April 15th 2007

This week was an eventful one, and I feel... tired.

Monday morning, I started pestering Mike to get our taxes done. We had put it off for so long because we were told that our refund would probably be taken in our bankruptcy. We were told that we would either get one letter stating the "discharge of debtors" and "closing" or we would get a letter with just the discharge and they would close later. If the bankruptcy remained unclosed, they would take our tax return and we would get the closing letter later on. Well, we got the letter of discharge, but it didn't say anything about closing. However, as Mike was filling out all the information on the tax forms, he didn't notice any items asking about the bankruptcy. We gave our lawyer a quick call and found... it had been closed! Yay!! So what that means is that we got a pretty hefty refund! We wanted to rush right out and spend it on fun stuff, but of course, we know better than that. We paid rent and bills and tucked a large amount away in case Mike is unemployed for a while. We also bought Mike a new suit for interviews and I got my hair cut. It's all very boring when you consider how much fun we could have had on $5000. Then again, having a house to live in and food to eat could be considered "fun" too. The money was such a huge blessing. Our rent was past due and we didn't know where the money was going to come from. It was such a relief, and Mike and I were on cloud 9 all day. Heck, all week.

Emily had her 4 month checkup and shots on Wednesday. She's slowly dropping off the charts in weight and height. However, by the time Hyrum was this age, he was already too low for the charts, so she's still a bigger baby than he was. She took her shots very well at first. She only grimaced a bit, but didn't cry or complain. We thought we were so blessed to have such a wonderful baby... until the next day. By Thursday, Emily had developed a pretty high fever in relation to the shots. She was cranky and miserable, but slept more than usual. On Friday, she was still feeling sick and was awake and cranky most of the time. Saturday was even worse with hour upon hour of constant screaming. Thankfully, by this morning, she was back to her usual self.

In other Emily news, she tried her first solid food this week... if you call watered down rice cereal "solid." She really seemed to enjoy it. At first, she was angry because she thought we were being mean and not feeding her. But the second she got the spoon in her mouth, she said, "mmm!" and opened her mouth to beg for more.

Hyrum is learning and growing so quickly. It's so much fun to watch how he develops. We are concerned about his speech, however. We looked into getting him into speech therapy. They will do a screening on him, and if they find that he needs it, the public schools will pay for his speech therapy, and possibly preschool. We won't be able to have him tested until summer, but I really hope they can help him. He's a very bright kid and understands every word you say, but he just doesn't talk.

Well, I think that's all the news this week, so I'm off to eat some of the ice cream our refund bought!

Easter 2007

It was a quiet but enjoyable Easter at the Haddox home. We had planned to spend Easter with my family this year, but because of money restraints, we had to stay home. Sorry to my 2 grandmas who have not yet met Emily. We'll just have to plan another trip when our financial situation is a little more stable. For now, you'll just have to trust us that she's the most adorable little girl you'll ever meet!

Mike woke up early and made us all pancakes and eggs for breakfast. It was very yummy. After breakfast, we dyed eggs... yeah, I know it's usually supposed to be done the night before, but time got away from us watching movies, and Hyrum was falling asleep in his seat, so it had to wait. Here is a line-up of some of the eggs.

This one is an authentic Hyrum original! Note the bold crayon strokes and strong lines that represent man's struggle to find higher meaning in life... or something like that.

This egg was inspired by Hyrum's new hobby of running around the house finding and pointing out stars and circles. (Saars and Kirkles)

This was on the back of the "I Love Emily" egg.


This was the back side of the yellow "Egg head" egg shown on the bottom right of the line-up.


The main purpose of this egg was just to give Hyrum something to meow at. It matches the cats on the quilt I made him when he was a baby. He still sleeps with his quilt even though it no longer fits his regular sized bed.



I figured my favorite egg deserved two shots. This is a creation of Mike's and features a car on the front and a tow truck on the back. The top half is dyed blue for the sky, and the bottom, green for the grass. It also has clouds and a sun that didn't show up well in these pictures.

After egg coloring, Hyrum got to dig into his Easter basket. If there wasn't enough sticky, sugary goodness in the syrup from the pancakes, he got even more of it from the malted milk ball eggs and chocolate bunny. He also got a game of Memory. We played a few games with him with the cards facing up. We started with only a few different pairs and tried building up to more with each round. He's starting to catch on to the game, and maybe soon, he'll be able to play with the cards face down. I sure would have loved to get Emily something, but money didn't permit this year. Honestly, she's too young to know the difference anyhow! Next year we'll make it up to her.

Because we had to dye the eggs in the morning, the egg hunt had to wait until evening. We had wanted to hide eggs outside, but it was on again/off again rainy outside. Even when it was sunny, the ground was still soggy, so we had to hide the eggs in the living room. Mike tried to keep Hyrum distracted while I hid them. It was a tough task since Hyrum remembered hunting eggs from last year and wanted to get right to it. He rounded up those eggs pretty quickly and thoroughly enjoyed himself!


Sadly, all our nicely decorated eggs met a swift end. Only moments after the egg hunt, Hyrum helped me turn them into deviled eggs to go with the turkey roast I was making for dinner. He loves to watch me and Mike cook and always wants to lend a hand. I was afraid he'd make a mess of things, but as it turned out, he watched us very closely and did a really excellent job of cracking and shelling the eggs all on his own. He was very careful and didn't dig one single pit.

Bedtime was... well... difficult. Apparently, all that sugar makes kids hyper. Who knew?

Each year, I look forward more to the next. Holidays are more and more fun the older Hyrum gets and the more he understands and remembers. Soon, Emily will be able to enjoy the fun too. I can hardly wait!

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!