An Easter Story

So this is a little late, I know. Our computer has been "out of order" for the last week, and thanks to Jeff, it's fixed again! Hooray! It's sad how much we missed this thing. I can't buy anything without researching it online now, and Jeremy gets his sports fix every evening. We heart computers, I guess. It's sad but true.

Now, I was going to fill you in on Easter weekend. Friday we went and got my mom and dad and headed on up to Logan. What's in Logan besides cheese and cows? Well, there's baby cows. And as it turns out, lots of other kinds of baby animals. Since Tyler's vocabulary is almost entirely made up of animal noises, we took him to Baby Animal Days at Wheeler Farm. Jeremy and I have been before when we lived up there. The place is packed with kids and frazzled parents with cameras in hand. They have this early in the year to ensure that the mud (and stuff) is up to your ankles so that you get the full farm effect. Needless to say, Tyler had a blast. Tyler got to see and touch the following animals (because I'm sure you're interested): A full sized ox, goats, chickens, bunnies, ducks, cows, pigs, horses, sheep and even a little turtle. At one point he got so overwhelmed with everything that was going on that we took him off to the side where there wasn't any people. He stood by the little coraled pony and gathered his little thoughts until he was fine again. It was sensory overload for the poor little guy. The animals were great fun and he loved to touch all of them. He got to quack at the duck and the chickens, moo at the cow, and baa at the seep. His favorite thing by far, though, was the guy dressed up like a big, smiling, somewhat scary-looking bunny. We were standing in line to see him and Tyler was waving to him the whole time. When it was finally our turn he was so excited. We set him on the bunny-man's lap and he just sat there with a little shy grin. When I felt like we were done, I held out my hands to get him and he didn't want to leave the bunny. He sat there, not doing or saying anything, but just wanting to stay there. The bunny-man must have thought it was cute because he gave him a big squeeze and a pat on the head. I picked Tyler up and he immediately started crying and blowing the bunny-man kisses through the tears. It was then that we realized that we'd have to purchase a gigantic bunny suit.

Anyway, that was fun. Tyler wouldn't even try the cotton candy, though. Seriously, that kid is missing out. He also doesn't eat chocolate chip cookies. Or cake. He doesn't get these oddities from my side of the family. Also, I mentioned before that he mostly says barn yard animal words... That got me thinking that maybe, for future reference, I ought to list the other words he now says while it's still short. Here it goes in no particular order: Quack, Moo, Arff, Meow, Baa, shoe, more, wha?, ball, car, church, Mom, Da, nana (banana), boo(k), no, yes. Sometimes we think he says other things, but they haven't been repeated more than once or twice, so we don't know for sure. Tyler also loved hunting for eggs and finding little surprises in them. In fact, he probably enjoyed opening and closing the easter eggs and gasping every time at the prize than the prize itself.

In other news, Jermey's liking his job. He's been training with all the other departments so far, and so hasn't really done any of his own job. But he likes his boss and the employees that he's met thus far. It seems that most people who work there stay there for a long time. That says something about the work environment. Anyway, I won't go into detail, but we're just so happy he has this job. Jeremy comes home happy from work every day, I'm happy when he comes home. I think it will be a while before you hear him lamenting, "I have to go to work tomorrow". We count work as a blessing!!

Cheers!

Jeni

A face like this can only mean one thing: Jeremy got a job!!!!

So here's the low down: Thursday morning Jeremy had the interview with the HR Director as mentioned in the prior post. He was told at the end of the interview that he'd get a call from them "later that week or on Monday". We were completely bummed because we just wanted to KNOW, and we didn't want to have to stress it all weekend long. I had just begun to make french toast for dinner (I know, fancy huh?!) when Jeremy got the call. The GM offered Jeremy the job. He'll be the HR Representative for G&K in Utah. As soon as Jeremy hung up the phone we were both crying. Tyler was laughing at us because he didn't know what was going on. We then got on our knees and thanked the Lord for helping us through our trials. We cried some more, and then started calling family and friends. I can't describe what it feels like to finally have that stress gone. It's amazing that we could physically feel it being lifted off of our shoulders. Suddenly life is brighter and we're just happy little clams. Jeremy's a little nervous to get back into the workforce, but I know he'll be great. I think the hardest part will be leaving little Tyler. The light in all of this is that Jeremy has been able to spend so much time with Tyler. Tyler couldn't love his daddy more, and I know that it will be a hard adjustment for both of them. Jeremy starts his new job this upcoming Monday. It's just so exciting, and a huge relief! I just can't believe that we've made it this long without him working. We've truly been blessed!!

One downside of Jeremy getting a job: I think I've gained three pounds this weekend. What do you do when you celebrate? That's right. Eat. And we've eaten a lot. My parents, along with Emily, Brent & Becca came that night to celebrate with us. We ate at Porters because Jeremy wanted a steak. Unfortunately Tyler's teeth were hurting him so badly that he screamed the whole time we were there, so we had to take turns holding him in the car. His medicine kicked in right before it was time to leave. Our good friends Kelly and Melanie Summers (who we suspect are the only ones who read this blog... Hi guys!) also dropped by that night and brought Jeremy balloons and root beer floats. Mmmm... Then we spent the weekend with my twin brother Jeff and his wife Alicia and ate. Then, we ate more. Finally, we ate again, until my stomach could take no more. Needless to say, I'm on a diet for the next 10 weeks to make up for that one weekend.

And now, a story: Friday morning Jeremy remembered that it was garbage day and that he had to get the garbage can out within the next 2 minutes or we'd be forced to live another week holding our noses while we pass the big black can. He went outside in his garment top and pajama pants and neglected to put on his shoes. Unfortunately, it was snowing and there was mushy blanket of slush covering our driveway. Now, any of you who have been to our house know about our dreaded driveway. It's pitched at a 45 degree angle up to our house, and in the winter, it's a nightmare. Anyhoo, Jeremy comes back inside after taking the garbage can out and he has a sad look on his face. He begins to whimper to get my attention. I asked him what was wrong. Apparently, he was taking out the garbage and slipped on the slush. Down he went, along with the garbage can, sliding all the way down on his bum. He stopped at the end of the driveway, but the garbage can kept going into the street. Garbage was everywhere. Looking back, I wish I had taken a picture of his wet bum when he came back in. "Did anybody see you?" I wondered. Because I'm pretty sure they were laughing if they did. "I think Becky Anderson did!" He replied. I'll have to ask her about it next time at church. I'm sure we'll have a good chuckle about it.

One more thing of note (I know, it's getting to be like a novel)... I was going to take Tyler out to the park today, so I got him all ready and then was putting on my socks and shoes. Somehow Tyler fell and hit his mouth on my dresser. Again, there was blood everywhere. He cut his little lip. This is his first little accident that involved any blood, and I wondered how I was supposed to clean a cut on a mouth. Because he just wanted to suck on it. Then I started wondering how I knew if he needed stitches or not. So I ended up calling one of the experts: My mom. She suggested letting him suck on ice. I had something better: A frozen "Gogurt". It ended up being a brilliant idea because it stopped the crying AND the bleeding. Thanks, mom.

I'll end with a picture or two I took of Tyler's haircut. Before:

After (I took these today. I didn't do his hair, but you get the idea):

XOXO

Jeni

A Night in Review

So a couple interesting things of note happened last night.

Story #1: I woke up sometime in the middle of the night last night because Jeremy was getting out of bed. I look over, and he's looking at the things on the top of our high dresser. "What are you doing?" I wonder.
"Where's the baby?!" He says with an alarmed voice.
"He's asleep," I answer, annoyed that I'm awake for this little sleep walking drama.
Jeremy then starts picking stuff up off the dresser. I don't have much up there, but what I do have happens to be breakable: A potted plant, a vase and a statue my sister gave me. "Where is he?" He says again.
"He's asleep in his room."
"Here, hold this." He hands me the potted plant. I reach out, because I know that he may drop it if I don't.
"Jeremy, wake up. Put all that stuff back." He has the statue and the wedding picture in his hand. "Wake up!"
He stands there confused. Then he fumbles around with the picture, trying to stand it back up. It takes a while. Then he just stands there. "Here, take this plant from me. I want to go back to sleep." So he does, and then climbs back into bed, snoring away.

Story #2: This morning Jeremy went to go get Tyler out of bed and found that there was blood everywhere. At first, there's shock, then concern. But immediately he deduced from the caked blood all over his face that it had come from his "dot". Tyler has had a little red dot that sticks out on his cheek for a couple months. The doctor said it was either a red mole or a hemangioma. So we were going to wait it out and see if it went away on it's own. Well, apparently he rubbed that thing off his face sometime during the night. The result was blood and more blood. It looked like a bloody crime scene in there. So I spent the morning stain treating and washing all the bed linens and blankets, along with the bed slats. It's times like these when you're always reminded of CSI. And I could see them coming into my home to investigate a crime (that I obviously didn't commit) and shining those little blue lights everywhere. They'd shine it on the crib. "Something obviously happened in here. They tried to clean it up. They always think that they can fool us." And then Grissom will tell a inappropriate-for-a-grizzly-murder-scene-joke, after which the theme song will start playing. I'm pleased to report, however, that Tyler is fine and it apparently didn't hurt him at all because he didn't wake up in the night crying.

In other news, we think Jeremy has a chance at getting this job at G&K. He's had five interviews with them thus far, for a total time of about 9 hours talking with them. They were supposed to give an answer today, but they called last night and asked him to talk to the HR Director that is in Alabama. So that's tomorrow morning, and then the GM said he'd call him later that evening. So we're hoping all of this is a formality. If it's not and Jeremy doesn't get the job, then they're really bad decision makers (who's ever heard of 6 interviews?!) and he wouldn't want to work there anyway. But, we're crossing our fingers that this long and grueling trial will be over within the next couple of days.

Tyler is also finally cutting his upper teeth. He's getting four of them at once. He never had a problem with teething with his two lower teeth, so I wasn't too worried about this round of newcomers. I was dead wrong about that, though. He's been an ornery little boy the past couple of days on and off and we don't really know what to do for him. He doesn't like to chew on things like other babies do, so I just give him his Binky and try to distract him. When it seems like he's really hurting I'll give him a little Tylenol and that seems to help. Poor little guy.

One other thing, we've decided to have this be a private blog. So, any of you who would like to have access to our blog, please give me your email address and I'll give you access.

XOXO