A fleeting first
Sunday, October 28, 2007 - Posted by Sunny - 5 comments
Saturday( the 20th) was colder than the previous day so I decided to make some banana bread and discovered that Hyrum doesn't like the sound of the hand mixer.
It was so sad. He also hates the sound of the shower unfortunately and I've been finding my showers getting shorter and shorter these days. I really don't know if it's the sound or the steam or the fact that only my hands or head appears from time to time or a combination of a few. It just seems consistant that louder noises upset him...except guitar...he didn't mind the concert.

Later we were listening o the BYU game and Derek said "Look at that!" I glanced at Hyrum and he looked like this...


I wondered what he was looking at outside and looked too...SNOW! Big, huge, fluffy, Michigan snowflakes. We had to take Hy out to see it.


It's hard to see because it's so dark. It wasn't that dark outside when we took the picture. But all of those white things are snowflakes. It got to the point that it was nearly white out conditions at the BYU game. CRAZY! All kinds of people were offering us tickets. We're kinda glad we didn't take them with a 5 1/2 month old. And the next morning we woke up to this...

It was gone by noon but it was Hy's first honest to goodness first snow. We can't wait till he's big enough to build a snowman. It got us all excited for the coming holidays!


Taking advantage of the moment
Friday, October 26, 2007 - Posted by Derek - 2 comments
Last Friday (Oct 19th) Derek's parents came down from Idaho for the day.. They've done these trips three or four times since Hyrum's birth. They leave Idaho in the morning and get down here around 10:30-11:00 am then stay until 2 and drive back. That is a seven hour car ride for a four hour visit. It always amazes me that they would drive so much for such a small visit. It makes me wonder how many times we could have gone up there on a weekend but haven't because it was such a long drive for such a short time to be there. How much time do I waste or opportunities do I not take because I don't think I have enough time to do it or simply don't get myself together enough to get out of the house? I need to be better.

Derek's mom of course came bearing gifts. She needs to be careful or he's going to come to expect that every time she comes. She brought him some spongy fabric covered blocks and a hammer that makes all kinds of noises and lights up when you hammer something. She put some of the blocks in his lap and left the rest in the package off to one side. Hyrum looked at the blocks then at her then at the clear plastic bag with the rest of the blocks then back at his Grandma with this look on his face that CLEARLY said "Grandma, why are you holding out on me? I know there are more blocks. Put them in my lap too." Neither she nor I could resist that face and dumped the rest of the blocks in his lap that he played with very happily. I wish we would have had some video footage of it because it was classic.



They were nervous about getting back over the pass before a rain storm came that was going to be turning to snow at 6,000 feet. They played and we went out to lunch and the left. Hyrum sure loves to see his grandpa and grandma.

It was a beautiful day last Friday low 70's and sunshine. We decided to soak up as much sunshine and warmth we could and spent hours outside in the courtyard watching cars and playing. When Derek got home he joined us. I wanted to get some pictures of Hyrum in the autumn sunshine. Here are some of my favorites.

Hyrum and a fun Fall leaf. We really need to find a pile of leaves to toss him in. He'd love it!


Do you notice the advanced finger sucking skills my son has? Yeah I've pretty much given up on trying to stop it. I'll worry about it when he's dating. I'm pretty sure it will stop before then. In the meantime I'll save for braces.

This was my attempt at an artsy picture. If only I had my sister Holly's picture altering skills and could make everything black and white except for the leaf. One of the reasons I wanted to take advantage of the beautiful day is that there were rumors that snow may be coming the next day...


All Hallow's Eve
Wednesday, October 24, 2007 - Posted by Sunny - 4 comments
It was way back in July that we heard about it. "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" in concert. They had a "float"(aka flat bed trailer with bales of hay and costumed people tossing tiny amounts of candy) in our local Steel Days parade. It sounded interesting and what was better is that it was going to be playing at our favorite park, the American Fork Amphitheater park. They passed out cards with all the information about it complete with a website to go to and we were very impressed and decided that we would go and make it a Halloween tradition. By the time October rolled around we'd all but forgotten it and on the 11th Hyrum and I walked up to the temple on our walk and we saw a sign for it. We walked over to the amphitheater park to look at preparations and it looked pretty cool.

That night we decided to bundle Hyrum up and go.


I was so excited I could hardly contain myself. There were a lot of people there. They'd had a harvest festival beforehand that we didn't feel like paying extra for. We sat down and the show got started with a local children's choir that was a little lack luster. I thought for sure the show was going to be far and beyond better. The show started and to be honest I was disappointed.
I don't know what I was expecting but it wasn't what I expected. The role of Icabod Crane was played a little too much like a fairy and was completely unlikeable. Contrarily the role of Brom Bones was played much more likeable. I fully admit that I was probably expecting way too much and the foley person was fabulous, the headless horsemen was really cool, and the music did start to get catchy by the end. We'll see if this really becomes a tradition.


Wig anyone?
Tuesday, October 23, 2007 - Posted by Sunny - 3 comments
I was running my fingers through my hair this morning pulling out hair as usual but instead of grabbing my brush like I normally do I just kept pulling it out with my hands. By the time I stopped there was a huge pile of hair on the couch. I was shocked. It looked like a little wig. My hair has been falling out for two months now and even though I knew it was coming it was and still is shocking. Even downright alarming at times. It was really nice when I was pregnant when I almost never lost hair but now I seem to be making up for lost time. I keep thinking I should save this hair to make a wig for someone. Cleaning out my brush and throwing away balls of hair everyday seems a waste of good hair to me. Derek says we need to buy an animal hair vacuum for all the hair I've shed. Hyrum always seems to have a fist full and it's not always attached to my head. Poor guys. When does this all stop?

This is just a nothing post. I didn't think anyone would want to see pictures. I don't blame you.


Just Hy and Daddy
Monday, October 22, 2007 - Posted by Sunny - 3 comments
Time just flies so fast and things are always happening that I want to post about. But lately we have been posting a whole lot at once and then nothing for the rest of the month. So when Derek didn't put together a video clip yesterday I decided to back track and post some things I should have posted at the beginning of the month when our last bunch of posts were. I hope to have a post a day more or less until we're caught up so stay tuned.

Conference weekend was great. We just hung out as a family and soaked up all of the good information. On Saturday Derek and Hyrum were just being so cute together I just couldn't resist getting a ton of adorable pictures. I thought I'd share them with you.


Derek is soo good about getting on the floor and playing with Hyrum. Much better than I am. This is how the day began. On Daddy's old baby blanket chatting on tummy's.


Check out my handsome boys. Seriously! Is my man good lookin' or what?

I just love this picture of them. Hyrum just loves his daddy. He was just grinning at Derek so I snapped a picture from across the room to not interrupt their moment.

This is a thing Hyrum likes to do. He loves to touch our faces. ( Or just whack at our faces or grab our neck, hair or just suck on our cheeks ) Apparently he wanted daddy to just listen and not talk anymore.

I think every Dad plays this game with his kids. It's a dangerous game sometimes especially right after a meal or on a particularly drooly day. Fortunately this was neither of these times.


Now That's Hy-larious...
Sunday, October 07, 2007 - Posted by Derek - 7 comments


The other night we were sitting on the couch after I returned from the LDS General Conference Priesthood session and we discovered one more thing Hyrum thinks is Hy-larious. He would just start laughing as Sunny would play with the Velcro on his pants Needless to say, this was too good to miss capturing and sharing. He's just so dang cute.

Conference is always such an uplifiting time. It's always a pleasure to have a chance to sustain the brethren, especially when events in the last 6 months require a change in either the First Presidency or the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. I have always enjoyed Elder Eyring's discourses and am sure he will be bring strength and insight to his new position in the First Presidency. Likewise, I'm sure Elder Cook will equally meet the responsibility of his apostolic calling.


My one experience with Elder Eyring came shortly after I had returned from my mission. I was having a mission reunion in Bountiful, Utah when some mission friends and I stopped at a local grocery store to pick up some goodies. We were walking down an aisle when we saw him. We weren't too sure at first if it was him, so we proceeded to go down the next aisle and peek our heads out from around to corner to get a better look. We could tell that he was on the phone with his wife, apparently walking through exactly which brand he should be picking up (I know that I've had that conversation with my wife). I distinctly remember that he looked over at us, smiled wryly, and then went back to talking to his wife. None of us had the nerve to say anything to him, so we just walked past, and went on our way to the reunion. I'm not sure what he must of thought of us, but I'm sure he gets that kind of thing quite a bit.

As requested, I'm going to try to start recommending one website every week that I've come across that I think is cool. Given this was Conference weekend, I'm going to do two, one that is Church related and one that isn't.

First, check out video.lds.org. I just happened upon it this weekend as I was perusing the Church's website. They have started to add Church videos to the website that you can download or watch online. They have the April 2007 Conference, videos from the Book of Mormon Gospel Doctrine video, CES firesides as well as several other videos. It's well worth checking out.

The more nerdy recommendation is Google Reader. First, you need a Google Account. If you don't have one, I HIGHLY recommend you get one. Gmail is the best free email account out there (I use all my other email address from MSN/Hotmail and Yahoo largely as junk email accounts) and use iGoogle all the time. With iGoogle, you can add different widgets with news, weather, quotes, stock updates, time, "Today in History", news feeds, etc.

What I like about Google Reader is you can "subscribe" to all the different blogs that you read. When there is a change, it lets you know. I used to spent lots of time going through my lists of friends/family blogs to see if there was anything up to date. Saves me time and you can add a widget to your iGoogle page so you can have it handy.


Hyrum's favorite pastime
Saturday, October 06, 2007 - Posted by Sunny - 3 comments
Hyrum has always loved to see what was going on around him. It's one of the major reasons he hated being on his tummy. I tried to help him get gain neck strength by doing tummy time in new locations so that he'd be curious to look around, thus getting his head up. It was warm in the apartment one day so we decided to go out side and I put him on his belly and all of a sudden he was keeping his head up for long periods of time. For a while I didn't understand what was drawing his attention. Then I realized he was watching the cars on the busy street we live on. Since that time we've tried to take some time every week if not every day out in the courtyard watching cars (depending if I can get myself together or if there were big boys playing in the courtyard) Lately it's been getting cold and our outings in the courtyard are getting shorter and shorter. Now he prefers to be seated while watching cars. He's still a bit tipsy but he can stay upright for a second or two from time to time. I wanted to document his favorite pastime before the snow flies so I finally brought a camera out with us. By the time I got him stable and behind him I couldn't catch cars in the picture but we'll always remember what he was doing.





Unfortunately he's acquired another pastime that isn't as acceptable. Watching television. We really try to not let him. We do everything we can to avoid him seeing it but this little boy finds away to catch a glimpse. Every time we catch him watching we also find him with a HUGE smile on his face. We put his bouncy chair facing away and he'll crane his neck as far as it can go to try to see it. He can be screaming bloody murder, completely inconsolable and all we have to do is turn on the T.V. and he stops screaming and starts to smile. I worry about what it's doing to his little forming brain. Worry that it's creating an attention span the length of an ant. For that reason I'm really trying to push reading time where he needs to focus on something that is not constantly changing. But despite my best efforts he finds the T.V. So exactly how bad is it?

And now you also know how messy my apartment is. I hang my head in shame.

Hyrum has always been a natural flirt. He just gets these faces when he smiles that just crack me up. His eyebrows raise and his eyes get wider. The boy's just got it. I was taking pictures of him in these cute pajamas and after I took this picture and saw it I just couldn't stop laughing. You tell me if he's not flirting.



Fun Online Slideshow Tool - Animoto
Monday, October 01, 2007 - Posted by Derek - 4 comments


I just found a fun new online slideshow tool (Animoto) that you can use to create little slideshows like this. You put in the pictures and the music music (or they have music you can select from) and it analyzes and puts pictures together with transitions into a slideshow. You can do as many as you want that are 30 seconds for free.