Livin' Large

Laura is feeling quite pregnant. I wanted to share this picture so you can see how much she's progressed.

Before and After (mostly after)

I apparently forgot to post this a long time ago.  It was saved in my drafts.  Thanks again mom and dad.

Mom wanted to see some of the "after" photos to make comparisons to the "before" pictures we'd already posted. Here are some that we took while they were here. I need to get a few more of the chair Mom reupholstered now that we have the cushion installed.

Thanks for all the hard work. It really feels like we live in a nice home rather that a dingy, plain apartment.

New Do or "No... Don't"?

Who does this hairdo look better on? Wait... don't answer that.

I know I could never pull off a look like Stephen's silky smooth strands.

Here are the results from the name survey.  It seems that no one likes Beatriz and everyone likes Claire.  The only thing I don't like about Claire is that it was the 53rd most popular name in America last year and its getting more popular every year.

I'm leaning toward Mara, which was the second most popular.  I like the survey because it kind of helps me find out if I'm crazy.  We don't let the survey decide the name but is nice to know what others think about what you think.

Laura remembered a name almost right after I sent the survey.  What do you all think about Melaina or Melena (Mel for short)?  I won't do another survey but I'll look for comments if you have them.

Good/Bad News

I feel bad complaining when something good happens.  As many of you know my temporary job was ending on the 5th.  This was bad because it meant we would have to live on savings, but it was good because it meant that I could take an extra class and finish my program faster.

Well, long story short, I have a job and an extra class that I can't get rid of without major consequences to my GPA/transcript.  As a result, I'm super busy and more than a little stressed.  I really wish I could have just kept my job and dropped the extra class in time to keep it off my transcript. C'est la vie.

I got an email from my GAO "buddy" today.  He's like a mentor kind of person meant to help me transition into the internship without any problems.  I was glad to hear from someone because I haven't really heard much since they offered me the position.  However, I was assured that everything is going alright.

I just wanted to let everyone know so they wouldn't think I was neglecting them.  I love you all.

P.S.

I hope everyone enjoyed the survey.  I'll be posting a summary of the results later so you can all get an idea about the patterns and trends.

P.P.S.

Zac texted me the other day that he is engaged to be married to a woman named Nico.  He doesn't know when but it will probably be with his family in Puerto Rico.

We are here! (and I finally have the internet again)

Well, we moved on Saturday and unpacked a few things. Sunday we went to church in our new ward and met a few people, (happy mother's day by the way) and took a 10 minute bike ride over to the temple. Monday and Tuesday I didn't have the internet set up yet so we unpacked more boxes and settled a little bit more. Today I missed work at the school so that the cable guy could come and set up the TV and the internet so I could start typing again (if I get work). I am glad this move is over. We aren't unpacking too many boxes, just what we need until we get into our own home. If I start rambling it is because I'm tired. We only have about 3 weeks left in school and then we can stop getting up sooooooo early.

Love you all.

Connie

Looks like this Fri/Sat

We are finishing up the packing and cleaning this week. It looks like everything is going forward with the sale of this home and so we have rented the U-haul truck for this Saturday. I will be able to start moving things over on Friday in our own minivan and get the ball rolling that way. I never knew how much stuff we really had until I started cleaning things out. We have already taken two pickup truck loads to the dump and several loads to the DI (deseret industries). We probably have several more loads to take to the DI once we finish sorting. It is good to dejunk. We still haven't heard yet about any of the shortsales, but we continue to pray that we will be where the Lord needs us to be. If it is okay with the Lord, I would LOVE to be at 11066 Indigo Sky Way.

Love you all.
Connie

Spring pictures

Just wanted to share some new spring garden pictures. Grandma Herring is back home from the hospital but still not doing as well as she should be doing seems she has a cough and the regular aches and pains but I guess for almost 80 that's not that bad... We are doing o k still trying to make preparations for the summer guests we are so looking forward to your visit and have more family time with more of our kids here in Texas. Hope all goes well with the move in Utah with Sean and Connie you guys are in our prayers and hope you get the house you should. I would like to encourage more entries on this blog as I will try also to do the same. I really enjoy seeing and reading the new happening in your lives.

Home updates.

As you have all heard, our home sold. It looks like we might even have a home to rent in Daybreak Community (where we are trying to buy a home) until we can get into our own home. The lady who owns the home is more than willing to rent to us, she just has to get approval from the bank.

Here are some pictures of the hard work that Grandma and Grandpa did. They did a great job and we thank them so much.

Going camping

We're going camping!  The place we're going is called Valley of Fire in Nevada.  I'm looking forward to having a break.  I talked to Mom a few days ago and she was telling me about her and Dad getting the house ready for us to come and it made me really excited.  I know at the end of it I'll be wishing for my own place again and they be wishing they never offered their house, but I'm excited all the same.

Jarom is doing better.

It was a good parent teacher conference this time. I don't know if you know, but we took Jarom to the doctor to see if there was a medical reason that he was doing so poorly in school. After doing some tests at school and other things, he was diagnosed with ADD. We put him on Concerta about two months ago. In that two months, he has taken his grades from mostly D's and F's to mostly A's, B's and C's. He still struggles with math, but so do I. He is doing so much better in school and I am so proud of him. I was very hesitant to put him on medication, but he is doing so much better and feeling better about himself that I think it was a good thing to do.

Now if we can just get Nathan to stop talking in class when he shouldn't. He finishes his work so fast that he gets bored and starts to talk to the kids around him, then he gets in trouble.

Erin is trying to slide by and not do her homework, but she is going to change that.

Jacob is still doing well in school but is discovering that math is getting harder the older he gets.

Hope you all are doing well.

Connie

Hi!

Big news from over the weekend: Lilia has her first word - HI!! She's said things like "mama" and "dada" for a long time now, but they seem to still be somewhat indiscriminately used. She'll say mama to me, but then she also says it to the toilet - so who knows what she thinks it means. But, she now says "hi" like a real word. She'll crawl over to where I am or where Adam is after playing by herself for awhile and say "I!" (she doesn't really do the 'h' so well). Or, sometimes if I've left my phone vulnerable, she'll start to play with it and say "I!" to the phone. She has a toy phone and she likes to say hi to that, as well as speak loudly toward it in her own language, including words like guk, gok, gak, aga, duck and dog (not associated with the animals), baba, ada, etc. It's pretty funny, but so far hi is the only thing in English she consistently uses correctly.

Walking: not yet. She wishes she could walk, and likes to spend a lot of time practicing, but really isn't a walker. Basically, she's a big wuss. She'll walk from a piece of furniture to Adam or I and back as long as it isn't more than 4 or 5 steps for her. If she's walking between Adam and I, she'll go as far as 8-10 steps, but that's all we can get her to do for now. I haven't seen her choose walking over crawling when a parent is not involved - ie, couch to chair, chair to toy, etc. But, she's improved a lot in the last little bit, and I expect we'll see her really walking in the next month or so.

Other random updates: Her hair is now long enough to pull up in pigtails or a ponytail, very cute. She also can give kisses. We'll say "Give me a kiss!" and make a kiss toward her, and she'll come at us with a huge, open-mouth, very slobbery kiss, usually right on the lips if she can manage. Very disgusting, but highly amusing and so adorable. Dance moves must run in the family because Lilia has become quite the head-bobber, bootie-shaker, and foot-stomper.

Well, that's what's going on in the Lilia department. We've taken some great fotos and videos recently, but that's Adam's department so I'll let him post them when he gets a chance. :)

Like mother, like son.

Ok, so that's not how the saying really goes, but Dante is now an official walker and he is the same age I was when I started walking: 10 months. He's still pretty slow and kind of shakie, but it is really amazing how much he improves with each day he's on his feet. I'm posting some videos. They include Dante walking and a short Dante dancing section. Hope everyone gets to see them!







Post reset on Tuesday, Feb 23 @ 7:15 pm central time.
Post reset on Wednesday, Feb 24 @ 7:04 pm central time.

One thing after another.

In a very small way, I understand the biblical plagues. It feels like it has been one thing after another here at our house. First it was that everybody got coughs, now it seems to be fevers. I don't dare speculate if anything else is coming. I sound like I am whining and I don't mean to. We are on the mend and we are going to be fine.

Connie

My little man.

He's walking! I still can't believe it. He is taking steps from one piece of furniture to another or to a person. This evening my mom started him walking and he walked all the way across the living room. He still chooses to crawl a lot. So I guess I will recategorized him officially as a walker when he walks more than crawls. (He actually does choose to walk now when the distance isn't very far.)

Another thing he does that I find very cute is that he dances. He'll be playing with his toys and when he pushes a button that makes one of his toys play a song, he starts bobbing up and down. I'm trying to get a video of this, but it's hard to get videos of things like this. As soon as he sees the camera, he refocuses his attention on the camera and all I get is Dante crawling (or walking) to me and the camera.

I'll take more video tomorrow and I'll post some videos on Friday in the late afternoon.