Accentuate the positive~

Well, every time i load up this blog i see that big ugly "fired" thingy and, although still true; it gets depressing. I really want you all to know that we, however, are generally in well spirits due to 2 amazing things in our life: Hyrum and Emily. Without going over the incredibly cute details of how they enrich our lives --which normally bore anyone except the grandparents-- here's some pictures that i've been meaning to post for sometime:

Here's em on her first time w/ Hyrum's old toy. She's smiling .. but of course, she always smiles so it's hard to tell weather she's enjoying it or not. o_o
Our house rental came w/ a swing set in the backyard that myson has come to enjoy very much. He'll play for 1-2 hours just by himself back there. Mostly grabbing all the leaves that i have yet to rake up from last fall (i have reasons!), placing them at the bottom of the attached slide, counting on his fingers to 3 (kinda, it goes, "1... 2... ... ... .... 3!" as he figures out how to do the #3 in ASL [his dad teaches him weird]), then sliding down and pushing all the leaves on the ground.
Em gets a little frustrated trying to dress herself. She could not for the life of her put this thing on her head! Eventually she gave up, and like always ... yeah, you guessed it--
--Started smiling again.

In other news, I have had some really good job prospects, all of which have gone through. I have applying for an IT position @ St. Luke's Hospital in which they chose another candidate, an outsourced call center called EDS (founder by Ross Perot) w/ a very strong referral where i couldn't pass a background check because of our previous bankruptcy, a listed webdev position at Micron which they withdrew because they laid off 700 employees shortly after (i'm guessing on this one, they just haven't replied and i assumed that was why since it was in the papers). I currently have 2 more positions i'm applying for. One as a correctional officer for the State of Idaho. This would present good wages, excellent advancement opportunities, great insurance/benefits for the family, and the best option for education assistance than i have ever had. The 2nd, i have no idea what it's about but i'll call them on Monday... All i know is that it's in Idaho Falls. I have no idea how they got a hold of me, but i have a feeling it has to do w/ the kids grandparents trying to get us closer to them (which both families are trying to do, lol).

With each failed application and every day i'm not employed, we think more and more of schooling. this is definitely something i have to do. There were sooo many other jobs that i can easily have if i have even just 1 more year of education. But, bills are bills, rent is rent. We still need to take care of that for now, especially since the next semester doesn't start until the summer block.

Well, we love you all. Many of you helped us w/ last months rent and i cannot begin to share how much you've helped jay and i, not the big-fat-round-feeling of gratitude in our hearts that we feel for what you've done. in the future, we will be there to assist when we can, but i already know that Heavenly Father is pouring out blessing to you because of it.

Bad news is, i have another months of bills to take care of. We now have help from unemployment, but the appeals process took too long and came 3 weeks later than we anticipated. So, the link is still there below in the previous blog log for those that can and are willing to help.

Love you all so much. Please keep in touch as we would LOVE to hear from you. The chat would help us greatly to remain positive in our continued lives.

Fired!

Well, it stinks .. but it happened. Details? I'd rather not. Needless to say, we need help until i can get established again for our family. If you feel that you are able and willing to help, please send money via PayPal, it's the quickest way for me to pay off rent and bills.

Love you all, keep us in your prayers.

Emily's Blessing

Today was Emily's baby blessing. Mike gave the blessing and did a very nice job. He said that he had to stop himself from laughing near the end of the blessing when he opened his eyes a bit to see Emily smiling up at him. We were happy to have my mom Jill and step-dad Sherwin, my brother James and his girl friend Tessie, my sister Julie and her husband Gene, and our college friend Juliet and her husband Mike and son Lincoln attend. About 4 years ago, I made a blessing dress for display at Hancock Fabrics. I wasn't even pregnant at the time, and then our first child was a boy. I was pleased with how the dress turned out, and hoped that someday we'd finally have a girl to wear it. Well, it looked great on Emily! So here are some pictures.

Emily looking happy as usual. She was cooing so contentedly as we snapped this picture.

My parents with Emily.

Jessica, Emily, Mike, and Hyrum.

The dress. It's kind of hard to see it in the picture, but this at least kind of gives you the basic idea. It's pink with two rows of ribbon at the waist and on the sleeves, two bows on the front with tails that run the length of the dress, and an embroidered organza overlay on the skirt.

I'm including this picture just because I think it's adorable!

My Turn!

It's about time Jay lets me write this blog. She'd been writing so much and holding me back whenever i have wanted to update. I had to explain to her who wears the pants and that's all it took. Here i am.

(for those of you who really know our family, you also know that i should also be writing my will)

So! boy, oh, boy.. that past 2 weeks have been emotionally up and down for me. I'm having difficulties w/ my job, particularly w/ my boss. We just aren't clicking well both regarding our personalities and our business practices. It's becoming a challenge to follow my rule for working w/ new supervisors: "The things you disagree w/ regarding them should only be creating opportunities and experience for you to learn from it." or some blah-blah inspirational phrase about it -- you know what i mean. It will all work out fine in the end... unfortunately, our moments come at times when i'm having other things in life that i have to deal with.
::sigh:: good ole Life. At least i get my raise soon :D .. in fact, today they let us know that in order to compete w/ the other companies hiring in the boise area, they are giving 80% of everyone raises. Essentially, they booted up the hiring wage a few cents, $.90 for entry level, $.50 for the level i'm at. then they looked at the previous raises you've gotten and based it on performance, etc etc. basically, anybody under the base entrance wage will at least be boosted up to that level. that already means i'll get a whopping $.04 increase. i'm hoping my performance evaluation last year and my 36th ranking in our call queue means much more than that. either way, i'll get another performance evaluation and another raise in march.

Other than work difficulties, life has been going happily for us. Main reasons below:

Finger Painting: Hyrum came in crying to Jessica one morning, she really wanted to comfort him but at the time, but was feeding Emily. Once he got closer to her, she had realized why he had been crying... The night before, we decided to take a break from frugality and order chinese food! We had Moo goo gai pan, crab rangoon, egg drop soup, i forgot the main course, shrimp, and beef sticks w/ sides of hot mustard, cocktail sauce, and sesame seeds. We hadn't used the hot mustard or cocktail sauce, and left them in their little containers out on the end table. Myson had gotten into the hot mustard and had gotten some in his mouth. Jay felt really bad for him --that is, until she went into the living room with him to go clean up the mess he had probably made. Instead of a mess, she found a work of art: he had finger painted w/ the hot mustard and cocktail sauce all over both couches, the floor, and Em's bouncy chair. He even added his own artistic flare and poured the sesame seeds over his paintings. After several times vacuuming in the wedges of the couches, we'll still find dome more seeds coming out of who knows where. I came home from work to hear the story of what happened and i couldn't help but laugh... Husbands: these are the things you don't do unless you want the evil stare from you're wife for the next several days -- or unless you want to do all diaper changes for the next week.

The Curse of Generations: The rash/baby acne/cradle cap that jay talked about last post had gotten worse. it began to gather down her forehead, past the cheeks and on her next one morning. We got pretty concerned and setup an appointment w/ the doc. Lucky, it wasn't anything serious. It turned out to be eczema (thanks, mom :P). Doc Rand said it could be hereditary, but also that sometimes it's only apparent in the infant stage. All we need to do is apply hydrocortizon to her every now and then and keep her skin moist. If this had happened to hyrum, he would have hated us his whole beginning months, but emily is sooo cute. She smiles (well, she always does that) and scrunches her neck when we apply it and coos like she wants to laugh when we put it on.

Charleston: We went dancing again last Friday night and again we enjoyed a night away from the offspring. This time they taught the waltz (well, we knew it already, so it refreshed us) and the swing. The swing was fantabulous to do again, however i had become really, really forgetful on all the moves i once knew. i give credit to the ones that taught it last week, but they also had a problem w/ rhythm. They'd teach all the moves, but once it was put to music, everybody would find themselves off the correct beat -- including us. Chalk up another curse that majoring in music does to you. The fun part of it all was learning the charleston. It is a FUN FUN thing to do, and really cute --that is, when you see other people doing it. We can do it and do it well, but my gawky frame makes it quite laughable if you were to see me. :D We're really excited for the actual formal dance they'll do on Feb. 16th. They're going to have a live band and refreshments ... oh! and music. James, jessica's brother did the pictures for it last year and it's apparently a very gussy-up experience. I'm all happy because i haven't worn my concert tux since i played in the Ricks symphonic band in ... 2000? That, a palmful of hairgel, an intensive 10 mins of mouthwash, and an overdose of cologne and i'll be that ladies man that night -- either that or i'll lose more hair, be drunk, and be emitting odor i'll empty out half the cultural hall!

Well, i know there's other things to talk about, but who knows what they are.

Em's baby blessing is this Sunday. I'm excited, however nervous... just hope i'm attuned to how the Lord wants her to be blessed. I'd just hate to say something like, "You will grow up to be a woman of the street" or something bad like that...

Well, that's all i can think about for now. Love you all!

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!