I can't believe it's been over a week since I last posted here. Time is certainly flying by! The biggest thing that has happened since my last post is that our beloved Prophet, Gordon B. Hinckley passed away last night. He was 97 years old and has been prophet for 13 years. It's quite a shock. It's hard to believe that he is gone. He's been the prophet for my entire adult life, the prophet I have looked to the most. He had an amazing life and will surely be missed. I am sure he is happy to be reunited with his beloved wife, Marjorie. And although it is a somber time, it is not a sad time.



This past week we were busy with work and school for Chad, and the kids for me. Lexi seems to change more and more every day and I think she is finally excited about getting up and going. She is still not moving around, although she seems more interested in it. She has just become so animated about things and really lets you know if she wants something, if she's happy or not, etc. And she absolutely loves it when Myra plays with her. I'm sure it's her favorite thing. Myra was excited this past week to see both her Grandparents in Sandy and her Grandad from Florida. We went to Sandy to go to a presentation given by Kent's boss last Wednesday while my wonderful brother-in-law and sister got to babysit the rugrats. We stayed overnight, but headed home early. Myra was excited that day to go down and see her Grandparents. She told me that we had better hurry or they would turn into witches.? I think she got that idea off of Cinderella or something. Also on Wednesday, Myra got to go play at McDonalds with her friend Camille. She really loved that. On Saturday, Kent came up to visit us before heading back to Florida. We went bowling with Myra. Her attention span lasted through one game, then she found it more fun to slide around on the bowling lane area on her tummy. Another funny thing Myra said this week was at church on Sunday. After spotting her friend, Camille, wearing a white dress, she turned to me and excitedly exclaimed, "Mama, Camille got married." She's so funny. Anyway, a pretty low-key week.

I haven't posted for a while since we have been out of town. As Chad stated in his previous blog, he was in Colorado for a Grasshopper convention. I'm so proud of all the work and research he has been doing for school. He has been so busy, but I think it will really pay off when he graduates this year.
While Chad was gone, I stayed with my parents in Sandy. It was nice to visit with them for a few days. And since Bre and Danny are living with them for a little while, it was especially nice to get to spend some extra time with them too. Myra adored all of the attention she received while we were there. She is so spoiled!

I was happy to get Chad home. I miss him so much when he is gone, even if it's for only a couple of days. Now that we are back though, he's going to be even busier as he gets more involved in working on his thesis. I've continued to be busy with my business also. To date, I've sold 41 items this month alone! Crazy, eh? The kids keep me the busiest though. Alexys has really come to life lately. She is very interested in things, especially Myra and she rolls over all the time and really loves sitting up and looking around. She's still a very content good baby though. I've been so spoiled with her. And the best news lately is that Myra is "unofficially" potty-trained. I say unofficially because I'm still putting her in diapers at night and every once in a while, she doesn't quite make it to the toilet, but she's wearing big girl underwear all the time during the day and she voluntarily goes potty by herself. I hope this doesn't gross anyone out, but I thought this was funny, so I'm going to share it. Last week at my parents house, My mom and I were up in the kitchen and we thought Myra was down watching a movie. Suddenly she runs upstairs and she's very excited. She exclaims, "Mama, I pooped! I can't believe it!" And sure enough, she'd done it with no help! It's a relief to be at this stage with her. I like not having to change two sets of diapers! And Myra has also found wearing big-girl undies a lot of fun.

We've started our callings in our new ward now. Chad taught his first Gospel Doctrine lesson and I played the piano for the ward choir in Sacrament meeting today. It's strange having the ward so different, but change is good and we are looking forward to meeting many new people.

National Grasshopper Management Board

I just got back from Colorado Thursday night. I went with my boss to the National Grasshopper Management Board. I know that most people are not even aware that there is a National Grasshopper board, but let me assure you there is. We went to present the research that I have been doing over the last 2 years, which involves developing a biological control agent (fungus) that can be used as an alternative to the current chemical pesticides. Lots of areas that can't use chemicals would benefit from this, like organic farms, near water ways, and anywhere there are endangered plants or animals. Anyway the meeting went really well, we gave two presentations over the 3 days and there was a very positive response and a lot of interest in what we are doing. I really enjoyed it. I also got to see one of my old friends from Colorado, Nathan Smith, that was good, I wish that I had had more time to go and visit around town, but we were working on our presentation during most of our free time. Here is the cover of the program from the meeting. (The funny thing is that the insect on the cover is not even a grasshopper, it is a katydid, and not really a pest.)

Potty Training and Hermit Crabs

A new year has begun and it has kept us busy so far. I had my birthday on January 1st. It was great having my parents, Breanne and Danny come up to celebrate with me. Chad was so sweet throughout the day, taking care of the kids, making me breakfast, and making me wait to open my presents. He gave me tickets to the Matchbox 20 concert in March and a couple of Hermit Crabs, which Myra named Spike and Sara(she's really into the Land before time movies.) Spike is very active and will crawl all over the place, including on me. Sara is pretty shy, only coming out at night. We've enjoyed watching them. Here's a video of Nena, and the interest she has shown for the crabs.

We've also been working on Potty training Myra. I sometimes wonder if she will ever be completely potty-trained. For the most part, she's been doing really well, very few accidents, but I think she's just lazy about it. Anyway, it has made for some interesting outfits on her part, not to mention a lot of running around naked. She quite the exhibitionist.
Lexi is now sitting up really well on her own and the past couple of days has finally started rolling all over the place. She has also started showing more interest in solid foods. She loves oatmeal and peas, but was pretty disgusted with the peaches. I'm embarrassed about the mess on our bed when I took this picture, but Lexi just looked so cute.
Chad started school again. He only has one class, but he is also auditing 2 other classes. He is going to Colorado for a convention next week and has been really busy putting together some presentations for his boss to give. I've been really busy with my business this month so far. I've sold 27 items in the past 9 days. I hope it continues this well for me. Chad's hoping I'll become so busy he can quit school while I work. I'm also going to start doing taxes again this tax season. Probably only once or twice a week, but it'll be enough for me to brush up on my tax knowledge. This past Sunday, our stake held a meeting where they readjusted all ward boundaries. Our ward and another ward was basically combined, then a couple of big chunks were taken out and placed in a different ward. Then, all callings were released and a new bishop was called. Pretty crazy! It'll be interesting to see how it goes. We are sad about several of our friends that won't be in our ward anymore, but we have plans to still do things with them. And it will be good to meet new people. Chad and I both received callings last night, but since we have been sustained and set apart, they're a secret. :-) And the final thing, it's been snowing like crazy here the past few days. Myra loves it. Whenever we go anywhere, she wears her boots and stomps through the snow. She was especially excited about someone shoveling the snow in front of our house. She couldn't believe they would shovel a path for her. It's so fun having a two-year-old around. Life is so exciting through her eyes.

My first Digital Video

We got a new Digital Camcorder for work, and I took it home to try to learn how to use it. Here is my first video- enjoy

Christmas 2007

I can't believe another Christmas has come and gone and the new year is just hours away. This past year has really gone by so quickly. It's hard to grasp. I hope the next year goes by a little slower, although while we continue to stay busy, I'm sure the future will come at us just as quickly.
Anyway, we had a fun Christmas. We went to my parents house on December 23rd. Of course it took us forever to get packed up and down there. We were really glad that we had all of our shopping and wrapping done so we didn't have to do any of it on Christmas Eve. Christmas Eve morning was pretty low-key. We just hung around the house, then at noon we met up with Chad's family and we got to go look through the Draper Temple. My brother-in-law, Doug, is the project engineer for the building of the temple, so it was pretty exciting to get to see it during this phase of construction. After we headed out to Grandma and Grandpa Keyser's for the annual Christmas Eve party. It had started snowing a lot, so many people were slow getting there. The roads were pretty bad. It was nice getting to visit family. The food was good and Myra really enjoyed how easily accessible it was. During the program, she kept running to the food table, taking a bite out of a cookie, then putting it back. Ugh! What do I do with that kid? Chad's parents were in charge of the program this year. Natalie and Jordyn played their violins while I played the piano with them. It was a lot of fun and it sounded really good. They do a white elephant exchange and there wasn't really anything too outlandish this year. Myra was really impatient though. She just wanted to open up all of the gifts. We finished out the night by cleaning up and finding Myra locked in one of the bathroom stalls. But other than that, nothing too eventful. After finishing up there, we went to Natalie and Doug's place to exchange gifts with Chad's family. Myra was excited to start opening presents. Whenever she opened something, she would hold it in the air and shout, Woo-Hoo. She was mostly excited about the Train set her Grandma and Grandpa Keyser gave her and Lexi. She wanted to get it out then and play with it.
On Christmas morning, we woke to find that Santa had brought A LOT of presents. I think we opened gifts for something like 2 hours. Half way through Myra actually got tired of it and didn't want to open any more. Chad and I had actually forgotten several presents for her and Lexi at home, so it was actually kind of good. Myra wanted to play with everything she opened immediately. She continued her shouts of Woo-Hoo, sometimes without evening looking at what she had opened. She was pretty excited about her Dinosaur movies. That was what she asked Santa for. I think her favorite though was the My Little Pony doll she got from Grandma and Grandpa Newman. She carried it around, fed it and changed it's diaper a lot throughout the day. She thought it was really funny when the pony called her Mommy. Lexi got some great gifts also. I think she will enjoy the play gym she received. I was especially excited about the blankets I made for the two girls for their Christmas gifts. It was a lot of work, but I think they turned out really nice. I just had to include a picture of them. It's the first time I've made blankets like this. Chad and I also got some great stuff. We got a GPS for the car, which we have already used and I think we'll find it really useful. Chad got me trekking poles for when we go on our next 10 mile hike and I got him a nice compass so we won't get lost. We mostly lounged around that day until my Dad had to go back to work at 3. Then we headed out to my Grandma and Grandpa Newman's for Christmas dinner. It was nice to see many family members I haven't seen for many months or longer. It was the first time a few family members there had seen Lexi and it was the first time I'd seen Jer and Audrey's new baby, Peter. We also visited my Aunt Gay and Uncle Dick and their family. We then headed to my Grandma Austin's place. She was really excited to see us and us her. Myra really likes playing in her wheelchair. After visiting with her, we headed back to my parents house. This picture is of how we all felt after all the festivities. Myra was just able to express it more readily.
On the 26th, we headed back up to Logan. Chad's parent's dropped Gypsy off while they went up to Bear Lake. Chad had to go in to work that day, and I spent a little time cleaning. On the 27th, we got up early and went up to Bear lake for Chad to go skiing. I hurt my foot the night before, so I just stayed at the condo with the kids, Natalie, James and Judi. That evening we played games and went hot tubing. We headed back that night because Chad had to work the next morning. We left Myra up there so she could spend some more time with her Grandparents. I had a nice day on Friday, reading and doing a little straightening up. Christmas is a messy time of year! That night Chad and I went out to dinner. On Saturday morning, Kent and Judi brought Myra back, then headed on their way. They fly back to Florida today. Well, that about sums up our holiday break. Today is New Years Eve, which we don't have anything planned. Chad and I will probably just stay up playing games. Tomorrow is my birthday, so my parents and sister are going to come up for dinner. Then, the new year starts and it's back normal again. I've really enjoyed having Chad home so much lately! I'll miss him. Oh, and amid all the excitement this past week, Lexi started sitting up on her own. It was so sudden. One day, we'd sit her up and she'd immediately fall over, the next day, she didn't. She really seems to enjoy sitting up and looking around.

Oh, another thing I was going to mention that I'm really sad about is they are changing our ward boundaries. We won't know exactly what they will be, but Chad was able to find out that they are basically white-washing our stake. Which means everyone loses what callings they have now and then they just kind of start all over again. I won't mind not playing the piano for the ward choir anymore, but I'm really afraid about getting split up from some of our good friends in the ward. Oh well, we'll find out more on the 6th.
Well, this turned out to be a pretty long blog. A lot happened during the past week. I hope everyone else had a great Christmas too! Happy New Year!

Screams

Lately Lexi has taken to screaming. I'm sure she's learned it from Myra. She does it when she's happy and they are so loud. Sometimes both kids start screaming together. Myra thinks it's funny. This morning, Lexi was laying on the bed, making a huge racket, so I thought I'd try and catch her on video. Of course she pretty much stopped, but I got a few on the video.



We always check on the kids before we go to bed at night and lately we've been finding them in all sorts of strange positions. Myra decided to use her pillow as a blanket and although we never
see her do it, Lexi has started moving a little.









I thought I would also include our Christmas Letter with this post, in case you didn't already get it. We did send them out, but some of them kind of late, so you might be getting as a new years letter:)

Dear Family and Friends,

I can’t believe another year has come and gone by so quickly! I guess the busier you are, the quicker the time passes and this year has definitely been very busy for us.

We are still in Logan. Last year we bought a little condo here and we are still enjoying it. We love the neighborhood and we live in an excellent ward. We’ve become very good friends with many people here and are grateful for those friendships.

Chad currently has a Research Assistantship at Utah State University in the Biology Department studying Mormon Crickets. It’s amazing how busy they keep him. He also “officially” started his Masters Degree in Microbiology this past semester. Course work has often kept him up at the school late, but after this semester comes the easy part, writing his thesis. His plans are to graduate next December. At church, Chad is a ward missionary. It’s been a great experience for our whole family, as we have had the opportunity to have missionary discussions in our home. He is also an Elders Quorum teacher. Chad also stays involved with the USU Chess club and just last month he put together a chess tournament for local elementary school kids. His favorite thing though is to come home and play with his girls. Myra especially enjoys using him as a trampoline.

I have been busy being a stay-at-home mom, and loving it. There’s not too much more to add than that. I spend most of my time doing laundry, changing diapers, doing dishes, doing laundry, cleaning up Myra, doing laundry, feeding Lexi, oh and did I mention doing laundry? Sometimes I even squeeze in a little playtime with the kids. I have two callings in our ward right now. Ward librarian and Ward choir pianist, both of which have taught me much patience. This year I have also been working on my own business. I made a couple of blankets for the kids and decided to try to see if others would buy them from me. I have an online store on Etsy and have sold blankets at a few Craft fairs and boutiques. It’s been a lot of fun.

Myra has had a fun year. She entered her terrible two’s in May, and when they say terrible two’s, they mean it. Actually, she’s a very fun and loving kid. She just enjoys life to it’s fullest. She finds ways to make everything fun and it’s contagious to all of us. She has really blessed our lives with her love and friendliness. She really enjoys going to nursery and her teachers adore her. This past year she has really turned from a Toddler into a little girl, and she’s finally starting to grow some hair. She’s very talkative and especially outgoing. She has something to say to everyone. She loves to play with her friends and especially her sister, “Lex.”

The biggest thing (actually smallest) that happened to us this year was the birth of our second daughter, Alexys Austin, on March 25^th. Lexi was born via emergency c-section 7 weeks early. The doctors found out she wasn’t growing like she should have been, so they figured she would do better on the outside. She came into the world weighing only 2lb.14.9oz. After spending over 5 weeks in the Newborn Intensive Care Unit at the hospital, we were finally able to bring her home. She still weighed less than 5 lbs. She’s done extremely well and now at 8 months, she weighs in at around 14lbs. She is the sweetest baby. She doesn’t do much besides laugh, wiggle and look around, she is so curious. Although recently she has really found her voice (we think her sister taught her) and she loves to make sure everyone hears her. And lucky us, we haven’t had to get up with her during the night since she was about 3 months old. I wish I could say the same for Myra.

This past year we have also had the chance to go on several fun trips. At the beginning of August, we all headed to Florida for a week to visit Chad’s parents. We had a great time snorkeling in the Intracoastal, swimming in the ocean and Myra’s favorite part was seeing the Alligator’s in the Everglades. Right after returning from that trip, we headed up to Yellowstone with my family. Myra was very excited about seeing the Elk and Buffalo. And for weeks afterwards, she reminded us to not jump in Geysers because they are “way dangerous.” Then in October, I got to take Myra and Alexys to Florida again. This time we did quite a bit of traveling. We went to see the Florida Keys, the Miami Seaquarium, the Animal Safari Park, not to mention a bunch of swimming in the ocean and Intracoastal. Then in November, for our 4^th Anniversary, Chad and I talked my parents into watching the kids while we spent a couple of days hiking around Arches National Park. It was a great trip. I managed to hike over 10 miles, which was quite the feat for me considering my bad ankle.

Well, that about sums up our year. It’s been a great one, not without it’s trials and tribulations, but the good always outweighs the bad. We are grateful for all of our friends and our family who have done so much for us. We wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a wonderful New Year!

Love, Chad, Shannon, Myra and Alexys

Christmas is almost Here!

I can't believe how much of a slacker I've been lately in regards to blogging. This month has been so busy it's been hard to keep up with it all. I've been busy with my business this month, which has picked up a little. Chad's been busy with finishing off the semester and the kids have both been sick at one point or another. Anyway, Chad did finish with his classes and he got straight A's! I'm so proud of all his hard work. The kids are both better for now, although Lexi's getting another tooth in, and I'm still working hard to finish Christmas stuff. Myra's pretty excited about Christmas. She loves to sing the songs and is very excited about Santa Claus. She's been to see him twice. When asked what she wants from Santa, she says, "A Dinosaur." Which translates into a Land before time Movie. We get them from the library and she loves them. All 13. She also really liked helping us decorate the Christmas tree. There were 3-4 branches at the bottom that all held 5-6 ornaments each. And after we finished, we kept finding the bulb ornaments with there tops missing around the bottom of the tree. When we asked her why they were there, she informed us that her gummi berry juice was gone. Remember the Gummi Bears cartoon. We've been watching them on YouTube and apparently the ornaments remind her of the flasks they kept gummi bear juice in. Every day I have to remind her to not take the ornaments off the tree because they are not full of gummi bear juice. She's really starting to develop quite the imagination. Well, we are getting excited for Christmas. It will be fun to spend it with both sides of our families. Meanwhile, Myra continues to have fun, Lexi still just lays there and I'm rushing to finish last minute projects. Here's a fun video of Myra and her new favorite pastime.

Playtime

I took these videos today and I thought they were so cute, I had to post them. The first is of Lexi taking a bath. Until now, she would just lay in the tub with her arms outstretched and she wouldn't move at all. I would try to get her to splash or kick, but nothing. Then today she finally seemed like she enjoyed it. Myra thought it was a lot of fun and was trying so hard to help. She went and got a cup and when I asked her what she was going to do with it, she said, "It's so I can pour water on Lexi." Needless to say, that didn't happen.



This next video I took right after Dad got home from work. He just wanted to get a little rest, but Myra had other plans in mind.

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree ??????

This past weekend we drove up to Montpelier Idaho to get a Christmas Tree. It was a lot of fun. We sang Christmas songs with Myra, at least the parts that we could remember. She loved Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. We sang that one over and over again. We ended up getting our tree up Paris Canyon. It was very cold and starting to snow when we found a place to cut one, so I stayed in the car with Myra and Lexi. We had fun talking to dad on the walkie-talkie as he searched for the perfect tree. Once he cut one, we all jumped out of the car for a quick photo.Myra was so disappointed we wouldn't let her get out and really run around in the snow. But we couldn't find all of her warm weather gear before leaving, so she had to be content with a quick run around the car while we were getting ready to take the picture. On our way home we stopped in garden city and had pizza at "Bear lake Pizza" it is the off-season so we had the restaurant to ourselves. The ride home was a bit slow because it had been snowing all day and Logan canyon was a bit slick. It was long but fun day for all of us. Here's a picture of the girls at home in their winter gear.

We haven't decorated our tree yet since Chad is never home in the evening anymore. Hopefully we'll get a chance sometime tomorrow, but it's our ward Christmas party, so who knows.

On a different note, here are a couple videos of our kids. This one is of Myra playing with her dad. Actually, I think Dad just wishes that he could do what she's doing.



Dad took this video of Lexi and Nena. Nena likes the kids when they are little, but when they get bigger, off she goes. Chad's still hoping that Nena will start sleeping in Myra's room, but I don't know if that will ever happen.