Please pick up your phone and call now

For just a dollar a day you can make a difference in the life of this child.

Ilene Adelaide Hunt Hurst

September 24, 1917 - July 10, 2008

My grandma passed away yesterday. She had a massive stroke at the end of May and never regained very much use of her body or the ability to speak. The last year was hard on her. She broke her hip, went through rehab, and moved back home only to break 2 vertebrae a short while later. The pain medication from the spinal problems about did her in, but she improved and moved to an assisted living apartment which is where she was when she had the stroke. This time last year Grandma was still living on her own, driving occasionally (yikes!), and planning her 90th birthday shindig.

If you couldn't guess, Grandma was extremely independent. Even when forced to use a walker after breaking her hip, Grandma wouldn't let anyone else do even small things like taking a plate back into the kitchen or putting the newspapers in the garbage. Two summers ago after Grandma's first spinal fracture I planted a small garden in Grandma's yard thinking it would give me an excuse to go up and check on her every other day. Most days when I stopped in she was out working in the garden, watering or pulling weeds, which wasn't the point at all! Grandma did, after all, hold the record for swimming the longest length of time underwater as a girl in Bluff.

When Grandma had to stay in the rehab unit after breaking her hip she complained that the other people there couldn't even carry on a conversation about current events. Grandma watched the news every night and kept up on politics. It wasn't unusual to find some article that had interested her taped to the hallway wall. This past winter Grandma frequently lamented that she did not have the energy to go out and do her own Christmas shopping. Even if someone else volunteered to do the shopping, Grandma insisted upon going along so that she could pick out her own gift for whatever the latest occasion was. Christmas, birthdays, new babies, graduations -- Grandma recognized every event and accomplishment. I think my favorite gifts from Grandma were when we had a vacation planned to go out west. Grandma would send us a note with some money in it "to buy souvenirs." For little kids who never had any money of our own, being entrusted with a sum of cash to use for whatever we wanted was quite a novelty. I know I used mine one year to buy a little cedar treasure box from a gift shop at the Grand Canyon.

Grandma was at my high school graduation, my wedding, my college graduation, and my law school graduation. She visited me in the hospital when both of my boys were born. When I came to BYU I didn't have any of my family nearby. Grandma took me in and frequently invited me up for dinner or offered to take me and whatever cousins happened to be in town out to dinner. She had me and Bryce up for dinner when Bryce and I were just dating and was impressed because Bryce did the dishes afterwards. Grandma couldn't stand to have visitors in her home and not offer them something to eat and drink. No matter how loud and long we insisted that we weren't hungry, Grandma would go into the kitchen and start baking some cookies, or put a frozen pie in the oven, or bring up sodas from the downstairs storage. When my brother Evan came out to do a term at BYU, Grandma treated us all to chair lift rides at Sundance and rented mountain bikes for Bryce and Evan. In her younger years, I suspect she would have been riding down the side of the mountain as well if she'd had the opportunity.

When I brought my babies to her house to visit, Grandma always wanted to hold them and would rock them and sing them lullabies. Will especially loves visiting Great-grandma's house. He knows where all the toys are and knows he won't get in trouble for dumping them all out in the living room and then racing cars around on Grandma's glass coffee table. Grandma was even gracious when Will puked concord grapes all over her dining room floor. I tried to clean up and rushed him home. Grandma called first thing the next morning to see if he was feeling better. On another occasion, Sawyer was really fussy when we were at Grandma's house because he was overdue for a nap. Grandma was concerned even though I kept saying that he was just tired. The next day Grandma called just to make sure that Sawyer had recovered and was feeling better. One time when we visited Grandma brought out a new toy she had purchased so that "there would be something interesting for Will to play with." One of the buttons made a doorbell sound effect which on more than one occasion caused Grandma to open the front door for nobody.

On one of our family vacations out west, my parents took us to go see some Indian ruins they remembered going to when they were dating. We eventually located the ruins, but getting to them required crossing a rope and board bridge over a river and then crossing a large expanse of plain before we could reach the cliff in the distance. We had made it about halfway when we came to a barbed wire fence marked with frequent no trespassing signs. We stood around wondering what to do until Grandma grabbed hold of one of the no trespassing signs and pulled up, creating a gap between the wires and instructed us to "Go through right here."

In her later years, Grandma was constantly frustrated by the limitations of her aging body. Grandma, I hope you are enjoying life without physical restriction...and I hope you didn't have to cross any "no trespassing" signs to get there!

[I've been trying to get a few more pictures on here by stealing them from my brother's website, but it is not responding so I will try again later. I know I had pictures of Grandma holding both Will as an infant and Sawyer in the hospital, but I think they are on my dead laptop because I can not find them.]

(Pineapple) tidbits as Mollie would say

So I still haven't gotten around to getting the pictures and videos up on the last post . . . but here are a few random items.

My mom watched the boys for us while we went to NYC. At some point she told Will to do something "in the meantime" (I don't remember the details). Will responded, "No Grandma! Not in the meantime. In the happytime."

Last night I woke up to Will screaming. This happens at least 3 to 4 times a week. I went into his room and asked him what was wrong. He stopped screaming long enough to tell me: "That teddy bear ATE MY MP3 PLAYER!" I told him that his MP3 player was safe downstairs, but he kept sobbing and added "Nacho took it out in the street and it was tied round and round a truck and he gave it to the teddy bear to eat it" followed by more wails. So these are the horrific nightmares of an almost three-year-old.

Celebrations....waning.

So since my Mom's birthday which was mentioned in the last post we have celebrated my birthday, my brother Kyle's birthday, Megan's wedding, my anniversary, Megan's Connecticut reception, and the 4th of July. We also had the quarterly Enrichment meeting for the women at church. Still to come within the next 11 days are Will's 3rd birthday and Sawyer's 1st birthday. And I just remembered I still haven't made a doctor's appointment for their yearly check up...hmmmm.

My birthday was on a Sunday this year which is always a little disappointing - I'm sorry but it is true. Bryce and I went out for dinner the night before and I kept pestering him and saying that I would like to have dinner with my family on my birthday. Growing up we always had birthday dinner as a family and afterwards was when you opened presents and ate cake. I happened to have quite a bit of family in town at the time so I wanted to take advantage and relive the tradition. Bryce was acting less than enthused about the idea, but since I didn't want to be disappointed I kept mentioning it repeatedly. After birthday dinner on Saturday night I said "So don't we need to go to the grocery store if we are going to have family over for dinner?" and Bryce agreed. He bought a bag of chicken and when I asked what we were going to have with it he said we could have some frozen broccoli and rice or something. Which was fine with me (really!). On Sunday a.k.a. Birthday morning Bryce had a meeting which took an unusually long time and when he got home he asked me if I wanted him to make me breakfast. I informed him that I had already eaten since it was almost 11 o'clock. Waiting for food when hungry doesn't bring out the best in me. We went to church at 1 and when we got home I opened the front door and saw that the table was set all fancy for dinner and there were birthday balloons. I thought Bryce must have sneaked (okay I had to try snuck and sneaken before I found one that wouldn't get underlined) back home during church and set it all up but then my little sisters and Mom jumped out and said surprise and I found out that my sister Mollie had already had the dinner planned as my birthday present...explaining Bryce's less than thrilled attitude towards my dinner demands. We had salads like at Costa Vida with tortilla, chicken, beans, lettuce, and cilantro-lime rice with tomatillo ranch dressing. She used the recipes I got from my friend Joanna when she did a cooking demo at Macey's grocery store and it is amazingly delicious. I think it is the only meal I make that tastes as good as a restaurant. I will have to put the recipes on here and you can all (all 3 or so of you) try it and you can worship the name of Joanna with every bite like I do. So I had dinner with Megan and her fiance, Mollie and her boyfriend, my brother Kyle and my Mom and then my cousin came over to have cake with us. It was really nice. I think birthdays have the unfortunate potential to be really disappointing so I am happy to say that what I expected to be a rather lame Sunday birthday turned out to be quite enjoyable. Thanks hubby and family!

The next day was Kyle's birthday. My mom came over to my house to bake a cake and used Mollie and Megan's standard chocolate cake recipe...which I had tried to bake last year for his birthday and failed miserably at. I felt a little better this year when my mom had the same troubles I did. Turns out the recipe is altitude dependent and prefers to be baked at sea level. I frosted the cake and with enough frosting you can make pretty much anything respectable. That evening we took the cake to Kyle's apartment where Kyle had so kindly provided his own gallon of milk to go with the cake and a package of birthday candles. We watched Kyle open presents including the Wii Fit from Mom and Dad. Unfortunately Mom left before witnessing Kyle do the hula hoop exercise which I will try to post here.

On June 17th we traveled to Idaho in preparation for the wedding the next day. The flowers were purchased in Provo and brought to Idaho in a cooler and then transferred to a hotel mini-fridge. Unfortunately the mini-fridge would more accurately be called a mini-freezer and we discovered the next morning that the $15 orchid for the bride's hair froze and then once exposed to room temperature turned brown and fell apart in about 30 seconds. We also lost the red and yellow rose petals that were to decorate the luncheon tables to this identity-challenged fridge but luckily the other flowers were in a different fridge and were spared. The wedding was in the Rexburg temple at noon and it being a brand new temple with what I assumed would be brand new sealers (people who perform the wedding ceremonies) I expected the ceremony to take about an hour. It took 11 minutes start to finish. This should have given us an advantage in getting set up for the luncheon that was scheduled at 2:30 in the BYU Idaho gardens. We took pictures outside of the temple and then everyone took off towards the gardens. I stayed at the temple to help Megan with her dress while she took pictures. I headed down to the gardens at about 2...which proved to be more than the 3 minute walk I was told to expect. When I got there none of the decorations were up and I was told that, despite my mom getting 2 confirmation e-mails and going to talk to the people in person the day before, when she arrived at the gardens there was not a table nor chair to be seen. When she telephoned to inquire as to why the tables, chairs, and linens which were supposed to be set up at 11 were conspicuously absent at 2 she was told that they "had no order for her." Some tables were eventually located and the catering staff graciously helped with set up, but it was kind of frantic. The luncheon was in full sun which caused the guests to use their dinner napkins as protective headwear. Mollie and I got ridiculously sunburned...which of course was in the nasty blistering, peeling stage just in time for the Connecticut reception. Seven days before the wedding in Rexburg it snowed with a high of 45 degrees so I guess we shouldn't complain about the sun.

We drove back to Utah after the luncheon because Bryce had to be at work in the morning...and there really isn't a lot to do in Rexburg anyways. That Saturday Megan, Chad, Mollie, the boys, and I were scheduled to fly from Salt Lake to Laguardia (NYC) and then we planned to take a shuttle and train to get to Connecticut. (The tickets to Laguardia were about $150 per person cheaper than flying to Hartford.) The morning of the flight Delta called and said our flight was delayed and would be leaving 2 1/2 hours late. I found this highly irritating and got in "lawyer-mode" as Mollie called it and called Delta to let someone have it. I was surprised to find them extremely accommodating and offering to get me on any other flight. They suggested a few other flights to Laguardia with layovers (we were supposed to be on a direct flight) and I told them that was not acceptable because I was flying with young children and had purposefully purchased a direct flight. I told them that I was actually trying to get to Connecticut and maybe they could fly me to Hartford instead. Which they, amazingly, readily agreed to. Then I told them I was traveling with 3 other people and they agreed to rebook them as well. Since we now had a layover I also told them I wanted a golf cart thing to take us to our connecting flight and they agreed to that as well. So in the end we got on a flight to Hartford and avoided the whole shuttle, train situation and the flight attendants were very attentive the whole way. Delta's willingness to meet my demands was cleared up a bit when we found that our flight which was originally delayed 2 1/2 hours was later delayed 4 hours and then 5 hours and then canceled all together. So luckily we got put on a different flight before all the other people that waited until the flight was canceled to find some other alternative. The moral of the story is...even when you don't expect any results it is always a good idea to call and chew someone out...at least you will feel better...right? is that a moral? or immoral?

The reception in Connecticut was on the following Tuesday and was perfectly fine which was surprising considering my mom and I made the wedding cake and my sister and I did the bride's hair and I have no experience with either of those things. My 6th anniversary was the day after I flew to Connecticut so Bryce and I didn't have a chance to celebrate. I decided to look into getting a hotel in NYC as a delayed anniversary celebration. I found what was theoretically a 4.5 out of 5 star two blocks from Broadway and after hemming and hawing booked it for one night. Nonrefundable. Bryce flew to Connecticut a week after I had left and got in late Saturday night. On Sunday afternoon he commented that he felt achy all over which I attributed to his long day sitting on a plane and train. By Sunday night he had a headache and went to bed early only to be up all night throwing up. Which I was blissfully unaware of having retreated to another bedroom at the first inkling of germs. Bryce woke me up at 6 a.m. and after trying unsuccessfully to locate a walk-in clinic I took him to the emergency room in Middletown. We probably would have been totally ignored, but it was still pretty early and the nurse seemed a little concerned because his pulse was 130 and he had a fever. They got him in a room, gave him 2 liters of fluids over the course of the next 5 hours, gave him a prescription for antibiotics and an anti-nausea drug (coincidentally the same one I was on the last time we were in CT...which was 1 1/2 years ago when pregnant with Sawyer) and sent us on our way. Bryce spent the rest of that day sleeping. Of course, you may recall the nonrefundable hotel room which I had booked for the next day. Given the laws of my universe it was, of course, mandatory that someone end up in the emergency room when there is a nonrefundable hotel room booked within the next 24 hours. So we left the kids with my Mom and went to New York City the next day anyways with my purse full of prescription drugs. We stayed at the Royalton which I'm not sure was 4.5 stars-worthy but oh well. (I booked the hotel on Hotwire so we didn't know what hotel it was until after we paid for it.) After checking in at the hotel we headed to the South Street Seaport to get half price Broadway tickets for a matinee the next day. The selection was unimpressive so we ended up with "premium orchestra seats" for the Phantom of the Opera which I had already seen. After buying tickets we headed straight to B+H Photo to purchase the digital slr which Bryce funded as my birthday/anniversary present. My older sometimes-photographer brother had pointed us towards B+H for the best prices on cameras, but when we got there we found that the camera I planned to purchase was discontinued and the new model was $200 more than I had planned to spend. A phone call to brother revealed that the new model could be had from Amazon for $50 less anyways so we left empty-handed. Which was particularly sad because I didn't bring a camera to New York thinking that I would be able to take pictures of our getaway with my new fancy-dancy camera. After that we spend forever trying to find somewhere to eat dinner. In fact, probably 80% of our time in the city was spent trying to find somewhere to eat. We weren't even being overly picky...we couldn't find any place that served food! At one point we thought we found a deli place but they informed us their grill was already closed (at about 5 p.m.). After finding somewhere non-memorable to eat we went back to the hotel since Bryce was still not feeling too great. The next morning we checked out of the hotel and wandered around for a while before our show. Our "premium orchestra seats" turned out to be under-the-mezzanine-and-the-last-2-seats-on-the-far-right-side-of-the -theater seats so apparently "premium" means "what no reasonable person would pay $60 a piece for which is why they are still available the night before this performance". The cast was having difficulties as well. The conductor kept sticking his hand up out of the pit and trying to get them to come in on time or stay in time to the music. They had good voices but the acting was about small town high school or perhaps Primary talent show level. Then the girl sitting behind me decided to sing along and I thought I might have to kill her or perhaps drug her with my purseful of prescriptions. After the show we walked around playing the find somewhere to eat game and ended up at that truly unique New York eatery known as McDonalds. Then we found some trinkets to bring back for the boys and went back home. This was our first night away from children since Will was born (except for the Bar Exam which I do not count because I try not to think about those 2 days in general). I do not write all this to complain, I write it simply to explain our Dickerson family motto: "We're not cynical, just realistic."

On the 4th we went for an "adventure" as Will called it. We drove to the neighboring town and checked out an "archaeological preserve" that neither my parents nor I had ever heard of despite living 5 minutes away for over 20 years. It was the remains of some old factories. Afterwards we went out for lunch at a Mexican restaurant (God bless America!). We didn't see any fireworks since it was rainy and overcast and we were busy packing up to leave.

We flew back to Utah on the 5th. Our flight was out of Laguardia so we had to leave my parents' house at 3 a.m. The kids did sleep in the car, but after arriving at the airport at 5 a.m. both kids managed to be up until 10 p.m. Connecticut time.

We had some friends bring us our car at the airport and they washed and detailed the entire thing inside and out while we were gone. Can you believe that?! After eating lunch with them we headed down to Payson to meet up with 2 of my former roommates and their spouses and kids. It is so nice to hang out with people who you've known long enough that there is no awkward conversation-making and you can just laugh and relax.

And that brings us up to today. I will add pictures and video tomorrow hopefully, but I figured I better get this written or I never would. If you made it all the way to the end you deserve some kind of award. I, shamefully, don't keep a journal so this is the only record of my comings and goings.

Celebrations....begin!

Yesterday while I was trying to clean out the coat closet, Will decided to help himself to the strawberries and kindly shared them with Sawyer as well. Needless to say they made a huge mess all over the kitchen floor. Sawyer is loving his two new teeth..."I can finally bite!"
He stole Will's strawberry so now he could have one in each hand.
Now Will is feeding Sawyer a piece that was stuck on his hand.

So happy!


The floor was so slippery with strawberry juice that Sawyer couldn't even crawl. I turned on the video after a couple faceplants on the floor. The video is sideways but you get the idea.

Want to buy a truck? Ours is for sale.

For Mom's birthday, Mollie & Megan performed a clarinet and flute medley of Mother's Day songs that Megan arranged.
Here's Mom blowing out the candles on her cake while sporting the cake hat Megan and Chad got her with cousin Liz in the background. Do we know how to party or what?

Bonus: Here is a video I just took of Will watching the video of Sawyer posted above. This was about the 4th time he played it. Every time he says "doop" is when Sawyer slips again.

Rub a dub dub, 2 boys in the tub

The boys were having such a great time splashing in the tub this morning. It was one of those rare occasions when they actually seemed to both be having fun at the same time (usually it is Will having fun at Sawyer's expense).

Sawyer now pulls himself up on everything he can find. This drives Will absolutely crazy and whenever he sees Sawyer standing he has to run over and push him backwards.

My mom was supposed to fly in on June 7th in preparation for Megan's wedding. Instead she flew in yesterday night because my grandma had a stroke on Sunday morning. My grandma is doing better than would be expected for a 90 year-old who wasn't in very good health before the stroke. She has regained some movement in the right side of her body and responds to questions although she can't speak. She is supposed to be moved out of the hospital to a rehab center tomorrow. As my cousin said, I think she has 9 lives!

I got sworn into the Utah Supreme Court on Friday. I am now officially an attorney! Oh wait, no I'm not because I put my license on inactive status and they informed me that while on inactive status I can not even refer to myself as an attorney. I'm also not allowed to have a business card, letter head, sign letters as an attorney, or in any other way trick people into believing that I went to law school, passed the bar, and got sworn in. Oh wait, I did do all those things. Hmmmm. If you can't tell I am a little annoyed with the process. For the privilege of calling myself an attorney I would have to pay an extra $200 to be on "active status" on top of the $200 I already paid them for the privilege of not being able to call myself an attorney. So I am currently paying about $200 a year to not work as an attorney. Only lawyers would think of a system that requires you to either pay to use your license or pay not to use it!Here I am signing the roll for the Utah Supreme Court. (Actually it might have been the paper next to it, but you get the idea.)





Here I am not looking amused by the guy telling me that I'm not on "the list"...eventually we determined that I wasn't on the list because I wasn't supposed to be signing in for the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah because I am on "inactive status". We could have avoided this confusion if they had mentioned that that was what the "list" was for since I already knew I wasn't supposed to sign for that.


My matchy boys at the so-called reception after the signing in. No offense Utah Bar, but that reception was kind of a let down - about 100 square feet crammed full of people, half of whom were for the business convention going on at the same time, some punch that I declined to try after 3 people in a row took 1 sip and said "Eww, that is gross", and some store-bought unfrosted sugar cookies. Lawyers apparently are not trained to throw parties. My brother Kyle and sister Mollie also attended and suggested that we go to lunch afterwards. The signing-in was at the Salt Palace in Salt Lake so I suggested that we head back to Orem for lunch because I knew where things were down there and thought we might as well get back before rush hour started. This was an unfortunate idea since an accident occurred about 4 miles in front of us on I-15 and we spent over an hour just parked on the highway. It took us about 2 hours and 15 minutes to get from Salt Lake to Orem...with two tired, hungry kids in the car...3 if you count me! The whole thing ended up being a lot more effort than it was worth I'm afraid.

Will informed me the other day that if he "keeps eating lots of different foods he will be a grill (i.e. girl) some day." I told him I didn't think that was likely. Then he changed his mind and said that if he kept trying new foods he would be an octopus. Equally likely, but possibly more socially acceptable.

We were driving somewhere last week and Will was talking to himself in the back seat. It went something like this: "Nacho (Libre) eats tacos and he goes on the potty because he is a big boy. He does not wear diapers." At this point I don't really care who he chooses as a role model if he decides he is ready to start potty training.

Sawyer's first tooth poked through on Saturday. It was his bottom right tooth. Yesterday I noticed that the bottom left tooth has poked through just barely as well. He hasn't been particularly crabby except when it comes time for bed. The last three nights he has started screaming at about 10 and hasn't gone to sleep until 12:30. Hopefully the teething has something to do with it and it will soon go away.

The next month and a half are party central at my house. My mom's birthday is Thursday, mine is 10 days later, my brother Kyle's is the day after, then Father's Day, then Megan's wedding, then my 6th anniversary, then Will's 3rd birthday, then Sawyer's 1st birthday. All within about 7 weeks. Add to that the quarterly Enrichment activity (for the women at Church) that I'm in charge of, 2 wedding receptions, a bridal shower, a trip to Connecticut, and a family reunion in southern Utah and the summer will be more than half over before we know it!

Will is still bottle-free, but a week or so ago he hurt himself and wouldn't stop crying. To try to distract him I told him he could "have a drink out of the bottle" meaning the gatorade bottle on the table. He stopped crying and looked up at me all teary-eyed and said "a bottle?" and I said "well not a baby bottle, this juice bottle" and he took one look at it and burst into tears again. Poor guy. Who knew ditching the bottle would be so traumatic.

Long time, no blog

Let's see...what has happened in the last 3 weeks or so. Megan and Chad changed their wedding date - they are now getting married on June 18 (instead of August 26th). So that has accelerated the plans a bit. Mollie and I are having zero success finding anything to wear as bridesmaids despite extensive internet searches and driving all over Utah Valley. Chad and Megan are both living here in town for the summer.

Sawyer started crawling in the traditional manner about 2 days ago, but if he wants to get somewhere fast he will still revert to "the worm". "The worm" is what Bryce calls the way Sawyer has been crawling for the last 3 weeks. He pushes himself up on his arms and leaves his legs dragging behind him and then launches himself forward onto his chest and then repeats. It looks like someone trying to swim the butterfly stroke on the floor. He can now crawl up the two steps from the family room into the kitchen. He also goes from a crawl to sitting and back and can pull himself to a standing position. He is a happy little guy. I took him for him 9 month check-up last Tuesday. He is about 80th percentile for height and 10th for weight. He didn't cry at all even when they pricked his toe and gave him a shot. Bryce supposed it was because he is used to being beat on by Will. He is definitely more sensitive than Will though. He doesn't like loud noises and will cry if Will gets yelled at or if Will is being wild and screeches in his face. He likes to feed himself little pieces of anything you give him - It is so nice at this age when they aren't picky eaters and will just eat whatever you put in front of them.

Will got his first bicycle on Saturday. We were planning on getting it for his birthday, but since the weather warmed up Will has been having daily meltdowns because all the neighborhood kids are out riding bikes and he doesn't have one. He didn't even have a tricycle or anything so we gave in and got him one. We are an easy sell obviously. Bryce helped him pick out a little red and blue bike and we got him a Lightning McQueen helmet which he now wears for all dangerous activities such as eating dinner and watching cartoons. I thought he was a little young to grasp the whole pedaling, steering, braking concept, but I guess I was wrong because he is already pretty good. We let him go out for about an hour the night we got home with the bike and by the end he could pedal if you helped him get started and kind of knew how to steer. I tried to teach him how to brake, but he kept telling me "No Mom! Bicycles never stop!" When he woke up yesterday he came into our bedroom and wanted to go ride his bike. He kept saying "I need to keep practicing!" After lots of nagging, he went out for another hour or so yesterday and can now pedal on his own and brake hard enough to leave a skid mark on the sidewalk (which he then showed off to Mollie and her boyfriend - he's very proud of that skid mark). He looks like such a big boy riding his bike down the sidewalk!

I was using the computer the other day and Will wanted to use it because he needed to "do some work". I told him no and he yelled at me "No Mom! Go find Bryce or somethin!"

Mollie and the kids and I were at a bridal store looking for bridesmaid dresses. We were unsuccessful and as we were walking out through all the wedding dresses Will announced "I would like a little dress Mommy." A woman standing nearby responded "I had one just like him....(pause)...he's perfectly normal now though!"

As you can read by clicking on the link to Mollie's blog, Mollie ripped her pants when she was at my house the other day. When she left that day Will shouted "See you later Mollie! Don't rip your pants!" It has become his standard farewell now. Bryce left for work the other morning and Will said "Bye Daddy! Don't rip your pants." My cousin stopped in the other day and when she left Will shouted "Bye Lizzie! Don't rip your pants!" (which made even less sense since she was wearing a skirt). I guess it is good advice for anyone.

I can't remember if I previously posted this one...a few weeks ago Will had once again gotten out every toy he owned and scattered them around the family room. I told him that he needed to clean up and as usual he said "No!" I told him again and he said "I can't Mommy!" I said, "I'm pretty sure you can Will - you need to pick up these toys" and he replied "No I can't Mommy! It's in my story - Will can't pick up toys!" This only makes sense if you have ever seen the show Super Why in which fairy tale characters frequently lament that they cannot take certain courses of action because it says otherwise in their stories.

Will is officially done with bottles. He hasn't had one in about 3 weeks. When he gets upset, or hurts himself, or doesn't feel well he still asks for one though. Like yesterday in church when he just kept crying "I need a bottle....I'm a baby...Babies use bottles..." He never had a blanket or stuffed animal or something so it is his security item and it seems kind of harsh to just refuse it, but I have to take him to the dentist this week (an event which Will is inexplicably excited about) and I didn't want to have to tell the dentist that my almost 3 year-old still wanders around with a bottle hanging out of his mouth. Sawyer, however, is starting to drink pretty well out of a sippy cup so we are just going to skip bottles all together with him.

My camera memory cards are all full and I don't dare delete them because of an unfortunate incident involving all the pics of Will's first year of life being lost from the computer where they were saved prior to the last time I deleted pictures off of a memory card--so the result is that I don't really have pictures for this post. I did find this one recent picture though: This is how Will "plays" with Sawyer.

MIracle of Miracles!

I was doing my morning internet routine and happened to click here: - My applicant ID is 18303 which means that I passed the Bar! Yay! They told us the results wouldn't be out until May, but I heard they were sometimes up earlier than that so I checked yesterday but there was nothing there and I checked this morning and there it was. I am so relieved! I do feel bad for the girl sitting next to me who was taking it for her second time...who it would appear will get to enjoy taking it yet another time. Too bad I can't even think of anything cool to do to celebrate. Maybe I should go to Salt Lake and audition for Deal or No Deal...

A new Will quote: last Sunday we had guests over and Will wouldn't keep his finger out of his nose. I pinned him down and wiped his nose which led to a sobbing outcry of, "Mommy! I WANT MY BOOGERS BACK IN MY NOSE!!" Ewww.

Bryce bought a new hat and put it on backwards when he got home from the store. Will was sitting at the table and turned around and looked at Bryce and said "Daddy, are you like a gangster?"

I cleaned up the whole downstairs the other night after the boys went to bed. When Will got up in the morning he came downstairs, looked around, and said "What is with this clean house time? Who is coming to see us?" So clearly we only clean or put on clothes if people are coming over. (See a previous post for the clothes part).

I'll probably supplement this post later, but that is all for now.

Here Comes the Bride...Pics for Mom

I guess I can re-publish this post now that the wedding is over and everyone has seen the dress. I can't get the sideways pictures to rotate...even when I rotate them outside of blogger, save them as new files, and then upload them they still turn out sideways. I've never had that problem before so I don't know what the deal is.

Here are pictures of Megan in the dress. I don't know if she wants everyone seeing the dress so these may be deleted after you look at them (if anyone else happens to randomly check my blog and then these disappear that will be why). You can right click on each one and save it to your own computer though.

Easter, Engagements, and Everything in Between

I thought life would slow down after the Bar Exam, but I think it has sped up instead! March 13 was Bryce's birthday. He celebrated by playing Church basketball (that is becoming a tradition) and then eating cream cheese pie and opening presents at home with us and Mollie and Kyle. I took Will to the store with me that morning to get some things for Bryce's birthday and he insisted upon the birthday hats. The following Saturday we went to Tucano's with a couple of friends and then to a movie. When we scheduled the birthday lunch we had forgotten that we had already arranged for Will to go to an Easter party at my Grandma's assisted living place, so Aunt Mollie played surrogate parent and took him for us. He got to go on an Easter egg hunt and was lucky enough to find one of the golden eggs that he traded in for a dollar. He also got a bunch of Easter erasers...which he misunderstood to be "racers" which led to him running up and down the hall with them in hand. That night Will fell asleep before I had changed him for bed so I changed his diaper and put on his pajamas without him ever even opening his eyes. When I pulled the covers up he rolled over and said "I found a golden egg..." so I guess it made an impression and he had a good time.

The day after Bryce's birthday was Pi Day so I hope you all had a slice of pie at 1:59. Having had pie for Bryce's birthday the night before I refrained. You can see the difference in the boys' complexions in the above picture. Poor Will got my paler than pale skin.

We didn't do anything to celebrate St. Patrick's Day even though it is the only holiday where people put up signs with my name on them. Will and Sawyer looked cute in their green clothes, but I forgot to take a picture of Will before he went to bed. We did go to the Bean Science Museum that night and Will's favorite part was the area where they had displays with buttons he could push. Do all kids love to push buttons? or "buttnits" as Will calls them?

Lately I wish I could just record everything Will says so I could sit and listen to him when I'm old. He talks nonstop in his little high pitched voice and it is funny to get a glimpse into his thought process. The other day he was eating some Ritz crackers in the shape of snowflakes and his running commentary was: "These are snowflake crackers from the store. I like them. They're pretty sweet!" Later that day he ran over and hugged me and said, "I like you! You're a good brother!" A few days later he came downstairs and saw an Easter package which I had assembled for my sister Megan sitting on the kitchen table. He spotted it and said "Oooooo! Oh look at this! This is a very special package!" Another day he told me "I like you! You're the best! And Daddy's the best! And I'm a wonderful guy! Everyone's the best!" He's such a positive kid (not sure where he gets that from!). Of course, sometimes his commentaries aren't so heartwarming - like the other day when he informed me: "I'm stanky, stanky, stanky! I'm covered in poop and pee! I'm disgusting!" or yesterday when I got out of the shower to Sawyer screaming hysterically and asked Will why Sawyer was crying and he responded "Because I kicked him and squeezed him and threw my fishy at him." At least he is honest...and thorough.

Today Will informed me that he wanted to be a doctor when he grew up and then he said "Noooo...I want to be a chef. I love food!" I think my brainwashing is sinking in. :-)

Sawyer is getting closer to crawling. He gets up on his hands and knees and kind of rocks back and forth, but then he invariably pushes his legs straight back behind him and then falls forward face-plant style and then pushes up on his arms again and repeats the process. He just drags his legs behind him like dead weight. It looks like a painful way to get somewhere, but he doesn't seem to mind.

The other night I put Will to bed but he kept crying and wanting me to go in and lay in his bed with him. After going in there about 5 times I could here him saying "Mommy? Mommy?" over and over, but since he wasn't crying I ignored him. After about 15 minutes he started screaming so I went up there again and when I opened the door I saw that he wasn't in bed. I turned towards the screaming and found him standing in the back corner of his closet, clutching a stuffed monkey, screaming hysterically. I tried to get him to come out, but he would just freak out more. Finally he stopped crying and would just lean forward and peer out of the closet and look around his room, but he wouldn't come out. He told me that he wanted me to sit down and talk to him, so I sat on the floor and was asking him what was the matter. He said that there was a giant in his wall. This is his latest thing. About 10 days ago he started saying there was a giant in his room. And then one night we put him to bed and a short while later the heat came on and he immediately started screaming and when I went up there he was pointing at the heating vent in the floor by his bed and telling me that there was a giant in the wall. I tried to reason with him by saying that "There are no giants except in cartoons" which he seemed to accept for a moment before this sudden look of terror came over his face and he said, "Giants are in cartoons...I HAVE CARTOONS!" So clearly that logic did not work on 2 year-olds. Will eventually came out of the closet after about an hour! Then 2 nights ago Will woke up and I let him come get in my bed because I was too exhausted to do anything else. A short while later Sawyer started screaming so I went and got him and, knowing that my bed couldn't hold all of us, I went and got in Will's empty bed with Sawyer. A little while after that I heard Will start crying and then I heard my bedroom door open and Will walked into his room and straight into his closet. I'm not sure why suddenly he makes a beeline for his closet when he is scared. Needless to say I ended up in Will's bed with both Will and Sawyer and Sawyer got one glimpse of Will and decided it was playtime and kept giggling at Will - which might have been cute if it hadn't been 4:30 in the morning. Will also still has the habit of stuffing his fingers in his mouth when he is scared. He never sucked on his thumb, but when he is scared or anxious he puts all of his fingers in his mouth.

For Easter we went to Church with the boys in their new Easter clothes (well, Sawyer just wore Will's old ones...that's what happens when you're #2!), but I forgot to take a single picture of them together in their Easter clothes. Bryce left Church early because Sawyer wouldn't stop fussing and Sawyer was asleep when Will and I got home so Sawyer missed all the festivities and pictures. I found him like this. We had Kyle, Mollie, and cousin Liz over for dinner and then had an Easter egg hunt and ate carrot cake. We tried to go visit my Grandma afterwards, but found her apartment deserted. I guess she had gone to my aunt and uncle's house for the evening.

I guess that pretty much brings us up to date...since the Bar Exam at the end of February I've had Enrichment Meeting (social activity for women at church), Bryce's birthday, Pi Day, St. Patrick's Day (ok, maybe those last 2 didn't really entail doing anything but still), and Easter (I also taught the Relief Society (women's class) lesson on Sunday). It feels like there has been something major every week. And next Tuesday is Mollie and Megan's birthday.

I also have a new job. Okay, not really. My little sister Megan is engaged! She is getting married at the end of the summer in Rexburg, ID which is how I acquired the title of "wedding planner"! It is much more fun to plan someone else's wedding than your own I've decided. Megan is probably tired of me e-mailing her with all the useful links, info, and pics I find online. I think so far Mollie and I have given Megan's wedding about 200 times more thinking time than she has (no offense Megan).

This is a picture of how Will wrote his name all by himself for the first time. Not too shabby. The next day he got out the Bunco game and scattered it all over the family room. When I was picking up I found a paper that he had written his last name on. He's a smart little bugger. I credit television.


Here's my little Paddington Bear when we got back from our walk today. I love that little rain slicker. I ordered it when I was pregnant with Will because it was just so darn cute. Of course, as Bryce said, "How often are you going to be leaving your 3-6 month old out in the rain?" I will admit it. I don't think Will wore it even once! (SSHHH don't remind Bryce of that fact or I will never live it down!) It is Sawyer's little spring jacket now though.

One more Will story. The other day he kept telling me "I will go on the potty and I will get money to send to the lady!" I had no idea what he was talking about so I asked him what lady he was going to send money to. He runs into my room where he had been watching Dora while I showered. He points at the television which was showing a commercial for Proactive with a picture of Jessica Simpson. He's points at the picture and says "That lady! I will get money and send it to that lady for my birthday!" Now where he came up with that idea I don't know. I found it rather disgusting. He's only 2 and already the typical guy who just wants to throw money at "hot" girls! Eck!

EEEEEEK!

We just discovered the presence of a mouse (let's hope it is just one) in our pantry. Gross!!! I am tempted to throw away every food item in there...and I still might...but that is a whole lot of food! Bryce was working on his laptop in the living room and told me to mute the t.v. I did and he was shining a flashlight behind the fridge and all around the kitchen. He pulled out our storage of plastic grocery bags from the pantry floor and we found that a mouse has been making itself at home there for some time now by the looks of things. Gross gross gross. We knew that our neighbors had mice which isn't all that surprising since our property borders a farm, but I was really hoping we would be spared because they changed the house design and so we have stairs leading into our kitchen from the garage instead of just a flat entrance...but I guess mice can climb stairs. Bryce is on his way to buy a mouse trap. Before he left he stuffed a towel in the crack under the pantry door and then just for good measure tipped a bar stool over and pushed it up against the towel. So the mouse is blockaded within the pantry unless it has some secret means of egress. I am trapped at home with the kids and the mouse. This means we have had mice at every home we've ever lived in in Provo. In our first married apartment, a.k.a. "the shack" we were dutifully kneeling by our bed to say prayers and a mouse ran across the room right by our feet. That was the last time we did that! We bleached the entire kitchen about 3 times due to our rodent visitors in that place. Then we had to catch a few in the trailer home we rented as well. And now even our nice, new house has been infiltrated. They might have lived here first, but we bought this property fair and square! Wouldn't they be much happier back on the farm? We are up late every night so I am surprised that we haven't seen any signs of this critter before now. Did I mention Gross!

My little chatterbox

I have a lot of catching up to do on here. We will see how much I can do before the baby starts screaming again. Sawyer (and Will and I) have had a cold for the last 5 days...I'm hoping that is the reason that Sawyer has turned into monster baby because otherwise I have no idea what happened to my calm, sweet baby. Sawyer hasn't napped in days, wakes up multiple times at night and just screams, and won't let me put him down at any point during the day. I think he just isn't feeling well and feels worse if I lay him down to sleep because he gets all stuffed up and can't breathe through his nose. Poor little guy. I hope he gets over it soon because I don't think he or I can take much longer! I finally got him to sleep about 15 minutes ago and since he has been up since 8 a.m. you would think he would conk out until tomorrow morning, but based on his record from the last few nights he will probably be awake and screaming again shortly.

As you can read and see on my friend Joanna's blog, www.joanddoug.blogspot.com, I took Will to Chuck E. Cheese's last Friday. For about 2 months before the Bar Exam I kept bribing Will by saying things like "If you let Mommy study I will take you to Chuck E. Cheese after the Bar Exam in [x] weeks." It got to the point where Will kept saying "In 3 weeks Mommy will take the Bar Exam and then I will go to Chuck E. Cheese's! Where it's cool to be a kid!" Then about 3 weeks before the Exam Will started talking about Sophie all the time. He would be upstairs and I would say "Will, what are you doing?" and he'd say "I'm playing with Sophie!" or he'd get up in the morning and say "Where's Sophie" and I'd say "At her house" and he'd say "No, she's hiding in my house. Let's find her!" and then he would go from room to room looking for her. After several days of this Will ran his toy lawn mower into Sawyer and made him cry. I said, "Will, did you hurt Sawyer?" and Will said "No, Sophie did!" Clearly, Sophie (who is in fact a real little girl) had been elevated to imaginary friend status. I told Will that he could take Sophie on his trip to Chuck E. Cheese...so that he could remember that he used to have real friends in the days before Mommy started studying for the Bar Exam. As Jo mentioned in her post, Sophie was not a huge fan of Chuck E. Cheese. I felt kind of bad because the poor girl was totally freaked out, which was not a possibility I had considered since Will thinks it is heaven on earth (despite the smell). Will really liked this little ride where he sat on a stationary bicycle and then the entire ride rotated in a circle. He rode that one about 40 times. After over 3 hours at Chuck E. Cheese I asked him if we wanted a drink of milk and he went and got in the stroller without any complaints. I stopped in at the Roberts next door and they had a wooden easel/chalkboard/dry-erase board for $15 that Will spotted and wanted and since it was a good deal I bought it. I haven't let him loose with dry-erase markers yet, but he has been drawing with chalk everyday since. He always makes me draw with what he informs me is my favorite color - yellow - and he always draws with his "favorite color" - orange. Will drew his first recognizable picture about a month ago...a smiley face. It is the only thing he draws...big lopsided ovals with 2 dots for eyes and a huge grin. Sometimes he adds circles for ears and once he scribbled above the smile and said "He has fuzz and he is a boy"--- apparently it was a mustache. Every time he draws one he makes the same comment - he draws it and then says "He is not sad!" It cracks me up to find these goofy smiley faces all over Will's magnadoodle and chalkboard and any piece of paper he got his hands on.

A few weeks ago when I was trying to study for the Bar, Will was sitting on the floor playing with his cars. He picked one of them up and gave it the following lecture: "What are you doing? I asked you not to do that, okay? Listen to me when I'm talking to you. I asked you not to do that. If you do that you will have a big time-out. Okay?" It went on like that for a while.

Will is starting to understand the concept of "favorite" so we like to ask him what his favorites are. According to him, his favorite food is "croutons" or sometimes "Caesar salad" (as if he's ever taken a bite). His favorite show is "Super Readers" (also interesting because lately he only wants to watch Dora). His favorite color is orange. His favorite music is "Linkin Park like Daddy" (way to kiss up to Dad). I asked him a couple days ago what his favorite thing he ever did in his whole life was and he said "Hmmmm hmmmmm hmmmmm...ummmm chicken salad." I'm not sure he understood that question.

Will was demanding Dr. Pepper the other day and I kept telling him that he couldn't have it because it wasn't good for him and it would give his teeth owies. Bryce, however, gave in and poured him a little of his soda. Will took a big gulp and glared at me and declared "Ah! My mouth is happy!"

I was sitting on the couch with Sawyer this morning when Will woke up and came downstairs. He came over to me and said "Mommy! I'm so glad to see you! Is your throat hurting?" and I said "Yeah, it's kind of scratchy." He replied, "Did you have something to eat?" and I said "No" and he said "Do you want some peach juice to make it feel better?" (He calls this flavored water stuff we buy at Wal-mart "peach juice") and I said "No thanks," but he went and got it out of the kitchen anyways and gave it to me saying "Here you go sweet stuff!"

The other day we went to dinner at Chili's with my mom and brother and sister before my mom went home. On the way there Will kept saying that we were going to the cold restaurant. It took us a while to figure out that we were going to the "cold restaurant" because we were going to "Chillys".

Will has added "Oh come on" to his vocabulary. For instance, this morning he wanted me to play blocks with him and I told him that I wouldn't play with him until he got his diaper changed. He turns around and says "Oh come on Mom! Just play with me! Don't be scared!"

A few weekends ago we were returning something to Target and Will saw some hotwheels cars that he has been obsessed with ever since. I told him that we weren't going to buy them because cars cost money and we don't have enough money to buy cars every time we go to the store (thinking it would be better to explain than to just say no). After Target we stopped at Sears to return something else and the kids and I were waiting in the car. Will asked where Bryce was and I said that he had to "give something back to Sears and get some money." Will immediately perked up and said "If Daddy gets money we can go get the Hotwheels!" I guess he has that all figured out. I told him that we still weren't getting Hotwheels which set off another twenty minutes of crying. So on pretty much a daily basis since then Will will bring me some of his toys and say things like "I don't want these. Let's take them back to Target. And then I will get Hotwheels" and he always uses this particular tone of voice that is like "I'm making a huge sacrifice here but I'll do this if I have to." The other morning he was driving me nuts because for about 2 hours all I heard was "I don't like my Valentine's toys. I don't like my Christmas toys. I will take them back to Target and get some Hotwheels." Finally I said "Ok Will, if you don't want your toys I will take them and give them to some other little boy because I'm sure there are lots of boys who would like to have such nice toys." Will said "Ok, we will give them to someone else. I don't want them" so I said "Ok, bring all the toys you don't want in the kitchen and I will give them away and you won't play with them anymore." Of course, I was thinking that if he saw me acting like I was actually going to take his toys away he would flip out and suddenly be overcome with a desire to play happily with his toys. Instead, Will went and got his new Disney cars that I spent $20 on for Valentine's because he had been wanting them for months and put them in the kitchen saying "I don't want these Valentine's cars. We will give them away." Then he went and got his car garage from Christmas, his race car, his Lightning McQueen car and his truck with the other Disney cars inside and put them in the kitchen as well saying "I don't like these Christmas toys." Then he hauled in his basketball hoop and added "I don't like my basketball." I found this kind of hilarious and kind of infuriating at the same time. I picked everything up and took it out in the garage and put it in the back of Bryce's truck thinking surely he would want it back after 30 seconds...but nope, I eventually took it back out of the truck the next day when Bryce had to go somewhere. I was telling Bryce about it when he got home from work and Bryce (always wanting to think the best of his son) asked Will, "Will, why did you want to give away your toys? Did you just want to share them with other kids?" and Will replied "No, I don't like them. I will give them away and then get some Hotwheels." Nice try kid.

The other day Will kept telling me that he wanted "'Baby Bach on." We don't have anything that fits that description so I said "What is Baby Bach? Is it a show" and he turned around and looked at me and said "No, it's a commercial honey!"

Apparently, Sawyer really enjoys watching our Baby Beethoven dvd lately...at least according to Will he does. About once a day Will tells me that "Sawyer wants to watch Baby Beethoven" and then makes me put it on. I'm pretty sure it isn't Sawyer who wants to watch it though.

Will has also added the phrase "or something" to his repertoire. So a normal request from him these days goes like this "Mom! You want to play baseball or something?" or "I want to have some fruit snacks or something." We went on a walk today and we saw a house for sale and he told me "Some people will move in there maybe or something"...I thought "Wow, you sound about as decisive as your mother!"

Yesterday it was about noon when I told Will that it was time to get dressed and got some clothes out for him. He looked at the clothes and said "Who's coming to see me?" I guess he's figured that we pretty much only bother to get dressed if someone is coming over!

Sawyer rolls around like crazy these days, but doesn't do much in the way of crawling. He has started to communicate by making these little "uh uh" noises. If he wants me to pick him up he looks at me and says "uh uh!" or if Will has something he wants he will stare at it and say "uh!"
That's about all he is up to these days...oh, and eating. He has suddenly decided to be a little chow hound. He goes through 6-8 jars of baby food a day and still nurses 4 times a day. He is a little sweetheart and already has such a different personality from Will. He seems to be a lot more sensitive about things in general. He will only sleep in his own bed. If Will gets too crazy and shrieks or yells too close to Sawyer he will burst out in tears. He doesn't laugh spontaneously very often, but he cracks up when Will talks silly to him. He tends to get a little hyper when he is tired and will kick his legs and pump his arms up and down crazily.

I will have to get the camera out and add some pictures to this the next time both my boys are asleep while I'm still awake....that could be a while! Update: there I added some pics that don't have anything to do with this post, but are at least fairly recent.

Will modeling a majority of the clothes I bought him for next fall at the same time.

What I've read

I'm moving this into a post so I can replace the information in the sidebar... Also, I meant to post something yesterday since I won't have another chance to date an entry February 29 for 4 more years...but I didn't get to it.

• 1 Dead in Attic: After Katrina: My Dad bought this from the author while in New Orleans recently. The author is a columnist for a paper down there and the book is a compilation of his articles in the aftermath of Katrina. I think it is hard to imagine the level of destruction that is STILL part of the status quo down there. The author talks about going to play basketball and walking by a dead guy out of the porch of a house for 3 weeks before someone took him away. Now, dear reader, sit and close your eyes and imagine your current neighborhood totally empty, think of the closest stores to you- they are all abandoned, think of the next closest stores/businesses to you - sorry, they are abandoned too, some of your neighbors have been dead and rotting for almost a month in their houses or on the sidewalks...sounds like some armageddon hollywood film right? Nope, New Orleans after Katrina.
• Watership Down: I read this many years ago and asked for it for Christmas. Santa delivered and I enjoyed it again. It is about rabbits...and interestingly, the author would like to make clear that it is NOT an allegory or parable of any kind. Just a good story about rabbits I guess.
• We Are All Welcome Here: The idea for a book about a woman who contracted polio and gave birth in an iron lung apparently came from an actual person...but the plot is entirely made up. I wish I had read something about the woman who actually did this and then lived another 30 something years inside an iron lung instead.
• My Soul to Keep: I didn't notice until after I got home that this had a dove sticker on the binding = the Provo library has tagged it as "Christian literature" = it reads like a proselytizing pamphlet that someone decided to add a plot to after the fact. Enough said.
• The Last Voice They Hear: A murder mystery story...although not very mysterious. Described as a psychological thriller so I kept expecting some big shocking plot twist or revelation, but, alas, there was none.
• Madeleine is Sleeping: This was extremely odd...like a very odd Japanimation type dream. Extremely bizarre. I won't even bother to describe the plot because you will think I'm kidding. On a side note, I do like the name Madeleine.

And Now Vee Vait!

Soooo the Bar Exam is over. It was pretty much miserable. I don't know why they have to go out of their way to confuse you and make you think that you don't know anything, but that seems to be the goal. The first day we had to register at 8 and got out at about 5:30. The second day we registered at 8 but got out at about 4:30. All together we had 13 hours of actual test time. I have no idea how I did. There were several things I didn't have a clue about, but neither did anyone else I talked to afterwards. We won't get the results for 8-10 weeks. How I hate you Bar Exam!

"We'll Praise Him By Day and By Night"

Gordon Bitner Hinckley
June 23, 1910 - January 27, 2008

So I know this blog is usually restricted to the antics of the two boys in the house...but I thought I'd add a note to say farewell to President Hinckley. If you want to know who he is you can read about him here: http://newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/

I've never heard of a busier 97-year-old and I'm sure he is glad for a rest from the physical strain--but I suspect he will still be just as busy as ever! Twelve years ago or so I sang a duet at a church meeting that then Elder Hinckley presided at. He was in town on some church business and decided he wanted to have a meeting with the youth...even though it was Halloween night. I happened to be friends with the lady in charge of music for the meeting which is how her daughter and I ended up singing a duet--and I learned the song in the car on the way there. When we finished we went back to our seats which were behind President Hinckley and he leaned over and said "You girls sing well." So that is my one communication with President Hinckley. You never saw him when he wasn't smiling and to quote the hymn: "When dark clouds of trouble hang o'er us And threaten our peace to destroy, There is hope smiling brightly before us"...

Back into Oblivion

So after our holiday guests left I once again started studying (or started re-studying) for the Bar Exam. I have been averaging between 2 and 3 hours a day, but this is just warm-up mode before my mom gets here and I have to really start studying. I really think my JD ought to count for something on its own! I have concluded that it is not humanly possible to memorize everything in my BarBri study books so I am just hoping that I'll get lucky and the few things I actually know will be on the exam. The point is that there hasn't been, and won't be, much blog activity until after February 27th, but I wanted to add a few things before I forget.

Last Monday night Sawyer was playing on the floor babbling and started saying "mamamamamamama"--now I know this doesn't seem like much, but vocalizing a consonant sound is actually a developmental milestone. As Bryce said, it is fitting that Sawyer started with the "mama" sound because Will started with "dada". Another thing about Sawyer, God bless that child--when he gets fussy I wrap him in a blanket, put a pacifier in his mouth, and lay him in his play pen and he...goes...to...sleep! Usually I don't hear another peep, occasionally if he loses the pacifier he will let me know and I'll return it for him. In the wake of his older brother, this child is nothing short of a miracle.

Bryce had to work late last week and the worst night was Wednesday when he didn't get home until sometime around 2 in the morning. Of course Will decided that he was not going to go to bed that night. I put him in bed at about 9, but he wouldn't stay there. (On a side note it is rather infuriating that there is really no feasible way to MAKE him stay in bed except to physically hold him down which defeats the point of him being in bed so I can do other things.) I put him in bed, walked downstairs, and heard him jump out of bed and run across the room, open his door, and slam his door. I went to look for him and he was standing in the hall leaning against his closed door. I said "What's the matter, Will?" and he replied "I'm scared. There's something in there." Now, he said this perfectly calmly so I wasn't too worried about his anxiety levels. I said "No there isn't, see here is your bed, and your dresser and your rocking horse and there is nothing else in here." Then he said "Momma, you want to snuggle me just for a minute." (He is into telling people what they want to do lately.) I laid down with him for a minute and he just kept staring around the room. After a few seconds he pointed at the smoke detector on the ceiling which has a little green light and said "See. There is something up there!" I said "That is the smoke detector. The green light means you are safe." Will kept staring at it and saying "The green light means I'm safe." After a few minutes the light blinked red (it does this like every 5 minutes), but of course that set Will off again: "There IS something up there!" I thought he had finally calmed down so I left, but about 15 minutes later he was out of his room again. Sometime around 1 a.m. I didn't have the energy to take him back up so I told him he could snuggle with me on the couch for a minute hoping he would just fall asleep. He kept wanting to get up and play, however. I told him "Will here are your choices. You can either go up and get in your bed or you can snuggle with Mommy- which are you going to do?" and he said "I'm going to snuggle Mommy and pick my boogers." Which he did. Gross.

Speaking of gross, yesterday before church Will kept insisting that he had to get in the shower with me. He took off all his clothes and his diaper and climbed in. After a few minutes he was kind of crouching on the shower floor and I thought he was just looking at the bubbles, but all of the sudden he stood up and yelled, "Back away from the pee-pees!" I look down and sure enough he has peed in the shower, but then he takes a step away and I see that he has, in fact, done much worse than pee. Disgusting.

Last Sunday I was talking to my mom via the webcams my brother gave us for Christmas. Will apparently wanted to look at something else on the computer and kept coming over and saying "Let's turn off Grandma- okay?"

Will somehow picked up a new trick where he gives a thumbs up, a big cheesy grin, and says "It's easy!" Probably from a commercial, but I don't know when or where he saw it. The first time I saw him do it he had to use his other hand in order to shape his fingers into a thumbs up.

I was taking down the last of the Christmas garlands from the tops of the kitchen cabinets last week and Will kept yelling at me "Get down. Now!" Hmm, I wonder if he has ever heard that before.

Will keeps grabbing at my hands as I type and yelling "No...no! This is Daddy's computer. It is for working. You go make dinner." (It is not even noon.)

The other night I put Will to bed and he was totally asleep when I left his room. I walked out into the hall and into the bathroom ( = about 4 seconds) and then I hear Will running across his room. He comes out his door looking panicked and holding a stuffed lamb, his stuffed giraffe, a baby rattle, and a washcloth. I don't know what woke him up, but he must have been startled because he bolted out of there and apparently grabbed everything between him and his door on the way!

On Friday Will got into the pantry and found a cookie mix and said "I want to bake these!" I didn't think I could turn him down because he was so excited so I put the ingredients in a bowl and he did all of the mixing and then scooped it into a dish. He kept saying "Mmmmm...these are gonna be great!" and "I'm a chef!" Here is a picture of him stirring and one of him enjoying his handiwork (chocolate peanut butter bars).

We took Will sledding for the first time. By the time we got our act together and found a store that still had a sled available for purchase it was pretty much dark. Unfortunately, Will got snow in his face on one of his first runs and was reluctant to go again. Then we switched spots on the hill and avoided the trees and after that he had a great time.
Sawyer tried green beans for the first time last night. He didn't seem to enjoy them much, but he was a good sport. He just kept looking at me like "Why are you giving me this awful stuff Mom?" but he didn't start screaming or anything. Will was watching and decided that he wanted to try. He took a spoonful and his face immediately sank into this perfect "Mom, I thought you liked me?" disappointed-you-tricked-me kind of face. Then he kept gagging until Mollie got him a drink. I wish I had his reaction on camera because it was much more entertaining than Sawyer's.

Sounds like Sawyer is up from his nap. He has his 6 month check-up tomorrow.