mothers day

Showing posts with label Simon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Simon. Show all posts

Thursday, December 31, 2009

Christmas 2009

We had a fun Christmas Eve with all of the family last Thursday evening. Jamie and Kelly came late because of other family parties and Melinda didn't get to come at all because she had bronchitis - we missed her. We tried our hand at fondue and decided we need a lot more practice - I over heated the chocolate and the cheese was stringy ... so they didn't look very pretty but they tasted good - and I MISSED the yummy artichoke dip that Da was going to bring. It was an interesting Christmas Eve - every year I work hard to find just the right story or program for our family Christmas Eve and then every year we have the Christmas Story done by the grandkids. Well this year I just plain couldn't think of anything to do program wise, so we decided that we would just get together and eat and visit and then do the reinactment of the nativity.

We waited for Jamie and Kelly to bring their babies so we would have a baby Jesus and then we decided not to do the nativity at all - we had a fun time visiting and eating and thought that would be sufficient. But we missed the nativity --- it isn't what you call spiritual because the kids don't practice it in advance or anything - but it is definitely one of our family traditions... and it was missed. It also is a break in the talking and eating and I missed the chance to stop and take a moment and appreciate the reason for the Season -- the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. The evening felt incomplete because we didn't 'do' the spiritual part of it!

Another reason that the evening was incomplete was because we were missing Makae. We did get to see her though - a bunch of the family all headed down to North Salt Lake for a 2 pm visit with her. It was a wonderful chance to hug her and talk to her and watch her get excited over seeing many of the family that she hadn't seen for two months.

We also got to see Makae on the Tuesday before Christmas - her whole group put on a very fun musical program for us - This is Makae singing with the girls at Lifeline. She seems to enjoy the staff and the students and has adjusted to their routine very well. She is learning to make some good decisions with her life right now and she is in our every prayer.

It was so fun watching Shawn and Kristanne's boys lovingly hold their new little cousins. All three of them were so excited to be holding a baby. Of course the babies were the hit of the party with everyone - here we have Ethan and Cade holding Taylie and Brayden. Taylie even looks a little bit like Ethan!
Here's Cade - in his fancy new jammies which he LOVED!! With a sweet Brayden
Taylie and Brayden were held and held and held that whole Christmas Eve and Christmas Day - they had to be exhausted after having to entertain all their aunts and uncles and cousins and gramma's and granpas!!
Jace was really excited to try and hold Brayden. At first I held Jace as he held Brayden but it didn't take me long to realize he did a good job holding the babies. So we sat him on the floor and let him go solo. We had a fun evening with everyone - there is nothing I love more than spending time with my family. It gets a bit BUSY in my little house when all of us are there but there is no cure for that problem - its only going to get worse as the families get bigger. I am still waiting for my kids to buy me a bigger house!! ;-D


But we had a lovely evening and then the next day Ed and I got up early and were on the road to Lehi by 6:45 am so we could be there when Ben and Simon came down the stairs to see what Santa had brought.

This picture of Benjamin is priceless - the look on his face is exactly what Christmas morning is all about. The excitement and thrill of a new train set! One that he could make go all by himself!

this is our own version of Godzilla - as soon as Simon realized he could make his train go foward and back, he had to get in the middle of things - literally!
Here's Ben watching Da as she sets the train back on the track again - I bet Dirk and Da wish they had a nickle for every time they have had to do that in the last week!
Benji got a normal looking train and Simon got the 'front-runner'....it didn't take him long to figure out how to get the little person in the train out and then he discovered he could make the train go on the carpet as well as the track...the rest of the time we were there he was driving his train all over the carpet. We tried to get Ben and Simon interested in their gifts but nothing doing...all they could see was TRAIN!!

After we had spent 45 minutes at Dirk and Da's house we got back in the car and headed to Provo where Kecia had been waiting patiently (???) for us to arrive. She woke up Glenn when we pulled up (he was glad to get to sleep in an extra hour!)
this picture should be very last --- I had been taking pictures of Emma and her trucks - there she was running back and forth in her jammies and her high heels and watching the trucks go = she was sooooo excited. Then I looked over at her mommie... sitting there with her hat and scarf on, her stack of presents in front of her and holding up her new saute pan in HER jammies and with her new high heels on too! Like mother , like daughter!
Note princess Emma's glass slippers - she didn't want to have anything to do with her new princess dresses and jewelry and crowns but she put on her new high heels as she chased back and forth watching the trucks going.
She didn't touch the trucks or the tracks - she just ran back and forth and back and forth saying truck truck truck
Like Ben and Simon - Emma was so excited about her tracks and trucks she was not the least bit interested in the presents we brought or any of the other presents under the tree - she would look for a second and then back to the 'truck, truck, truck'.
This was what was waiting for Emma when she first came into the living room - a whole box full of princess dresses and high heels and crowns and jewelry ... NO THANK YOU, NOT INTERESTED.....TRUCK ......TRUCK.....TRUCK!


Thank you Kecia and Glenn and Dirk and Da for sharing Christmas morning with us. Ed just decided on Christmas eve that he wanted to watch the little ones and see and feel the excitement of Christmas morning. I wasn't too sure about it (after all, I didn't get to open my presents until 11 am when we got back home!!)

Christmas Day was a fantastic day as we got to spend it with the people we love, watching the excitement on their faces as they opened the gifts that we had lovingly picked out to give them. Christmas is such a special time - as we drove down South that morning we saw a cross walk above the freeway where someone had taken cups and created the message in the fence that said "HAPPY BIRTHDAY JESUS"

Mauri and Ira and their sweet kids got to our house about 12:30. Grandpa was anxious to give them all rides on the RZR but it was sooooo cold and his hopes of pulling them on their sleighs over behind the church house on the lawn there were dashed because of the ice mountain between the lawn and the parking lot. After they left I got a half an hour nap (which is a good nap for me) and then Shawn and Kristanne came with the three boys. While they were still here Jamie and Kelly and the twinners showed up. We had lots of good food all day long and again, lots of love and laughter. About five pm we followed Shawn and Kris down to Kelly and Terrie's house to see grandpa Merritt - All of Kelly's family were there plus Jeff and Teresa and Skye and Katie Jo - so again, we enjoyed the love and laughter of our wonderful family. Teresa and Jeff added so much fun to the group.

Ed and I were getting ready to leave when the phone rang and it was Chase calling from North Carolina. Kelly put the phone on speaker mode and we all sat around the table for an hour chatting with Elder Nielson. It was great - and it was a marvelous ending to a marvelous day. As he bore his testimony of Jesus and all that Christ did for us I couldn't help but feel an even closer tie to my Savior.

People complain about how commercialized Christmas is but I love it because it gives me a reason to put smiles on the faces of the people I love the very most. Christ is the reason - we ARE celebrating his birth day - Thank you Jesus for inviting us to such a wonderful birthday party!

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Cute grandbabies

Okay - my last two posts have been serious - this is a fun one!! I finally got to go visit my youngest grandkids on Thursday of last week. I am going again this week. The kids were happy to see me but not real sure they wanted me to hold them right off but they warmed up real fast. After all it had been weeks since they had seen me.
Once Emma decided that I was actually her FAVORITE grandma (grin) she warmed right up and started talking to me. She is a serious conversationalist. Even though you may NOT have the slightest idea what she is saying you can carry on a wonderful conversation. We talked and talked - she would jabber at me and I would jabber right back. I haven't the slightest idea what I was telling her but she loved it!! And so did I!!

She was on my lap most of the visit though she would get down and walk over to something else and then come back. One time I was talking to Kecia and she was standing like this wanting to be picked up and put back on my lap and I swear she said ga-MAA , very loudly, demanding that I look at her and not at her mama and put her on my lap like I should have done two minutes ago!!

Then, after a couple of hours at Kecia and Emma's house I headed back north to Melinda's house to see my boys. Ben grinned at me but wasn't too sure about letting me pick him up and give him a hug . But he was happy to let me sit at the table with him and play with his play dough cookie cutters. I have never seen such a huge bag of cookie cutters - I think it said there were 100 of them!!!

I thought this serious picture of Ben was really sweet. I gave him a candy heart and he licked it for 45 minutes!! Until it was finally down to nothing. It would take him weeks to eat a bag full! Simon woke up and mama went off to do some exercise and go to the library - just some 'me' time for Da. So grandma took the boys into the living room and got out her balls of yarn.

Up to this point they have been Ben's delight. I get a ball of yarn out of the bag and hand it to him. He identifies it - i.e., Big blue ball; little yellow ball. The medium sized balls he just tells me what color it is. Then he hands it back to me to toss it and I usually toss the ball of yarn so it bounces off his head. Well, Simon was sitting on the floor quietly playing while Ben and I tossed all the balls all over the floor . What a surprise when we finished tossing all the balls and looked down at Simon and there was Mr. Simon having a ball...with the balls!

Yes - it took me 15 minutes to untangle that mess. What fun!
Here is a cute video of Simon - he was really laughing and playing and tossing the balls and having so much fun until I got the camera out. It takes about 30 seconds before he starts getting excited again.

Finally - here is Benjamin again - showing us what he candy looks like - I put this one in for Dirk so he could see how cute both his boys are.


Melinda got back just in time for me to head out the door. I didn't tell her in advance that I really needed to leave at 6 instead of 7 - I didn't want her to worry about hurrying back. She had gone for a nice long walk and then went to the library where she was able to sit and relax and read and enjoy some quiet time of her own. It tickled me to know that I was able to give her a little bit of 'down' time.

I don't know why I hurried so fast - I should have called Amee - one of her clients showed up almost an hour late and she was running behind all evening. If I had called her then Melinda and could have visited more. Oh well - maybe this week. I won't set another appointment for Thursday night, I promise.

Thanks guys for making grandma susan feel so loved.

Friday, December 5, 2008

Another video of cute grandbabies

I went down to Lehi on Wednesday to watch the boys while Dirk and Da had a short getaway up at Park City. I knew that Wednesday would be easy because Simon and Ben are used to me watching them all afternoon, feeding them supper and then putting them to bed. What they are not used to is waking up to grandma the next morning and I figured that it would be a difficult morning. So I invited Kecia and Emma to come play that day.

The boys slept till 7:10 am and that was great. I walked into Simon's room and he was just a grinning at me. I thought - okay one down, but Ben was the one I was most worried about. I walked into Ben's room and he grinned and said "Grandma" (or at least his rendition of it!). It was so easy. The boys didn't mind having me for 24 hours at all. They were sweethearts and they napped when they were supposed to and played like the cuties they are and all was well. Kecia and Emma showed up about 10:15 or so, figuring that they would be walking into a screaming mess. NOPE!! We were downstairs watching Mama Mia (we have a new ABBA fan on our hands and he's only two years old!) We started the movie over for Kecia so she would know what was going on. I had been just about ready to take Simon upstairs for a nap cause his eyelids were getting heavy.

But when Cousin Emma and Aunt Kecia showed up he was ready to play again - for maybe ten minutes. Kecia wanted hold him and he just cuddled up under her chin and lay there like the softy he can be. After about ten minutes we decided we better go ahead and put him down for his nap or else he would be falling asleep on Kecia...which she didn't mind but we were afraid that he would wake up when we transferred him to his crib.

So Emma and Ben played (rather well as long as Emma didn't play with any of BEN's toys!!! Or even grandma's yarn balls that she had brought for Ben to play with!!) - she was allowed to play with Simon's toys!

So - Kecia and I watched Mama Mia (I had seen it in the theatre, had seen it once the night before, and had already watched it through once that morning plus the restart for Kecia - but I love the movie and it wasn't a hardship to watch it again.

As soon as the movie got over Benji was saying 'again, again" but I talked him into going upstairs for lunch. He ate a carton of yogurt and then wanted me to fix him a quesadilla but then he decided he didn't want it. That was okay - Emma ate it. He ate Emma's raisins. Kecia and I ate Melinda's wonderful homemade pot pie. All were happy.

About 1:00 Ben started getting tired so I put him down for his nap. Simon was just waking up. He had been sleeping for 2 1/2 hours! So I gave Simon a bottle and then sat him on the floor to play with cousin Emma and he thought she was great fun!

Kecia was all excited over Emma's newest "word". All morning she was trying to get Emma to tell her what a duck said. Emma wasn't about to perform on command. Actually I had the camera on and Simon was being just darling for the camera and then I panned up to Emma and she said 'quack quack quack" and then she hissed like a snake.... her two newest tricks. Then I panned back to Simon who was laughing so cute....and then I realized I had the video on 'standby' and missed it ALL!!!!!




So here you see us being ignored royally by Miss Emma and some darling grins and laughs by Simon. Of course, Ben isn't in any of the pictures cause he was upstairs sound asleep.

As you can see, Emma still has her jammies on. Kecia did bring clothes to dress her in but she looked so dang cute in her jammies with her pink bows we left the jammies on. Here is another video of Emma ignoring us and Simon bobbing his head in excitement but it is kind of fun to see Simon just learning how to creep... it won't be long and mom will have to get out the stair guards cause he will be moving all over the place!



Dirk and Da came home about 2 or so on Thursday and they seemed to have had a great time. Thanks guys for letting me play with the babies !!! I sure wish I hadn't been working full time when my other grandbabies were this little! Now they are big kids.

Sunday, November 23, 2008

Another visit to Provo and Lehi

I blogged about Wednesday - our Relief Society Visiting Teaching Conference (its two blogs down, just keep scrolling) and I blogged about Friday - going to see the movie Twilight, but I left off the most important day - Thursday. I drove down to Provo and then back to Lehi for my weekly playdates with my three youngest grandkids. I need to make playdates with my older grandkids too!


Anyway, here is Ben - and his new toy. I bought it for all the grandkids and accidently left it at Ben's house. I have now decided I want the green spiny ball back but I will find another worm to share with the rest of the grandkids. I am sure I can find one at Flying J. I bought it on the way to Beaver two weeks ago at a gas station. This spiny orange thing is about a foot long and has an lcd light inside of it that rolls from one end to the other. It turns on with action and if it sits more than a minute, then it turns itself off. When it is on, it flashes the light through the orange body and Ben loved it. He played with it for 20 minutes --- light on, light off, light on, he would say over and over again.


Here is Simon - he can sit up on his own very well. He is downstairs in the playroom - I sat behind him on the cushions for a half an hour until I realized he didn't need my protective arms close by ready to catch him. He is the sweetest little guy and his grin is just adorable - what is Dirk going to think when he sees and holds him ... don't forget the tissues on Tuesday!

We were down in the playroom so Ben could play with the play doh. Ben's idea of playing with play doh is to take it out of the can and put it back in and put the lid back on. He goes from one color to another to another. Of course he knows the colors of each - such a talented kid for only being 2 years old !!

I was playing with Ben and got out my camera and Simon grinned the cutest grin so I turned the camera on and started videoing Simon and Ben quickly brought my attention back to what he was doing. So here you have video of Ben and his play doh - you can hear him tell me the colors very quietly...and then I turn to Simon and got some really cute video of him. Now that he is sitting by himself he sees something he wants and stretches for it. I think he will be crawling in another month to six weeks. Lets hope for Melinda's sake he doesn't start crawling until after the Christmas tree is DOWN!


I have tried for six hours to download this video and its not working. I will try again another day.

O f course I got some cute pictures of Emma too - she was sleeping when I got there and I got to get her up from her nap. She was so excited to see grandma Susan. Her mama hadn't gotten her dressed yet and her hair wasn't in its normal cute bows but she was darling anyway.


I really liked this softness of this picture even though you don't have a good view of her face. Her hair is growing so long and is such a warm pretty color.


I also had a fun visit with Kecia and with Melinda that day. I hate the fact that Dirk is so far away but it is so nice to have a good excuse to drive down to Utah county and see the babies. They grow up so fast...I am thankful I have a chance to share in their lives.

Friday, October 24, 2008

Cute babies

I went south again yesterday to Lehi and Provo. Fun visit with Kecia and Da - and lots of play time with Emma and Simon and Ben.

Benji is growing up so fast. I love how green his eyes look in this picture. Must be the shirt. He was having a rough day today - he is trying to get three new teeth at the same time. OWWW! We got to watch the second DVD of Monsters Inc - it was fantastic. The outtakes were hilarious and all of the information on the story line and story board. It kept Simon and Benji and I entertained for the couple of hours that we watched. Melinda had a chance to go to the temple and I got to play with the boys.

Simon was sitting in his Bumbo just grinning at grandma. He is such a sweetie. While we were watching the movie he just got softer and softer as he lay his head on my shoulder and slept for about an hour. I don't think there is ANYTHING more precious than the feel of a sleeping baby in your arms.


I hit Provo first and spent a couple of hours with Kecia and Emma. Kecia and Glenn have been busy painting the lower cupboards and haven't replaced the magnetic closures on them yet. Emma has a favorite cupboard that she empties out for her mom on a regular basis. She was so excited to see Granma and was just full of her cute grins. Her mom and dad have just discovered how much fun playing with bubbles can be. Thus the video

Sunday, October 19, 2008

A day with Da

I spent Thursday and Friday in Lehi visiting with Da and playing with the boys. We went to Thanksgiving Point where Ben got to ride on the ponies (new word) and laugh at the goats. He played with the goats for 30 minutes - running back and forth between the two cages and laughing at them . He was totally unimpressed with the fact that it was the "Halloween Boo" with fun clowns making balloons, ring tosses and free cookie decorating booths. The weather was great and Mr Simon really enjoyed his afternoon out in the sunshine. That night I got to watch the boys while Melinda got cleaned up cute and headed out to book club. She brought me home a delicious hot cinnemon roll which I gobbled up - half that night and half the next morning!


Friday morning the boys slept in. We sent Melinda off to get the oil changed and make a few other stops (it is SO much easier just getting one person in and out of the car, rather than trying to buckle and unbuckle two cars seats plus your own,,,right DA? ) I called her while she was out and sent her to a few more spots looking for surgical tubing. When I first told her what we needed she said "WHAT?" I thought - she's been married to Dirk for almost THREE years and she doesn't know what surgical tubing is??? WOW!! We needed it for the juicer but none of the three drugstores she went to had it. While she was gone, Kecia showed up with Emma to bring back the canner (Emma's drum!) and we proceeded to can 8 qts of tomatoes and 6 qts of grape juice.

Here you see Simon helping with the canning. Ben was taking a nap and Simon wanted to be a part of the fun. He is demonstrating the proper way to insert your foot into the rack for best tangling purposes. You will also note the firm hold he has on the rack and he wasn't really happy with grandma when she decided she needed to use the canner and didn't want to share her toy with Simon any more.


This week Melinda got to keep the tomatoes (last week they were Kecia's and the two of them each got 3 qts of grapes - thanks to Kristanne for her grapes. The juice ended up being a real pretty purplish pink because they were a combination of concord (purple) and red grapes. We were able to pick out the green grapes and eat them. I cut up a whole plate full of green and red grapes for Ben and then he decided he didn't want them. So I fed them to Emma. She liked em!



Finally - I took this video of my youngest three grandkids. Ben had been tossing Elmo around saying Melmo, Melmo so I got out my camera. Of course then he stopped and got really interested in the movie he had been watching. No grand pictures but cute kids anyway!!

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Visiting the Grandkids

In the last couple of days I have gotten to see almost all of my grandkids and I have loved the hugs!! I missed Jerod when I stopped at Mauri and Ira's and poor Mickie was too sick when I stopped at Kristanne and Shawn's house. In fact, they say she is really contagious so I am extra glad I didn't go give her a hug.

Today I drove down to Provo and had lunch with Kecia and Emma at their house. Kec had leftover bacon carbonera and it was delicious. Of course Emma was full of smiles and laughs. She entertained grandma for a good hour and a half. This is a picture of the newest Mary Kay representative demonstrating how nice the skin creams are!! (Also great for chewing on!!)

Then I headed for Lehi where I got to play with Simon and Benji - Simon is so responsive and has the cutest grin and ...GREAT BIG BLUE EYES TOO!!!

What is it about this latest batch of babies and blue eyes??

I took my bag of yarn balls with me because Ben just loves to play with the BALLS - he spent a good hour taking the balls out of the bag one at a time and tossing them and then bringing then back and putting them back into the bag and then repeating it all over again. Also, every time he brought a ball back I would pick it up and rewind the hanging string ...after a while Ben starting 'rewinding' the balls of yarn himself - only he failed to realize that he was supposed to be winding the yarn AROUND the ball!! It was so cute watching him wind and wind and wind!!

Then he decided that the balls needed to bounce down the steps. But HE wouldn't toss them down the steps - that was grandma's job. So, he would bring the ball to me and then say 'stairs' and run over to the steps where I tossed the ball so it would bounce down the stairs.

Note all the balls of yarn all over the floor. While I was babysitting the boys a neighbor child brought over some zuchini and cucumbers for Da, and he asked me WHY there were balls of yarn all over the floor. :-)

I must apologize for the poor quality of the picture taking...I need to practice this art a lot more !!

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Rough Duty


Well I am about at the end of my second tour of duty here at Melinda's...its really a rough life. I have to play with Benji and tickle his belly and read him stories and help him stack blocks!! I also have to put up with cute grins and sudden hugs. I don't know if I can handle all this hard work. I have been working on my hats that I make to give away and Benji loves playing with the balls of yarn. He has discovered which of them are especially soft and he will stop and rub it across his cheek before he tosses it. He decided it was great fun to try on the hats after grandma finished making them. Right now Benji is over at aunt michelles playing with Erin. FUN!! Since Benji has had a cold and cough since Sunday, it was decided to keep the boys apart as much as possible so he goes and plays with his cousins and has a great time. Then comes home for lunch and play time with mom and then a nap and more play time with mom and then back over to Chelle's house.



When Melinda is playing with Benji then I have to hold the new baby and watch him look at the world with those great big dark eyes... or watch him sleep so very peacefully. He is such a good baby - he is eating every 2-3 hours and then he lays and looks for a while (unless of course he simply goes to sleep while nursing, since that is such hard hard work). One thing he doesn't like is for mommy to unwrap him and change his diaper...that is sooo cold! We have gotten to see his smile a few times (mommy calls it gas, Grandma calls it talking to the angels!) and it is a beautiful smile. His lips remind me of Mauri's perfect lips. Beautifully shaped. Did you know that a dentist told me once that Mauri had a perfect smile! She was 3 years old then!

So I'll head home today and find out what they are doing with the property behind our house and where the hospital is going to be built. Thursday is Jill's play, Friday Ed and I are heading to St George to go to the temple with some other ward members and then Sunday I will come back to Lehi and work sooo hard.

Saturday, April 5, 2008

Simon - day 2

who
Actually this picture was taken on Thursday when Benji came to the hospital to meet his new brother Simon.

FRIDAY:
This morning poor Da was experiencing excruciating headaches from the anesthesia and was ready to have them do a patch on the previous epidural but before they could give her the shot, she started to feel better on her own. Simon has played favorites today it sounds like. One day old and he knows who he wants MAMA!! Forget Aunty Chelle or Aunt Nancy or even Grandma Marilyn...he wanted to be held by mama!!

Dirk came back home on Friday afternoon to spend a couple of hours with Benji. He was so excited to have his daddy here. They got his shoes and socks and jacket on and headed off to Cabella's to see the fish....and the deer, and the goats, and the bobcats...I think he drug his poor daddy all around that whole store four times!! Then when they got back home he went out in the backyard and enjoyed the sunshine and the slide and the dirt pile.

Dirk finally got ahold of a member of the Bishopric to follow up on a phone message he had left two days before to see if they could get permission to bless Simon before Dirk headed back. He finally got ahold of some one in the Bishopric and they told him yes, they would be at the hospital about 6:30 that evening so that Dirk could give Simon a blessing before he headed off to war. So we grabbed a hamburger and headed back to the hospital. There wasn't enough time for anyone to come except Grandma Susan and Aunt Kecia and Emma. So Simon Porter Willden is now official. Dirk gave a lovely prayer and blessing. This picture was taken just moments before their First Counselor showed up at the hospital. As you can see, both days Benji was very taken with Simon's snot snorter. :-)

Thursday, April 3, 2008

Good work DA!!

AT 8:16 am this morning Simon Porter Willden made his entrance to this world. Dirk sounded great when he called me about ten minutes later - He said Da is doing great - so is Simon. He was 8 lbs 12 oz - good healthy boy. 20 inches long so he is already tall.

Da was supposed to be induced at 7 am but she went into normal labor herself and they went to the hospital at 3 am.

I will add pictures and more details as I learn them!!



Simon at four hours old!

Benji is walking around the house making the sign for baby and was so excited when I showed him this picture of his daddy and mommy and baby. I will take him up to the hospital this afternoon after he gets up from his nap.

I didn't want to put him down - he is such a softy little bundle. I asked them if I could just take him straight home but they said the hospital frowns on that. Dirk said that he let out a really good bellow when he was born and Da said that he is already latching on really well so it sounds like he was ready to come!!

What a precious family they have now. I had to get matching outfits for the boys (they'll fit in about a year - or a year and a half) but that is the fun of having two boys so close together. Good Friends and someone to practice being mean to! But also someone to stand up for you and protect you from the bullies.

Melinda is in room 225 on the second floor. If you don't know where the hospital is, take the American Fork exit and head East to 1000 East. Then turn left to 170 north. As you get within a block or so of the hospital you will be able to see it. You will need to call Dirk to get the code to be allowed on the floor. MapQuest says that it is at 1100 East but it is set well back off of 1000 E.