Herzlich Wilkommen to Jake and Melissa's BLOG

2011-01-17T16:48:00.002-07:00

If anyone wants to check out Melissa's new blog the address is http://www.ladybugpower.blogspot.com/. You can get your Sam fix there.

2010-12-17T12:03:00.000-07:00

2010-03-13T10:59:00.001-07:00

Here are some pictures of the new house.

2010-03-06T22:38:00.008-07:00

As many of you know, we have moved from West Jordan to South Weber. We're very happy with the new house. We saw it early on, before we were really were serious about looking for houses. We didn't really think that it would be available by the time we sold our house. Once we got close to selling our house we looked online and couldn't find it. I assumed it had been sold. However, a friend that I work with lives in the same neighborhood, so I asked him about it. He told me that it had not been sold, but that the family who owned the house had decided to stay.

Selling our house was quite a project. We re-built and painted the fence surrounding the back patio. We painted the family room. We fixed a leak in the basement (which included redoing an entire wall). The whole thing is a pretty interesting process. A good pal of my (Jared Springer, http://www.utahdave.com/) helped us with the sale and did a great job. I recommend him highly.

Anyway, we ended up calling the family and asking if they would still be interested in showing their house. We set up a time to go look at it for a few days later. We saw a few different houses in the meantime. Also, we had been looking online at hundreds of houses. We had a really hard time finding anything that we wanted to look at. When we finally looked at this house we both just felt like it was the right place. We made an offer a couple of weeks later. Things worked out really well and we were able to move in just a couple of weeks after they accepted our offer.

This house has been exactly what we wanted. There is a basement family room that the kids have as their play room. The play room is probably the favorite room of all of ours. The kids really like having a place where they can play without getting hassled by daddy all the time. We feel really blessed to be here.

2009-08-16T21:19:00.002-06:00

After much encouragement from Melissa, I've finally made some time to update the blog. The kids are doing great. They are growing like crazy. Lily is potty trained and I am enjoying the first half of our diaper raise. She does a good job of letting us know when she needs to visit the potty. Once she is on the potty, she does a good job of letting us know when she is actually taking care of business. She is very forthcoming with any and all information.

Griffin has really been into baseball this year. He loves going to softball games and playing baseball in Grandma and Grandpa's backyard. We took him to a Bees game and he really seemed to enjoy that as well.

Things for us are moving along like normal. We're having a fun summer and looking forward to some cooler weather in fall.

2009-08-16T21:18:00.004-06:00

A nice day at the Draper Temple open house.

2009-08-16T21:18:00.001-06:00

Griffin and daddy enjoying a round together.

2009-08-16T21:14:00.000-06:00

Lily's cute haircut.

2009-08-16T21:10:00.001-06:00

The kids have had a lot of fun at family reunions this year.

2009-08-16T21:02:00.001-06:00

We took the kids to the Hill Air Force Base Museum. It was a lot of fun. They do a great job up there. Griffin loved it. He is a plane freak. It was a really good time.

2009-08-16T20:59:00.002-06:00

Once there was a snowman, snowman, snowman. Once there was a snowman tall, tall, tall.

2009-08-16T20:56:00.000-06:00

Lily wearing her dress from China.

2009-08-16T20:31:00.001-06:00

What a cute pair of kids. They are the best.

2009-08-16T20:24:00.002-06:00

The sleepy, happy faces shown below didn't last long. Christmas morning: the setting of the first of many battles over the Little People bus.

2009-04-13T05:44:00.002-06:00

Happy 30th!!!

Happy Birthday Jako! I am so glad to be married to you! You are the best. Hope you have a great day. You are a great husband and Daddy and I'm so lucky to have you. I'm glad you're older than me, (even though you say you're more "mature"). I love you!

2009-03-06T22:26:00.009-07:00

Cute!

I am going to try to start blogging a few of the funny things my kids say. It's hard to do it justice since they don't have a very big vocabulary yet, and a lot of the funniness (is that a word?) comes from the way they pronounce things, but anyway here goes. To give a little background Griffin is like most other kids and has to blow on food if he thinks it is even a little bit hot. Let's face it though he usually just spits on his food instead of blowing on it, anyway, Jake was filling up the bath tub for the kids the other day and was trying to get the temperature right before he put the kids in so he said, "don't touch the water Griff, it's really hot," to which Griffin said, "blow on it?" It was pretty cute.

The other cute/frightening thing this week was from Lily. We were just hanging out on the stairs, for some reason, and Lily looks at me totally serious and says, "you will listen to me!" She didn't say it loud or anything, it was like she was trying to play a Jedi mind trick on me. The funny thing is right after she said it she got this smirk on her face like, "you're going to love this Mom." It was funny and a little terrifying if that's any indication of things to come. A lot of times the things my kids say are an embarrassing reminder of how I sound talking to them, but I promise I do not say, "you will listen to me!"

-Melissa

2009-01-09T22:11:00.003-07:00

Stone Cold Lily. Bret and Haley really mess up this picture by smiling. It was supposed to be tough guy faces.

2009-01-09T22:09:00.001-07:00

Lily was much more relaxed for Santa this year. Griffy wasn't too interested. He just wanted to get down and run.

2009-01-09T22:07:00.002-07:00

CHEEEEESE!!!

2009-01-09T22:03:00.000-07:00

2009-01-08T22:17:00.001-07:00

Thanksgiving 2008. As you can see above, Griff was pretty into playing in the leaves. Lily liked it, too.

2008-12-21T08:04:00.002-07:00

Meet Lily's entourage: Pinky, her pink bear; Bear, her other pink bear; Bat, her pink lamb (named Bat because of the 'baa' sound that lambs make); Kitty, her pink kitty from Cincinatti; Baby, her little doll. She also sleeps with a pillow and anywhere from 3 to 6 blankets.

2008-12-21T07:50:00.002-07:00

This picture of Griffy waiting to have his diaper changed is pretty funny. It's all just part of the routine.

2008-12-21T07:40:00.002-07:00

They got a little rocking horse toy earlier this year. As you can see, it initially posed them a few problems.

Clearly the rocking horse was even better than Lily's wildest dreams.

2008-12-21T07:01:00.002-07:00

The kids have been pretty fun for football season this year. They love their little Utah jackets. Griff says "Go Utes!" whenever he says a letter U.

2008-12-21T06:40:00.002-07:00

Aunt Linda was very kind to our kids this year. She gave each a present on the other's birthday. Lily just opened her present from Griff's birthday. She kind of understands how birthday presents work and I think she was worried that she had opened one of Griff's presents. Or, she's worried that she got caught. I'm sure she would've have opened them all given 5 or 10 minutes alone.

2008-12-20T22:43:00.002-07:00

We often come into Griffin's room to find that he has positioned his bears like so. It actually scares me a little. If he starts mutilating the neighborhood pets I'm going to be very upset.

2008-12-20T22:37:00.002-07:00

Griff is kind of funny about some stuff. Whenever a group of people start laughing Griff immediately assumes that they are laughing at him. This makes him cry. When he quits crying he shuts his eyes, as shown in the picture above. I think he is trying to somehow kill everyone with his mind. He has not succeeded in his task, yet.

2008-12-20T14:57:00.002-07:00

Just a couple of pirates.

A few of the trick-or-treaters had costumes that were just a little too scary for Lily.

Pirate Griffy, bringing the cheddar.

2008-12-18T23:55:00.007-07:00

CHINA

I am finally posting about the trip to China that I went on at the end of October for the MBA program. It was a really great trip. As a part of the class I had to write a short paper talking about my experience in China. I'm including excerpts from that paper here.

Summary

The MBA trip to China was a tremendous experience for me. I’ve had a difficult time answering the question so often put to me since our return, “What was your favorite part of the trip?” The truth is that I really can’t isolate any one thing. For me, the trip was one great experience. I enjoyed meeting Chinese people. I liked it that there was a language barrier at times, and that we had to improvise in order to understand one another. I enjoyed getting to know my Westminster MBA comrades better. I loved traveling to a country that is so rich with history and culture. I really just loved the experience of being in a country so much different from my own.

Cultural and Social Impressions
I thought that the Chinese people were somewhat reluctant to interact with us. That may have been because we were a pretty big group and somewhat intimidating, but it was difficult to get a true social or cultural sense. It seemed to me the Chinese people were very reserved and polite (unless I was waiting in line at McDonald’s). The women actually seemed to be a little more outgoing than the men. I thought the men were stand-offish at times, unless we could really convince them that we didn’t mean any harm.

At the same time, I was blown away by how prevalent prostitution is in China. It just seemed to be a part of everyday life. In fact, it seemed that most people just accepted it and didn’t think much of it one way or the other. To have a 15 or 16 year old boy trying to hustle us into a massage parlor, or to be propositioned by a 17 or 18 year old girl was heartbreaking to me. I really didn’t like seeing that at all.

One aspect of the people in China that I found interesting was their attitude toward the government there. Things in China appear to be quite different when compared to the Soviet Union, but the people that we talked to really didn’t seem to have any problem with the government. While I do think that things are better there than compared to what I know of other countries that are/were under communist rule, there were still things that I didn’t like. It seemed to me, though, that people had largely been placated because of the economic possibilities. Why aren’t more people upset that only one party controls the government? Why don’t they get more upset about the restrictions against the press, or the internet censorship? I didn’t realize until this trip how important those things are to me. To see “listeners” gathering inside the gates of the Forbidden City as they prepared to mingle among the people in order to spy on them was one of the most surreal things I’ve ever witnessed.

Despite what’s been said above, my overall impression of people in China is that they are a very hard-working and humble people. They were respectful and polite. The people that I was able to enter into conversations with struck me as very normal. They seemed basically the same as us in all the things that were important.

Business and Economic Impressions
In Hong Kong it was impossible not to be impressed with shipping areas. The sheer volume of cargo was incredible. It was an amazing sight. I also noticed that there were a lot people emptying garbage cans in the city and sweeping streets. It seems like everyone who wants a job can have one.

It’s hard to say, based on our short visit, what aspect of China’s economy is most significant in relation to the global economy. The biggest thing is probably just how much it is growing. It’s just so big that it’s impossible to ignore. The consumption is huge and the capacity to produce, given the lower than average labor costs, is something that will keep China involved in the global market for years.

The thing that I really took away was that China is a lot like the United States. If a person wants to start a business and be an entrepreneur it is possible. I was surprised that the government wasn’t more involved than it seemed to be. Like the United States, it seems like it is basically up to the individual to choose their own path.

Business and Cultural Visits
My favorite visit was to Westminster's MBA partner school in Shanghia, Donghua University. It was really fun to meet the students there and to listen to their stories. It was a pleasure to talk to them about their plans and the possibility of them coming to Utah. It was a really good experience just to get to know people from the other side of the world.

International Relationship and Cooperation
It’s hard to form an accurate picture of the relationship between the U.S. and China having only been there for a week and a half. Right now it seems like the relationship is mutually beneficial. Certainly as a supplier China is a good partner for the United States.

I suppose that this is also a divisive point from a different perspective. Many people here in the U.S. don’t seem to appreciate the fact that the relationship is all one way. Once China makes it easier for the U.S. to export to China I think that the relationship will be better. I also imagine that it is frustrating for the entertainment industries that there is such a piracy problem in China.

Final Thoughts

I think that the trip was beneficial from an overall perspective. It’s always valuable to learn about new cultures and to see what life is like for other groups of people. I also got a lot out of traveling with this group. It was great fun to get to know people better. For a group as big as ours I thought things went incredibly smooth. Everything was well planned and executed.

2008-12-18T23:48:00.002-07:00

COMMUNIST CHINA
For the most part, the fact that China is a communist country isn't very noticeable. I just wanted to put in a couple of photos that reminded me that I was actually in a country with a communist government.

This is right outside of Chairman Mao's tomb, in Tiananmen Square.

These are the "listeners" that I described above. Our guide told us who they were and explained to us what they do.These soldiers dressed in everyday clothes and then mingled in the Forbidden City just to listen to people.

2008-12-18T23:37:00.002-07:00

BEIJING The Bird's Nest. Most of you are probably familiar with the Olympic stadium in Beijing. This was actually a lot cooler than I thought it was going to be. It was an impressive building.

The Great Wall.

Inside the Forbidden City.

This is the entrance to the Forbidden City. Note the picture of Chairman Mao. Crazy.

2008-12-18T23:30:00.002-07:00

SHANGHAI This is the telephone/power line setup in Shanghai. Nice, isn't it. If you look on the pole on the left you can see a guy in there working on something. Good luck, dude.

This was a really impressive garden area in the middle of the main shopping/commerce area in Shanghai. It was absolutely beautiful here.

Another picture of the garden area.

This is one of the tallest buildings in the world. This is also not fog. It is smog.

2008-12-18T23:13:00.002-07:00

XI'AN This is a picture from atop the city wall. On the left you can see the moat that runs around the city center that is enclosed by the wall. It was really impressive. Xi'an was very hazy. According to the guides, 90% of the haze was due to pollution. This picture doesn't even do it justice because it had been raining so much that day when I took this picture. The day before you would not have been able to see the buildings in the background.

This is on top of the city wall, which runs around the main city center in Xi'an.

Traffic in Xi'an is indescribable. It is simply a free-for-all. The weird thing is that it kind of works. People didn't seem to get upset with each other at all. They just drove crazy, but they never got mad. I rode in several cabs in this city and it felt about like riding the wild mouse at Lagoon.

The Terracotta Army in Xi'an. This was very interesting. I would say it was one of the major highlights of the trip for me. I won't go into detail here, but if you want to know what this is you can check out this link: http://www.travelchinaguide.com/attraction/shaanxi/xian/terra_cotta_army/

These are replicas of the terracotta warriors shown above. (These are about 6 inches high.)

2008-12-18T22:46:00.004-07:00

HONG KONG

I ran into a couple of missionaries in Hong Kong. It was cool to watch them as they worked at street contacting and just trying to spread their message in China.

One of the coolest things about this trip was getting to know so many of my school mates so much better. This was the international crew. Mark from Utah, Joe from Africa, myself, and Plarent from Albania. We were enjoying ourselves in a Bavarian themed restaraunt/pub on the Kowloon side of Hong Kong.

This is the floating city in one of the bays in Hong Kong. It was crazy. People literally lived their entire lives on these boats. The tour guide told us that some never ever leave the boats, despite being so close to the land.

This is where we went on the first night in Hong Kong. A group of us just wanted to check out the city. We saw all of these bright lights and thought that this would be a cool street to check out. Whoops. Red light district. Truly a sight to behold.

2008-12-18T22:38:00.003-07:00

Griffin is now 2 years old. (Yes, he has been 2 for 2 months. So I'm a little behind.) Below you can see some pictures of him opening his presents. He is just a wonderful little boy. He is very sweet and kind. He is always very concerned about Lily when she is sad. He loves to laugh and play. He is really strong and really fast. I am so grateful that he is in our family.

2008-12-18T22:34:00.002-07:00

If you can imagine, Griff really enjoyed his birthday cake. Melissa made another very cute cake.
Uncle Bill and Griffy. Their birthdays are only a couple of days apart.

Melissa positioned the candles in order to make sure that it was impossible to blow them out.

2008-12-18T22:28:00.001-07:00

Griff got to help make his birthday cake. He was pretty happy about it. He loved licking the bowl.

2008-12-16T14:52:00.002-07:00

Woo-Hoo!!
Just wanted to let everyone know Jake is FINALLY done with his MBA! I'm so excited. He is too, but I think I am equally as excited. Now he has no excuse for not updating the blog, so flood the comments section and tell him to get on it, and maybe he'll listen to you more than me. (In fairness, he's only been done with school for a week and a half and we've been pretty busy, but still. )

2008-10-30T15:57:00.007-06:00

Griff 2 yrs old

Well I must say for all the grief Lily gave me before, during, and after her pictures, Griff was quite an angel. (We won't mention that he kept me up for three hours in the middle of the night the night before). However, he did decide to make it his personal mission to not smile for the photographer. He sat where we wanted him to and posed how we wanted him to, but he'd twist his mouth as hard as he could to force himself not to smile. Luckily, we wore him down and got some adorable smiles. Enjoy.

2008-10-23T10:42:00.002-06:00

Lily 2 years old

Well here are Lily's latest pictures. I just love getting pictures taken of two year olds. It's so easy and they love to follow directions. :)

2008-10-23T10:37:00.002-06:00

This gives you and idea of how she was acting most of the time. It could have been a lot worse, but I've decided there must be no easy age to get their pictures taken. Most of the time she was wandering behind the backdrops and running away. The only way we got as many as we did was by bribing her with smarties which you may be able to tell she's chewing on in some of them.

2008-10-13T17:41:00.003-06:00

This is out in front of the park. I'm proud to say that the Utes were represented at the Reds/Cardinals game.

My dad's Salt Lake hat was mistaken for a St. Louis hat. We probably weren't the most popular people in the park.

The Great American Ballpark in Cincinatti. It was a pretty fun place to see a game. The Cardinals won, which was cool.

We were really close to the dugout, just two rows up from here. It was pretty cool to be able to walk down and see right in to where the players were.

We saw Albert Pujols hit a bomb. That was probably the highlight of the game for me.

He was stretching right in front of us before the game. He is a pretty big guy.

Yep, that's bird crap. I got crapped on right before the game started. Coulda been worse, I guess.

2008-10-12T19:50:00.002-06:00

This is Lily's cute birthday cake. The path is made of graham cracker.

2008-10-12T19:40:00.003-06:00

Lily had a very nice birthday. She loved all the attention and got a lot of fun gifts. Melissa made her a really cute 'Little People' cake. You don't know about the Little People? Just come over some time. Lily can tell you about everything there is to know about them.

She is a terrific little girl. She is very sweet and sensitive. She takes good care of her brother (most of the time). She is wonderful to have in the family.

2008-10-11T20:52:00.003-06:00

I thought this picture showed off well what a "boy" he is these days.

Happy Day!!

Well we've made it to Griffin's b-day. Lily has been walking around saying Happy Day, Happy Day for about a week now. There will be posts devoted to both of their birthdays, but for now you'll have to put up with another post from me (Melissa).

Here are a few examples of some of the sweet stuff Griffy says and does:

- He can identify all of his ABC's (at least the capitals, he doesn't know the lower case yet)

-He loves lights(just ask him- he'll talk about them for hours), cookies(and must have one for each hand), trains, cars, and anything with a motor.

- He calls butterflies "uttakies".

- He can basically outrun me. I'm telling you that kid can run fast. Almost daily when I'm trying to get him to come with me he'll run away. He'll inevitably find a table to run around and I seriously can't catch him. He plays the run to the middle of the table game and watches me for the slightest movement and runs the other way. It's pretty funny actually, but he always seems to do it when I'm running late and really need to get him in the car.

-He loves giving kisses.

-He cries if anyone laughs. Not "At" him, just even around him. This is relatively new and hopefully short-lived since whenever he does it, I can't help but laugh harder.

-He is a good little brother and is pretty patient with Lily's demands.

-He loves the lawn mower and calls Jake's dad "Papa lawn" because he let Griff help him mow the lawn once. At the beginning of the summer whenever he heard a lawnmower he was convinced that Jake was home and would ask me over and over "daddy? daddy?"

-He has the cutest laugh ever.

2008-10-03T09:28:00.008-06:00

Happy Anniversary #7

I know it was yesterday, but I just wanted to wish Jake a Happy Anniversary. He's such a great husband and I'm so lucky to have him.

2008-09-16T10:15:00.006-06:00

Happy Happy Birthday Lily!

I (Melissa) just wanted to wish Lily a happy 2nd b-day. I can't believe she's two! I also thought I would post a few of the funny things she has been doing and saying.

- She calls her little toy red wagon that she loves her "dragon". She asks me what things are and then calls them the closest thing she can remember.

-Along that same line she loves dipping anything and everything, goldfish crackers in water, chips in water, anything in ketchup (sick), and of course chips in salsa. She couldn't quite remember the word for salsa so it is now "applesauce". Yesterday, I asked her if she wanted to go get the mail with me to see if she got a birthday card and when we started walking out there she said, "whale?" So now the mail is whale.

-I love it when she calls things the wrong name, especially her "dragon", so I choose not to correct her. I will eventually, but for now I choose not to.

-She loves to sing "Twickle, Twickle" (Twinkle twinkle) and is trying to learn to go potty. She has done it quite a few times in the last few months, but she isn't quite ready to be consistent about it.

-She likes to be in charge, well mostly in charge of Griffin. She originally called him Grissy, then Gissy and now it's mostly Giffy with the occasional Griffy. She always has to know where he is. (which is usually right next to her) On the rare occasion when he's not, she always asks me "where Giffy?" It's pretty cute. She likes to play ring around the rosies with him, but if he doesn't want to she just falls into a heap on the floor and cries.

-She likes to be in charge of where he sits and what he plays with. I think he really likes that. :)

Anyway, we love our little bean and glad she's in our family. Sorry this was extremely long, but I have been wanting to write some of these things down so I wouldn't forget. Pictures will come soon.

2008-09-03T16:22:00.002-06:00

Okay, so I (Melissa) have been wanting to post this for awhile, but now that I'm posting it I hope that Lily will someday forgive me. That is me on the left in all of my "beached" glory. (Don't worry"beached"is what Jake has the picture labeled as in our My Pictures file. And on the right is Lily, so cute and so funny. I figured I could post hers if I posted mine.

2008-08-04T21:01:00.002-06:00

The blog is back by popular demand. It's been a busy summer. I've been spending a significant amount of time on solving world hunger, poverty, and the various conflicts in the Middle East. Of course, I'm also gainfully employed as a Contract Manager. I know, it sounds glamorous. Well, it is. That's why I do it. Anyway, I've decided to make some time for the blog despite my full schedule.

The kids are doing well. They're enjoying themselves these days. They laugh and play together all day. Of course, they fight a little bit too, but for the most part they have a good time with each other. Lily is talking a lot and she is getting smarter by the day. They are both working hard on the ABC's. Griff is getting pretty smart, too. For some reason he wants two of everything. If you hand him a cracker, he wants another. I guess he figures that since he has two hands he might as well have two crackers. Anyway, the other day he got pretty smart. I gave him a Nila Wafer. He immediately asked for another. I told him he already had one and that he didn't need another. So, he set his Nila Wafer down and asked again for another one. Needless to say I gave it to him.

Melissa is doing well. She's into the Mormon vampire author books. The last one in the series just came out and so she's dying to get into it. I told her that as long as she was able to keep up with her chores that she could read it when I was asleep. She's still tending a one year old a couple of times a week and she is doing a great job.

I am looking forward to my last semester of school. By Christmas I will be completely finished. Work is busy but good. There's not really anything new with me. As such, this seems like a good time to wrap this up.

2008-08-03T22:45:00.001-06:00

The kids are just lounging around. It always makes me laugh when they lay around like this.

2008-08-03T22:41:00.000-06:00

Lily's latest haircut.

2008-08-03T22:35:00.001-06:00

Just enjoying a little bit of milk, wearing backpacks.

2008-08-03T22:33:00.000-06:00

Lily is just catching some Z's in the car.

2008-08-03T22:21:00.001-06:00

This is their favorite place to play at my mom and dad's place. They pace the little concrete strip around the shed for hours. They love it.

2008-08-03T22:18:00.002-06:00

Lily and Griffin like to give each other kisses. They look out for each other quite a bit these days. Lily is always quite concerned whenever Griff cries.

2008-08-03T22:10:00.001-06:00

Here are the kids enjoying the fireworks on the 4th of July with Bret and Haley.

2008-08-03T22:07:00.001-06:00

Ah. little William. "My precious."

2008-08-03T21:49:00.002-06:00

Nothing like a day at the pool. Lily likes to lounge in the sun, just putting out the vibe.

Our own little Panama Jack. He also has matching sandals.

Most of the time Lily just wants to run around the edge of the pool, throwing toys in. It's not the funnest thing in the world, except for her.

2008-08-03T21:42:00.003-06:00

We took the kids to the zoo. They liked the animals ok, but they loved this granite (or something) sphere because it was wet.

This owl was trying to let us know who was boss.

They were pretty impressed with the elephants.

2008-08-03T21:32:00.003-06:00

This is our new niece Taylor. She's a gem.

Griffy and Taylor.

Lily now has more sympathy for Snow White's evil stepmother. It's tough when you're not sure that you're still the cutest thing in the room.

2008-07-26T21:55:00.001-06:00

After a hard day at the office all Griff wants to do is to come home and relax on the couch.

2008-07-26T21:36:00.004-06:00

Lily got her elbow out of joint. We took her to instacare, but she ended up having to go to the hospital to get it taken care of. It was really quite side. The doctors had a pretty tough time clicking it back into place. It made her pretty sad.

However, about 5 minutes after the doc got it back into place she was tearing the room apart Tasmanian devil style. They gave her this little bear to cheer her up. She has been quite wary of strangers since then.

Lily wore her favorite shoes to the hospital. They were good luck.

2008-07-26T21:30:00.003-06:00

This is the St. Bernard backpack that Grandma and Grandpa B brought Griff from Switzerland. He loves it. He wears it every chance he gets.

2008-07-26T21:13:00.001-06:00

Lily and Maggie, one of the 'Little People'. The kids love 'Little People' so much it's incredible. They ask to watch it every day.

2008-07-21T20:51:00.000-06:00

Cute.

2008-07-15T23:16:00.002-06:00

They're always happy after bath time. They love it. Melissa lets them play in there a little bit. I get them in and out as fast as I can so they like her to give them their baths better.

2008-07-15T23:01:00.001-06:00

That is actually Griffin's bear. He must not know she's got it because I don't think he would hesitate to push her down the stairs over something like this.

2008-07-15T22:56:00.002-06:00

Griff loves to play on the trampoline.

2008-05-11T14:29:00.004-06:00

Happy Mother's Day

I (Melissa) just wanted to wish all those mothers and would-be mothers a happy mother's day. My days are quite busy with the little munchkins and trying to keep our house somewhat clean that I sometimes forget to enjoy the moment. Luckily Lily did something the other night that helped me remember how lucky I am. Both of the kids got pretty bad colds last week and one night they both woke up coughing and couldn't get back to sleep. We brought them into our room for just a minute to help settle them down. Lily was laying right by me and Griffin was right next to her. I thought she had fallen back to sleep and then she reached over and patted Griff and said, "It okay, it okay." It was so cute. Those are the moments I love.

2008-04-30T13:23:00.002-06:00

So we forgot to write about one of the more anticipated milestones for Lily and Griff. Nursery! They started in March since that is when Lily turned 18 months. Luckily they let Griff go too.

This is their first little hand-out that they brought home. Don't worry they tried to eat most of the popcorn. It is so nice to actually go to Sunday school again. They have done really well. They don't even notice when I leave. I am 80% glad and 20% sad. But really I'm glad they don't put up a fuss about it. The only draw back is that we have 1:00 church and Griff isn't tired enough to take a nap before church, and it's too late to give him one after church, so he's quite ornery by the end of the night. Oh well.

2008-04-27T08:14:00.006-06:00

It has been quite a while since I've been able to update the blog. School has taken up most of my free time so far this year, but I've finally got a little break. Speaking of school, I'll be taking a international trip with the school to China in the fall this year. I'm really looking forward to it, though it is still about 6 months away. We're visiting Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong. Those aren't my only travel plans for the year, though. In September I will be heading to Louisville, Kentucky with my dad. We are going to see the Ryder Cup tournament. This is by far my favorite golf event. We are heading out for the final day of play. Here's to the Americans getting the trophy back!

Zinger is the perfect captain for the Americans. This quote from CNN.com says it all: "What he's (Montgomery) done is amazing. Monty's become famous for it in the United States and he's never even won a major. Americans don't particularly like him but there's nothing wrong in being the villain. He's brought a lot of it on himself, of course. He probably won't ever win a major now, but I still want him in the European team because I want to show him what the taste of defeat is like."

Zinger trashes Faldo in the article, which I'm thrilled about. There is just nothing like the Ryder Cup.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/SPORT/golf/04/06/golf.ryderrow/

In other news, the kids are doing very well. They talk quite a bit. Lily is really starting to learn a lot of words. Griff is a little behind her, but he did learn to say 'awesome' before she did. We didn't even try to teach him that. He just started saying it one day when he was watching this little helicopter toy that Grandpa Harker has. It is very cute.

They are crazy about climbing these days. They are relentless. They will climb couches, chairs, sub-woofers, ottomans, fire place mantels, and anything else that they can swing their little legs up to. It is crazy. They haven't taken any serious spills yet. We've got our fingers crossed.

Melissa is busy running the show at our place. She does it all. She's even started babysitting a few times a week for a couple of hours at a time. One of the women in our ward drops her 9 month old boy off so that she can get some things done that she needs to. Lily and Griff seem to like it. Even with all that Melissa keeps things running smoothly. She also got a new calling the ward as the Achievement Days leader to go along with her Enrichment Committee calling.

Since I posted about John Stockton and Deron Williams last time I thought I would throw in a couple of classic Karl Malone videos. It seems appropriate since the Jazz are about to bounce the Rockets from the playoffs... again. Melissa really likes the second video.

2008-04-26T21:28:00.001-06:00

2008-04-26T21:24:00.001-06:00

Our little sweetheart.

2008-04-26T21:18:00.001-06:00

Griff cleans up pretty well.

2008-04-24T00:14:00.000-06:00

Easter Sunday.

2008-04-24T00:10:00.002-06:00

Griffy and Uncle Bill sharing a special Easter moment.

2008-04-24T00:06:00.002-06:00

There are two reasons behind Lily's overwhelming happiness in this picture. The first is her hat. She loves it and she puts it on just about every morning. The other is Good Things Utah. She loves that show, particularly the theme song.

2008-04-24T00:02:00.001-06:00

Griff is doing his best, but can't seem to find any eggs.

2008-04-23T23:52:00.002-06:00

"Um, I found a basket, but it's empty. Can someone go get me one that actually has some candy in it."

2008-04-23T23:50:00.000-06:00

Ol' baskethead's comin'.

2008-04-23T23:46:00.001-06:00

The kids are really good helpers. Melissa was working on some laundry and the kids really wanted to do their part.

2008-04-23T23:10:00.000-06:00

Grandma Harker with the kids.

2008-04-23T23:07:00.001-06:00

Lookin' like a million bucks.

2008-04-23T23:06:00.000-06:00

2008-04-23T23:05:00.001-06:00

A purple little lady.

2008-04-23T23:02:00.001-06:00

The post-nap hangover is always tough on Griff. Here he is waiting for us to bail him out of the crib.

2008-04-23T23:00:00.001-06:00

Lily looking lovely on a Sunday afternoon.

2008-04-23T22:53:00.001-06:00

Every once in a while we get a picture of her without red eye and it's possible to see how blue her eyes really are.

2008-04-23T22:49:00.000-06:00

The Jazz are number 1!

2008-04-23T22:47:00.000-06:00

Little silly-faced Griff.

2008-04-23T22:40:00.002-06:00

Griff sat in Lily's chair. He suffered the consequences.

2008-04-23T22:36:00.001-06:00

Griff tries to run away and hide and always ends up running himself into a corner.

2008-04-23T22:27:00.000-06:00

Maddie and Thatch Merrick: rock stars in training.

2008-04-23T22:19:00.001-06:00

I think they look pretty old in this picture.

2008-04-23T22:14:00.001-06:00

Lily and her little baby doll. She's quite a little doll herself.

2008-04-23T22:06:00.001-06:00

Just a couple of baseball fans chewing on a couple of baseballs.

2008-04-23T21:53:00.002-06:00

Lily and Griff went on a tour of the Sweets candy factory. As you can see, it was a dream come true for them.

2008-04-23T21:50:00.000-06:00

Extreme close-up! Whooooooaaaaa!

2008-04-23T21:45:00.001-06:00

Griff kisses stuffed animals like crazy. He is a teddy-bear Casanova.