Scrunchy Eyes

Hyrum has started posing for pictures by scrunching up his eyes. He has scrunched his eyes for awhile now, but he will automatically do it when we pull out the camera-it's getting hard to get a picture of him without the scrunchy eyes! But it's so darn cute, here are some of our favorites.

Jeremy and I had a fun New Years Eve. We played almost all the boardgames we have, including a new one I got Jeremy for Christmas-it's the Napoleon Dynamite game =]. We also bought a couple of different flavors of Sparkling Cider to drink and made yummy seven layer burrito dip to munch on. We were in bed asleep by about 11:30 so we almost made it to midnight. We made some personal and family goals for Family Home Evening on New Years Day and are excited to try and reach them this year.
I'm including a couple of pictures of us at the Natural History Museum on University of Michigan's campus. They have a great dinosaur exhibit! We didn't make it up to the 4th floor but they have a planetarium up there that should be fun. We think Hyrum will like it a lot in another few months. And it's free!

Merry Christmas!!!

We had a marvelous time over Christmas break. But first, Jeremy finished the semester up with over a week worth of finals landing A's in all of his classes. What a super semester!
We had about five days with just the 3 of us here before we headed off to Washington. It was nice to relax and take it easy together. We took Hyrum to see Santa Claus at the mall but Hyrum was NOT excited to see him so maybe we'll try next year to get a picture.
We were able to stay in Washington for about 8 days (thanks to my parents who flew us home.) Luckily Hyrum stayed healthy the whole time and did great on the plane ride. He had sooooo much fun with my Dad (Pa) and Mom (Darlin'). I think Hyrum forgot Jeremy and I existed because he would always reach out for Pa or Darlin' to hold him. They did a lot of playing and teasing together and there was a lot of laughing and smiling. My Dad would always get up with Hyrum in the morning to play while Jeremy and I slept in a little longer! How nice =]
We went to a caroling party, saw my Mom perform with her singing group, went to a Christmas party, we took Hyrum to a hands on museum for kids, went out to dinner, had good food at home, played games, watched movies, talked a lot, went "Elfing", Jeremy and my Dad went to see Eragon in the theater, and Jeremy and I went on a date! We were able to spend time with my brother Brigg and his fiance Havalah. Oh, for all of you who know Brigg or know of him and don't already know this Yes he is engaged!!! Very exciting news. They are getting married in the Salt Lake City temple on May 4th 2007. Can't wait. My older brothers wife, Joy, and their two kids flew in the day after Christmas. It was so good to see them and spend some time together. All the grandkids were together for one day before we had to fly back to Michigan. I was able to spend some time with two of my best friends (Libby and Liz) from back home. I hadn't seen either of them for over two years and it was nice to catch up. I have a picture of us with Liz and her family that I'll post.
Hyrum learned how to play the harmonica over the break and he also learned how to climb stairs pretty well. He is doing great at mimicking our facial expressions these days and he has decided since we've been feeding him crackers for so long, that he would start feeding Jeremy and I crackers. I hope this means sharing will come naturally to him! Also, another of his favorite things to do now is to crawl under small spaces and to play under his high chair.
It was hard to leave and come back to Michigan-I love being here in Michigan but it was just so nice to be with family.
It was fun to get Christmas cards from many of you and to hear of how you and your families are. We hope you all enjoyed this special time of year!

In addition to having a great Thanksgiving the most exciting news in our lives the past month is that Hyrum finally started crawling!!! It was about 3 or 4 weeks ago on a Saturday morning. I left Hyrum in the living room sitting up so I could get a water bottle in the kitchen and when I came back he was on all fours by my empty yogurt container. There was no way he got over there so fast by just rolling! I knew he must have crawled so I called Jeremy and we tried to get him to crawl again and he did. He was very slow and hesitant at first but now he's all over the place and pulling himself up to a standing position on everything he can get to. I now know what it means to chase your kid around all day but I love seeing him more mobile and he likes it too. Last week he took his first couple of steps on his own and every day he has taken more steps. The most in a row without falling or grabbing onto something is 8 steps. He is super wobbly but he gets so excited after he takes a few steps. He has also shown interest in learning to play the guitar recently. Or at least to play with all the knobs on the guitar. He loves crawling around the couch, especially if one of us is on the other side and he can chase us around.
Jeremy has finals this week and next. He is still doing great and he only has like one test a day so he gets to be home a whole lot more-but still studying of course. At one of our church buildings here there was a Creche exhibit (Nativity Scene). We went up to look at it and there were almost a 1000 different Nativity Scense! They were from all over the world. I've never been to anything like that before. We had a few days of gorgeous weather here after we came back from Texas. Hyrum and I actually were able to go the park and Hyrum was crawling all over the grass and dirt! It was cute.
We hope all our family and friends had a great Thanksgiving and look forward to hearing from you all when you get a minute!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

We had a marvelous Thanksgiving break! It was great for Jeremy to be off of school with no test worries and for Hyrum and I to have him around all day. We flew to Austin Texas to be with all of Jeremy's family. We were in Austin Wednesday morning and left Sunday evening so we had a nice amount of time with everyone. The weather was gorgeous! Absolutely perfect. Jeremy's parents have bought 200 acres in Rosebud Texas which is an hour and a half drive from where they are now (towards Dallas) so we went out there one afternoon and walked around the land. There is a pond with fish and lots of trees and hills. It will be such a fun place to go for family reunions. Hyrum had a blast sitting in the dirt and rummaging in the leaves and things, so once he's running around he will love it there.
We ate lots of delicious food too! It was the best turkey I've ever had in my life and for dinner on Sunday Susan made a Costa Rican meal. It was one of the best meals I've ever had! We also got some pictures taken of everyone which was nice and we were able to visit some friends from BYU, have a couple of bonfires, and go on a date-just the two of us outside of the house!!!
Hyrum had a lot of "firsts" over the holiday. It was his first Thanksgiving, first airplane ride (he did great overall), first time meeting cousins, first time wearing cowboy boots, first time eating turkey, first time kiss from a girl his age!!!, first time playing in the dirt, and first time in Texas. So he had a busy time! He was sick for most of the trip which was too bad but he was still in a pretty good mood for not feeling well.
We had a great time and look forward to more family time over Christmas

Hyrum's First Snow!!!

Well it actually isn't Hyrum's first snow, but last winter he didn't really leave our house until April so he may not have seen snow until now. We thought we'd bundle him all up and take him outisde. It took about ten minutes to get him all bundled and we were outside for about five minutes at the most to take some pictures. We don't think Hyrum enjoyed it a whole lot because he couldn't really move in his enormous coat and snow bibs!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

Hello again from Ann Arbor Michigan! We hope everyone had a wonderful Halloween with lots of candy! We just can't believe it's already November! Time is flying by!

We have had another wonderful month despite the increasingly cold weather! Last week we had a day full of snow that actually stuck, although not too badly. We still have OK days intermingled with the pretty cold ones. I guess I'm not exactly thrilled about the chilliness this early, but I'm still determined to be mostly optimistic over the next 5 or 6 months of winter =]
Jeremy had "fall break" in October, so with the extra couple days we went down to Kirtland Ohio to visit some Church history sites. I am so glad we decided to go! We had a great experience there. My favorite spot was the temple. We were the only ones on the tour and we just took our time looking around and admiring. We hope to go again some time, maybe in the spring.

We also had a fun Halloween. Ann Arbor seems to be a festive place-lucky for us! Hyrum was a pumpkin (as all chubby, semi-mobile babies should be), I was a witch, and Jeremy was a sombrero-wearing Costa-Rican. We went to downtown Ypsilanti the Friday before Halloween for their hay rides and trick or treating from store to store and Monday some friends in our ward threw a costume party. Halloween night we actually got someone to watch Hyrum! Well, he was actually asleep the whole time we were gone. Some of Jeremy's fellow dental students put together a murder mystery dinner set back in the 1920's with the Italian Mafia. It was a fun night. I decided that it's rather nice to actually get out just the two of us, so we'll have to do that more often. Also, Jeremy and I tried our hand at spider-making and decorated our home with 3 lovely ones. Although Jeremy's looks almost TOO real for my liking.

Hyrum is doing great! He had his nine month appointment and I really liked his doctor. He weighs 21 pounds and 3 ounces which puts him right in the middle for weight. He is 30 inches long which is in the 91st percentile. And his head has finally grown and is in the 50th percentile. He seems to be pretty healthy. He has only had a cold once so far. He didn't really like his shots a whole lot though. That's always the hard part for me! He has four teeth now, as you'll be able to see in some of the pictures. (But luckily, he still hasn't bit me nursing yet!) He has walked along the furniture a couple of times, just a couple of steps at a time, and is slowly getting more and more comfortable pulling himself up to standing on his own. He is always coming up with new sounds and noises that keep us quite entertained. He is eating crackers now. I was a little nervous about giving him something hard to eat with only 4 teeth and no chewing experience but the doctor reassured me he'd be OK and of course she was right.
Jeremy is still doing fabulous in his classes and works hard to do his best. I try to keep myself busy and have been doing a pretty good job lately!
Hope all is well with each of you!!!
Love, Megan & Jeremy & Hyrum