beaver teeth

The last 3 or so months we have been trying hard to break Hyrum's bad habit of sucking his thumb. But nothing has really worked and I end up asking Hyrum about 50 times a day to please stop sucking his thumb and pull his thumb out of his mouth another 200 times a day. Then a few days ago Jeremy told him it wasn't good for his teeth (which we have told him multiple times already) and that if he kept sucking his thumb he would have beaver teeth that stick out. I tell you what, ever since that happened I have not seen Hyrum suck his thumb ONCE!

Now all we need is something like that to motivate him to use the toilet..........

1 month

Today at 12:00 pm EST we celebrated the start of Jeremy's one MONTH vacation from school!!! As Jeremy says, this will probably never happen again, so...
let the games begin!

toothbrush

When I woke up this morning and opened my bedroom door this is the first thing I saw and thought it was the cutest thing! Hunter loves to copy Daddybear.

Easter

It was a happy weekend. With....

Hunting

Karri the Easter Bunny

Stories with Brigg & Havalah

Egg hats

Hidden baskets

Creative candy towers

Laughing

Egg dyeing

And one birthday song & treat for Uncle Lu

D4 Baby!It's official, as of 2pm this afternoon Jeremy is now in his FOURTH and FINAL year of dental school!!! He saw his last 3rd year patient this morning and took his last 3rd year test after lunch.

Can you tell how excited I am??????????????????????????????????????????????????????

15 months

Here is a typical picture of typical Hunterbug making one of his typical messes and being proud of himself, typically.

The Bug is 97th percentile for height and just over 50th for weight and head circumference. I was thinking he was getting rather a bit too hefty and maybe we should lay off the whole milk but the doc said he was lean for his height. Maybe I just need to work on those arm muscles more instead.

Building his first "city" all by himself

Here is another typical picture of Hunter, blurry, because he tries to be oh-so-fast!

He has quite the personality

Current passions

Food: Canned pears
Steamed broccoli, cauliflower and carrots (wish I could say the same for myself)

Words: NO and Help me

Activities: Getting out all the Playdoh containers
Pulling out all the books and dancing on them
Going for walks outside even in 40 degree weather
Playing in the dishwasher & garbage
Chasing squirrels

Animals: Squirrels, dogs & birds

Songs: Little red caboose

Books: Wow City, Big Bad Bunny and Snowmen at Christmas

Games: Hungry, Hungry Hippos and Trivial Pursuit-playing by his own rules of course

general conference

my favorite quote this weekend comes from Hyrum...."conference is kind of a like a long movie that we have to watch Mommy"

General Conference out East is broadcast from 12-2 and then 4-6 so Saturday we enjoyed a picnic lunch while we watched the first session. We had promised Hyrum he could have Cheetoh's with his lunch since it was a special weekend. Boy, was he excited. I was excited we bought a cord to hook our computer up to our TV so we could actually watch conference on a bigger screen and we could turn the volume up high enough so we could hear. Best 18 dollar purchase ever perhaps!

We played a couple of games, thanks to the ideas in the Ensign, with Hyrum to help him pay attention. We hung up pictures of the First Presidency and 12 Apostles and every time one of them spoke and he could identify them he could place a sticker on their picture. He learned the names of the First Presidency in family home evening earlier in the week.
Then for Hyrum's favorite game. Every time he heard them say 'Jesus' or 'Christ' he was able to eat an M&M. I was rather impressed with how many he heard. He missed a lot too but it's a start. Saturday he watched the entire first session on the couch with us and watched about 3/4ths of the second session that day. Sunday we watched the morning session at a friend's house so he played mostly and he slept through most of the second one but I was really proud of him for paying attention so well. Hunter wasn't too loud and he enjoyed Hyrum getting him an M&M on occasion.
This was the year for starting traditions I guess. We decided on Saturday that in between the second general session and the Priesthood session we would make a tradition to go out to dinner and that the kids could decide what kind of food we would get. Hyrum decided readily on 'hangabers'. I have to say it was really special to see Hyrum get excited about conference, even though I know it had mostly to do with the food! That is the quickest way to Hyrum's heart.

I love conference. I love that we have a prophet on the Earth called from God. I love that for two weekends a year I can be uplifted and encouraged by our leaders. I love how peaceful, hopeful and energized I feel afterwards. And I have to say I love my parents for teaching me to love conference. I am grateful that they always took our family to each session no matter how small we were. I know it would have been much easier to not go but I'm so glad we did.
I love my parents---THANK YOU!!!

videos

32

Tuesday Jeremy turned 32 years old...craziness...we had a good day

Here he is sporting his Birthday crown that Hyrum colored
(unfortunately you can see Hyrum on one of his frequent time-outs in the background-oops!)

Texas Sheet Cake...AMAZING!

I am not a cake person usually, I am a pie/cookies/crisp/cobbler/ice cream/everything else type person but I must say my Mom in law's Texas Sheet Cake is the best cake I have ever had (aside from my Mom's carrot/pineapple cake and the wedding cake we had at our reception in Austin).

My good-lookin' boys

That night we got Chinese take-out from our second favorite Chinese restaurant ever (first is PF Chang's of course) Sze-Chuan West and according to Google maps it is exactly 1 mile from our house. The only thing better than great Chinese food is great Chinese food close to home.

Here we are having a grand old time at our trip to Red Robin on Monday to enjoy a free birthday burger & fries

I made a quiz for Jeremy to take for his birthday (I'm nice eh?) that had True/False, Multiple Choice and Fill in the Blank sections. Here are two sample questions.

Jeremy helps Megan by:
a. Changing diapers
b. Listening to her vent
c. Giving her lots of breaks from the boys
d. Encouraging her
e. Letting her sleep in
f. Picking his nose
g. a, b, c, d and e
h. all of the above

and...

___________ and ____________ are the two luckiest boys in the world because they have the best Dad in the world.

I would like to report that Jeremy aced it but he got a 85%--it's still passing though :)

Happy Birthday Babe!!!

Ah-DoeOur friends the Halls brought back a soft, cozy monkey named 'Otto' from New York last summer for Hyrum. Hunter has adopted it as his own. Hyrum never attached himself to a specific stuffed animal (probably because he had, and still has, the good ol' thumb) so this is a new experience for us. Hunter curls up with Otto or 'Ahhh-Doe' as he pronounces it and rubs Otto's left ear to put himself to sleep for all naps and bedtimes-so very cute. We hope Otto has a good long life ahead of him.


Hunter has been saying lots of words the last little bit. Some of the ones he uses regularly are 'truck', 'crucker' (cracker), 'bapple' (apple), 'bear', 'woof' (dog), 'bubble', 'bye-bye', 'no' (of course, why am I not surprised), 'ball', 'toodle' (turtle), 'buck' (book), 'up', and 'duck'. He also says the phrase 'there it is' when he finds something he was looking for. And of course he knows 'Ah-Doe'...I have forgotten how much fun it is when they're first learning to talk and I'm so glad we get to do this all over again with the Bug!

"spring" break

The last week of February was Jeremy's "spring" break and we LOVED having him home for 9 days straight!!! I forgot to take a lot of pictures but these are the few we took. We didn't do anything exciting but loved relaxing together. We had a family movie night and Hyrum chose 'Ratatouille' (I think Hunter looks really funny in this picture!)

I love this blurry picture...it is one of my favorite things to watch them laugh together

Jeremy and I each took Hyrum on a one-on-one date. I took him to the Children's Museum and to 'Old McDonalds' for lunch and Jeremy took him to go see 'The Tale of Despereaux' at the dollar theater. It was fun to have one-on-one time with the Bug at home too.

Hyrum is very much into making funny faces these days

OK, can someone tell me where my baby went??? He looks like a grown up boy in this picture!

And of course we had many dance parties. This has become a favorite in our home lately. The boys hear music and they know what to do. You should really come see some of Hunter's moves-that boy has rhythm!


I also had my very first experience with Ikea and for someone who hates to go shopping it was such a fun store! We didn't get anything (except for some plastic cups and bowls) but it's always fun to dream, right?
You know how kids say things in public that are embarrassing? Well, we have never experienced that with Hyrum really...until the other day at the store. There was a woman wearing extremely short shorts and she was with her daughter picking out beans or olives or something and we come strolling along the aisle. Hyrum stops (right next to the woman), points to the woman, looks at me with a big smile and says rather loudly...
H: Mommy!! That man doesn't have any pants on Mommy!!! (note: it really was a WOman)
M: OK, shhhh
H: But Mommy! That man doesn't have any pants on at all Mommy!!
M: OK! Let's just go pick out the jam, hurry!
H: But Mommy, Mommy, Mommy

Jeremy and I had a very good laugh over that one later on.

dental dayI really couldn't believe how well Hyrum did at the dental school today! Jeremy had a friend clean his teeth because he thought Hyrum would obey someone else better :) He did great (as we kept telling him over and over again) and he kept saying the rest of the day 'I did a great job Mommy'

Jeremy did do Hunter's exam and we're glad to see that there was not a cavity between them!

Rodney Frost TurnerMy Dad's Dad passed away at the beginning of this month and we all miss him very much. He was a great man and you could tell he was one of the best fathers, husbands and grandfathers. He was the biggest joker too and was always making everyone laugh and have fun. I feel so very blessed to have him in my family and to have the gospel in my life because I know I will see him again someday!

My beautiful grandmother!

All 11 grandchildren were able to come and it was so nice to all be together. I was amazed how many people came to support us all and to pay their respects to Grandpa T! He was very much loved! I am so glad I was able to go. I'm so grateful my parents could fly me out. Jeremy gets the best Dad ever award for taking care of the boys for 3 days (while they were throwing up I might add) and to Ann-Marie too :)

VT
I went visiting teaching the other night and the lady we saw said something that made quite an impact on me. She has young adult and teenage age children and said that we can't wait until they're teenagers to try and talk to them but we have to start when they are very small. If we are always putting them off as kids then they will learn that Mom and/or Dad don't want to listen to me and don't care about what I have to say and they probably won't talk to you when they're older. Even though it may be hard to listen about Pokemon or computer games or whatever it is that doesn't really interest us we NEED to listen to them and establish that relationship. I have always thought it was a good idea to talk with and listen to your kids but I had never thought about it specifically like that. Luckily right now I very much enjoy (well 90% of the time) listening to Hyrum's 3-year old ramblings. Even before I had kids, I knew I wanted to have the kind of relationship with them that they would be comfortable enough to come to me with anything at all and they would know I would listen to them. I am so grateful she shared that with me because it's really changed my perspective on that part of parenting.

On the dental side of life, I got my teeth cleaned by a handsome young dentist yesterday and I was amazed at how clean they looked afterwards! It had been 2 years since they had been professionally cleaned and before that another 2 years so needless to say my teeth really needed it. And at the risk of sounding cheesy I enjoyed being able to look into his eyes for so long because I am rather fond of those eyes :)