Our Little Man

I picked up some new church clothes for Collin. He was loving them this morning. Landon took the pictures on his phone. He forgot to send me the one of Collin playing on the ipod touch. It was priceless. Check out our little man! (I am setting up a hair appointment for Collin as his hair has gotten out of control!)

Mel Hammel

(I swiped the above picture from his daughter's facebook page. I hope that is okay Sally. I just loved how he is singing and smiling. Just the way I will always remember him.)
My Great Uncle, Melvin Charles Hammel passed away today at the age of 88. My dad called me today to let me know. I am so glad I picked up my phone even if it meant I had to leave a meeting. To hear my dad give me the news was the strength I needed to make it through the rest of the day. Uncle Mel became a surrogate grandfather to me after both of my grandfathers passed away when I was 4. He told me a couple of years ago that he felt that the best gift he could give to his best friend Ray (my dad's father) was to look after his family. And he did. Uncle Mel and Aunt Rita are in many of my childhood memories. They came up from California to visit us in BC and Alberta. They even visited me when I was at Utah State University. They were welcoming to my husband at every family reunion. Landon loved sitting and listening to Mel tell stories. I will always remember his voice when he sang. I could listen to him sing for hours or just tell stories. This last November on Veterans Day I felt strongly to write him a letter thanking him for the service he gave during WWII. I talked about what a great influence he was in my life and that I would pass that knowledge on to my children. My parents were able to visit with Mel and Rita a few weeks ago. They went down and spent a week with them. I talked to my dad after the visit and he talked about how wonderful the trip was. How Mel and Rita sat and told stories about my grandparents, their lives, the war, everything. He told me that Mel mentioned how my letter had made him happy because he worries that people will forget the sacrifices made. I am grateful my parents were able to make it down to spend time making a few more memories. Life is so precious and fragile. I know that Mel is up in heaven causing havoc and singing his heart out; waiting somewhat patiently for his wife to join him. I am grateful for the knowledge that I will see him again one day. Thank-you Uncle Mel for your love, your example, and your generosity. My life is better because you have been in it.

Mel and Rita

One of the greatest Love Stories ever and its REAL

The New Teacher

My car made really funny sounds pulling into work yesterday morning. I was really worried about it so I called Landon and asked him to take a look sometime during the day. Halfway through 5th period he came out with the kids. Collin had fallen asleep so he slept on the floor of my classroom (not very comfortable) on top of my jacket. Emily loves coming here and know the routine. She grabbed some change from my wallet and headed down to the vending machine to get cheese and crackers. She is hilarious about having to get food when she comes to visit me. She loves our cafeteria and was sad that we had already had lunch. I had a meeting during 6th hour so the kids were left in my room. I showed Emily where I was for my meeting so she could find me. I found her skipping up and down the hallways just for fun. :) When I got back to my room I found that she had filled in my homeroom's job chart with times copied off the bell schedule. She had also written letters on my board. She told me that she was being a teacher to all the students in my classroom. She asked me to take my seat. She "introduced" me to a few of the students. She got down my globe and started showing "us" different places. She pointed at the Atlantic Ocean and said, "It has an A, a T, and an L and says it is a river." She gave me a stern look when I corrected her and said Atlantic Ocean. When we went to leave she showed me that she had been hiding the letters to her name in the letters she had written on the board. Can you find them? :) She asked if she could stay with me until I was finished with homework lab. She was so excited to spend time with me. Collin was sad to have missed time in my class. He loves it too. On the way home I asked Emily if she was going to become a teacher. She said, "No, I am going to be a dentist and poke needles in people." :) No idea where that came from. (PS Landon took my car across the street to Les Schwab due to the sound came from my wheel well. They rotated the tires and couldn't find anything wrong. Car is running great now. No idea what was going on.) The pictures aren't great because I took them on my cell phone which is old. :)

What is up with us???

Not been very good lately at keeping up with my blog. Life has been coming at us fast and I feel like most days I am just treading water. I hope to be better at this as I keep these as our family journal. So many fun and funny things have been going on and I don't want to forget them. Such as:

The Thor's Hammer Incident
My hammer had gone missing on Friday. I used it to hammer in a nail in the kids room, put it down for a minute and when I turned back to pick it up it was missing. Emily was the only one in the room and she swore she didn't have it. I figured it would come up and forgot about it. On Sunday morning I was getting the kids ready for church (as Landon was down in Utah with family). I had asked Collin a bazillion times to get his shoes on. He was running around as the Hulk. (Wish I'd known that it was a forshadowing for Church) I finally got him into his room and asked him to get his shoes out of the pile in his closet. He looks at me with his hands on his hips and said, "This is a job for Four's (Thor's) hammer!" He goes into the pile of shoes and comes out holding my hammer. I grabbed it from him and doubled over in laughter. That kid cracks me up!

The Family Picture Incidents
Emily is quite a little artist. A few weeks ago in church she drew a family picture. I need to take a picture of it and post it. While she was working on it she asked me for Landon and my "numbers". That is her way of asking you how old you are. I passed on the information which she promptly put on our shirts. She then added hers and Collin's "numbers". I went back to listening to the speaker. Next thing I know she proudly hands me the picture. I see fabulous pictures of each member of our family. Plus three more kids. Yep, three. According to Emily she has a sister Kate who is 5 (from the number on her shirt), a brother named Hashmakaka who is 2 and a baby brother who has no name that is 1. I found out the names when I asked her who the other 3 family members are. This picture was not a one time occurance. My friend subbed for Emily's primary teacher at church and had them draw pictures of their families. Emily drew our family and three more kids. I think she is trying to give me a message. Too bad I'm not listening. (The name Hashmakaka is a running joke between Emily and her dad. It is the name of a camel in a Christmas book my grandmother gave us.)

The Girls Night/Couple Night Incidents
A few weekends ago I really wanted a date night. After talking with Landon we decided to invite a few of our friends to come out with us to dinner and a movie. The Johnsons and the Dances came out to dinner with us. (We got a joint babysitter for all of our kids as we are the only ones who get babysitters on a regular basis). After dinner Landon and I joined the Higbees at Sherlock Holmes. Lots of fun!
Last weekend was my friend Lorilee's birthday. She wanted to have a girls night and a night where her thre closest friends plus their spouse's got together to play games. So Friday night after our ward potluck and the Elders Quorum moved a family I had 13 ladies over to my house for a girls night. We sat around and chatted, giggled, laughed, played games and had lots of fun. For many of the people it was the first time they had hung out together. We all made plans to do it again. Landon is actually encouraging me to do it. He thinks that it was good for all of us. My friend Alicia's husband Blake came over to keep Landon company. Good food and good company equals success.
On Saturday Landon headed down to Utah for some time with his brother and parents. The Johnson's and Dance's came to our house that night for cake, ice cream and games. We hung out for a couple of hours. It was lots of fun even though I did miss Landon. All of our kids played nicely together so fun was had by all. I ordered the cake from a local bakery owned by some of our friends. It was SOOOOO good. We were sad that the Moores couldn't make it as their daughter suddenly was very sick to her stomach.

The Changing Majors Incident
A few weeks into the semester Landon had a life changing experience and coupled with some excellent advice from a school counsellor Landon took a leap of faith and changed majors. I can't remember the name of the program but he will be able to do x-rays, ultrasounds, etc. IT is a bachelor program and ISU has a really great, well rounded program. It only puts him back a year and he is so excited to complete the program. And we are excited for him to. He dropped all but one class and will be going full time this summer.

I will leave this long post now but expect more in the future, especially if I get around to downloading some pictures from my camera. :)

Are you excited???

I sure am!

Scaring Landon

Last week I scared Landon. Like really scared him. I actually made him scream. :)

I had fallen asleep but didn't realize I was sleeping. I thought I was laying in my bed almost asleep and through half closed eyes I "looked" and thought someone was standing over me. I screamed. In real life I sat straight up and screamed. Which made Landon sit up in bed and scream because he had been asleep and had no idea why I was screaming. When he realized what had happened he started to laugh. I on the other hand was still trying to calm down. He laughed and laughed and laughed. Afterwards he told me to never do that again. :) Like I did it on purpose. :)

Courage

I have taught alot of kids in my career. There are many that have touched my life in wonderful ways. There is one student (and his family) that I always looked up to. He was never in any of my classes (actually he is gifted) but I had the chance to be around him at school. I was able to help support him and a group at school (with their parents) fundraise to go to an international competition. He was always so positive. He had survived a tumor behind his eye when he was a child, even granted a wish from the Make a Wish Foundation. He had beat the tumor and was a great kid to be around. His parents were so friendly and kind. I recently found out that he had been diagnosed with another brain tumor. He is a freshman this year in high school. The town has been supporting fundraisers to help with costs. He made the following video to let those who didn't know him get to know him. Being far away, it was nice to hear and see him again. It brought tears to my eyes to watch him laugh, joke, sing and say thank-you. I just wanted to share a video that helped me put life into perspective. Watch, and let it change you. I know that I am going to work at being more positive and happy. And if you want you can donate at Scotia Bank to help him out.

Jasper's Video

Emmy turns 5!

Emily came into our room this mornig at 8 am to let us know that it was her birthday. She kept casually looking at her presents next to the bed. I told her we needed to wait until Collin was up. I asked if she wanted to hear the story of how she got her name. She listened carefully through the whole story. She was so excited. THen she told me she wanted to get her "baby" book. It was a freebie online book I made that has about 10 pages and covers the first year of her life. She love it! Landon, Emiy and I went page by page and Landon and I would tell her the stories behind the pictures. She has heard them all a million times but was excited to hear them again. Collin came wandering in and so we opened gifts. The lalaloopsy little sister that she wanted for her birthday finally showed up in a store a week ago and it was on sale. We had already bought her presents so I grabbed her birthday money from Grandma and Grandpa Hull and Matt's family and bought it for her from them. She had been snooping in my room the night before and found it so she wasn't surprised but was super excited. Next was the lalaloopsy from her dad, a lalaloopsy costume from me and a lalaloopsy purse with chapstcks from Collin. I quickly got ready so that I could finish all the last minute preparations for her party at 10:30 am. Landon helped out too so it went really fast. My brother Matt called and Emily talked with him and his kids on speaker phone. Then I got to chat with my brother for awhile. A big thanks to the moms who stayed behind to help out with the 20 kids running around my house. (Thanks Lorilee, Janie, Suzie, Kierra and Cami). Also a big thank-you to Emily's regular babysitter who came because Emily invited her and helped out with the cupcake decorating. The party was a huge success. Only two kids did not come. For future reference the kids who came were: Cassie, Maggie, Zerric, Audrey, Dreyden, Isaac, Annabelle, Caden (and his baby sister), Madi, Bodi, Berkley, Hallie, Carter, Caleb (and Emmett for half an hour), Abby, Anna, Emma, Stella, and my two kids. Emily invited her friends and their younger siblings. I divided the kids into four groups and they rotated through the activities. (Yes I am a school teacher.) One was "Pin the Eye/Eye Patch on the Lalaloopsy". Emily and I had made them a week before when she had come to work with me. Hilarious results. (All I will say is Zerric takes after his dad) Another activity was decorating a cupcake and then picking a lalaloopsy pencil topper to go on top. Then they got to take the topper home. The third activity was a modified basketball. They used the lalaloopsy pets I had made and tried to "shoot" them into the laundry basket on the other side of the room. The fourth activity was to play in the toy room. They stayed at each activity for 10 minutes. Then they all went down to the play room while the moms and Kestrel got the finger food on the table. Then the kids ate picnic style on the living room floor. Afterwards we opened presents (Emily was spoiled.) The lalaloopsy ferris wheel stole the day. (Thank-you Caden!) We blew out the candles and handed out button sugar cookies to everyone. Everyone then headed home with a pencil, pencil topper, colouring book (lalaloopsy for girls, individualized Story Studio for boys) and a lalaloopsy pet. Great time was had by all! Kaylene and Cami stayed behind to help clean up. It was nice to visit with them. Emily received two more phone calls in the afternoon from my dad (who shares her birthday) and from Aunt Nomi. Emily is feeling very spoiled. :) We are waiting for the arrival of my inlaws. A great birthday!

We are so blest to have Emily in our lives. We love her and the joy she shares with us. She is loving and kind. She thinks of those around her. She is so smart and I can't believe the growth that she has made this last year. She is so excited to go to "big kids" school. I grateful for the blessing she is to us. We Love our Emmy!

The slideshow of her birthday is below!

Free picture slideshow generated with Smilebox

Love my Kids

Emily
- Emily and I had doctor appointments last Wednesday and Emily has to have her last immunization shot before school. We had talked about it on the way there and the nurse talked to her as well. She dutifully went through her well child checkup and sat back down. The doctor and I talked as he went through the priliminary questions for my yearly check up (since I was a new patient to him.) Emily politely asked me to let the doctor know she was ready for her needle. I passed on the message and he went out to get the nurse. She came in and Emily climbed up on the table. The shot went into her thigh. I was hugging her which stopped her from sitting up when the shot went in. Emily instantly started to cry. I handed her the sucker from the nurse. She put it into her mouth and stopped crying within seconds. On the way home she told me that the nurse gave her a shot so the disgusting flu virus would not get her sick. I explained it wasn't for the flu virus but that now she can go to the big kid school in September. She then informed me that the shot hurts a little but big kids know that suckers take the pain away and so now it doesn't hurt.

- Emily has trouble calming down once she has become upset. (Just like her mother.) So for the fast 3 years she and I have been working on calm down strategies. It can take almost half an hour to calm her down and it can test my patience. The other night I was in bed and could hear Emily crying. I asked what was wrong and she told me she didn't want me to go downstairs but to stay upstairs. I informed her that I was in bed and planned to stay there (which is upstairs.) Suddenly she is in my room and sobbing. Almost hysterical. She gasping told me that she wanted a drink. I told her that I wasn't getting her a drink until she had calmed down and was back in bed. (I know, mean mom.) She headed back to bed and this is what I heard:
"It's ok Emmy. You can do it. Deep breath. Stop crying. *sob*sob* Deep breath. In through your nose and out your mouth. Blow through a straw. You can do it Emmy. That's it! That's it! Deep breath. You can do it Emmy!"
Over and over she repeated these type of statements. I actually started to giggle. (I know, mean mom) I was so proud of her though. It took less than 5 minutes for her to calm herself down. I told her how wonderful she was and gave her the cup. :) Love my little girl!

Collin
- He has taken some steps backward in his toilet training. He sleeps with a diaper at night because he is not able to make it through the night dry. The other night when I was cleaning a poopy diaper he told me that when he is big and strong like Emily that he will use the potty again. I told him it wasn't an option and that he was strong enough now. He thought about it and said maybe. I love him but there are days..... :)

- Every night before Collin goes to bed he tells me he loves me. It never gets old.

Iron On Transfer Fun

Last Saturday Rita called to let me know that Cassie wanted to have a playdate with Emily but that she was sick and would be unable to have her come over. I was excited to offer to have Cassie and Maggie come over to my house for the playdate. Rita does a lot for us and I wish I could do more for her. The girls came over and my kids were really excited. I had to run out to the store so Landon babysat the kids. My friend Lorilee came with me as I searched for the last things I needed for Emily's birthday party. I decided to pick up some white tanktops to do a craft with the kids when I got back. I had thought that Collin wouldn't be interested so I only grabbed a package of three. The girls gathered around the laptop to tell me what they wanted on their shirts. Cassie - Barbie Princess Charm School, Emily - Lalaloopsy, Maggie - Disney Princesses. None of these came as a surprise to me. Collin thought it was cool so he asked for Spiderman. I printed them as 5x7 onto Iron on Transfer paper. I couldn't find a blank t-shirt for Collin so his Spiderman has not found a home yet. Each girl helped me prep their shirt and iron the transfer on. They were so excited to finish them. It was a lot of fun. :) The photo was taken on my cell phone because I forgot to take the picture before I took the girls home. So it is not the best picture. :)