon and that I wasn't a student. If they had just asked us for this information a month before, when we started the application process, we could have spared ourselves a lot of headaches.

We sat in the apartment office for 3 hours waiting for the compliance manager in Seattle to approve or disapprove our application. She kept sending emails back to the apartment manager asking for different documents, explanations on the documents she had received, and explanations on how the apartment manager had figured our income. By the end, the apartment manager was as fed up with the compliance manager as we were. Finally, a little after 5:00 pm, the compliance manager gave in. The apartment manager told us she wanted to go home, and didn't want to go over the lease until Monday, but gave us a key so we could move in and return the U-Haul.

Unfortunately, it was too late to return the truck without being charged for the day, so we kept it over night and moved in on Saturday. I'm pretty sure it was well below 0° on the day we moved. Because it was so close to Christmas, we were unable to recruit any extra help . Mike, Sherwin, and Sherwin's son Dale unloaded the truck themselves while Mom and I stayed home with the stomach flu. By the afternoon, we were feeling a bit better and went to the apartment to unpack boxes.

Happy Birthday, Hyrum!

As I mentioned at the end of my last post, Hyrum's 5th birthday was Monday! I can't believe he's already 5 years old. Wow.


Hyrum and Emily helped Mike make a fort in our living room on Sunday. This was quite a feat since our living room is about the size of a shoe box. After Emily went to bed, Mike and Hyrum put pillows and sleeping bags in the fort and fell asleep watching movies. Hyrum loved it! He's about the only one who did. Well, maybe our cat liked it. Hyrum kept waking up Mike every few minutes to kiss him and tell him he was happy, and Mike ended up with a sore arm from sleeping on the ground. Emily was upset that Hyrum wasn't sleeping in the bedroom with her and kept waking up crying. This, along with Mike's occasional trips to the bedroom to tell me he was sore and miserable kept me awake all night too. It's a good thing Hyrum has school in the afternoon!


Monday, after Hyrum came home from school, we went to IHOP to eat and open presents. Now, this may sound odd to you. Why IHOP? Why not Chuck E. Cheese or some other kid type place? Well, IHOP is most decidedly Hyrum's favorite restaurant. What can I say? Pancakes are one of the few things he'll eat. Pizza isn't.

Here's how things went at IHOP. If you want to see all 7 videos in their full version and with full audio, they're posted on my facebook. Someday maybe we'll get a real video camera instead of one that's primarily for stills. Also, yes. I know the music is weird. I like it.




We had a good time at IHOP despite the waiter who intruded on our table far more often than was necessary. I'll forgive him since he gave Emily free yogurt and Hyrum free ice cream. I only wish I had gotten a video of him trying to sing "Happy Birthday to You." I gave up trying to sing along after the 12th key change. Sorry... I have a hard time not slipping back into snooty music major mode sometimes.


Hyrum got Cooties from Grandma and Grandpa Crooks. ~Sigh~ *gets out the shampoo.* We got him a sweater, a shirt and a Simon game.


We're still looking for a new apartment and job. The trouble is knowing which city to look in. Mike applied at BYU-I and ISU, but we don't know where he'll go yet. Problem is, Rexburg and Pocatello are rather far apart. If Mike does ISU, he'll probably try to take as many classes as possible at the satellite campus in Idaho Falls, but he'll still have to go to Pocatello for a few others. So I guess, not knowing where he'll be, Rigby might be the best place for us to live. It's about halfway between Rexburg and Idaho Falls. But do I really want to live in Rigby again? There's a house for rent in my old neighborhood, only about 2 blocks from where I lived. Feels a little strange. Living in Idaho Falls or Shelley would be better if Mike ends up at ISU. ARGH! I just don't know! All that being said, we're rather optimistic. We're just... a little stressed.


I'll update the blog again when things settle down a bit. Or at the very least, when we have some more definite plans.

Beware! Long blog ahead!

It's been a month since we've posted a blog. It's been even longer since I've written one, and since Mike usually only blogs about work, there's a lot to catch up on. I'm going to skip some of the smaller stuff that I would normally have put in blogs if I had been blogging all along the way. If you wanted to know more about that kind of thing, you should have called us.

Last time I blogged, Hyrum was still in school. I wanted to brag that he was first in his class to learn to write his name (way back in April). His teacher was so proud that she called me up on the phone that afternoon, excited to tell me about the progress he was making and to congratulate me on teaching him so well at home. His teacher was wonderful that way. She was always so proud of her students, and they loved her for it. I also wanted to scan a test sheet he did in school where he had written his name for the first time without any help. However, our all-in-one printer/scanner/copier is broken and no longer hooked up, so I can't. I'll have to do that later. Here is his latest school picture.


Since he has been out of school, he loves writing all his letters and numbers and has even started reading a little bit. Besides his name, he can read and spell Mom, Dad, sometimes Emily, exit, cat, dog, box, and a few other small words with some coaching. He also knows how to read prices at stores and is learning a little bit how to read clocks. It is very frustrating to me that he can do all these things but still can't talk the way he should. He has however come a long ways in his speech.

Emily... well, where do I begin? Since my last post, Emily has started walking and talking. She walks quite well and can even go up stairs. It seems she learns at least 3 new words a day and has quite a large vocabulary now. She understands everything you tell her. She is a very smart girl and is catching up quite quickly after being behind due to low weight gain early in her life. At the rate she's going, she may talk before Hyrum. She already says a few simple 2-3 word phrases and has her favorite songs she knows the words to and likes to sing. Emily is an adorable little girl with lots of curly hair and a sweet disposition. She loves cats, babies, playing dress up, standing on her head, jumping, singing, dancing, and eating.

For Father's Day, we went to an airshow here in Nampa. It was just an amateur show, but it had sky divers, and stunt pilots. There were even some military jets that flew in from Mountain Home. Hyrum really enjoyed it, but Emily slept through most of it. We were all enjoying what was probably the best stunt pilot in the show when a very noisy jet flew by low and made us all jump out of our skins. Emily even slept through that. The Blue Angels are going to be doing an airshow in Twin Falls this weekend that we would love to go to if we weren't already so sick of being on the road. Maybe we'll still make the trip, but we were just in Twin Falls yesterday. (more on that later)

Red plane doing all the cool tricks!

Noisy plan that scared most bladders empty.

We got a Wii Fit a few weeks ago with a gift certificate Mike had to Game Stop. Otherwise, we probably wouldn't have spent the money on one. But it's great! It's very fun and has a good variety of activities. I enjoy the yoga and the rhythmic boxing best though I do have some favorites in strength training too. I was sore for the first two days after getting it, but the yoga really helps with sore muscles. I even started losing some inches (although not weight) right from the start. However, I've gained it all back since going on trip after trip and eating so much junk food, bbq, and fast food this month. Time to get serious about it again.

We've been to a few movies this summer. Probably more than we've been to in the past 3 years combined. We took Hyrum to see Prince Caspian, the new Narnia movie. It was great! We really enjoyed it and so did Hyrum. He was so good in the movie that we decided to take both him and Emily to Wall-E the next week. Hyrum had been asking to see Wall-E since he saw his very first preview for it on one of his DVDs nearly a year ago. Needless to say, he was very excited. We all loved it! Even Emily sat through it all quietly. It was a very sweet story. I highly recommend both of these movies.

Mike celebrated his 30th birthday on July 14th. We went out to eat and visit, but didn't do much more than that. I got Mike a case for his laptop for when he travels, picture frames with pictures of the kids in it for his work desk, and an aux cord for his MP3 player so he can listen to it in the car. Yep. Super exciting. We were trying to save some money since his birthday was sandwiched between two family reunion trips.

Well now, on to family reunions! Actually, I think I'm going to post those on seperate blogs. This one has gotten to be too long anyhow.

Emily's Birthday

First things first. I promised you all pictures of the kids in their costumes a long time ago, so here you go! In the process of taking these pictures, I learned that Hyrum isn't very photogenic. Oh well, I still think he's cute!

Congratulations to those few of you who guessed Steve and Blue! And yes, even though Blue is blue, she IS a girl! I even made Hyrum a handy-dandy notebook just like Steve's to go with the costume. But he's played with it so much since Halloween that it's nearly destroyed. Those of you who voted for Hello Kitty deserve some credit though. We wanted to dress Emily as Hello Kitty, but couldn't figure a good way to do it on a tight budget and little time.

Thursday was Emily's first birthday! I can't believe it's been a year already. She seems so much younger to me than Hyrum did at a year old. After the good reviews I got on Hyrum's birthday video, I decided to do one of Emily's birthday. Sorry, not all of the Hyrum speak is translated because... well honestly, I have no idea what he was saying some of the time. Here's my cute girl on her big day!

Emily started to get the hang of opening presents. She managed to completely unwrap one of them herself. She got 3 shirts from me and Mike and a shirt, sweater, and pair of jeans from my mom. She looks adorable in all of them! Emily never did eat her cake. The rest of us didn't mind finishing it off for her! I do have some deceptive pictures of Emily with cake on her face and in her hair to commemorate the event.

Emily has finally started to crawl up on her knees. She still prefers to inch around on her belly, but maybe she'll get used to crawling in the next few days and do that more often. She has also started to pull up to standing. It's a little frustrating for me because she'll pull up to something and then get stuck and scream. She doesn't like letting go and falling on her bum. I figure she'd better get used to it or she'll never learn to walk!Last Sunday, we couldn't get Emily into her old dress. She's just gotten too big! We were about to resign ourselves to dressing her in her best casual clothes for church until I remembered an old hand-me-down dress from when I was a year old! My grandma Page made it for me when I was a baby, and I've had it ever since. It's still rather large on Emily, but she got a lot of compliments from the ladies at church. I was going to do a side by side comparison of me in the dress and her in the dress, but I couldn't find the picture of me I was looking for. Maybe my mom can help me out with that one. Till then, here's Emily. Hmm, I think I had more hair...


Hyrum is still loving school. He complains on the days when he doesn't have class because he wants to go so badly. Lately, he has taken to sleeping with his toy school bus that holds his Mega Blocks. It's a pretty big bus, so I usually have to convince him that it's better to leave it at the foot of his bed. The bus drivers told me that he has made lots of friends and that he is the best behaved and most polite on their route. That made me very proud! They told me about two of his friends, Priscilla and Santos. I was looking for a conversation topic with Hyrum and decided I'd ask him about his friends.

"Hyrum, is Priscilla in your class?"
"Yeah."
"Are you and Priscilla friends?"
"Yes."
"Do you like Priscilla?"
"Yes!"
"What about Santos? Do you like Santos?"
"NO!!"

I laughed SO hard! I still haven't figured out why he says he doesn't like Santos, but the answer is always the same. The bus ladies tell me that he and Santos get along great. I think maybe Hyrum just prefers girls. All of his friends up till now have been girls.

Someday, I'll have to try to make a video of Hyrum saying his bedtime prayers. It's so cute, and Mike and I have a hard time not laughing. Here's how it usually goes:

"Father in Heaven, we're thankful to family. For Mom, and Dad, and Hyrum, and Emily, and DeeDee (the cat), and Puddins (Hyrum's stuffed cat), and Cookie (Monster), and Boris (Joe's stuffed duck from Blue's Clues). We're thankful go to school. We're thankful go to sleep. Name of Jesus Christ... and Dad, and Mom, and Emily, and DeeDee. Name of... and Puddins, and Grandma, and Grandpa. Name of Jesus Christ, Amen!"

And so I leave you with a few more random pictures until I post again.