Courtesy of Evan Bybee Photography

I thought Evan got a pretty dramatic picture here. Ha! I love that little lip. She's such a sweet girl. So, since Maren hardly ever gets any blog space, here's an update on her. She has started making kissy lips and will always do it after you do. Michael even got some pretty sweet kisses from her yesterday. I was jealous. She so wants to be a walker. She just loves to stand so much. I can't believe her so-short body will be walking around this house before we know it. She likes to wave and clap, although her clapping skill went completely away for about a month. I wondered what happened to it until one day, out of the blue, she started clapping again. She adores Evan and is pretty much happy any time he is around. She is still chubby and we love it as much as ever.

Her two favorite things in the whole world are taking a bath and riding in the shopping cart. We have a game we play when it's bath time. We put her far away from the bathroom and engage her with a toy. Then we tell Evan to turn on the water so we can watch her face turn to excitement and see her book it, in her military crawl, down the hall as fast as she can go. The other day we didn't even have to wait for the water to turn on. As soon as she heard the shower curtain move back, she was off and "running".

As for the shopping cart, the other day all it took was walking into Fred Meyer and seeing the carts sitting there. She started pumping her legs like crazy. She just loves it. About 20 minutes into the trip she seemed agitated and appeared to want out, to my surprise. When I took her out, she wanted to face out and then she was grabbing for the cart handle. She wanted to PUSH the shopping cart! So, I let her as I held her (quite a workout for me!). Oh, the squeals of delight! Oh, the leg kicks! She was absolutely in heaven. You could hear her squeals eight aisles down. People kept looking, smiling, laughing at her. Michael and I took turns being the one to hold her so that the other one could walk in front of the cart and just watch her elated face. She is a joy. We love her so much!

Pumpkin Patch

Evan has been talking about Fall and pumpkin patches for, well, a year now. He so LOVED going last year. Definitely the highlight of 2006 for him. Well, that and M&Ms on Christmas, I guess. Anyway, we decided to go on Tuesday. The weather was great and the crowds would be small. The only trouble is...Evan hadn't had a nap. It was mostly misery and I don't have any great pictures to show from the whole deal, but here's what I've got.

He wasn't crying in this picture...yet. At this farm you ride a little "boat" out to the patch. A pretend shark comes out of the water and some little dragons. Pretty cute for just being a pumpkin patch. Evan picked his pumpkin and there was no debating. Unfortunately, it's already got mold. Probably did when he picked it out, but that wouldn't have mattered. It was that one or else!!

Not a great picture, but I thought it was cute that Maren is smiling in the background. In try Memory Bybee form, I included that lovely trash can in the picture. Nice!

So, you ride a train back to the patch entrance. It's very cute. Maren thought it was a lot of fun. It's super loud and bumpy. I thought this was a sweet picture of my boys. Obviously, Evan is very sleepy and ponderous. Oh, yeah. I don't know if you can see it, but there is a space shuttle on his shirt. If you remember about, I don't know, ten posts ago I mentioned how he likes to watch the space shuttle launches on the Internet just about every day. Well, I've had a Gymboree gift card with only $12 left on it for the past two years! So, a few weeks ago I decided I was finally going to take care of that. I was looking through their sale racks and I found this shirt. I was thrilled. I think I actually won the Mother of the Day award from Evan. I couldn't wipe the smile off his face for at least ten minutes.

I only include this one because it cracks me and Michael up. It reminds us of one of those old fashioned pictures where the people didn't smile. Very serious. Ha! Or TIRED!

And this is probably our favorite one because Evan is actually smiling and Maren, like a good baby, is just about to put that hay in her mouth. Of course, she's got to check it out first. Oh, yeah again! I put Maren in this really cute shirt before we left. When we got there, she was pooped out of it. This is the back-up onesie I had. Of course that would happen! Isn't that always how it goes? I had barely enough wipes to finish the clean-up job and no other shirts. Good thing it was sunny and hot! That reminds me of another poopy story. The other day Michael took the kids grocery shopping so I could work. Maren was pooped out (not tired this time) by the time he got there. He had no diapers, no wipes, no nothing. He would not be deterred. He sat her on one of the plastic produce bags and took about an hour and a half to do the shopping. Stinky! I guess it would be easy to turn down any normally-tempting chocolate items with a smell lingering like that.

Grandpa & Grandma Herbert

My grandpa (my mom's dad) and grandma left last week to go back to their home in Mesa, Arizona. It was a sad time because my grandpa was talking about how it may very well be the last time he is here. I am having a very hard time dealing with that thought, so I hope that he is wrong. I think there is a lot I don't realize about his health, though. I guess that's because I haven't asked because I'd rather be in the dark and in denial. His passing will be the first (other than Dallin) of really close family in 23 years, since my grandma died (my mom's mom). That's a long time for someone to get really comfortable with everyone she loves around her.


So, I thought I would put down in writing some of the wonderful memories I have with my grandpa so that I never forget. Here goes...

• He used to change my diaper on the wing of his airplane (I don't personally remember this but many others do!)
• I flew with him many places and even remember getting to steer as we taxied on the runway one day.
• He taught me how to pump my legs when I swing and how to ride my bike.
• He taught me how to float on my back, how to swim and how to dive.
• He was a teacher, principal and asst. superintendent. He was always very proud of my spelling skills and would test me with big, big words.
• He taught me mathematical tricks associated with multiplication, especially.
• Many summers I spent up to 3 weeks with him and my grandma in Arizona. We went swimming almost every day. One year he wanted to get me to cartwheel into the pool and I was pretty sure I was going to hit my head on the side of the pool and die. After about 2 hours of coaxing I think I finally did it but I will never forget the terror I felt.
• While I was there in the summers we ate ice cream every day. Grandpa always put milk in his ice cream and kind of stirred it up. I always thought that was strange. My parents say I would come home from there about 10 pounds heavier...which is kind of a lot when you're not even a teenager yet!
• He is very proud of my typing skills and is always checking to see if I still type as fast as I did in high school.
• He has always counseled me to be the best employee a company has ever had. Great advice.
• He counsels us to stay out of debt and to stay close to the church. I would never be able to charge any amount of money on a credit card without thinking of my grandpa and how sad that would make him. So I shan't!
• He absolutely loves Evan's big eyes (and Maren's now, too). Every time he sees Evan he tells Evan about the picture he has of him on his fridge that makes him smile so much because of his big eyes. He reminds me that when I was a baby I had enormous eyes, too.
• My grandpa loves, loves, loves his family. He has been a wonderful example of hard work, learning, love, wise financial decisions, and dedication to the Lord.

For all these things and more, Grandpa, I love you!!

Sleepover!

So, Evan had his first sleepover last weekend at Grammy's house! Hooray! His cousin, Jaren, did this a few months ago and after I heard that, I really started talking it up. The first time we attempted a sleepover was about a year ago at my sister's house. We got the come-pick-up-your-son call somewhere around 1 a.m., I think. Ha! We realize now that that was a little young. Anyway, I have always been a big supporter of leaving your children for a night, or two, or three so you can have a vacation or whatever. And we have had several people tell us that they would take Evan (this was back in the day before Maren!) for us. The problem is that we haven't had any money to actually go anywhere and do anything. Anyway...we were very nervous about getting "the call" again this time because that's just what we expected from Evan. But we were so surprised. He stayed at Grammy's house and did great and had a great time. He got to play with Grammy's yarn and her fun toys. They watched a movie and Evan wrangled Grammy into reading books for an hour and a half. According to Grammy, at 10 p.m. Evan finally said, "Okay, Grammy. You can go now." Oh, boy. The next morning they went to a toy store so he could get a new Chinese yo-yo. A cheap amusement. I enjoyed myself so thoroughly that I suggested to my mom that she might want to have grandson bonding once a month!! Oh, I'm so selfish and everyone can see right through that one. It's hard to believe that Evan isn't like this any more. He's all grown up and having sleepovers now. Hard to believe. We love him so much. And we love you, too, Grammy. Thanks for taking care of our [mostly] sweet boy! :-)

Medical School?

This is a quickie...I've got to get to bed. I've always thought that Michael should be a doctor. Too darn bad we didn't just jump on that thought ten years ago so he'd be done by now. Anyway, that thought is pretty much being confirmed as he's in school studying medical stuff. I was pleased as punch to hear, even though it embarrassed him a whole lot!, that Michael's teacher told Michael, in front of the whole class, "You have an amazing brain." Agreed. Now, if we can just find someone who would like to fund his medical school and, oh, yes, pay our living expenses at the same time, we can refer to him as Dr. Bybee. Heehee.

Spinach Yeaves

We have a spinach harvest! Evan was so excited when Michael told him they needed to go out and cut off some spinach in the garden. He said we could have "spinach yeaves" for dinner. The cutest part was when he said, "Mom, don't cook anything for dinner. We're going to have spinach yeaves. It will be a really nice dinner." Well, I took him up on that one. Since spinach leaves seemed like a pretty light dinner, I did go all out and make some garlic cheese toast once we started eating. What a nice wife I am. :-)

Anyway, Evan was too cute. His first taste of his beloved spinach yeaves was not very yummy. Nor was his second or third or fourth. With or without ranch dressing, he was having a hard time choking the stuff down. But he kept trying! That's what amazed us. I think it's because he loves the idea of eating leaves and has been waiting for this spinach for a while now. Too cute. Happily, I got some pictures of our brave eater.

Here's my favorite. What a cute boy he is! Forget all that terrible stuff I said in the last post. Ha! We love him no matter what!

Another funny note. Before he started eating, he said, "I ate spinach yeaves on my mission." Everything has been about his mission lately. I'm trying to think of other examples. He just keeps telling us these stories about his mission. Oh, there were "guys in suits" on his mission. That doesn't mean what you think it means. His cousin is afraid of "guys in suits" (Chuck E. Cheese, etc.) so they use this phrase quite often. Well, we thought that was a pretty funny comment considering, you know, the suits and everything. Maybe this all stemmed from Michael's mission president speaking in General Conference last weekend. We made a BIG deal out of that. It was so strange because ever since Elder Tenorio was called into the Seventy, Michael has been waiting to hear him speak. I just had a feeling he was going to on Sunday. Michael commented how he was going to write the First Presidency and ask them to have Elder Tenorio speak. Just then President Monson announced that Elder Tenorio would be speaking. If Michael could do a back flip, he would have. We quickly called lots of family members (during the choir singing!) to let them know. During the talk, Michael sat just inches from the computer, taking in every splendid moment. I think it was an emotional experience to see him again. And his talk was wonderful...on how we, as Latter-Day Saints, view death and what happens to our family members and friends after they die. Little did we know that Elder Tenorio and Michael have something else in common. They have both had babies die. It was neat to have that experience. Maybe that will fuel Michael's desire to go back and visit Mexico. Maybe, just maybe, we could go there for his 20-year mission anniversary. That would be in five years. Now, that's a frightening thought, isn't it? It's been 15 years since Michael left on his mission. Crazy! Rambling...

Elder Octaviano Tenorio

Change in the Wind

This is the way I choose to remember Evan. Sweet, gentle, mild-mannered, angelic.

Ha! Boy, has a lot changed in the last couple of weeks! Don't worry. He's still all of these things with Maren. It's just his parents who he seems to feel differently about now. :-) It happened two or three weeks ago. We kissed our angel good night and he woke up a different boy. Now he's aggressive, defiant, hitting, spitting, throwing things, having tantrums, screaming, saying mean things. All those blessed things I thought I was going to get to skip over. He's almost three! I thought we were going to get to skip those "terrible twos". Guess not. Oh! My favorite thing to hear today was, "Don't say anything, Mom. Your voice is boring." Ha! Where do kids get these things from?!?!

So, Michael and I have been beside ourselves with what to do about this new turn of events. Yesterday was a TERRIBLE day. It was so negative. We were taking away privileges left and right and he spent half the day in time-out. Michael and I were drained and felt terrible about all the negativity. And Evan...well, he didn't even care. It just wasn't the right motivation for him. So, Michael and I did some brainstorming and we spent our entire date night working on our new system for motivating Evan to have better behavior. First we went to The Learning Palace and got a job chart. When he completes jobs around the house (some things as simple as saying something nice to his sister, etc.), he gets tokens. When he gets 20 tokens, he can choose something from our "fun store". That's a bucket we got at the dollar store full of cheap but entertaining toys. We also threw in lots of healthy snacks and things I never by like fruit snacks. This bucket is PACKED full of motivational goodness. Evan was really excited about it (though he's having a hard time with this delayed gratification stuff) and got 14 tokens today. I guess we'll probably have to pay up with something from the "store" tomorrow. This will be an interesting experiment. Today was a much better day. If things continue this way, I'll be thrilled. If they go back to how they were on Friday, I'm checking myself into the psyche ward!

It's Stuck!

You take the good, you take the bad.
You take 'em both and there you have
The facts of life. The facts of life.
There's a time you gotta ? ? ?
You're growin' now, you know about
The facts of life. The facts of life.
When the world can never seem
To be living up to your dream
Then suddenly you're finding out
The facts of life are all about you.
You-u-u-u-u...................

You ever get old TV show songs stuck in your head? Usually mine is The Love Boat. Ha! Lately, though, it's The Facts of Life. I was completely entertained the other day when I was singing it and Michael joined right in. He knew the whole thing (except I'm not sure if he even knows the ? ? ? words) and even remembered that one of the characters from The Facts of Life was Trudy. He told me he thought the blonde girl was hot back then. Yep, that would be Blaire. Anyway, I'm just getting a laugh out of it today. I can't get it out of my head and Michael told me to stop singing it this afternoon because it was stuck in his head this morning and he successfully got it out. Maybe I'll help him out with a new song...

Love, exciting and new
Come aboard. We're expecting you.
The Love Boat soon will be making another run.
The Love Boat promises something for everyone.
Set a course for adventure. Your mind on a new romance...

Okay, I could put the whole thing here so that one day 20 years down the line I can laugh about it and sing it all the way through. But you know what? I'm not worried about forgetting it. I just checked Wikipedia and the last time The Love Boat was on was 20 YEARS AGO! Holy cow! That's hard to believe. I'm sure I'll be 75 and still remember the words. I have no choice. Even if I didn't want to, they are good and stuck.

Cool Story

Michael got a call today from a guy he worked with at Professional Services at the end of 2005 and then part of 2006. He said he really only worked with him about 2 weeks in a row, saw him a couple times, and roomed with him at one training conference. Anyway, this guy called Michael because he has stopped drinking, is wanting to get better friends and is working on improving his life. He asked Michael if he still goes to church which, of course, he does. He wants to get together with Michael sometime to go shooting or something. Anyway, I just thought that was really neat that Michael made such a positive impression on him. And that this guy would contact him, after not having contact for probably a year, all because he could tell that Michael was someone with morals and values. It's a great lesson. Sometimes we, as Mormons, are made to feel strange, peculiar, etc. for the things we don't do. We don't drink, don't shop on Sundays, don't even have sex before we're married. But, what we try to do is a whole lot of good. Hopefully Michael will be able to make a really positive impact in this guy's life and help him out of the life slump that he's been in. We're glad he reached out for help. The really interesting thing is that this is not the first time this has happened to Michael. There have been several people in the past who have just noticed something different about Michael and wanted to be around that something. He can be an odd duck sometimes (heehee), but he is a pretty awesome quack.

Proud Wife

I just had to share because I'm brimming with pride... Michael had a 100-question test today. He actually did some studying last night (he usually doesn't do much but still gets 90%+!!). Well, he got 100% on his test! He was the only one. In fact, the only one who got over 90%. And, 70% of the other students completely failed the test. Now, I do feel terrible for those other students but I'm completely wowed by my smarty pants hubby. Way to go, Mikey!

Both Sides Equally, Now, Ladies!

I'm really just not going to comment here. But if you know me well, you understand why I put this here. Enough said.

A Mom's Luck

So, it's 2:29 p.m. right now. But I wanted to give you a little timeline of what's happened the last couple of hours to show just how my mom luck goes:

12:30 - Put Maren down for a nap, start making lunches, Evan and I eat
12:45 - Michael gets home
1:00 - Go read Evan a book. While we're reading, Michael comes in and lays on Evan's bed. I'm no fool. I know what's going to happen here.
1:15 - Done with the book, tell Evan to have a nice nap. He says he wants one more book. I tell him that Dad can read him another one but I've got to go start on my work for the day. So, I go start working.
1:45 - I'm running on not so many hours of sleep lately. I'm really tired. I'm working, but not very effectively. My eyes have been shut for the last 5 minutes which throws off my equilibrium and I can't type as fast. I check to see how much more work I have to get done before my 5 p.m. deadline. One hour! I decide that I will finish the file I'm working on and then take a nap. This is really something because I never take naps! Yesterday when I was so exhausted, I put my head down on the desk for five minutes between work, but I was actually planning on getting my body horizontal this time.
2:00 - I'm done with that file. I head to the couch.
2:01:10 - I lay down, put the blanket on.
2:01:25 - I start thinking about how long I will nap for. I then realize that Maren should be waking up around 2:30. That's the perfect amount of time for a nap. Refreshing but not too long. And I'll still have plenty of time to get my work done. I start to relax. I'm loving life. I'm drifting off.
2:01:35 - I hear Maren wake up and start crying. Yes, it's true. Ten seconds! What's crazy is not that it happened this one time, but that it happens all the time. It doesn't matter if I get into bed at 11:30 p.m. or 2:00 a.m. Only moments later is when Maren decides she needs some middle-of-the-night loves. So now Maren and I are playing, the boys are napping, and I'm not sure when I'm going to get my work done. Lucky for Maren, she's awfully cute. :-)

Childhood Memory - Happy Father's Day!

I must've been somewhere around 15. My brother 13, and my sisters 12 & 11. Probably have it all wrong, but something like that. Anyway, the night before Father's Day we decided to have a slumber party in the living room. Well, in the middle of our sleep, there was a noise towards the back of the house that woke us up. Someone was rattling the back door. They were trying to get in! It actually wasn't a door that goes from the outside to the house, but from an added-on, enclosed porch to the kitchen. I decided that since I was the oldest, I needed to protect everyone else. We were all laying on the ground with the couch blocking our view from seeing the perpetrator. I told my sisters to stay down so he wouldn't see them and told my brother to crawl with me to my mom's room where the gun was. I truly have no recollection of where my mom was...whether she was in there and I didn't want to wake her up and scare her or just what. Anyway, my brother found the gun and I told him to load it which he obeyed. :-) Then I told him we needed to sneak around the corner and have the gun ready to shoot in case the guy was able to break into the door. He asked what he should do if they guy got through the door and I told him he should shoot him! So, we're inching along the living room wall. Brandon was looking particularly policeman-like because he had the gun up at the ready. When we got to the corner, Brandon prepared the gun. He popped his head around the side, gun pointed, just as my DAD walked through the door! My dad had slept out in one of the rooms on the porch and needed to get in to go to the bathroom. Someone had locked that door and he had been trying to shake the door loose. So we laughing about the Father's Day when I almost gave the order to shoot my own dad. (Family, how much of this story did I get wrong??)

Brilliant Idea

So, yes, I had what I think is a brilliant idea, if I do say so myself. The other day one of my childhood memories surfaced. I don't remember now what brought it up, but I was chuckling to myself. Then I realized that I don't have all these funny stories written down anywhere. Yes, I wrote in my journal as a child and as a teenager, but most of the stuff in there is the guy I liked at the time, stuff about my classes at school, and what part I was playing in The Nutcracker or other ballet going on at the time. Maybe some doodles, and that was that. I decided this would be the perfect place to archive the exceptionally hysterical stories before Alzheimer's sets in (I'm pretty sure I'm destined for it!) and I can't reflect on these memories for warm and fuzzy feelings. When I make one of these postings, I will call it "Childhood Memory - ..." and include a little note to myself of what it was. That way maybe I can sort by that title in the future and have them all together or at least make them easier to find. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoy laughing about them now.

Zombie Boy

So, I've been hesitant to put this on here because I don't want anyone talking behind my back about it. But Evan has been sleeping in our bed on and off (Who am I kidding? Mostly ON!) since about April when he had his big whammy of an ear infection. We've had a really hard time getting him out of there. So, we started diligently trying on Sunday. He slept in his bed Sunday night and Monday night. And he's been in his bed for naptime for a little over a week now. But he's not getting much sleep. His naps have been way short. He falls asleep around 10 p.m. and wakes up around 7 a.m. So, he's not been the most pleasant little boy (read: whiny!!) lately.

So, last night I realized he probably had about an 8-hour sleep debt. I told Michael we were starting the bedtime routine at 6:30, which we did. Michael gets him to bed around 8:15. Wow! Then Michael fell asleep and I was on my own. At 11:30, I was working away and just sense something behind me. I turn around and there is Evan. He scares the poo out of me because he is absolutely silent as he walks up so I don't expect anything there. I had to work on lowering my heart rate for about a minute before I could even talk to him. Finally he told me there was a shadow in his room and he was afraid of the shadow. I went in his room to check it out. This shadow was made by the lamp he insists stays on hitting his bedroom door, which was all the way open, and making a shadow behind the door. Just the one inch or so between the back of the door and the wall. Um, okay. So I try for about half an hour to talk him out of being afraid of the shadow. I try to get rid of it by shutting the door a little ways and hanging a towel up over it. I remind him about Peter Pan's shadow. I show him my shadow. I suggest we turn the lamp off so there's no shadow. I'm getting nowhere. Time to call in the smart guy. Dad. So Michael starts talking to him about shadows. They do some experiments. There is laughing and carrying on. But in the end he still wanted to sleep in our bed because he was afraid of the shadow. Michael said, "Evan, if I get rid of the shadow, will you sleep in your own bed?" Evan said he would. I heard Michael go out to the garage (I was back to my work by now!). Then I heard the drill. Michael took Evan's door off. Ha! No door, no door shadow.

I must commend Michael. He really stuck to his guns. Actually, since Sunday night, he has not given in. No matter what time of night, no matter how tired he is, he insists that Evan sleep in his own bed (I was caving after about 5 minutes last night!). And he's really nice and wonderful about it, too. He's a really great dad. Now if I can just get him to get this bedroom door out of the dining area.