Happy Easter!

So today is Easter. What better time than now to finally update the blog?

But before I get into Easter stuff, I wanted to brag a bit. We had our first parent teacher conference at Hyrum's school this past week. He is doing well, although he still has a ways to go. We met with 3 different teachers since he has a regular teacher, a speech pathologist, and an occupational therapist that work with him in class. They all commented on how much he loves to sing. That's my boy! Wonder where he gets it from? Currently, his favorite song is "A Child's Prayer," which he insists on singing at least 40 times a day.

They also all mentioned how quiet and obedient he is in class. They say that compared to the other kids, he's much quieter and behaved. In fact, his speech pathologist was thrilled to tell us that he actually shoved a kid off of him for getting in his personal space and being obnoxious. While she said that she would prefer him to communicate it another way, she was cheering him on for finally standing up for himself. The other two teachers agreed that they were amazed and encouraged by the act.

Talking with them also answered quite a few mysteries. One day, he came home from school and started pointing out all the things on the ceiling. He'd point to the doorbell, the fire alarms, the lights, anything that was up high that he hadn't noticed before. He was particularly intrigued by the doorbell. When we went to the conference, he started chanting "doorbell" as we neared the school, and we couldn't figure out why. As we entered the front door, he immediately pointed to the fire alarm next to the door. We decided that he must have thought it was the same thing as the box that houses the door chime at our home. Then the teacher told us a story of how they had a fire drill and Hyrum flipped out. She was afraid she was going to have to have him go home early or sit in the nurse's office until school was over because he wouldn't calm down. Now every time he goes to school, he has to check for the fire alarm. Even when we go to stores, he has to check it out and know where all the alarms are. It's a sort of paranoia for him now.

Emily is doing well. She's trying more and more to walk. She loves to stand, but when it comes to moving around, she'll drop back down to her knees and crawl. Oh well. I'm sure it'll come in time. She's also jabbering a lot, and loves to sing with Hyrum. She's getting more teeth, and her hair is starting to get longer and curlier. She sure is a cutie!

Mom came to visit yesterday. Hyrum was thrilled to see her! It took Emily a little while to warm up to her, but a little food helped Mom to make friends with her. We went out to Julie's house. She made us a nice lunch. Afterwards, on the way home, we decided to stop for ice cream. We had seen a shop on the way in that advertised ice cream, so we went back to find it. It turned out to be the shop where Julie works as a chocolate dipper. I think Julie would be happy to know we got to see her workplace. She loves her job there!

After sacrament meeting today, Mike had gone ahead to set up for our primary class. He had left Emily's diaper bag in the coat room, and we needed some toys from it to keep her happy while we taught. So I headed up to the coat room and nearly ran right into a woman coming out. A quick double take, and I realized it was a high school friend of mine and Jacob's! I knew that she was living in Nampa, but hadn't actually been to see her, although we had exchanged a few emails. She has been fighting a rare form of breast cancer, but things are going very well now. Last I had heard, she had a clean bill of health. She was always a very positive, upbeat person. That was something I had always admired about her when we were in school. It seems that hasn't changed one bit. What an inspiration! She's just as cute and cheerful as always! I was sure thrilled to see her!

So, on to Easter stuff! The Easter Bunny crashed last night and didn't wake up again until the kids were awake. So he came to visit after church during nap time. Emily got a stuffed bunny, a bunny bath mitt, bunny shaped soap, socks, and shoes.



Hyrum got a duck bath mitt, duck shaped soap, a duck shaped bath fizzy, a Buzz Lightyear kite, and a bike.



The soaps are entirely too adorable to actually use. Hyrum loved the bath mitt, and played with it like a puppet, making it quack. Nearly all was forgotten at the realization that the bike was his, although candy still reigned supreme. once he finished off his candy bracelet, we couldn't get him off the bike. He drove it in the living room, the kitchen, the bedroom, the hallway.. that's not really saying much though since our apartment is roughly the size of a shoebox. It took some convincing to get him to put it away in the garage. But when we told him he could "park" it next to the car, he thought that was super neat. Sure we may have splurged a little on the bike. But it actually wasn't very expensive at all, and I'm sure he'll get a lot of enjoyment from it. Since Hyrum has this week off for spring break, I think I'll take him to the park to ride his bike and fly his kite. The weather has been so nice lately!





Hyrum also enjoyed hunting eggs again this year. I think he remembered doing it last year, because it only took a little prodding to get him to put down the candy and search for them. Maybe next year Emily will be able to help.





Sadly, Emily wouldn't cooperate for pictures today. I'll try to post some of her later. Sundays are always hard with Emily. It really messes up her schedule. She likes her new shoes a lot, so we'll have to see if she'll let me take pictures of her wearing them.

That's all the news from around here. Yep... exciting, I know. But I DID give you pictures this week, so no complaining!

Oh, and Hyrum just pulled his bike from the garage, insisting he sleep with it in his room tonight...

Ooo, it sparkles and it's so beautiful.

Well, our last entry brought up the topic of Robotech, one of our favorite anime series of all time. I grew up watching the series with Dan and Dave and yes, we probably all had crushes on Lisa, except for Dave who I knew only to have a crush on himself. The cartoon played in the middle 80's and was the highlight of our early morning cartoon experience. It wasn't until over a decade later that I really understood why I was attracted to this series as a child and even more so as an adult today.

After introducing the series to Jay, she also understood that it, indeed, was a great series. We became very active in the Robotech community for some time and eventually depicted ourselves as characters in the series. Here are those dipictions:


This picture worked perfectly! The original picture was that of my heart-throb Lisa Hayes, so this picture is extremely close to my heart. I have it framed on my office desk.


We tried to make this one an animated gif, but at the time, the tools we used made it extremely complicated.

Btw, I don't have the picture of "Jaylisa" on my office desk. I'm not that much of a geek...

How to blog without punching your computer.

I know I'm not alone when I say that I get extremely annoyed when Blogger won't format my posts the way I want them to. It also never inserts my pictures where I want them to but rather posts them at the top. It seems that I have to go edit the blogger code after every post to have it post the way I want it to be. Luckily I have some coding background; although not much, but enough to do some decent damage (ask anyone at ils.cefutenmai.com).

I have this thing inside me that all my call center experiences has plagued me with: it's called "being efficient." Although I'm typically the last guy to be efficient, I've still been brainwashed enough to have it constantly bouncing around in my head.

Anyway, enough prefacing.. here's my tips on how you can live a long, sane life of blogging on blogger.com.

1- Spellcheck. Get a real-time spellchecker!! I'm putting this first because it requires work outside of your blog. I use ie7 despite all the security holes. I know Mozilla Firefox is more secure, but it bugs me for some reason. If you use ie7 as well, please download ie7pro. It's simple, it's lightweight, the find feature is very non-intrusive and the spellcheck will check as you type (p.s. "spellcheck" is not a word, apparently.. doesn't matter because I just added it to my dictionary!!). You really can skip this step, but I haven't been able to get blogger.com's spellcheck feature working in months... I dunno why.

2- Beginning. Before you write your blog, clear your mind of how you want it to look. Forget font style, size, color, line-spacing, pictures... everything. Now that that's done, start writting your blog using the Edit Html tab. Ignore the Compose button.. this will hurt you in so many emotional ways. It's so very much easier to finish your blog content, then go back and make everything look fine and fancy and -- most important of all -- consistent!!

So, now we're typing in Edit Html mode .. well, I am, actually. You're just reading at the moment... should I have told you to envision these steps or follow along at the beginning of this entry?

So, now I'm typing in Edit Html mode, you're envisioning or following along in another window, or just reading because you don't care to do that. You do have a few options to use for on the fly formatting: bold, italics, links, quotes, pics and videos. You should obviously use these as you create you entry so you don't have to go back and find where you wanted to bold or add a link. You can even add pictures as you go, but don't worry about positioning yet (they'll be at the top again.. more on adding pictures later).

3- Apparently, later is now: Pictures. Blogger hates putting pictures where you want them. Instead, it will always post them at the beginning of your blog while also making it difficult for you to place them where they need positioned. While I can't confirm this, I also believe it is the leading cause of changing your line spacing from nice, evenly spaced lines to having them run right on top of each other... "Not, very, pretty." (What Disney movie was that from?)

I've found the easiest way to place pictures where you want them to be is to type placeholder text where you want the picture to be placed. ie. I usually type something like PIC_armedbox or some cryptic word where I can search for it later. If I have only one picture to post, I upload it right away, however if I have several, I just leave the uploading for when I'm finished with my text. When I do this, I can just ctrl+F (find) and search for "PIC_" if I need to remember what pictures I had planned to upload and place.

Now, you have your pictures uploaded, scroll to the top of your blog. You'll find code such as this:

{a href="http:blahblahblah"}{img style="blah" src="http:blah" /}{/a} with carets instead of brackets.

Highlight all of the code from the beginning "<" to the ending "/a>", cut (ctrl-x), search for your placeholder text (ie. "PIC_"), then paste (ctrl+v)!

Vundubar Results!

4- Finish. Ok, so you've finished your picture placement as well as typing your blog. NOW you get you use the Compose tab and make everything look pretty (well, mine will look pretty, yours will look the way you want it to look). In Compose view, make sure your cursor is flashing in the body of your text, perform a Select All (ctrl+A), and use the formatting toolbar to choose your font type, size, alignment... go add pretty bullets if you want to.

Viola! Pretty blog, less headaches. I may have described the process more complex than it really is, but once you have a good foundation of starting as simple as possible, you can finish without the hour or two editing your blog to look the way you want it to.

Edit: Also, the quote feature will ruin your spacing as well.. don't use it if you can.

Curses, Foiled a Golem

We had a friend tag us with this... now we're obligated to do it, else that friend think that we really aren't friends and that we only speak to them because they take us to The Cheesecake Factory when we're in town-- (Luv ya, Juliet!). This one is a lot less than the one Cristtin did in September last year, but we promise to be wordy to make up for it.

Here goes...

A. The rules of the game are posted at the beginning.
B. Each player answers the questions about themselves.
C. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know that they have been tagged and asking them to read your blog.

5 Things I was doing 10 years ago:
- Mike: Not everyday I get to show you exactly what I did 10 years ago... but here it is in the graphic to your right. one. wake up; two. Magic III (forgot what they were... but it involved, bathing, eating, praying, studying scriptures, goals, and appts); three. Appt. w/ Rachel @ 10am on 484 Linwood; four, Weekly community service @ the Salvation Army. We made lunch for the homeless and it was the first time I had seen an automatic potato peeler. They played MTV and Run DMC's "It's like that" will always remember of Potato soup and chopped vegetables; five. remember Angie's Birthday!! (see, I didn't totally forget about my family) Click here to view the whole week... very nostalgic. Looks like we had a zone conference --Hey! That zone conference is the first time I met Sister Brandt!!
- Jessica: 1- Enjoying my senior year at Rigby High School. 2- Participating in Idaho All State Mixed Choir. 3- Going to Colorado Springs, CO on a choir invitational/competition. 4- Working at Chesbro Music Co. 5- Deciding if I wanted to go to college, and being talked into going to Ricks as a music major. It turned out to be a good choice.

5 Things on my to-do list today:
- Mike: one. Request payment from one of our contractors on a large Elementary school project .. meaning payment in March and good commission check in April; two. Have Final Fantasy Home Evening with Mr. Beers after kids in bed; three. Call to ensure BMC rejected our check so I can write a new one and be positive thegirl is all paid off; four. Set alarm for Jay because Visiting Teachers are coming over at an early (can't say un-godly, can I?) hour; five. fix myson's computer so he can play "e-eggo" (LEGO computer software)
- Jessica: 1- Laundry, the endless chore. 2- Clean the living room and kitchen in preparation for company. 3- Try to get Emily to eat regular breakfast.. Cheerios or something. I'm sick of her turning down all real food. 4- Dance Dance Revolution Hottest Party! 5- Sleep would be good.

Snacks I enjoy:
- Mike: (not in order) Swedish fish; Double Chocolate Fudge Cake from JitB (Although, they've renamed it since); Cookies & Mint Ice Cream (Leatherby's is still the best); Chocolate Cream Pie (an estimate for my next dental work was $3100)
- Jessica: Cheesecake!! Popcorn, chips, crackers, and any kind of ice cream.

Things I would do if I were a Billionaire:
- Mike: House, definitely (I'm sooo tired of shared walls); Buy my own company; Sports car.. not because I actually want one, but because I can have one; Create a family investment opportunity with my siblings.
- Jessica: Buy a house outright, Hire a chef/nutritionist, have more kids, start a music conservatory.

3 of my bad habits:
- Mike: one. My socks don't like to make it to the laundry closet; two. I blog while at work; three. A recent addition to the list: snoring. It's gotten to the point where I have to sleep on the couch for an hour so Jay can get to sleep, then I can come back in and sleep on the bed as long as I don't wake her up.
- Jessica: 1- I procrastinate everything. 2- I assume everyone thinks the worst of me and am always guarded around people, never letting them get to know the real me. 3- I'm very impatient. 4- I bite my nails. 5- I eat too much.
(See what I have to live with? We only had to put 3 but Jay put 5!!)

5 places I have lived:
- Mike: Why not list them all while I'm at it: Kearns UT, Rexburg ID, Johnsonville NZ, Tawa NZ, Christchurch NZ (Holy crap!! I just went to my Mission Alumni Website and I noticed my Alum ID is in the URL: http://www.mission.net/new-zealand/...alum_id=666 ... doh!), Dunedin NZ, Westport NZ, Nelson NZ, Ashburton NZ, Upper Hutt NZ, Dannevirke NZ, Hastings NZ, New Plymouth NZ, Fielding NZ, Idaho Falls ID, Shelley ID, Ammon ID, Boise ID, Meridian ID, and now Nampa ID.
- Jessica: Unlike Mike, I'll list only 5 and won't list how many multiple times I've lived in different houses in the same city. 1- Augsburg Germany. 2- Rigby Idaho. 3- Rexburg Idaho. 4- Idaho Falls Idaho. 5- Boise Idaho.

5 Jobs I’ve had:
- Mike: Boy, this can get pretty depressing: Leatherby's Family Creamery, Rocky Mountain something-or-other Cleaning (cleaned John Stockton's House.. he had bad water stains, IHC (paper person), Ricks College janitor, Ricks College Media Services A/V guy, Taco Bell (for 3 days), ICServ, Center Partners (the beginning of my Call Center years), ICServ again, Qwest, T-Mobile, now Sunshine Recreation, and Subway.
- Jessica: Abbotts Variety (checker and fabric department), Arctic Circle-Rigby (cashier), Chesbro Music Co. (graphic artist, wholesale filler, retail sales), Arctic Circle-Rexburg (cashier), Ricks College Music Department (tutor, paper grader, summer intern), Buyer's Market (sales), Western Watts (market research), Center Partners (customer service, loyalty and retention), Hancock Fabrics (clerk, seamstress, supervisor)

5 Things people probably don’t know about me:
- Mike: Five?! Man, that's hard. I can't even think of -- one. I dated mostly women with men's names: Ryan, Aaric. I didn't date much, so it's still considered as "most." two. The reason I call myson "myson" is because my old primary teacher did it to his son. Unfortunately, I only now know my primary teacher's name as "Nacho." His Hispanic accent made the two words flow very well, and since that time in CTR-whatever, I've loved it and have known I'd call myson myson when I had a son; three. My memory = my wife. I constantly ask here the names, dob's, age, grade level of my nieces and nephews, ward members, bishopric, past acquaintances. Jay is also the most amazing mike-translator. In a social conversation with friends on a particular topic, I will interject with something that is quite off-topic. Wife can then perfectly explain how my thought process connected the previous topic with the nonsense I had just expelled. This, also, is my gauge to know if our marriage is quite near harmony; four. I love the smell of petrol... also, I call gas "petrol;" five. I always told Jessica that if Lisa Hayes from Robotech came to life, I would have to leave her and marry Lisa. She foolishly agreed. That was just after we were married. Well, we renegotiated over 1 year ago. Seeing that there was a slim possibility the animated heart throb of my life might never join the world of flesh and bone, I decided to impose her namesake to be gifted upon our daughter. Yes, Emily Lisa Haddox is named after an 80's cartoon character.
- Jessica: Wow, this is hard. 1- I can't stand to have any pressure, even slight, put on any part of my body where a bone is close to the skin. Places like finger tips, toes, collarbone, hip. Seat belts are a real problem because they cut across the collar bone and hook at the hip. Even just the feel of a shirt that comes across my collarbone bugs me. 2- When I eat something with my fingers, every finger has to touch the food. Even an M&M. Every finger holds on to that tiny surface. One of my friends in school noticed this a few years ago. I didn't even realize I did it till then. 3- When I was in college, I had a pet bird. I got it over Christmas break because all my roommates were gone and I was alone. It's name was Dolce, which in musical terms means soft and sweet. The bird was very nervous and jumpy. When one of my roommates returned home after break, she rang the doorbell so she could surprise me at the door. The poor bird was so used to the house being quiet that it died when it heard the bell. 4- I'm mildly allergic to several soaps, dish detergents, laundry detergents, and lotions. 5- I love to play with tape. I don't know what it is. Mike has to make sure there are no rolls of tape lying out where I'll find them because I'll use up the whole thing wrapping my fingers and such. I love playing with tape! It's also fun to put on the bottom of the cat's feet. Hours of enjoyment!

Ok, The following people are tagged:
- Mike's picks: Samara, Yavid in hopes to get him to actually post on his blog again, Sarah (formerly Pope), Mum & Pooder.
- Jessica's Picks: Hilerie, because I'm curious to hear some of her answers, Sandi, because she's an interesting writer, and my mom, because I'd like to see her start her own blog.

I have the sweetest kids in the world!

We took a drive in the car a few days ago, and I turned around to look at the kids and saw this.


So sweet! I thought maybe it was just a one time thing, but since then, I've noticed they hold hands in the car every time we go out.


I'm so glad that they love each other so much. I hope they're always close even when they're grown up.

We got our taxes done and got a good amount back. It was really wonderful to pay off old hospital and doctor bills as well as paying back unemployment. We were able to pay off everything but our student loans. Mike was in a state of euphoria when he called me today to tell me he had paid off everything. I bought a new coat (I didn't have one before and was always stealing Mike's) and a phone (my old one had... issues) and Hyrum got a new booster car seat so Emily could upgrade to a forward facing seat. After all that, we still had a rather large chunk of money to put into savings. Maybe someday we'll be able to get back into a house again.

It's been cold here with lots more snow that you usually see in the Boise area. Mike loves it, but I could sure do without it. I'm just glad, after seeing the pictures Jen posted, that we don't live in Wyoming!

I really enjoyed watching the prophet's funeral. I thought it was really nice. I was hoping to find the closing song and video clips they showed, but I haven't been able to find it on youtube or the church website yet. I always liked that arrangement. Gotta love Wilburg! I was surprised today to see that Dieter F. Uchtdorf was appointed as the second counselor. I guess we'll have to wait to see who will fill the vacancy in the Quorum of the 12.

Prophet Gordon B. Hinckley Part II

Although Mike has already posted about this, I feel inclined to do the same. I had the unique opportunity to see the prophet in person on a few occasions. He wasn't very tall and he didn't have a commanding voice or attitude, but the power and spirit he carried with him into a room was something I can't even properly put into words. I remember when I was in high school, a smaller group from my choir got to go sing at the Church Administration Building. I was lucky enough to be a part of that group. We were told that we would be singing for a few general authorities, but that the prophet would most likely not be in Salt Lake during our visit. However, at the end of our little performance, from one of the office doors emerged the prophet with a large grin on his face. He greeted us, shook hands with a few, then returned to his meetings and work. Just that tiny little moment filled the room with such a spirit that it was almost tangible.

Having gone to college at Ricks gave many opportunities to see the prophet again. In my first year, all the choirs traveled to Salt Lake to sing in General Conference. Once again, the prophet spoke to us directly. Shortly after, we returned to Salt Lake for a performance in the tabernacle of Come Unto Christ, a specially commissioned oratorio by Merril Jensen as part of Ricks College's Sacred Music Project. Again, we were told not to expect the prophet. He would try to be there, but he was a very busy man. We sat waiting and warming up in a room called the horseshoe which sits beneath the tabernacle. As the name implies, it is horseshoe shaped and we were all facing forward listening to instructions from our director when the feeling in the room changed. Nobody said anything, yet we all could feel it and turned almost in unison to face the horseshoe bend. There was the prophet behind a little wall and surrounded by body guards. We sat there dumbstruck, but he had a sly little grin on his face and said with a chuckle, "Snuck up on you, didn't I?" He then told us that he knew that we were doing exactly what Heavenly Father wanted us to do. That this was where he wanted us. He told us to continue developing our musical talents and that the sacred music project we were doing would bring many people to the church and was one of the greatest works we would do in our lives. He then continued on, blessing us in our academic studies, in our music, in the church, and in our lives. There was such a feeling of power and love, and it spoke to me that this good man was certainly a servant of our Heavenly Father. Again, there was a similar experience when the choir sang at the dedication of the Hinckley Building on campus, although the joke then was that he wasn't sure if it was a compliment having a building named after him since you usually don't get that until after you're dead.

President Hinckley loved the church, loved all people, and loved Heavenly Father. In return, it was easy to love him. It's a sad feeling knowing that he's gone now, yet thinking back on those moments where I felt his strength, they were such incredible happy times. So although at first, I was feeling down, that's not the prevailing emotion. I find myself filled with happiness, strenth, hope, and love at the though of his life and of his work for the Lord. We truely are blessed to have such men at the head of our church.

Thank you, President Hinckley. We will miss you greately.