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.

Again...

For those of you who don't know yet, Mike lost his job on Friday. Due to reasons we've mentioned in past posts, the company was no longer financially able to retain him as an employee. There's good and bad to this. The bad, obviously, is that we have no income at the moment. The good news is that we're planning to have Mike go back to school! This is also good news for me, not because I'll have to work full time after being a stay-at-home mom for 5 years, but because we're most likely moving back to East Idaho. I've been wanting to move back ever since we left. But, ugh... I hate job and apartment hunting. It's especially hard when we live in another city. We'll probably have to take a few days for a trip out there for interviews and to look at apartments and houses to rent. Mike has already looked at both BYU-I and ISU. He has missed enrollment for Winter Semester at BYU-I, and ISU doesn't list any admissions deadlines. So we're waiting to hear back from counselors from each school. We also need to figure out what will happen with Hyrum's school. I really hope that there's another school he can transfer to without having to retest.

We had a good Halloween. Mom came to visit for Tessie's baby shower which was on November 1st, so she was able to come trunk-or-treating with us and the kids. I procrastinated making costumes for the kids, and had nothing for them to wear. I ended up digging out old costumes from years past. Emily wore Hyrum's dinosaur costume that he wore when he was just under a year old. Mike had to literally cram her into it with his knee on her back to get it to fit. Oh well. She loved it! She was pretty upset when we took it off to put her pajamas on. Hyrum also wore a too small kitty costume from 2 years ago. His wasn't nearly as small as Emily's was. It nearly fit him except that the sleeves were too small. He loved being a kitty. Emily enjoyed petting his fur and scratching his ears. Our friend Phil and his daughter Anna visited as well and joined us in a quick door-to-door trick-or-treat around a nearby neighborhood.

I don't have any pictures of the kids in costume. Sorry. What I do have is Hyrum's new school picture complete with a fake "smile" and messy hair. Enjoy!

Look forward to our next post after Hyrum's 5th birthday on Monday! (hopefully)

Long Awaited Update

Alright! So I promised this update a long time ago. We've been very busy around here, so I haven't found any time to update until now. However, this busyness also means that I have a lot more news to share.

Let's see... where to start..? We took our trip to Utah as I mentioned in my last blog. It was so nice to visit with Mike's family again. It was especially great to show off Emily since none of his family had met her before. We also got to see Angie's new baby who we'd never seen before. What a cutie! I could hardly believe how grown up Jeni's kids were. The thought of Caryssa getting ready for college just blows my mind!

Mike's mom was good enough to watch our kids for us while we stayed in the hotel Mike's boss provided. Boy was it a dump! Our floor reeked of onion rings, (Mike thought it smelled like curry) There was a crazy lady living down the hall from us, our front door didn't seal correctly, the lock wouldn't lock, the air conditioner and heater worked part-time, the bed was unfathomably hard, the lights flickered, and the bathroom door wouldn't latch. If we weren't staying for free, we would have complained.

I got to visit with Juliet, an old college friend, while Mike was in class for his certification. She brought her son Lincoln to the hotel to pick me up on Tuesday. First, we drove out to Kearns to visit my kids and have a picnic. However, when we got to Mike's mom's house, we realized we didn't have the car seat capacity to take all the kids and us to a park. We weren't horribly disappointed since it was quite freezing anyhow. After a great lunch provided to us by Mike's mom and dad, Juliet took me out to her cute house and we visited some more while Lincoln napped.

Wednesday was Halloween. Juliet and Lincoln met me at the mall across from the hotel. Lincoln was all dressed up for trick-or-treating. He made a very unintimidating ninja. Somehow the glasses and the un-ninja like smiles weren't too convincing. Still, the store clerks were glad to dump all the tootsie-rolls he wanted into his bucket, and lucky for Juliet, Lincoln didn't like tootsie-rolls! Mike and I were supposed to meet up with Juliet that night for their ward's trunk-or-treat, but Mike didn't get out of class until much later than he had anticipated. By the time we picked up the kids and got them in costume, trunk-or-treat was over. Instead, we took the kids around Mike's old neighborhood. Hyrum really enjoyed it at first, and Emily loved riding around in her stroller. The fun ended when, after only about a dozen houses, Hyrum tripped and skinned his knees and we had to go back. He got mostly gum. Gum, and a lot of Mexican candy.
- Mike: "What's 'Sabor Platano.. Goma de mascar'?"
- Me: "I think it's banana flavored gum."
- Mike: "Ah." *nods*
You're all going to have to wait a bit for the answer to the last poll. I was dumb and forgot to take pictures on Halloween, so I need to dress the kids up again so I can post one. Needless to say, they looked very cute. I'm sure you'll agree when you see them for yourselves.

Mike took the test on Thursday and said it was really hard. (We just found out last week that he passed!) I sat outside the classroom for over 2 hours with nothing to do but play on the internet on Mike's phone. Yay for wi-fi! Juliet met us again in the parking lot after the test and gave us some pumpkins and squash she had just picked up and we said goodbye to her. Then we picked up two very tired and cranky kids and headed home. Both kids slept like bricks over the next couple of days. They had a lot of fun getting to know their Grandma and Grandpa Aitken.

Emily met with a physical and developmental therapist earlier in November. We were concerned that she still wasn't crawling and figure she fell behind when she lost all that weight. They told us not to expect her to walk until she's 15-18 months. They said that's still average.. the slower side of average, but nothing to worry about. The rest of her development is adequate or above average for her age, so that was good news. Emily's development really wasn't far enough behind for her to qualify for the Infant Toddler Program through Health and Welfare, but the physical therapist is going to stop by now and then between her other appointments just to check in on us and suggest more exercises for us to do with Emily. Right now, we're supposed to brush the bottoms of her feet with a stiff brush. Apparently, the rest of her body developed while her feet didn't and the brush is suppose to stimulate some growth reflex in them. Her pediatrician didn't seem to think there was anything wrong with her at all, and told us not to let a physical therapist scare us. Since our meeting with the therapist, she has started getting around quite well. She still isn't exactly crawling, but she pulls herself along with her arms, and sometimes inches along like an inchworm. She is now up to about the 25th percentile for both height and weight. That's better than Hyrum's 20th percentile height and 10th weight. Yay, Emily! She has become quite a chubby little baby.

Hyrum started school this month! I'm so incredibly excited, and so is he! He absolutely loves school, and riding the bus is such a treat for him. He goes from 9-11 on Monday-Thursday. The extra half hour before and after for the bus ride brings the total to 3 Hyrum free hours for me! Now I get to do laundry without him kicking over the piles! Actually, I have yet to really enjoy his being gone. It's still so new to me that I sit by the window waiting for him to return. I've already seen some progress in his communication, and he's learning new things about shapes and animals. The teacher says he gets along great with the other kids and already has friends. Here's a couple of pictures of him on his first day.




Hyrum's 4th birthday was Saturday the 17th. We had been playing games at Spencer and Megan's house until really late the night before, and I wasn't feeling very well, so we didn't do anything that day except watch movies. But I did make him an apple crisp. He enjoyed it. He got to open his presents Sunday morning. I added subtitles for those of you who don't understand Hyrum speak.

No, Hyrum isn't crazy. He was meowing at his orange stuffed kitty who you can see sitting on the couch where he put his present. The backpack was from Hyrum's Grandma and Grandpa Crooks. Grandma and Grandpa Aitken gave him shoes while he was in Utah. The Moon Sand was from us. For those of you who don't know what Moon Sand is, it's similar to Playdough... kind of. It's almost like brown sugar in that you can crumble it to sand or pack and mold it. Thankfully, it isn't sticky like brown sugar! It also doesn't stain and vacuums up better than Playdough if it falls in the carpet. This is especially important to note when you remember that we don't have room for a table in our apartment. It's bound to get messy!

We had a very enjoyable Thanksgiving followed by a seemingly endless trip home with a very whiny Hyrum in the back seat. We got in late, and Hyrum crashed immediately only to have us wake him early the next morning. Our friends Spencer and Megan invited us out to their parents' house for a family get together to play some games, eat leftovers, and have birthday cake for several of the kids who had birthdays that month. They even had a cake for Hyrum! We knew their parents from our old ward in Meridian. Hyrum got to ride a horse for the first time. I wish I had remembered to take a picture. He was so excited for his turn while watching all the other kids go. But when his turn came up, he ran out to the horse only to realize when he got up closer, just how big the thing was! Bro. Pond lifted him up onto it's bare back and Hyrum flattened himself against the horse's neck and grasped a handful of mane. The horse shifted its weight, and Hyrum panicked and asked to get down before it could even take one step. Still, I thought he was very brave.

We left somewhat early because Hyrum, although he loved playing with the many other kids, was still very cranky from the day before. When we got him home, he continued to cry. We sent him to his room to play, but later found him curled up on his bedroom floor sobbing. Mike lifted him to his feet to give him a hug, and in the process realized that he was burning up. We've all been sick ever since. I'm really hoping that we're better by this weekend. My sister, Julie invited us out for Thanksgiving, but we already had plans. My niece, Shae is in town. I haven't seen her since she was about 6, and she's 21 now. We're hoping to go visit on Sunday.

That's about it for now. I'll try to take pictures of the kids in costume and post them sometime tomorrow.

Short(er) Blog

This will be a somewhat shorter blog to be followed up by a longer blog with pictures and videos next week. You'll just have to wait till then. ;)

The reason I'm not posting a longer blog till next week is that Mike is going to Utah for some work related training. We leave on Monday afternoon, when Mike gets off of work, and come home Thursday evening. Our kids will be staying with their Grandma and Grandpa Aitken. Emily has become very clingy and needy lately. I wish them all the luck in the world in dealing with her. But, rather than tell you all our plans, I'll just tell you what happened when we get back.

Emily is doing a little bit better with her motor skills, although she still isn't crawling. We met with a case worker for the Infant Toddler Program who is trying to get us set up with a physical therapist who will come out to our house once a week to work with Emily. Until then, Mike and I are just trying to do all we can to encourage her to use her legs. She can drag herself with her arms and propel herself forward a little by pushing off with her toes. She can get around to wherever she wants to go, but it still isn't quite crawling. Lately though, she has been jumping in her Exersaucer (bouncy saucer toy thing) which I think has been helping her to build some much needed leg muscles. I don't think it'll be much longer before she really does crawl.

Emily is also starting to talk more. Currently, her vocabulary consists of Dad, Mom (pronounced "Bob"), brother, DeeDee (the cat's name), kitty, duck, bath, and hooray (as she lifts her arm into the air). She's so adorable!

Good news for Hyrum! He got accepted into the early intervention preschool we've been trying to get him into. We have a meeting with his teacher and the rest of the staff on November 13th. He'll start some time after that, attending 4 days a week, 2 hours a day. We are SO anxious for him to start talking. He turns 4 on November 17th, and still can't successfully communicate with us.

We got a good scare the other day. Mike let Hyrum outside to play for a little while, but he didn't expect him to go very far because it was raining. After less than 5 min, I asked Mike where he was. Mike told me he was right outside the door, but he wasn't. Mike stuck his head out and called for him, but no answer. A quick walk up and down the row of condos set us into a panic. Hyrum wasn't anywhere! Mike walked around several blocks before he came home and got the car to help him look better. I bundled Emily up and strapped her in her stroller and went out on foot. We looked everywhere. I was about to call the police and Mike was about to check the major road near our house to see if he had gone to watch the trucks or tried to walk to Jack-in-the-Box. He loves their french toast sticks. As Mike headed off to search some more, he passed by the alley that our house sits in. There in the driveway, perched atop a pink and purple tricycle, was Hyrum. We tried to ask Hyrum where the tricycle went.. told him to put it away, but he only tried to park it in our garage. Mike took him around to some of the neighbors who we know have young kids, but we never found the owner. To this day, I still have no idea where Hyrum went. It couldn't have been any of our nearby neighbors, because we checked with all of them. We parked the tricycle next to the road hoping someone would recognize it and pick it up. It sat there for half a week before it finally disappeared. I guess we need to get Hyrum one of his own so he doesn't do that again.

I was lazy this year for Halloween. I usually make the kids' costumes, but this year, I bought them. Yay for eBay! They won't be as cute or of as good a quality as when I make them myself, but it's so much easier this way! I'll probably go back to making them again next year. I've updated the poll for you to guess what they will be. The question will be answered in the form of pictures when we get home. Those of you who already know the answer, feel free to vote, but don't spoil it for everyone else!