TO CHRISTMAS, AND BEYOND!

WE SURVIVED! Christmas is over and no offense, but it is good to get back to normal. It is good to get some sleep again. It is good to...have the kids sleep again. Ahhh sleep, how I missed you.

Christmas was very good to us this year. Our families spoiled us rotten. We did have one reoccuring theme of the season though. It was "warmth" Each of us got at least 2 new coats from different family members. Erin gave me a new leather coat (black friday sale) and Erin's mom gave me a new coat. Erin's mom also gave Erin a new coat (hooded pee coat, yes there were jokes) and the kids got 2 new coats from her as well. My mom gave each of the kids new snow suits. So we are very warm!

Christmas Eve was a lot of fun. We usually spend Christmas Eve with Erin's family in Midway. We sing songs, have a talent show, and open presents. It is always a good time. Emma sang Jingle Bells by her self. She was so cute. It was really good to see the family again as well.

So, our kids are really young still so we were expecting to sleep early and late that night. The kids actually cooperated. The only problem that we had was Erin. She took some alergy medication right before bed and couldn't sleep all night. That is what she said, I really think that she was excited for Christmas. So we were up most of the night trying to get to sleep. We were actually up making breakfast before the kids woke up.

The morning was great! Emma really got into the spirit of opening presents. She was so excited for all the things that she opened. She couldn't wait to see what the next one was. She was even excited for the clothes. It was really cute. Matthew on the other hand couldn't have cared less. He got a fisher price race track thing and he played with it all morning. He is still playing with it. The sad part is that it was the first thing that he opened and he lost interest in everything else. Emma was more then happy to help out her brother.

Christmas day found us at my parents house for ham with the rest of my family. There were kids everywhere. It was sad though because my sister and her family are in Texas. They were missed. It was a fun time though. We later went to Erin's family's waffle party that night. They traditionally cook waffles for dinner on Christmas. They get the good bacon and the pure maple syrup. It was really good. So with all this excitement you'd think we would sleep soundly. We would have if Emma wasn't so excited that she stayed up until 10:00. Grrr... It was another late night

We did the traditional after Christmas thing and visited JC Penny and Wal-mart for their sales. We got a lot of gift cards this year so we were able to get new pots and pans. Emma was still excited that night and still didn't go to sleep until 10:00. so we stayed up again. This was a problem for Sunday when we were all sleep deprived and sick. We missed church and took turns sleeping and watching the kids. We feel great now, but it took Sunday and Monday to get this way.

So all in all, a good Christmas! Everything went according to plan, no one was injured to badly, and I don't think that we offended anyone in our families. Wow, it was great!

Pics as promised

Christmas?

School is over!!! Well, for the moment. Final grades are not yet out, but it looks like I passed every class this semester. I am actually surprised. It was looking pretty scary there for a moment or two. Erin's school is also out. She is scared that she won't get straight A's again. I'm torn between being jealous and congratulating her. Well, I guess I'll just fold her laundry the wrong way. That'll show her.

I have been spending my break cleaning, playing, shopping, hanging out with friends, and fixing computers. My in-laws were nice enough to save their computer issues until after the semester ended. So when school got out I was given a list of 5 computers and a network that needed to be addressed. Lucky me. I was able to take a day to complete them. My list is now open again. Hmm... maybe I shouldn't have said that.

Emma has really been getting into the Christmas spirit. Every day she wakes up and tells us that it is Christmas and we should open presents. We decided that we wouldn't be able to buy a large tree this year so we tried to make do with our 2 foot artificial. It was nice, but it's small. Erin's Mom took Emma to see Santa at the mall and told us later that the only thing that she asked Santa for was a tree. We felt so bad that we scraped up some money to buy a larger artificial tree that was on the "We got to get this crap out of here" sale. Yes, only half the tree is decorated due to Matthew. The ornaments keep getting higher and higher as we replace the ones that he has ripped off.

We were planning on having a poor Christmas this year. We're both students and I only make part time wages. The miracle of Christmas hit us hard though. The Lord decided that we needed help. We were given enough money to buy the kids presents and some for us as well. We still don't know who did it, but it sure helped.

The other blessing that happened is that our Car broke down. The clutch died in my little Mazda. We review the list of repairs and found that it was just too large. So, we did some praying and searched online for another car. Little did we know that in Kaysville there was an older couple praying to find someone to take their little Civic that would need it. We found each other and bought a 97 civic for a great deal. So great that we were able to get the loan for a little more to help with some extra things we have been needing. We hate going into debt again for a car since we just payed off the others, but we plan to pay off this one with our tax return. It was a great car for a great price. So we were blessed in many ways already this Christmas.

We will be spending our first Christmas morning as a family. We traditionally go to Midway to spend the morning opening present with Erin's parents, but we decided to make our own traditions this year. So we plan to make an excellent breakfast, sing some Christmas Carols (maybe), and do anything we can think of to delay opening the presents. We think that the kids would like that the most. Maybe not though. We'll see what happens.

We have some excellent pictures of the kids I will be putting up later today. I just need to get time to do it.

WE ARE POTTY TRAINED!!(for the moment)

Yes, I am happy to admit that I can now use the bathroom like a normal person. Ok fine, Emma has been without diapers for over a week now. She has been without them during the day, but now she doesn't even use them at night! She has been doing so well. She is also getting over her fear of public toilets. That has been a problem especially when she needs to use the bathroom at school and wont. Needless to say that we are proud and happy parents and she was well rewarded with an ice cream cone and some bubble tape. We didn't want all the success to go to her head, so we tried to keep it low key.

Erin finished her communications course already. Yes, I am jealous. She just has to wait for her grade to come in. She only has 2 more classes to go before the end of the semester. She'll make it I'm sure. I'm also sure she will pull another 4.0. She is amazing that way. She is also loving her calling as the Relief Society secretary. We have been in primary for so long that this is a welcomed calling for her. She can associate with other women and help them as she can. It's a great calling.

Matthew is talking now. He says Juice, Milk, Down, Up, Thanks, Binky, Mine, Mom, Dad, Hi, Bye and I thought there was another one. I will have to update this if I can ever remember it. We are almost ready to move him to a real bed. We are still working out how that will work since Emma and Matthew share the same room. I'm worried it will turn into a big party.

I am about to dive into one of the longest weeks of my life. I have 4 tests next week, one 6 page book report, a long project for chemistry, and I have to build a wind tunnel out of plexiglass. I also get to see the Doctor again about my broken hand. It has been 8 weeks since I broke it and it still hurts. I saw a regular doctor this week and he said that the x-rays looked like there was still an issue there. I now get to see a specialist. I'm worried that it means they will have to slice it open and pin it together. It should be interesting at least. In other news I am officially at 186 lbs. I have lost almost 30 lbs by just not eating sugar. I was in high school when I weighed this little. I have also found that I have some stupid intolerance to the stuff. When I eat it, it makes me angry. So I have been able to stay off of it for a while. I didn't get a call back for any internships for the summer. I am worried about what happens when I graduate. It is nice to know all that I know, but I would love to put it to some use other then figuring out the thermal dynamic properties of a hamburger patty while I make food at Mc Donalds.

Thanksgiving will find us full this year. We spend the time with my family first. We have Thanksgiving lunch and then we have to go to Erin's family's house for dinner. She has family from out of town that only visit every other year. Since my family gets together every other year also we have to go to both if we want to see everyone. I will take pictures and let you know how it goes.

Halloween

I'm sure everyone has been dying to hear how our Halloween went. Well..actually no one asked, but I'm going to tell you anyway. I started my Halloween at work. It wasn't very much fun. I was then needed to work with a study group at school. This was more fun. We built a wind tunnel using a small CPU fan and a bunch of plastic garbage cans that we found lying around campus. This is just a prototype for our final one that is to be made out of plexiglass. I'm sure you don't want to know about all that. I'll get to the kids because they seem to be the popular ones in this whole holiday thing. Emma was Snow White, and Matthew was a fire fighter. We bought both online and improved them. Erin took the Snow White costume and added a collar and cape. It looked really good!
We took the kids upto Midway to show them off first. After the grandparents took their pictures we visited more family in the area. We ended our trick or treating by visting some houses in our complex in Provo. All in all it was an enjoyable time. Emma loves to Trick or Treat! She has been looking forward to this for the past month. She still talks about having a Halloween party. Matthew couldn't understand why people were giving him food that Mom and Dad wouldn't let him eat.
That night Erin and I put the kids to bed and did homework. Not a terribly exciting evening for us, but we're parents and it's not all about fun and games for us.
I know that you are not interested in my babble. I know your here for the pictures. So I'll stop and you can view them at your leasure. Until next time.

Just the pics

Here are some new family pictures that we took. I hope you like them! There will be more on Halloween!

Back up to date!!

It looks like it is my turn again to write in here. The pattern usually goes that Erin will write once for every 9 of my posts. So I will try to keep up the pace again.

Let me start back in my story about to the point where we moved. As you know our moving was a great surprise to everyone including me. We didn't even know that we were going to move until 3 days before we did. I didn't even see the place until we moved in. Moving went well actually. We only have a couple more boxes to sort out, then we will be moved in.

Provo has been very good to us so far. Compared to Midway, Provo seems like Bath in England during the Jane Austine era. There always are people around, there is always some social event to attend, we always have visitors. It isn't a complaint by any means though. We have enjoyed the attention. Thank you to all of our friends that have made our transition easier.

In the midst of all the fun, this moment in time carries a lot of pressure on our family. We are trying to figure out our new ward, school is harder then it has ever been, and our kids find it fun to scream all the time. It was during one of the most stressful moments that I did something blindingly stupid. I decided to take my frustration out on our bookcase. It is the first and last time I will ever try that because it left me with a memento for the past 3 weeks. In the process of hitting the shelf, I broke the bone in my hand that is directly below the pinkie finger. I wore a cast for the last 3 weeks, and now I am wearing a brace. Every time I look at my hand I am reminded of the incident and vow to take a more relaxed approach to solving issues. So far it has worked perfectly.

School has been a mix of good an bad. I took 3 tests over the past 2 weeks. The first two tests were great! I have never tested so high at BYU. I actually got an A on one! I was excited until I had to take a test in Fluid Mechanics. I pretty much failed that one. It was really sad. The entire class had a hard time with it so I hope that I did better then some of them. We will see when I get my grade back on Monday.

Erin has been doing awesome at her school. She is doing three online classes and she is ahead in all of them. She is also one of the top in her classes. I'm not really sure how she does it. She is really gifted at remembering things. She was having a hard time being alone with the kids though. In Midway we had others to help watch them. In Provo, she is home alone with them until I get home. We have been having to work creatively in finding ways to keep the kids busy. There are no uncles and aunts close by to keep them occupied. We had a shopping spree at Wal-Mart for the kids. We bought new toys and art supplies. They love them.

Emma is talking more and more. She is becoming clearer in what she is saying. She is more and more independent as well. She is in preschool in Provo and she is doing very well. We are impressed with the school and her progress. The nice thing is that they had a lesson on brushing your teeth. She is obsessed with it and we are happy to let her be that way. She brushes like 3-4 times a day.

Matthew is just a cute little kid. He has been having a hard time because we decided to get him off of the binky. We only give it to him at night when he goes to bed. Soon, he won't even get it then. Instead of him being happy with the plug in his mouth he wonders around screaming or crying. This last week has seen quite a bit of improvement though. He is happier. He is also getting his 2 year molars in, so that might also add to his frustration.

As always thank you for listening to my ramblings. Oh, before I forget, Matthew will be a fireman for Halloween, and Emma will be a Snow White. We look forward to pictures!!