HAPPY 1ST BIRTHDAY HYRUM!!!!

I never thought Hyrum would ever be old enough to have a birthday but January 26th did roll around again. We celebrated Saturday with some presents and cake. We had finally found him a harmonica after much searching and were excited to give that as a present and see that he still remembered how to play it. He got some fun toys from family that he has had a blast with.
As you can see from the pictures, he quite enjoyed his cake. He liked the frosting the best and had a good time smearing it all in his hair. He was very slow and deliberate but soon enough the cake was in crumbs. The bathtub had a huge chocolate ring around it that took a couple of scrubbings to get off! But it was definitely worth the clean up.
We have had a good month. Jeremy seems to be a bit busier than he was last semester and it looks like they may work them hard the whole time, but he continues to do great! It has gotten quite a bit colder around here but we haven't seen anything below zero yet for which I am grateful. We went to a local ice sculptor show which was lots of fun. And Jeremy and I have started swapping babysitting with another first year dental student (in another ward) and his family. They have a son exactly one month older than Hyrum. So we had fun on a date and look forward to more!

Something Hyrum is enjoying these days that keeps us entertained-he loves to balance his sippy cup on his head and as soon as he does he gets really excited and starts laughing. (Maybe this is because Jeremy is always putting things on his head!) But if it falls off he sometimes gets upset. In conjunction with this, he is loving throwing his arms up in the air and thinks it's the coolest thing when you'll do it back.

Hyrum loves books!

I was getting worried because the more active Hyrum has become, he likes to sit in my lap less and less. He wouldn't sit still long enough to ever read any books, and that was something that we used to do every day. But, the other afternoon he wouldn't take his second nap and I had to make a cake, so I dumped a bunch of his books in the dining room and he spent like 20-30 minutes looking at his books by himself. He usually looks at them upside down, but he loves turning the pages and pointing at the pictures!

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