Spring and Summer So Far

It's been a while since we last posted a blog. A lot has changed around here, but I'm going to try to keep the news brief and post a lot of pictures and videos instead. So let's get the news out of the way first. In the beginning of May, my job cut hours once again, bringing me down to 25 a week. They encouraged me to stick it out until they could offer 40 hour shifts again, but I told them that this was completely unacceptable and asked that they give me paid time off to find another job. That same day, I received an offer from Qwest and put in my 2 week notice at Center Partners.

I began my 10 week training at Qwest in mid May. My official title is Qwest Center Service and Sales Agent - Western Region, Idaho Falls. Yup, quite a mouth full. The pay is better, the employees are treated better, the benefits are incredible, and I enjoy the job more. The only problem is that there are quotas. On Tuesday, I begin the evaluation period of my training. I need to meet certain revenue goals in the next 4 weeks in order to remain employed at Qwest. I'm more than a little nervous. I've had several high revenue days, but I've also had several low ones. I'm hoping it all evens out during the next 4 weeks.

Mike has been extremely busy this summer. He decided to take summer classes in order to catch up in his new major so he can finish sooner. He also accepted a summer internship. I think it was a bit more work than he was expecting, but he's enjoying it. He loves his calculus class, and his boss at work has started training him to be a reactor operator.

The big downside to us being so busy is that the kids are at daycare for 8-9 hours a day. Luckily, they love it. The daycare is run by some members of our ward, and they are great! The adults interact with the kids rather than just sitting back and watching, and they encourage learning and imaginative play. They know each of the kids individually and are as proud of them as we are. Despite the adult/kid ratio being somewhat poor on certain days of the week, all the kids in the daycare are well mannered and friendly. They're doing an awesome job! My kids actually look forward to going to daycare to see their friends and learn new things.

Even with as busy as we've been, we've still found time for fun. Memorial Day weekend was great! Even though we had to stay close to home, we still took the kids to the park and flew kites in the baseball diamond in our back yard. Yes, we have a baseball diamond in our back yard. The kids' new favorite song is "Let's Go Fly a Kite!" We actually had to tell the kids not to sing it at daycare anymore because we were afraid the staff was getting tired of it. Mother's Day and Father's Day were great too. Mike and I also celebrated our 9 year anniversary on May 12th.

Last night, we went to a company party at Tautphaus Park. Qwest provided food, a live band, discounted ride tickets to Fun Land, and free tickets to the zoo. We had a great time! After eating, we headed over to the rides. Hyrum was anxious to try the ferris wheel, but Emily was afraid. However, when she saw me and Hyrum get on, she suddenly became braver and asked Mike to take her. Hyrum loved every second of it. Emily, on the other hand, started out scared. When their car got to the top, he pointed out all the things she could see from up so high, and she decided it wasn't so bad. She happily told Mike, "Oh! Ferris wheel isn't scary! I like the ferris wheel!" Here's a picture of Mike and Emily during the ride.

After that, we hit the merry go round. Again, Emily was afraid, so I stood beside her. It didn't take long before she decided that it was fun and even became brave enough to take her hands off the pole to wave at Mike as we went past. Hyrum was a pro. He must have remembered going on the merry go round when he was younger. He didn't even want help getting on to the horse because he was determined to do it himself. After the merry go round, the kids went on a train ride. They both loved it! Hyrum said it was his favorite, but later he couldn't decide if he had liked the merry go round or ferris wheel better.

After the rides, we went to the zoo. It was probably about 7:00 in the evening, and some of the animals were already asleep for the night. Hyrum was disappointed that his usual favorite, the otters, weren't swimming. Emily still got to see her favorite, the zebra. She has loved zebras from the very first time she ever saw one. By the time we got to that exhibit, she was sleepy and resting on Mike's shoulder. When she saw the zebra, she suddenly perked up and got more and more excited. "Zebra! It's my zebra!" They also had a petting zoo with animals such as a donkey and goats.

After the zoo, the kids wanted to play on the playground. The video needs a bit of an intro. Emily is afraid of crossing bridges thanks to Dora the Explorer and the Grumpy Old Troll Who Lives Under the Bridge. All in all, we had a great night!

We're looking forward to taking the kids to see the fireworks show next weekend. After how much Hyrum loved the fireworks at Jen's house last year, we think he's going to love it! We'll just have to make sure Emily gets a good nap that afternoon.

Updated!

Hah! Now you can't say we haven't!

Random Cuteness

A while back, I was killing time in Toys R' Us with the kids. Emily is smart enough to recognize her name in print, and she found a drink bottle that said "Emily" on it. I thought it was super cute and would also be pretty useful for trips to the park in the summer. I congratulated her for finding her name and told her she could keep it. Hyrum was a little upset that they didn't have any "Hyrum" bottles, but he consoled himself by picking one with dinosaurs on it. I think he was pleased that it was red too since that's his favorite color.



Flash forward a month or so to today. Mike had just left for a final exam at school, and I was reading on the couch while the kids played around me. Emily was sitting at the table drinking from her bottle when I heard her start talking in a very bossy, matter of fact voice to Hyrum's bottle. It went something like this:

"No, dinosaur. Don't eat me. You can't eat Emily. Don't eat Emily's sock all gone either, I need it. No, dinosaur. Don't eat Emily's fingernails (ningernails). You can't eat my fingernails. You can have a banana. Eat the banana all gone. Don't eat my drink bottle. It's mine. It says 'Emily' on it. I want it, you can't have it. Don't eat it. Don't eat Emily. Don't eat my Hello Kitty. Go over there, please. Go away over there." At this point, Emily pushed the dinosaur bottle over to the other end of the table. "Thank you for going away. Bye dinosaur."

It was about then that she caught me watching her with a huge grin on my face, and she stopped playing. The whole time, I kept wishing I had my camera, but she wouldn't have kept it up if she knew I was filming anyhow. Dang, I love my kids!

Easter and Other Stuff

Alright, I know it's been a while since we've posted a new blog. I'll try to keep it short.

I've been really proud of Mike lately with school. He has been really dedicated and working hard to get good grades. Mike has changed his major. He was struggling with some of his programming classes and not enjoying it as much as he was enjoying his math and physics classes. He spoke to his astronomy teacher who recommended he try nuclear engineering. Mike has been really excited about this idea, and even more excited about the prospect of $150k - $200k a year to start. They'll even provide tuition reimbursement for him to get his Masters and Doctorate. I'm mostly happy that he can finish his degree in nuclear engineering quicker than he can finish in computer engineering. I really miss being home with the kids.

This leads me to my next topic. My job. Shortly after I came out of training, two more classes came through with 22 agents each. Those 44 agents were congratulated, given graduation certificates, and as they were eating their cake, were laid off and sent home. Of course, the rest of us started to panic about the security of our jobs. Center Partners assured us that our jobs were safe, but there were signs all around that Capital One might cancel our contract at any moment. The end result was a cut in hours for the entire product group. Every day I wish more and more that I had signed on with the Sony account. I'm currently looking for another job, but I don't dare quit at Center Partners until I have another job lined up. The economy hasn't hit East Idaho as badly as it has other areas, but jobs are still scarce.

The kids are absolutely adorable! Hyrum is doing so well in school. He can read entire books by himself with only minimal help. We're so proud of him! He'll be ahead of most of the other kids in that area when he starts kindergarten. His speech is still a little behind, but he is making huge progress every day. His teachers want to have him see a child psychologist and have him tested to see if he's border line autistic. We've been wanting to have him tested for a while, but with all the moving we've been doing the past several years, it's been tough. If he is diagnosed, we'll have a lot more resources available to help him with his speech. Of course, we hope nothing is wrong, but it'll just be good to finally know. He continues to excel academically.

Emily is bottled sunshine in convenient travel size! She is such a happy child! Emily is very funny, and she knows it. Although she loves being girly and wearing jewelry, dresses, and carrying purses, you really can't call her ladylike when she'll drop the whole facade to stand on her head or pretend to be an animal or sing a silly song to make us laugh. She is also very smart. She knows most of her letters, several numbers, all her colors, and shapes. She must think that she needs to make up for all that Hyrum doesn't say by jabbering all the time. She speaks very clearly and in full sentences, and even expresses complex ideas. She loves to sing primary songs, and can say prayers all by herself. She thinks she can spell as well as Hyrum. And although she can spell Hyrum and Emily correctly, all other words are spelled "H-I-J-K-O-O-O-O-P!"

Ok, so both my kids love to sing, and they sing very well. But every time I try to get a video of them doing so, they decide to goof off. I love the part where Hyrum gives the camera an exasperated look after Emily's high note solo. He wasn't happy about being upstaged.

I must say that this Easter was the best I've ever had! On Saturday, we took the kids to my work for an egg hunt. Emily was an egg hunting demon! Hyrum was a little too timid to pick up very many when there were so many other kids who wanted them too. I swear, that kid is too gentle for his own good. The kids ended up with quite a haul. They each got a blow up Easter Bunny (which they both love and won't let out of their sight for too long), several pinwheels, finger puppets, bottles of bubbles, foam gliders, stickers, whistles, and of course, too much candy. I think the kids were a little disturbed to find out that the Easter Bunny is actually a red headed chain smoker. (actually, she's a coworker, and a very nice lady.)

After we came home from Center Partners, we dyed and decorated eggs. We had a kit with glitter pens and foam stickers. The kids loved it, even though Hyrum looks so serious in his picture.

Then Mike and I had a babysitter over to watch the kids while we took advantage of a 50% off coupon to a grand opening of a new restaurant in Idaho Falls. The place was called The Hard Hat Cafe. It's supposed to be really great food, but we'll never know. We had a reservation for 7:25, but still had plenty of time to enjoy the construction decor while we waited an hour to be seated. After being seated, we sat. And sat. And sat. Nobody waited on us for about 45 minutes We brought it to the attention of a waiter as he passed by, and he informed the owner. The owner came to our table and apologized and promised us that he would send a server immediately, but that the food would still take 30-45 min to cook. We had already kept our poor babysitter much later than we had intended. We decided to leave and picked up Jack In the Box on the way home.

On Sunday morning, Hyrum woke up first. He waited patiently for nearly an hour for Emily to wake up because he didn't want to go see what the Easter Bunny had brought until he could share the excitement with her. When she finally woke up, it took Hyrum a while to convince her to go to the living room with him to see their baskets. She was probably too young to remember last year, so she's fairly new to this whole Easter thing. However, the moment she came around the couch and saw her new pink and purple tricycle, (exactly what she had asked for. "Mom, I want a PINK bike!") she threw aside her blow up Easter Bunny and ran full speed to check it out!

Hyrum got a new fire station Lego set. Hyrum is a mad genius with Lego! He can build anything! He patiently waited until he was sure it was ok and he had permission to open it. We gave him the go ahead, and he went to work building a fire truck. Then he brought in his old set and introduced his new Lego fireman to his old Lego dock worker. "Oh, hi! Nice to meet you! I have a new truck. Want to come for a ride?" "Sure, that will be fun!" Later, he told me they were friends. (love my kids!)

Before you think we spoil our kids from the size of their Easter stash, it wasn't all from us. They also got new, very cute hoodies and an Under Dog video from my mom. My Grandma Sears gave Hyrum a book and Emily a blanket with zebras, monkeys, and tigers (her favorite animals) on it and gave them both bendable Easter Bunnies and lots of goodies. Mom helped me buy an Easter dress for Emily too. (although I still need to pay her back...)

After church... Oh, that reminds me! Mike and I have new callings. Mike is a ward missionary and I am a Sunbeams teacher. Anyhow, after church, we came home and had an egg hunt in our back yard. Hyrum was much more aggressive at home than he was at Center Partners and beat Emily hands down in the number of eggs found. That night, we had deviled eggs which is the only Eastery thing we had for dinner that night. We had Easter dinner and watched Conference with my mom and Sherwin the week before since they were in Oregon for Easter.

This weekend, we've finally been blessed with some beautiful weather. Mike was able to take the kids out to ride their bikes while he worked on the Toyota. I was sick in bed. *cough cough*

Pictures

There are 10 types of people in this world: Those that understand binary and those that don't.

I told you that just to say this; There are two types of blogs: the updates where we actually say stuff, then the ones where we just flood with pictures and give them an accompanying caption.

Without further ado (I should use "ado" more in my life)--

I have always loved this picture, but hated that it was blurry. Like Angie's "6 things that make me happy," I'm sure most of you agree that your children's smile can light up your world.

I have this picture of myson and Em on my Google Phone. You have 3 desktops you can swipe to. Swipe to the left and you only see myson, swipe to the right and you only see Em. Keep it in the main middle screen and you see both of them. It's very useful for when you are mad at one of your kids, you can just swipe them out of the picture!

I took this picture on our Ward wall. 1- so everyone can know our address (although you don't need the 'H' in the apt #) and 2- to show everyone that our ward thinks that Jay is married to myson.

Making Valentines!

And the pose.

You know, you would think that a 3 megapixel on a brand new 'revolutionary' phone would have a decent camera. That is not the case, however. It's still a good phone, but part of me wishes I waited for ver2 to come out first.

Updates

° School is in for Mike. School is a lot more work than Mike thought it would be and is thankful that he doesn't have a part-time job. However, the lack of income has made things quite tight. It will work out, however, because of that tithe law. Mike is taking Java, Trig, Astronomy, and Business Statistics. An interesting variety of classes, but until he gets on course for his Major, it will have to be that way.
Do you remember me complaining about how much I made at my last job? Well, that raise was well worth it. It shot us into another tax bracket (for the first time in my life) as I made $35k last year. Nothing exactly to brag about, but we've never really been that successful. Too bad about the lay off!!! Now we'll have to settle for a stint at school in hopes of landing a $250k one. Grrr.

° Work started for Jay, and she just got out of training with an unjustly, horrible schedule. She scored 100% on her training exam and was given quite possibly the worst shift they have, while others in her class did quite bad and was given early shifts, including 4-10's. This is going to make the daycare quite expensive. I've urged jay to try and find someone to talk to to find the method of their madness and perhaps petition for a better schedule. They never did give any options to select your preferred shifts, so it's as if they just assigned schedules randomly. We hope all goes well, and I'm sure it will, as long as we continue to be obedient and enjoy the temple. However, there has been talk about looking for other open positions in the region as well.

° Speaking of, we've finally gotten back to the temple. It had been so long... we estimate about 6 years or more. We just took the close proximity to the Idaho Falls and Boise temples that we never attended. And you wonder why things weren't working out for us in the past?...

° Myson LOVES school, of course. We spoke with his teacher and they didn't seem too excited to be getting another kid, as their actions spoke louder than words and left him out of 2 weeks of school to do "paperwork." When we met, we helped him learn his teachers' name (Mrs. Hayes & Ms. Welker). She just said, "Oh, don't worry about it. The other kids just call me teacher." In the interest of respect, we wouldn't have that -- but we didn't have to try anyway. We met her on the Friday before he would start Monday. He had already memorized her name and let us know the whole weekend before.

° Em has started what we call "preschool," which is really daycare but she doesn't want to go to daycare (even though she calls it that when she leaves). She is the most adorable thing that we know of on this Earth (but she's also 2 right now, so she's also very difficult). One example: Myson brought a teddy bear to school as an assignment for bear week and Em would not go to daycare without one as well. So we let her. As we were leaving when I went to pick her up, we were interacting with her and the attendants and they asked, "What's the bears name?" To which she replied, "Bear Haddox" quite matter-of-factly. Very cute. There are a million more examples which need cataloging, but I'm horrible at memory, so we'll let Jaypea do that.
She's also potty-training, which I was just reminded to talk about as she said "Ooooh. Big poop" as she currently sits on the toilet. She was doing so well her first week, but then got in a pattern of not caring and just letting it all go onto the floor. I tried to make the thing positive, but after 3 days of non-stop cleaning of the carpet, I let her know the law. After that I didn't need to discipline anymore. She's knows what right and wrong now and she gets Hello Kitty! stickers for doing a good job.

° For Deedee, the move to Eastern Idaho was just another move. Since she's been through so much she doesn't make a big deal with them anymore. However, she does get motion sickness, so we had to buy some powdery stuff you mix in her food to calm her down. It worked quite well. So far we love Shelley. The people are all very friendly and the city is shut down on Sunday's which helps us observe the Sabbath a bit better. They only have 2 decent fast food places which means it's easier to get sick of them and not go to them.
Although I am switching to BYU-Idaho next semester (upon approval), we will still live in Shelley do to the proximity to the kids' grandparents and the cheapest daycare prices I have ever seen ($2/hr/kid).

° Dan came home from Afghan- and I can't wait until he's free to take phone calls. I'm excited to talk to him again but I really want him to spend as much time with his immediate family before we get to converse again.

° Great Britain has abolished the use of the apostrophe on all their street signs do to it making things too confusing. I wish the English language would the same as a whole because I suck at it. I signed up for an English class for the very reason to improve upon this, but then I did just one assignment and felt myself sick to the stomach the moment I got involved. Hence, that was dropped and Statistics was added (because it was the only interesting online class). Anyway, I brought that up because instead of making corrections on this blog, I'm just letting it go. For instance, I began the blog in third person, now I'm in first. How fun!

° I have a test at 2pm which I have not studied for... That gives me 1½ hours to do so. Enjoy the blog and please comment. We'd love to hear from you!