Brother Not Forgotten

Today the city was having a free shredding day where you could take all of your stuff to be shredded to City Hall and they would take care of it for you.  Hooray!  I've had some stored up for probably literally four years because I never get around to shredding and I don't want the kids to see the shredder because I don't want them to try to work it on their own fingers!  Anyway, we pull up and a lady stops us to give us a little comment card to fill out about how we like the service.  The first thing she says, when seeing the kids in the car, was, "Wow.  You brought the whole group, huh?"  I was wondering if she was actually in awe of a small family of four.  What would she think about the family of 12 in our ward pulling up?  Anyway, she was just about to explain the card to Michael when Evan rolled down his window and said, "Um, but, excuse me, this isn't all of our family.  I have a brother.  His name is Dallin.  But he died."  Well, the poor lady didn't know what to say, of course, and then my eyes start filling up with tears.  I know I've shared a lot of these things lately, but I want to remember them forever.  Evan is just so tender, thoughtful and aware of his brother who isn't here with us.  And he always remembers that our family isn't complete without him.  I think I cried in the car for about 10 minutes after that, just over the sweetness of a small child and looking forward to the reunion we will all have with Dallin.  Thank you, Evan, for giving me the permission to tell even perfect strangers about my THREE wonderful children.

We Really Do Have Cute Kids!

BEFORE

Maren had what I can't stand with little girls...hair in her eyes!  I was constantly trying to push it out of the way or put a clip in it, which would last about five minutes.  Evan had hair so long on the sides, it was going into his ears.  Ick.  And it was just a real mess every day.  Then...

AFTER

Aah...so much better!  Every time we cut Evan's hair, I wonder what took us so long because he is such a handsome fellow with clean cut hair.  And no more brushing wispy hair out of Maren's eyes.  Yea!  Normally Michael takes care of the hair but I couldn't stand it another minute today and took matters into my own hands (no, not the scissors, though!).  Oh, yes, Maren refused to give up the sucker for the sake of the picture.  Silly girl.

Our Family

Okay, this is ticking me off. Anyone know how I can get my pictures bigger? It seemed to have changed when I put on the cute background, which doesn't seem worth it when you can't even read what this says! (Click on it for bigger version.) Anyway, this was very fun. Wordle. It may be back to the boring blog for me soon if I can't figure out how to get bigger pictures. :-(

Famous Ears

Last Saturday we went to the zoo.  Not necessarily to see the baby elephant that had been born the Saturday before.  But because the dinosaur exhibit that we'd been meaning to go to for months was leaving on Labor Day and it was our last chance to take it in.  Of course, the bonus was that there was a cuter-than-cute baby elephant born in our zoo the week before and it was the first day they were going to let people see him.  We stood in line for only about 20 minutes for our chance to walk by him.  What a sweet thing.  I just wanted to go over and nuzzle up with him.  Anyway, Michael put Evan on his shoulders so he could get a better look and take some pictures (which were all completely blurry, I might add).  I got separated from them because I had the stroller and kept getting cut in front of.  When I got out of there, Michael told me that a reporter had gotten some information from them.  That's all I knew.  The next day, on the front page of Section B of the Sunday Oregonian was this picture:

 

If I haven't mentioned it yet, I don't know why this new background stuff is making my pictures so tiny.  It's bugging me.  But, anyway, you can click on it to see it larger.  There's cute little Evan in his Disneyland hat taking a picture of the baby elephant.  And there's Michael's ears.  The parents get no love...and rightfully so.  We're not 10% as cute as our kids, are we?

Michael Bybee, CMA

We are so proud of Michael over here!  Back in June, while I was at Girl's Camp, Michael took the board exam to become a certified medical assistant.  It was a four-hour test with 300 questions.  No small task.  I've been dying to know his results ever since.  It's been a long wait.  Just this week we got his score in the mail and found out that he had, indeed, passed.  And, he really messed up the curve for everyone else.  He did great on all three categories of the test (general, administrative and clinical), but his clinical score really takes the cake.  He was in the 98th percentile!!!  That's quite an accomplishment (especially after only maybe two hours of studying!).  So, he's been excited about signing his name with "CMA" at the end.  And it's time to get a little name plaque to go on his stethoscope that includes that.  Ha!  It's about the little things, isn't it?  Hooray, Michael.  Way to go!