The Tangrens

When we moved to the house we converted the crib to a toddler bed since we had it taken completely apart anyway. We figured we might as well get him used to the new bed while he gets used to the new house. Two birds with one stone right? Well that is a decision we are coming to regret. Hyrum used to be so easy to put to bed and it took a lot of work and time so that he'd be that way. We'd just hold him in our arms and sing to him then put him in his crib and walk out. He would roll over and go to bed.

Then I went to Michigan for 6 weeks then when we got home we moved. His sleep schedule has been off the charts. He's long since been trying to dump the nap and now if he does take a nap he's soo hard to get to sleep at night. Not to mention now we have to stay in the room until he's good and asleep. I've caught him sleep walking more than once and I've walked into his room to see this
One of the techniques that we've used to try to help him go to sleep has been having him run. If he is just too wiggly after trying to get him to go to sleep we'll have him run around the couch and if he stops he goes to bed. Well that's back fired on us too. Now as we get him ready for bed he screams "RUN!" We've had some suggest that we give him a warm bath before bed...but that doesn't always calm him down. I have video of him streaking around the house but I've decided that he'd kill me later on in life if I posted that. Although I might change my mind.

So what do you think, is it too late to put the crib back up?

That darkened spot on his forehead between his eyes sadly is not a shadow. I thought that moving to a house with carpeted stairs and a nearly two year old that was really good at maneuvering on them would have eliminated this possibility. But Hyrum found some concrete stairs to fall down. The very stairs that he was sitting on so adorably in the last post. Derek didn't see it, just the aftermath. He cried and cried until I snuggled him for awhile and he noticed that Derek had a rocket on his shirt. Immediately the hands were together pointed upward over his head and he was shouting "ROCK". He's going to be alright. But the reason why he's in those pajamas is because he fell because he was being a cheeky monkey on the stairs. And he WAS being a cheeky monkey...that's why he fell!

The reason why Derek was outside was to try to figure out how to turn on our sprinkler system. It's been warm this week ( near 80 ) and the grass won't stand many more days of that without a sprinkler system. There is a box near the garage that we were sure was where the turn on was but it looked like the water was already on yet no water was running. We were confused. So Derek set out to figure the mystery. Yes...ANOTHER mystery. And my genius of a husband figured it out. I dare say he can be called "HANDY" now. Here's how it works...
Hook the hose up to the water spigot outside in the back yard...
Run the hose into the house through the kitchen and out into the garage...
Then run the hose out the garage to the spigot near the sprinkler system water valve...turn water on out back. Ta DAH! sprinkler system is working! Yeah we don't get it either!

But it sure makes this much more inconvenient...
This is where the water spigot was in the FRONT yard. The water spigot that fell off into my brother in law's hand when he touched it. The water spigot that doesn't even have a water tube connected to it. For some reason they capped it. Anyone know how to install an exterior water spigot...we could sure use the help!

Oh and it snowed...AGAIN!

Yesterday was a BEAUTIFUL day. We couldn't resist getting out a blanket, laying it out on the front lawn and soaking up all the sun. While we were out there though Hyrum made a discovery...BUGS! Pill bugs, sow bugs, potato bugs, roly polies call it what you want but Hyrum just knows them as....



It is soo fun to watch him discover. I wish I could video tape every second of his day sometimes. Just so I could remember the wonder of every day for him.

Derek went in the house to get him his sippy and he sat on the porch steps to wait for him. I snapped this picture.

It shocked me how old he looks. It's not fair that he's growing up so fast. I know he's suppose to grow up...I know. But is it suppose to happen so fast?

He practically blows a raspberry saying "plane" :) I love it! (And can I say that it is still crazy to me that it is MY HOUSE there in that video! YEA!!)

That silly little video was taken on Monday. As you can see it was beautiful and springy! We had short sleeves on and fans going in the house. We walked to the park and played on the playground. My garden was growing and my peach and pear trees were just beginning to explode with pink and white blossoms. We had visions of sun warmed pears and canned peaches. We couldn't wait for it all.

Tuesday it started to rain. "Good" I thought "it will water my newly reseeded carrots." Then on Wednesday....

My poor peach blossoms. I don't know if we'll have many if any peaches or pears this year.

I think Utah is trying to fool me into thinking that I'm in Michigan. I've been getting allergies ( something I've only gotten in the east) and then this weather. Good heavens! Of course next week it's suppose to be upper 60's and maybe even into the 70's!

Hyrum got much more into Easter this year than last year. That MAY have something to do with the fact that it was CANDY everywhere instead of Cheerios. So I'm sure this is our last Easter that will start after 9.

You can kinda see the trail of jelly beans on the ground leading to his basket. We're so glad that we spaced them out because he picked them each up one by one and put them in his mouth until he couldn't fit anymore only then would he put them in his bucket...again one by one. Even when he'd find a pile of jelly beans at first he'd pick them each up one by one.

We already knew that he'd get excited about the eggs. My mother in law brought us some eggs in a candy dish and he wanted them all the time even when they were empty. He was so excited when he saw one and screamed "EGG". But the egg that was in the plant had some melted chocolate on it and when he pulled it out and looked at it he said " a MESS" and tossed it across the room. He must get that from his dad. :)

Look at those cheeks! They are soooo packed! He definitely had too much candy that day. We were kinda wishing that we could do some of the easter egg hunt outside but it was rainy all day long.

On Sunday it was a much prettier day! Thanks to wonderful Aunt Nikki Hyrum had a smashing outfit to wear and so many people gushed over how adorable he was.


We can never get a really good family picture. Believe it or not Hyrum IS smiling in this picture. He squints his eyes like he's smiling but doesn't smile with his mouth. That makes for great pictures.
Then the rare picture where he's really smiling Derek's head is chopped off and I look a little crazy.

Then we had the pleasure of sharing Easter dinner with family. My aunt Val, Uncle Tim and cousins Hillary and Del and their kids came over to see the house spend some all too infrequent time together and leave with boxes to move into a house of their own in two weeks. I was too busy to think to get pictures until they were leaving. But it was a wonderful evening. One that we need to do again soon.
Hope everyone's holiday was filled with family and fun. What a wonderful time of the year!

Hyrum has found a play mate. He discovered him at the end of the summer last year. He was so glad to play with him again!

This last weekend Derek's mom and brother came down for a visit. Since we had extra people and Hyrum was asleep we decided to see just how deep that pit was in the back yard.

We got all of the bricks cinder blocks and rebar reinforced cement blocks out and under that we found...trash! Pop cans, bleach bottles, wrappers of all kinds, packing peanuts, pop bottles another knife and a plastic bag. When we saw the plastic bag we all got nervous. Had they really buried something or someone back here? There were even phantom smells on the breeze but as it turned out it was just more junk. A bunch of plastic Walmart bags. Lovely!

We continued to dig and after an hour and a lot of earth worms we reached the bottom. Two and a half feet below the surface.


The bottom is made of bricks and there was some wood planks at the bottom. The general consensus is that it's a fire pit but I've never seen a fire pit so deep. Plus if it was a fire pit why would you cover it up? Wouldn't that be a good selling point for the house? This land used to be a cow pasture. So I don't think it was an old well or root cellar. I still wonder what it is or was or whatever and the jury is still out with what we'll do with it. Regardless I think we'll watch it for the spring and see if it collects water and has to do something with drainage. Any other ideas of what it is and what we should do with it?

Kiddie pool for Hy?
I don't think so. He didn't like being in there. I'm glad about that.