Thankful

Hailee and Todd watching basketball together.

So much has been going on and I've been writing blog posts in my head, I just haven't gotten around to sitting down and blogging about it. Last week we had Bonnie D. Parkin come and visit our Stake Relief Society dinner. It was a great talk and she talked about how women need to help each other. She quoted Sister Hinckley when she said "Oh how we need each other." So this post is dedicated to all the amazing women in my life.

• First and foremost is my little Hailee. I remember the day (January 6, 2004) we found out our little baby was going to be a girl. I have to say I was a little relieved. Growing up in a family of all sisters, a little girl was a lot more familiar to me than a boy. (I'm sure I will love a little boy if one comes, but like I said this is just dedicated to the girls in my life). Anyway I don't think Todd and I could have asked for a sweeter girl than Miss Hailee. She is so sweet and loving. Saturday she went out to the front room and turned on the TV. She came running back and said "Oh dad I found your favorite show. Do you want to come watch it with me." She had found a basketball game. So the two of them sat down and watched BYU vs. TCU basketball game. And one time when I was feeling sad she just cuddled up next to me then after a while she started telling me jokes to make me laugh. Just such a sweet little girl. I have to say I won't be sad at all if we end up having all girls, as long as they are sweet like Hailee. She has kept Todd and I laughing through all of this.
  
• I consider myself extremely lucky to have grown up with four sisters. Growing up there was always someone to play with, to talk to, and clothes to borrow. This week Deneille and Emily sent me a fun package with all kinds of things that I just loved. I've talked to Stacie for hours on end (thank goodness for Sprint to Sprint minutes). And Kristen has finally started updating her blog...the busy little coed that she is. So much fun. Even though none of my sisters are living by me, I still feel like we are still close. I love the technology that keeps us together.
• My mom has to be next. She surprised me this week and drove up on Tuesday, just to spend the day with Hailee and I. We had so much fun. Hailee was in heaven because grandma let her have ice cream before we ate lunch. It was so nice to see her for the day. Mom's are just great because they always know what you need.
  
• Although my sisters don't live close I do have two amazing sister-in-laws that do. They both came and got Hailee on different nights to go play with her. Hailee of course was in heaven. Ruthann took her to dinner and played with her at her house. Kristy took her to paint ceramics and to the bookstore. Hailee is still talking about it. She loves spending time with her aunts and they are so good to her. It is so nice they are so close.
• Many other women in my life have touched my life this week. Grandma's and other friends. I am just so blessed. I love all the men in my life as well (without your support I would be lost as well.) I love you all.
  

Catching up...

I still feel like I am catching up from being sick. Here are some pictures (I finally found my camera and got them downloaded. Since Hailee has become a budding photographer I find my camera in the oddest locations, like Hailee's play kitchen or under her bed.) So here's what we've been up to the last few days.

We discovered that the paper roll from IKEA is the perfect size to make outlines of Hailee. She loved getting outlined and then filling the rest. Once she made one she insisted that we make another one and once we got them both on the wall she exclaimed "Oh look mom, they are friends, both of the Hailee's are friends." She has since changed their expressions to be happy and sad. I asked her why and she said because 'glad' and 'sad' rhyme mom. Okay.


This is just because I love sleeping baby pictures. Hailee hasn't really taken a nap for about a year so it's been a while since I've gotten any sleeping pictures. (I have hundreds from when she was younger). Well after a couple of late nights and early mornings I decided to 'make' her take a nap. We cuddled up and she slept for 3 hours, only problem was she didn't want to go to bed until 11:00 that night. No more naps for her. Thankfully we are mostly back on schedule.


Friday the weather was so amazing that we were able to go to the park with some friends. The only reason she has her coat on was because it was 5:30, during the day we were just wearing light sweaters. Unfortunately the warm weather didn't last as long as I would have liked. Saturday a cold front blew in and now it's cold again. I am really ready for spring. The picture is of Hailee and Lexi on top of the big slide. By the end Hailee was flying down head first and having a great time. It doesn't matter how long we spend at the park, it could be 2 minutes or 2 hours, Hailee never wants to leave to come home.

Saturday we also went and saw the movie Enchanted for the first time. We loved it. Hailee has been singing the songs from the movie (at least as best she can remember) all weekend. Last night she went to bed singing "How does she know that you love her..." When I asked her what her favorite part was she said "when the princess, what's her name again mom." "Giselle" "oh yeah, when Giselle fought with that mean dragon" Yes that is my little princess. Last night when she was going to bed she came in and told Todd that there were monsters in her closet and that she was scared. Todd and Hailee decided to go fight with the monsters. Hailee had such a great time fighting with the monsters in her closet, that as soon as she was done with the monsters in her closet she had to come and fight with the monsters in our closet. I think we owe that to Todd's bedtime stories. They are always about Princess Hailee, but Princess Hailee is always tricking mean dragons, or off on some other grand adventure with her horse Skittles.


Speaking of Todd, he is doing okay. The double dose of the diuretic (a diuretic drains you body of any fluid) is doing a number on him. He is always wanting something to drink. When I go to the store and ask what he wants, it's always some kind of drink. Well because of this, he's gotten quite good at mixing drinks. Right now we have pomegranate juice, grape juice, V-8 Strawberry banana, sprite, and guarana. He has gotten quite creative, so far the winner is the 2 parts V-8 Strawberry banana, one part pomegranate, and one part guarana.

Heather, to answer your questions, the next surgery for Todd is where they go and cut the nerve to the ear with Meneire's Disease. He will have a week in the hospital and 6 weeks learning how to walk again. They typically don't like to do that kind of surgery especially with how young he is, but when medicine doesn't work they isn't much else to do. And Starfall is an online reading game site. It has all different levels, starting with letter sounds all the way to reading stories. Hailee has loved playing with it and she has learned so much. They just came out with a board game and we got that for Christmas for her. The internet games are great because she likes the independence of doing it on her own, but it's nice to play as a family as well.

Valentine Pictures

Valentine's day Hailee and I went over to Lisa's house to make cookies. I forgot my camera but Lisa took some and just sent them to me. I thought they would be fun to post. The girls had such a great time. Averi, Hailee, and Alicia rolling out the dough.



The girls each decorated some cookies. Hailee made four especially for her dad. She was so excited to give them to him when he got home from school. It was so cute to see them all have so much fun.

Recovering

Why does it seem to take longer to recover from being sick than the amount of time you are sick. Todd and I were sick, Hailee had a slight fever for two days and was just fine after that. I think she was beginning to wonder if her parents were ever going to be fun again. While I was sick I asked her to take plate to the kitchen and she responded, "Not right now, I have some work to do." "Please Hailee it will be really quick." "I can't do everything you want me to do." Hmmmmmm, didn't really know how to respond to that. I guess I was asking for more favors since I was sick.


We had a nice Valentine's day. Since it was the middle of the week we decided to just have a family dinner and then to get babysitting for the weekend. When I asked Todd what he wanted for dinner, he responded lasagna. Not really the "romantic" dinner I had it mind, but I guess it's a new tradition because of the three Valentine's we've stayed home for dinner, since being married, he's asked for lasagna. Hailee loved Valentines, Todd got her a new book and got me some roses. She was so excited about both. She thought it was funny to eat to candle light, but overall she thought it was so fun.

We went to the doctor for Todd this last Friday. Todd's still been having too many dizzy spells so he gave Todd some new medicine and doubled up one of his other ones. Now Todd gets to take 5 pills and 4 drops under his tongue everyday. He also said that if this new medicine doesn't work that we'd have to talk about doing the next surgery. I just hope the medicine works for him. He is still dizzy, but he was able to make it to school today. I'm just hoping that is a good sign.

In other Hailee news she is learning how to read. While we were sick she brought in her little sketch book and pointed to the word 'book' and said, "Mom that says 'book'." I was a little surprised because book isn't one of her words that she's been learning with her starfall game. I asked her how she knew that said book. She responded , "Mom the 'b' makes the 'buh' sounds and the two o's makes the 'oooo' sound and the 'k' makes the 'kuh' sounds." I guess she is putting things together now. We have loved playing her little "starfall" game and she is getting really good at her three letter words. When we play she wants to do all of our words as well. She is loving it.

Weekend Highlights

This weekend we had DJ at our house and we had a good time. Hailee loved having sleepovers with Uncle DJ. Only her idea of a sleep over is her sleeping in her bed and DJ sleeping on the air mattress in the front room. She would get so excited when we put it up. Saturday night we also had James over (one of Todd's MBA friends, his wife is out of town.) Hailee was going to bed before James left and she was so concerned that we needed another air mattress. "Mom where is James going to sleep." I assured her that he would go home to his house, which was just so boring in her mind. "Oh mom that s not fun."

Other funny things that happened over the weekend.

• Hailee was practicing her ballet and she wanted me to count for her. When I got up to 5 she said. "Oh mom you really do know your numbers."
• Lately she has been loving the movie Ratatouille, she calls the main guy "Chef Spaghetti" instead of Linguini. The last couple of weeks she has been giving kisses like Chef Spaghetti. It stated one night when she was giving Todd a goodnight kiss and after she said, "No dad, not like that, a Chef Spaghetti kiss." Then she just laid one on him. He was a little shocked, and I couldn't help but laugh. So I've been slightly concerned because she loves giving Chef Spaghetti kisses, images of wild teenage years just keep running through my head. Yesterday we were talking about Ratatouille and she said something about Chef Spaghetti's mom. A little confused I asked her who was his mom. To which she responded "You know mom the girl with dark hair that teaches him how to cook." She though Collette was his mom, maybe I don't need to worry to much yet.
  
• On the way to church on Sunday Hailee wanted to know if we were going to pick up one of my friends kids of church again. My friend recently had a baby and last week we took her older kids to church with us. Hailee has been so excited to see the new baby and has been very sweet with him. The first time we went over there she just sat and held him. He did have to go back into the hospital for an extra day because his belirubin numbers were too high. Hailee was very concerned about it. On the way to church she said "mom, how is the baby doing with his...I can't remember that word...bel...what is that word." "His belirubin" "Yeah mom, his bellyribbon, how is his bellyribbon."
  
• Saturday night I started getting a little sick and Sunday I really wasn't feeling to great. I am trying to be really careful to not share it with Todd and Hailee. Hailee wanted to drink some of the juice I had, but I told her that since I was sick we couldn't share. A little later I found her getting a drink from my cup. I told her again that I didn't want to give her the germs that are in my mouth. She said "Okay mom I will go spit those germs out" so she started spitting them into the toilet. "Don't worry mom, I spit those germs out." Wonderful, I really hope she doesn't get sick. We've been so lucky this year.
  
• Last night after DJ left Hailee asked me where Uncle DJ was going to sleep. I told her that he was going home. She was so sad and said "Oh mom that isn't any fun." She loves spending time with family and bouncing on the air mattress in the morning.
  

US Soccer

Hailee and Todd watching soccer. Yes Hailee picked out her own outfit. I had her all dressed and then she decided that she needed to wear her yellow dress so she just put it on over what she was already wearing. Todd just loves it that Hailee gets into playing and watching soccer. The other day where there was a foot of snow outside, she had her soccer ball in her hands was trying to convince me to get her soccer goals out from under her bed so we could go play outside. Summer will be fun, and yes, I've already checked the Portland area to make sure we can get her back in to soccer lessons, and they have a nice little program just like they did in Corvallis.

Well there is not much that my family enjoys more than watching a great soccer game. Wednesday was the US vs Mexico game, and I have to say it did not disappoint. Of course we would have liked a win, but a 2-2 tie with a young team was not to bad. It was full of exciting goals, controversial calls, and of course some great theatrics. My grandpa (who is from Mexico) always says the best theatrics in Mexico are found on the soccer field. I love watching the National team play because I get to watch my favorite players together....Dempsey, Gooch, Donavon, and Adu (who is now playing for Benfica, which was my last area of my mission). I t's always sad for me to see my favorites retire from world play. I still miss Brian McBride (he still plays for Fullham, but it's nearly impossible to get those games on tv). But this time I also found a couple of new players I'm excited about. One is Jozy Altidore, he's only 18 and he is definitely showing some promise.

I have to say that initially I didn't really know a lot about soccer. Serving a mission in Portugal, especially my last area where the Benfica stadium was located, helped some. But even then I really didn't have time to watch (unless you count meetings with my first branch president where he left a soccer game on and just turned the volume down). I was first really introduced to soccer when Todd and I started dating. It just happened to be the summer of the world cup in Korea (two things Todd loves, soccer and Korea). The games were at such crazy times as 2:00 am, 4:00 am, and 6:00 am. I really was just going to spend time with Todd, but that summer was the time I really started enjoying watching soccer. It's fun to watch the games with Todd because he is good at explaining things (without being annoying), and now I kind of understand what is going on. By the time the next world cup rolled around I was hooked. This one was in Germany so we had much better game times. Todd was working, but I recorded them and we watched them later. (I have to say the highlight for me was the Portugal vs England game....so sorry to my England friends. The US had a rough World Cup so I had to choose someone to go for.) Soccer is just such a great game to watch. Todd only has one request after graduation and that is the FOX soccer channel. I think that can definitely be arranged. Now if we can just figure out how to get BYU football in Oregon, we'll be set.

Family Updates

h a i l e e :

Hailee is always on the go and busy. Sometimes she is busy taking pictures (I always love seeing what is interesting to her in her world). Other times she is busy in her kitchen cooking, todays menu is beans and chocolate and shortcake. I've never made any of those things with her, so maybe she is watching the cooking channel while we are sleeping. The rest of the time she just keeps busy playing pretend and playing games on the computer. Her favorite at the moment is Super Why. Just today she packed her backpack and told me that she was going to school. She said "I will miss you so much, but I have pictures of you I can look at all day." She gave me a kiss and off she went to the bathroom, which she informed me that the bathroom was now her school. Every time Todd goes off to school and Hailee is having a hard time he always tells her that he will miss her so much, but that he has lots of pictures to look at all day. What a sweet kid.
Hailee's picture. Her new favorite dog of the moment. She has about 6 different little dogs and she rotates through them. As long as she doesn't want 6 real dogs later we should be just fine. I am still being reminded that when we move to Oregon we are getting a dog.

Another one of Hailee's pictures. Todd was trying to study at home and Hailee was just trying to capture the moment. Her little finger got in the way this time.

t o d d :

Todd's biggest news is that his manager from HP called him two Sunday's ago and wanted to hire him. Unfortunately we've already committed to Intel, but Sue is going to keep Todd on her list for later. We loved HP and would love to go back. But at the same time I'm sure Intel will be good. For us right now Intel is just the unknown, and we know we like the people at HP. We had a good feeling about Intel so I am sure things will work out. Todd's health hasn't been great this week, but today he is feeling better. We hope things will continue to improve.

n i c o l e :

A few months ago I got this crazy idea that I wanted to grow some flowers. I was at lowes and they had bulb kits on sale. So I picked up the Calla Lily set. I didn't like the plastic pot they provided, but a quick trip to IKEA solved that problem and now a few months later I have my very first flower. Being kind of new to growing blubs I had no idea how to plant them and the instructions on the box weren't great. I didn't know which way was up on the oval shaped bulbs, not wanting to plant them upside down, I planted them sideways. Todd thought I was a little nuts, but it all turned out well in the end. Our room doesn't get great light, but the calla lily seems to be okay, and I love having some green in my room. I also love the fact that you can see the roots through the glass pot (an unexpected teaching moment for Hailee).