Weekly Review

Mike and I went dancing at the stake activity on Friday and had a great time. We left our kids with 2 12 year olds in our ward who just passed a babysitting certification course. They did a great job and actually seemed to enjoy it. One of the girls said that she loved watching our kids because they are cute and that all she ever got to watch were her nieces and nephews who aren't all that good looking. I couldn't help laughing about that later after they left. They were good girls, and we'll probably use them again in the future.

It was fun to dance again, but boy am I out of practice! It all came back fairly quickly, but I'm not in as good of shape as I used to be. After 2 days, I'm still sore! There was a great turn-out. It seems the dance class idea was a good one because it drew a gym full of couples, both old and young. There was hardly room to dance without running into other people! I was glad to see so many show up. Mike and I will definitely be going next week!

Friday morning, my throat started feeling a little scratchy. By Friday night, I knew I was sick. I labored through Saturday with the kids while Mike worked, then made him watch them for most of the day today while I rested. I even had to miss church. I sure hope I get better soon. The kids are starting to show signs that they're feeling sick too, but so far, Mike is ok.

The kids are doing great. Hyrum is talking more and more every day and his speech is getting a little clearer. It would probably still sound like gibberish to anyone but me and Mike who have learned "Hyrum speak" over the past 3 years. Emily is as cute as a baby can be! It doesn't take much to get her to crack a huge smile, and she's started cooing a lot. She loves studying faces, and often cranes her neck around to look at you if you hold her in a position where she can't see you. She also loves lying on the floor kicking her legs and waving her arms like crazy. She doesn't even mind too much when a stray fist (her own, of course. I can already hear Mike making jokes..) hits her in the face. Unfortunately, her perfect skin couldn't last. She has a nice rash of baby acne now, and she's the only baby I know to ever get cradle cap in her eyebrows. Hopefully all that will clear up quickly so she's cute again when everyone shows up for the blessing.

The geek that i am...

So, i like technology ... if i had a theme song, it'd be the lyrics from Kip wedding song to La-fon-duh w/ the Robotech intro music. Many of you already know this-- and to confimr this, i'd like you to see all the dorky pictures i take day-to-day from my cell phone.

Here's the link:
www.t-mobilepictures.com/loque
Here's the password hint:
Myson's nickname
Here's the password:
goofball

The password will give you acces to pics, enjoy!

Nothing important... just stuff

First off, happy birthday in this past week to my dear friend Sandi, my sister Julie, my mother Jill, and my step-dad Sherwin! Whew! too many birthdays for one week.

In my last entry, I mentioned that Mike and I had been given callings to teach the CTR 5 class. Well, when the Primary President came over to drop off the manual, she extended a calling to Mike to teach the Sunbeam class instead since our son Hyrum is now a Sunbeam. Mike accepted the calling, so he gets to team teach the 3-4 year olds with another brother in the ward while I'm left to defend myself against the 4-5 year olds in my own class. It's not so bad though. I have only 3 kids in my class, and I only have one name that I have to try all that hard to remember since two of them have familiar names... Jessica and Hyrum. My first week of teaching went well enough except that I had planned activities that worked well with a class size of 3. When I got to church, one of the teachers didn't show up, so I had to take the next class up as well, giving me 7 kids. I had to cut some things out of the lesson, and it left me with a nice large gap before the end of the block. Lucky for me, 4-6 year olds love to color and I had brought some pictures that corresponded to the lesson.

Singing and sharing time was fun too. I was afraid that Hyrum would want to come sit with me when he saw me in the Primary room. But he was so well behaved and said "hi" to me from across the room when he walked in, then sat with his own class. He was so well behaved through it all, and got really involved in both the lesson and the singing. There was a bit of confusion when the teacher asked "Hyrum" to come pick cards for a matching game and both Hyrums answered the call. I never imagined that he'd have that problem with his name. During singing time, he was quick to blurt out the correct answer in the "What word comes next" game when his classmate was unable to answer. He seems to be loving Primary.

I got a nice break today when I got to go clothes shopping for my birthday (nearly a month late). Usually I hate to shop for clothes. But today, shopping meant that I left the kids at home with Mike and headed out on my own. As much as I love Hyrum and Emily, it was good to get away from them for a while. I should get at least a week long break from hearing about how Mike has to work so hard all day while I sit at home doing nothing. Maybe I'm slightly evil, but I think it does him good to have to see what it's like every now and then. Actually, Mike's really great with the kids, so I feel completely comfortable leaving him with them from time to time. It's nice to have a husband who I can rely on like that.

Our stake is doing something kind of cool. They've set up a Stake Date Night on Fridays where for four weeks, they're giving ballroom dance lessons. They teach four dances a night, and you can go to as many or as few as you like. On the week of Valentine's Day, they're having a "Sweetheart's Dance" with a live band and refreshments. Mike and I didn't make it to last week's lesson, but we plan to try to go to the next 3 and to the dance at the end. I'm really excited about it because I was really into ballroom dance in high school and even a little bit in college. Mike and I haven't been dancing since we got married. That's over 6 years. The lessons will be a nice refresher. The only problem is finding someone to watch the kids. They really should offer a nursery for these things.

Well, enough rambling. I think I need to make Mike write the next post since he's the one who started this blog, but I'm the one who always gets stuck updating it.

New Pictures

This one's for all of you who keep bugging us for new pictures of Emily. We've been putting off posting any because we can't quite get the right shot of her to show off how pretty she really is. She always either slouches down or has weird hair or a pacifier in her mouth.

For those of you who want to see her in living flesh, we're having her baby blessing on the 11th of February. Anyone who would like to come is welcome. We're looking forward to showing her off and also hope to show Mike's family around the Boise area a bit too. If you think you're going to come, please let us know so that we know who to plan for.

In other news, we received a calling in our new ward to teach the 5 year old Primary class. I think they call it CTR 5 now, but it's what used to be called Star A. I thought at first that we would be teaching my nephew Isaac's class, but he's in CTR 6, one class above ours.

Hyrum is the best big brother to Emily. He loves to hold her, tell her he loves her, and give her an endless supply of kisses. He likes to help out by burping her and tucking her in bed, and loves to watch her take her bath and get dressed. Sometimes when we put her down for a nap, he'll carry his chair into her room and set it beside the cradle so he can watch her sleep. We were afraid he'd get jealous of the attention she'd get, but the only thing he's jealous of is when one of us holds her or gives her kisses. He wants to be the one to do that. We're really so proud of him.

Well, this blog entry was supposed to be for new pictures of Emily. So without further ado...

Emily learned to smile when she was about 2 weeks old. She loves to smile up at us when we tickle her neck and chin and cheeks. We still haven't gotten any really great pictures of it yet. This was the best we could do, but it's the cutest thing when you see it in person!

Here is a very happy dad with his girl and his cat. We have a very similar picture with Mike, DeeDee, and Hyrum.

I love this picture! So cute!! She had been sleeping on Mike's chest, but lifted her head up to smile at Mike when he called out her name.

This one was almost perfect. If only I had gotten the pacifier out of her mouth. When I tried to duplicate it, she kept sliding down on the couch or slumping over. By the time I finally got her positioned right again, I had lost the lighting.

This is the dress that Grandma Sears gave Emily when she was born. In the last picture, you can see the Christmas tree in the background. I was trying to get a good picture of her to include in our Christmas post, but just couldn't get the right shot. I put Emily on the floor to let her rest a bit while I tried to get everything set up again for a better shot with the tree. However, by this time, I had been trying to get a picture for quite a while and Emily was fed up. She fell sound asleep on the floor, and I didn't dare move her. I do think this picture shows her face pretty well though.

Christmas Day 2006

Ok I got the pictures, so....

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

Christmas Eve 2006

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

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