New Pictures!

Well, things are settling down here with the holidays out of the way. Still, Hyrum insists on singing "Jingle Bells" at least 20 times a day. He is glad to be back in school, although he missed 2 days this week due to a stomach flu. Emily is cute as ever with 4 new teeth on top. She loves to dance and play patty-cake and peek-a-boo. Mike and I have a new calling in Primary teaching 10 year olds. We have triplets in our class. Yikes! Other than that, there is no new news, so on to the main attraction!

While I was in Shelley over Christmas, my mom took the kids to Wal*Mart to get pictures taken. She just got them back today! They turned out so cute that I had to post them.







We'll be sending out prints to the family shortly.

Christmas in Shelley

As Mike said in his entry, I spent Christmas with my family in Shelley and Idaho Falls. Mike and I had agreed that I would take the camera so I could get lots of pictures and videos and blog every day I was gone so he could feel a little more like he was there. Unfortunately, one of the first things I realized when I got to my mom's house was that I had left the camera at home. Instead, we had to settle on lots of phone calls and emails to get us through. I don't think I want to do the whole Christmas apart thing again.

The kids and I packed up and left Nampa shortly after Mike left for work on Christmas Eve. I had opted to leave on Monday because we had to sing in our ward's Christmas program on Sunday and I didn't want to drive in the dark. It only took until I got on the highway to realize that this was a mistake. There was a storm. A pretty big one. The highways were snowy and the traffic was bumper to bumper with last day shoppers. It was pretty treacherous nearly all the way out to Mountain Home. Once I got out of the Boise area, the roads were clear. I thought I had beaten the storm, but boy was I wrong! The storm caught up to me again around Fort Hall. By the time I got near Blackfoot, there was about three or four inches of unplowed snow on the highway. It only got worse the closer I got to Shelley. Near white-out conditions slowed highway traffic to around 30-40 mph. I followed a semi figuring they probably had a better view of the road than I did. However, I couldn't see the Shelley exit at all until I was already past it, and had to take another road from an Idaho Falls exit. This too was a mistake. By now, the snow was reaching 8 or 9 inches on unplowed roads, and I couldn't see where the edges of the road were. The car bounced in and out of ruts made by other cars driving equally as blindly as I was. I couldn't slow down or I would have risked getting high centered in the deep snow. Every now and then, I could hear grass or gravel under my tires signaling that I had drifted a bit off the road, but there was little I could do to get away from the old tire ruts. It was that way all the way out to my Mom's house. By the time I got there, I was pretty shaken up and didn't even want to go to my Grandma Sears's house for presents and dinner with extended family that night. The storm didn't let up until we had 10 new inches from that one day of snow. It snowed the whole time I was there. I think the news said we got up around 14 or 16 inches total that week.

We took Mom and Sherwin's Jeep to my grandma's house. I was glad not to be driving, but I was still quite nervous riding in the back seat. As I walked in the door, I was met with applause and cheers of, "There's the brave girl!" Nobody could believe I had been so daring (or stupid) to make that drive alone. We had a great time at Grandma's house. Hyrum got to see his cousin Piper again. They haven't seen each other in a long time, but it was like no time had passed at all. Hyrum gave her a big hug and kiss and they took off hand-in-hand to play together. He also got to play with my cousin's kids... what does that make them? Second cousin? Cousins once removed? I've never been able to figure out that cousin thing... Emily was too shy to let me put her down, but still showed off playing and dancing in my lap.

I was at fault to us getting off to a late start on Christmas morning. Emily hadn't slept well that night, and I got up early when Hyrum woke up. However, after my mom woke up, I dumped Hyrum off on her and tried to catch a little nap since Emily was sleeping. I slept longer than I had meant to and everyone had waited on me for breakfast. I felt pretty bad about that. We had a nice breakfast and were about to start opening our presents when Emily got sick. Very very sick. The poor kid spent the whole morning throwing up, and Mom, Emily, and I went through several changes of clothes in the process. Luckily, Hyrum enjoyed himself enough for both kids. He couldn't stop talking about Christmas and Santa and singing "Jingle Bells" over and over. We spent the rest of the day playing with the kids' new toys. Hyrum especially liked the preschool software my mom had gotten for him. Emily enjoyed playing with her new doll.

Mom had to work a half day on the 26th. When she got home, we went to the Wal*Mart photo studio to get pictures of the kids. I think they turned out pretty cute and can't wait to get them back. I also got to see our old friend and neighbor Dan who is the manager of the optical center there. He showed me pictures of their kids including their newest baby I haven't yet seen in person. I tried to set up a time to go see his wife Carissa and the kids too, but the weather kept me from ever going out that way.

Mom got off early again on the 27th, and we headed out to see my Grandma Sears again. Mom helped her with some stuff on her computer while I tried to program a stubborn universal remote for her. The kids decided to play cute and show off. Emily even got brave enough to let Grandma hold her for a while.

The next day, I went out to visit my high school friend Sandi. She's expecting a baby in April and looked so cute! I'm so excited for her! My kids really loved her husband. Especially Emily who will usually never go to anyone but me. I'm sure they will be incredible parents.

Mom decided that Hyrum needed some mittens for that freezing cold East Idaho weather, and we had gotten some fleece to match his coat at Hancock Fabrics on one of our previous trips to town. So on Saturday, we stayed in and made mittens. Hyrum loved them!

Early Sunday morning, we got a call. Church had been canceled due to snow. Nearly all the country roads were closed until plows could get out. There was even talk on the news about the possibility of closing East bound I-15. I had been looking forward to showing off my kids in their cute Sunday clothes, but it turned out to be a good thing anyhow. I was very sick throwing up all day Sunday. I spent nearly the entire day in bed. After the roads cleared a bit, Mom and Sherwin took the kids on a drive while I slept.

Monday was my birthday! My Grandma Page and Aunt Pat came to visit that afternoon because they knew my car wouldn't have made it through the snow to their house. It was really good to see them. Hyrum was in the mood to show off, but Emily was sleepy and wouldn't play or even leave my lap. Still, she looked cute in her pigtails!

I left for home on Tuesday. It was too bad I couldn't spend the day with my mom since she had it off, but I was afraid of missing a window of opportunity. There was no snow and no wind. Perfect driving conditions! Surely, the drive back would be much less eventful than the drive there. Right?... Well, for some reason, I wasn't paying much attention as I came out of Shelley. I missed the turn to get to I-15, and instead, kept heading down 91. I realized fairly quickly that I either needed to find a crossroad that would get me through to 15 or turn around and head back to the missed turn. After passing a couple of crossroads that ended in dead ends, I realized that you could probably only cross the river from Shelley or Firth. 91 was fairly snowy, and I was still closer to Shelley than to Firth, so I decided I would turn back. I turned down a narrow little country road looking for a driveway to pull into so I could turn around. Well, there weren't any driveways for a while. But there was a one lane bridge which I crossed followed by another intersecting one lane bridge that crossed a small canal. Since there were no cars on the road, I decided to use this little bridge for my three point turn. I pulled over the top of it and backed out the other way. The problem was, the second bridge was on a hill. The incline was so gradual, I hadn't noticed. The car couldn't grip the road well enough to climb the hill. The wheels just spun. I tried to back up a bit to get some momentum to get me over, but it didn't help. Finally, I decided I would have to push the car over the top of the hill. I was worried about it drifting off over the edge of the bridge into the canal, so I stood in the driver side doorway to steer as I pushed. It started out well enough until I lost my grip and the car started rolling backwards. I couldn't stop it. I tried to jump in, but I lost my footing in a bank on the side of the road. Now remember, the snow was really deep. Anyone who has lived in snow areas knows how it works. When it gets cold enough without new snow, the top layer of the snow freezes and forms a crust over the top of the softer drifts of snow. Well, my left foot broke the crust and I sunk in nearly knee deep. Meanwhile, the car kept rolling until I had been knocked face down into the snow by the open door of the car. I was waiting for it to slam into the back of my head, but before that could happen, the car came to a stop in the bank. My left foot was under the front tire. However, the car hadn't broken the crust and had only pushed my foot deeper into the snow rather than running over the top of it. I was easily able to pull it out and drag myself out from under the door. I stood up, shaking. My legs felt like Jell-o as I walked to the nearest house house for help. I knocked. No answer. I started out to the next house, but realized it was too far to walk as my legs were shaking so badly that I fell every few steps. So I went back to the car. Emily was asleep and Hyrum was just singing along to a Tabernacle Choir CD, completely oblivious to the fact that we were stuck. I was literally covered head to toe in snow and quite panicked. Luckily, just as I called Sherwin to tell him how to find me, someone came along in a hay truck. He had a chain with him and everything and was able to pull me out with no trouble at all. I quickly realized how lucky I was. But after the shock, adrenaline, and the numbness of the cold wore off, I realized how sore I was. Upon further inspection, I found bruises on my legs, some nasty scrapes on my forearms, bent up glasses, and for some reason I can't recall, a swollen pinkie. Curiously, the least sore part of me is the foot that was caught under the tire. Good thing I had prayed before leaving. Heavenly Father must have known that I have no health insurance! Thankfully, I can still say that I have never broken a bone.

The rest of the trip was uneventful with nice clear roads. I was so glad to be home again. The house has never looked so good to me. Mike had done some cleaning and organizing while I was gone. He had done quite a lot of work in the garage, taking advantage of the car being gone. Mike and I decided to let the kids open their presents on Christmas, but to wait to exchange our gifts to each other until I got home. I couldn't avoid seeing my presents as soon as I came in. For Christmas, he had gotten me a new computer desk. Sitting on top of it, he had wrapped the screen of a new monitor. I took off the paper to find this:

So maybe he can't spell "birthday" well and his shirt is stained (thank goodness I'm home!) but I still thought it was clever. He also did a great job finding an awesome deal for it on Craigslist.

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and New Year. As for me, I'm happy to be home again!

One final picture of my mom with the kids.

Christmas in Boise

I didn't think that I'd be too affected being alone this Christmas, but I really missed my kids and wife yesterday. I don't want that to sound like I'm searching for a pity party, it's just how I felt. It's nice to know I still do love my family!

It was nice to have the cat with me. Deed was so cuddly with me all day. For the most part I slept and watched movies just because I didn't want to get up and move her from my lap. When I did get going, it was mostly basic cleaning to prep me for the larger cleaning of the garage and "office" (the other 1/4 part of our bedroom).

I had eaten the rest of the lasagna leftovers Jay made before she left -- it was suppose to last for 2-3 days. It didn't get past Christmas Eve (I didn't want to share with Santa). Anyway, after I had chocolate truffles and a few Idaho Spuds for Lunch, I decided it was best to have a healthy meal for dinner. Working and sleeping all day didn't have me very motivated to do any cooking, so I debated whether I could/should go get take-out. The pros were obvious: laziness. The cons... Jay would probably kill me because we vowed to not waste $ on eating out. But I had an Ace up my sleeve: Justification!! I mean, Jay was in Idaho Falls with her family, eating wonderful meals by Sherwin and having pot-luck-ings on Christmas Eve at her Grandma's house. Didn't I deserve to have a nice meal? Of course I do!! Chicken noodle is not going to cut it for a Christmas dinner!

So, out I went. Seeing as Deedee was being so cute and affectionate with me all day, I decided to take her on a car ride with me. We got in my bosses car I had borrowed since Jay had the Toyota in Idaho Falls. First stop: Jack-in-the-Box... Why does JitB have their lights on when they are closed?!? Pulled up through the drive through just to check ... yup, closed. McDonald's would never be closed.. they're a large corporation without personal values, right? Wrong! They did have their lights off, but their drive-thru menus were still flashing advertisements making me even more hungry. Well, if McD's is closed, not much else was going to be open. I knew there had to be Chinese food open somewhere. They're typically more expensive and don't have $.99 - $1 menus, but I was hungry. It's amazing how generous my wallet gets when I get hungry...

All this time, Deedee was sitting in the passenger seat. On the search for a Chinese restaurant, she had come over to lay in my lap as I drive. She used to do that when she was a kitten and we'd go on long trips to Utah with her. Then I heard it. A muffled *huck, huck, huck, wreetch!* ...I suppose this means Deedee doesn't like driving anymore. I began to feel a warm spot on my leg under her mouth. Passing under a street light, I got to see the goods: About 3/4 cups of expanded and mushed kitty food dancing partially on my leg and some spilling over on the car seat. I didn't panic for I knew there was nothing I could do. I didn't have any Kleenex within reach and there was no way I was touching it. Then the noise came again... desert decided to join the regurgitated dinner on my lap.

By this time, I had lost my appetite for the moment (as have you if you're eating reading this, right?). I pulled a U-turn (sorry, Jay... I know it's illegal in Idaho, but I didn't want to wait until the next intersection) and headed back home. It was a cold night, but that didn't stop me from cracking a window once the aroma of condensed kitty spew began to permeate the car.

This is what I looked like when I realized what the cat had done.

Poor cat. The moment I opened the car door in our garage, she weakly got out of the car. I had to keep my right leg in sitting position while getting out of the car. Once our, I left it splork to the concrete floor where I found a plastic spoon and Wal*Mart receipts to clean it and what was still left in the car. No sooner had I finished when I heard crunching by the cat dish... At least someone got to eat!

Well, I did eat, eventually. I found eggs in the fridge, so I cracked 4 and mixed them together. Then I found a cut onion we use for cooking with our ground beef in the fridge... There were also leftover olives from tacos we had the previous week, and a lone tomato as well!!! Wrapper in 3 tortilla shells, I had a nice omelet for Christmas dinner. And to top it off? Egg Nog!

In the words of Bill Cosby, "I told you that story to tell you this one."

We haven't really taught myson about Christmas. So we wanted to share what had happened at our Christmas party in an attempt to show you all how cute our son is (cuter than yours, Nyah, nyah).

--I just broke my delete key...--

We were in the very front of our ward cultural hall, being furthest from the stage. When Santa came to visit, jingling his bells, we asked myson, "Who is that?" I was mildy surprised to see him get excited, figuring it was just because I asked the question with enthusiasm --there, it's working again--. I lifted up Hyrum so he could see who it was and you could tell that he locked on the man in red once he was past adult head levels. They announced that they would form a line at the front and you wold have to go through the door to get on the stage to see Santa. I put myson down and asked if he wanted to go see him. "YEAH!!" was his exuberant reply and off he darted down one isle of tables without us. He got near the front only to see that the way was mostly blocked by adults in chairs and big coats blocking his view. He ran back to us where he veered of to his left having no regard for any obstacle that would get in his way down another idle of tables. I would have warned him had I not been so amazed at his excitement. It was not long before he had reached the stage where he realized he could not get to Santa that way. He burst to the back of the line of kids which had already begun to form. Once he saw that the door to the stage was open, he darted through two kids in line and dashed into the open door. Seconds later you saw a red faced, bashful Hyrum standing next to Santa's chair -- the first kid there. Santa hadn't even gotten comfortable to accept any children yet and there was no adult to monitor the on-flux of kids -- myson had beaten them all.

Oh, it was so cute. We felt a bit bad about not teaching him about Santa, but he obviously picked it up somewhere. I'm sure we've mentioned him a few times, but never in the "Santa rides and sleigh with reindeer and he comes to give you presents if you're a good boy and he eats cookies left out at night and kisses your mum and laughs jollililly" way. I would have taken pictures but by the time I got to the front to get a good one, myson's turn had been done, had his candy cane, and my phone was out of memory, anyway.

Addendum

Thanks to my mom for finding the picture I was talking about and responding so quickly! Here it is.

Hmm, she looks nothing like me. When are we going to have kids that look like they belong to me and aren't just Mike clones!?! Also, Mom told me that this was the dress in it's original form. Grandma Page added some length to the bottom as I grew, and that's why the dress looks so much longer on Emily.

Be sure to read the post below for the latest updates.

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.

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.