He Is His Father's Son

What do you think? Think he looks like his daddy?

Zachary's Wonderful Week

I just wanted to post to tell you about our genius son, Zachary. He had a pretty amazing week.
Since his half birthday he has been doing pretty good about the transition from sitting to crawling. But he has also since that day been working on the transition from crawling to sitting. He's been getting better, and this week I've even seen him transition without leaning on his hand. For instance, yesterday I saw him crawl over to a toy fish, pick it up, and then start chewing on it while holding it with both hands.

This week he has done a little bit of cruising. You know, holding onto something and then walking. Today at church he cruised across two chairs while holding onto the back. Crazy.

On Friday I heard him say "Mamamamama." Yes, he did. Okay, so he wasn't calling for me, but he did make that sound. And he's been doing it since then. He even said it to my mom while I was talking to her on the phone.

Zachary has been pulling up on things too. He has crawled over Mark and over me while we've been lying on the floor. He reaches up and tries to stand up.

Lastly, on Friday I was looking in his mouth. I think I see the beginnings of a tooth. I see a white spot that hasn't disappeared. A tooth! Yikes....

In so many ways I'm so proud of him because it seems like he's a little ahead of the curve when it comes to all these physical feats. But, in other ways, I keep thinking, "Slow down boy! Slow down! Just stay little for a while!"
P.S. This picture cracks me up. He was totally laughing when I went in to get him in the morning. What a cute kid.

A Lot of New Posts

[This post won't stay up here forever.]

So, I FINALLY was able to post today--some about things that happened two months ago. Here is a list of my posts:

Cornflakes and Snowflakes
Mark's Surgery - Didn't Happen
Cletus and Clareese Strike Again!
Fiddler on the Roof and Honk
Ferron Utah Stake Reorganization
Zachary - 6 Months
Two Major Purchases
Update on Mark's Pain
Solid Foods
6 Month Pictures
Recent Phone Pictures

Recent Phone Pictures

Here are some recent phone pictures that I've taken. They make me happy and I wanted to share.

The first one is of Zachary standing holding onto my knee. He definitely prefers standing to laying on his back. This particular day he wanted to be held--but he was happy with holding onto my knee. I was folding laundry so I couldn't hold him.

The second one was just yesterday. He crawled out of his pants. They are just a little long, so his feet were inside the pantleg, perfect for holding his pants so he could crawl out of them.

The third one cracks me up. I was babysitting a friend's baby who is just two weeks older than Zachary. He was sad, so I was singing to him. Zachary, in the meantime, was crawling around and doing head stands. I was unable to grab my good camera, but I managed to snap this picture. Mark has since taken a really good picture of Zachary's head stands. I also love this picture because you can see how chubby Zachary's legs are.

And the fourth one was taken on Saturday--before BYU gave their basketball game to Kansas State. Zachary was all proud to wear his daddy's hat.

6 Month Pictures

I wanted to have some six month pictures taken of Zachary. Mark just happens to have a friend who LOVES taking pictures and wants to build her portfolio. So, she offered to do some for us for $20. The closest we could schedule our photo shoot was on March 6th. We went to Liberty Park.

She decided not to charge us anything. That's fine by me. She's only edited three pictures that she's given to us on Facebook. I'd love to see the others, but I'm waiting patiently. (Free is a pretty darn great price.)

Here are the three we've seen.

Solid Foods

As mentioned in Zachary's six month update, we've started him on solids officially now. We've given him carrots, peaches, and baby oatmeal. He likes them in that order too. Wait--we tried a mashed up banana one day too--and he HATED that. We'll try again another time. Oh, and I think I mentioned this too: Grandma Worthen gave him a cookie.

All I have to add is "solids in... solids out"

Update on Mark's Pain

Since visiting with the surgeon, Mark has pretty much been pain free--other than me. Heheheh....

And that pain will never go away

Two Major Purchases

We made two major purchases on March 16th. We bought a freezer and a tv.

Two years ago, before Mark and I got married, Mark got some money from a cell phone company that did some illegal business with his name and credit. He's been sitting on that money since then. It's been earmarked for a new tv.

Mark has mocked the tv that we've had up to this point because it's a 20" little baby tv that I won three years ago. Yes, it's small. So what? Free is awesome!

But, for the last two months, it has had a blue line down the middle of the screen. Sometimes it isn't there. But, lately it's been there more often than not. It was time to get a new tv.

And we've wanted a freezer for a while because we have decided to just hunker down and LIVE where we live (even though we would love a house of our own). We've turned our "dark room" into a real storage room--now complete with freezer.

The two items were purchased from RC Willey. We felt we got a fair deal on both of them. They were delivered on Friday, March 19th. And we spent $21 in excess of the settlement amount Mark has been saving for both items. Pretty good.

Zachary - 6 Months

Dear Zachary,

You turned SIX MONTHS OLD! Yes, you are old now. Well, old for you. Heheheh....

Zachary, you are so fun. You have such a great sense of humor. I'm so glad. It makes me and your dad so happy.

You are so smart too. I mean, you've got to be to have a sense of humor, right? You've got to know what is and isn't funny. But you are also smart about other things.

This month, can't remember which day I realized it, you started reaching out to me to have me pick you up. That makes my heart melt. I love it.

You are still not doing the traditional crawl. But, you sure get where you want to go. You are working on the hand/knee crawl. Sometimes you do it about five times in a row (hand, knee, hand, knee, hand), and then you fall down and army crawl the rest of the way. That's fine by me. I think your dad is looking forward to you doing the traditional crawl.

The thing that most surprised me this month actually happened today--on your six month birthday! You learned how to transition from sitting to crawling without falling over. I saw you try it on the 16th, but I saw you DO it on the 17th. You are so, so smart.

I'm kind of happy for you that your half birthday is on a holiday. And it's a good holiday to have a half birthday--St. Patrick's Day! How fun is that? Totally fun.

You are almost to the point of cruising too. You hold yourself up on the footrests we have in our house and you try to take steps around. You are so smart.... Yikes!

I took you to the doctor on the 18th for more immunizations and your check-up. The doctor said you are doing wonderfully. He said that we should start you on solids now. I guess we have been giving you teeny tiny tastes of things here and there, but not really any solids as part of your meal. Grandma Worthen totally spoiled you, though, and gave you all sorts of good stuff when we were in Ferron on the 12th, 13th, and 14th. She even gave you a piece of ham!

You didn't really grow that much these past two months. I guess I kind of noticed that.

Height: 28 inches, 95th percentile (only half an inch since last time)
Weight: 18 pounds 6 ounces, 75th percentile (2 pounds 1 ounce more than last time)
Head circumference: 45 centimeters, 75th percentile (you've stayed right on the 75th each time)

Anyway, you are still my favorite boy.

I love you!

Your Mom

Ferron Utah Stake Reorganization

Obviously Mark and I don't belong to the Ferron Utah Stake since we live here on the Wasatch Front. But we were able to be in Ferron the day the stake was reorganized--and it was pretty cool.

My dad recently was called as a branch president at the nursing home there in Ferron. So he was invited along with all the bishops and high councilmen to "interview" for the job. That is not exactly what any of them would really want to do, because sane men don't seek to be the stake president. They are interviewed, however, to find the needs of the stake and to have recommends of possible candidates for the calling.

My dad kept saying he wasn't going to be called to the stake presidency. He was right. He wasn't called to the stake presidency.

However, the man that he had a good feeling about did get called as stake president. That man is the bishop of my parents' ward. He still is, since they didn't release him from the bishopric when they called and sustained him as stake president.

The first counselor was my old bishop, Bishop Worwood. And the second counselor is a man my oldest brother's age: 33/34. He is married to a girl that I grew up with. After they called and sustained him to the stake presidency, they immediately had to sustain (?) him to be advanced to the office of high priest. I don't think that happens very often.

It was a really good stake conference. Since we were missing ours here, I wanted to go to the adult meeting on Saturday night. They talked then and in the general session on Sunday about receiving revelation for making these stake presidency callings. They also talked a lot about how the people should sustain them--because the general authorities making the callings don't know the men either.

One good example one of the general authorities gave was about a man who came up to him after a new stake president was called. That man asked the GA why he wasn't called. The GA responded simply, "Well, are you worthy?" "Yes." "Then I don't know why." It's just how it goes sometimes.

Another interesting thing was that the power was out from about 5:45 in the morning until 11:00 when the general session was just starting. They had their youth session and their priesthood session there in the cold building with flashlights and lanterns. I was actually kind of looking forward to being there in a stake conference with the lights out.

The second counselor, the young guy, mentioned he was kind of disappointed the lights came back on too. He said he didn't want people to be shocked to see them sustaining deacons to the stake presidency. (Not only is he young, he looks even younger than he is.)

Overall, it was a really good conference. I'm sad we missed ours, but this one was a little bit more exciting.

Fiddler on the Roof and Honk

Mark and I went to Fiddler on the Roof at the Hale Center Theater on March 11. It was absolutely wonderful! WONDERFUL.

I went expecting to have a good time. I like Fiddler on the Roof. I own the DVD. I know the songs. Emery County community theater did it when I was growing up and Aunt Tanie was the Matchmaker. I really like it.

But, I had such a good, good time there. I tried very hard not to burst out singing with the cast. It was beautiful to have an actual fiddler as part of the cast. I fell in love with Tevye (don't worry Mark--not that kind of love). I was so glad that we went. It made me happy, angry, sad, giggly--so many emotions. And the dream was hilarious! Oh man.... I would go again if someone offered me a ticket.

The following night, Friday, March 12, Mark and I went to another play. This one was the Emery County community theater version of Honk. That's the story of the ugly duckling.

Let me just say--I had a good time. But the quality of performance, the quality of staging, and the quality of song was so vastly different it was hard not to compare the two. Especially since we saw them one right after the other.

My sister, two of my aunts, and one of my cousins were in Honk. They had such a good time. And I'm so glad they did. And I'm so glad I got to go see them perform. (Honestly, I think they were better than the mother and father duck, who were main performers.)