WHAT'S YOUR DOG'S NAME?

We live on a semi-busy street so there is often people walking by for a stroll or exercise or a family bike-ride, etc. If the people walking by have a dog with them they are often accosted by our little Sarah. Her and Nathan spend different snippets of their day on top of the little table by our front window just looking outside at the happenings in the street. If by chance they see a person with a dog Sarah makes a bee-line for the door and opens the door and yells at the top of her lungs: "WHAT'S YOUR DOG'S NAME?" In the time it takes for her to notice the dog and get the front door and storm door open the people may be about a house away. This doesn't phase Sarah, she just has to yell louder. Sometimes people understand what she's saying, but often they just look back a little confused and wonder why some cute little girl is yelling at them from her front porch. I was reminded about this cute little quirk of Sarah's when we were driving to the store the other day with the window's down and we drove past a teenage boy walking a dog. As we were driving by at about 30 mph Sarah noticed the dog and screamed out her question. I doubt if the boy even heard what she said and Sarah seemed to understand why he didn't answer. Of course, some people do stop and tell Sarah the name of their canine and she then says something like "Oh, that's a nice name" and then thanks them for stopping and telling her. It's somewhat embarassing at times and goes much better when we're actually out in the front yard.

Trip to the Bruneau Sand Dunes

While we were chatting with Mary's folks on Saturday or Sunday they inquired about the Bruneau Sand Dunes that are "advertised" on the highway. They are about 20 minutes away or so and we hadn't been there yet, so we decided to head out there on Monday (Memorial Day). Apparently this is quite the Sand Dune, as far as sand dunes go. One of the dunes out there is the "tallest single-structured sand dune in North America", which is pretty cool. I didn't have too high of expectations, but it definitely exceeded those. It has a smallish lake right next to the dunes and a good number of camping spots. We (Me, Sarah, Nathan, Nanu, Bumpa and Sneakers) headed out there Monday morning. It was raining a little as we arrived but it turned out great. We had a little lunch/snack by the lake and then turned to conquering one of the dunes. Here are some fun pictures:

Here we are on the way... piled into Nanu and Bumpa's car, unfortuntaely Sneakers chickened out and didn't get in the picture.
Here we are eating lunch at the park by the lake
Nanu was on Sneakers patrol and taking care of him while we enjoyed the hike.
A great close-up of Sarah with Nathan and I way up the dune in the background. It was sometime around the time this pic was taken that Sarah decided that she did want to make the trip to the top.

I think we're on the top here. Sarah was really worried the whole time about "falling off", but she still insisted on carrying her graham cracker the whole way and seemed to be more comfortable as we went along.
Here we are at the top. We forgot our sleds but it was a perfect day for sledding down the dunes because it had just rained so it was packed down a little and not as sinky.
Nathan playing at the bottom with me looking on
A great pic (if I do say so myself) of Bumpa walking up the dunes with Sarah and Nathan.


Nathan running down the dunes on the descent.

We got some adorable pics of this little guy (more below). Somehow we didn't get his squinty-eyed-goofy-smile-"Cheeeeeeese"- face.
Bumpa and Sarah hiking up the dune

Here's some of those aforementioned adorable pics of Nathan.

This was a great time and I'm so glad that Nanu and Bumpa suggested that we do this. We will definitely enjoy some future day trips and maybe some overnight trips out to the dunes. Apparently it's roasting hot out there in the summer and the sand is unbearably hot so it's more a late spring/early summer and late summer/early fall thing, but we'll enjoy it! It was perfect weather as the rain was gone so the sand was cool and damp and packed down, which made for easy hiking and it was great to just take our shoes off at the bottom and walk in pure sand all the way to the top. I've never been to a sand dune before, so this was my first experience... and I really enjoyed it!

Nanu, Bumpa, & Sneaker's Visit!

Mary's folks came to visit us this last weekend. We had so much fun with them and they had so much fun with the kids. They were also a big help and enjoyed spending time in the crazy weather we had over the weekend. I was much better at getting pictures with them, probably because I was home with them instead of at work. So here are some pictures:

Bumpa (Mary's dad) holding little Jane and trying to soothe her.
Bumpa looks like the kids have worn him out... though he seemed amazingly tireless in spending time with them and doing things at their every whim. The kids had so much fun with him.

Nanu (Mary's mom) reading a book to Sarah while Bumpa holds little Jane in the background. The kids enjoyed their time with Nanu and she was wonderful with them as well.
While Nathan napped and after the kids went to bed, we played some bocce while the Nanu and Bumpa were here. A very fun leisurely game that anyone and everyone can play.
Mary's lookin' awfully good for having had a baby 4 weeks ago... don't ya think?

My Mom's Visit

So this is literally 3-4 weeks old, but life has been busy for us with 3. But my wonderful mother visited to help us out and stayed for 10 days. She arrived a few days after Jane was born and was such a big help! In looking through the pictures I am absolutely appalled that we don't have any pictures (not a single one!) of my mom holding little Jane! Crazy, sad, disappointing, disgusting, etc.... I know! Anyway, here are some pics of her time with us... even if she's not necessarily in many of them (sorry mom!)

Mom and I took the kids to a local park one of the days and the kids had fun walking around the little pond and over the bridges of the various streams. It was a beautiful day!

Then Nathan discovered how fun it was to throw rocks into the water and was set for the rest of the time that we were there. He just loved this and was so excited to find new rocks that he could throw.

Sarah liked this equally as much and showed Nathan how much fun it was to throw the rocks into a bigger body of water.

The night before Mom flew home we drove up to my Aunt and Uncle's house (Rick and Laurie) in Fruitland, ID to stay the night and spend some time there. Sarah and Nathan have been there a handful of times and as soon as we got there they both made a bee-line for the basement and the massive toy collection. I don't think these toys get used as much as they used to but Nathan and Sarah love that area of the house. We usually have to check on them to make sure they're both alive, hydrated or let them know it's time to eat. My two cousins Claire and Kade enjoy spending time with Sarah and Nathan as well.
Here's my cousin Emma showing off the pizza's that were made that night. They sure look good, Huh!
I don't think my Aunt Laurie knows that I got this pic of her, but she and Rick are such wonderful hosts and so fun to be with. We really appreciated our time there.

The next morning we made a Costco run and then went to the Zoo in Boise (Thanks to Mary's siblings for the Zoo pass!). The kids had a great time and enjoyed being able to see the animals... it's not the greatest zoo in the world but kids are sometimes just as excited to see the squirrel's and geese in the park as they are to see the actual caged animals, so it works just fine for now. Here's a cameo of my mom as well. Sarah was so excited to use some of the money that she earned from winning a coloring contest on the carousel and got to ride it two times consecutively. I took plenty of pics but here are two of them.

Sarah enjoyed pushing Nathan around in the stroller all by herself, though she lamented a few times that he was getting "bigger".
Nathan's patented head first slide, with one problem: this slide is "built for speed" and doesn't have as much drag as the typical slide at a park. The result: Nathan seriously went launching face first into the woodchips and I was surprised that he wasn't bleeding, though he was a little shaken. He reverted to the traditional form of sliding after the initial spill but then was back to his old ways after a few turns but he learned to use his hands as brakes. It was cute.
Last fall when we last came here this slide(a giraffe, you slide down the neck/head) was under construction, so the kids were excited to use it this time. Sarah was able to consume her apple while she was making trips up and down the slide.

In addition to all the stuff above, mom was just such a big help in general. Mary seemed to really enjoy spending time with her and being able to have someone to talk with about all kinds of stuff. Mom helped a ton on the garden by prepping it for planting and also did a lot of weeding while the kids would play outside. She, of course, was a big help in cooking and keeping the house clean and she totally took care of Sarah and Nathan so that Mary could rest and take care of Jane. And there was certainly no shortage of offers to be up with Jane in the middle of the night. It's so wonderful to have my Mom come and be there with us and just be so willing to help in whatever way she can. It was wonderful to have her and everyone was sad to see her go! Thanks Mom!

Puppet Show

The other day I had an idea (after the kids went to bed) that we should do some puppet shows behind the couch and I thought that Sarah and Nathan would really enjoy that. We forgot about it for a few days and then Mary remembered it so we told them we had a surprise for them after dinner. They were very excited about the surprise (Sarah was excited about the surprise, Nathan was excited because Sarah was excited... he had no clue what he was supposed to be excited about). After dinner we had them sit on the couch across the room and we went down behind the other couch and popped our hands up with some puppets. The kids were thrilled! There favorite thing was to "crash the party" by running over and jumping on the couch and attacking our puppets as well as trying to scare us behind the couch... giggling all the way, of course. We would let them do that for a bit and then ask them to return to the couch so the show could resume and they would... for about 5 seconds. We began switching roles and it was pretty cute to watch them try to be puppets. Sarah tried to get into the puppet roles. Nathan just wanted to either attack Sarah's puppet with his or have us attack his puppet. It was fun nonetheless and they have requested several puppet shows since then and they have also put on several of their own. Pretty cute!


Nathan liked to be on the side of the couch where both he and his puppet could be seen (and he could see what was going on)

Bike Ridin'

Sarah has really enjoyed riding her bike around recently. The street we live on is a little busy but there's a cul-de-sac just down the street that doesn't have any homes built on it yet, so it works great for some bike riding. Nathan joins in the fun on his trike and seems to really enjoy it. Sarah is very proud of her skills and hopefully we can build up enough confidence in her to be able to think about removing the training wheels by the end of the summer. We'll see, but she really enjoys this for now!


His trike has one of those attachable push thingy's. Sometimes he likes to be pushed really fast and sometimes he likes to go laboriously slow but on his own. Sarah has tried really hard to get him to pedal on his trike but he enjoys just doing the Flinstones style of propulsion.

Blog Centenarian

My hip cousin Kaitlin blogged about her 100th post a while ago, and I just reached that threshold... I think this is pretty cool. This is actually the 101st post on my blog... but Mary did one of them so this is my 100th post. I just looked and my sis is approaching #300! I'm sure there are many more to come for me!

Weight Loss!

So, this last Friday was the final weigh-in at work for the "Biggest Loser" contest that I previously posted about (see here). I actually won! I couldn't believe it and I am really proud of myself. I've never put such a concerted effort into regular exercise and healthier eating and had such great success. I weighed-in at 195 lbs. and won the contest by weighing in at 169 lbs. That's 26 lbs. lost in just over 3 months! My prize is $150, which is nice money to get a few things I've been wanting and it served as an impetus to do something I already wanted to do and hope to continue.

How did I do it? I definitely decreased my portions that I was eating (I love eating good food), I cut out a lot of snacks (except for smaller healthy ones), stopped eating the free cafeteria food(Food Services of America) that they serve at work and brought my own lunch instead, we also were much more careful about what we were eating. We ate very little dairy (cheese, milk, etc.) and rarely had any kind of meat besides fish.

I also exercised more consistently then I have since I've been married. My "Weak Week Running Streak" is once again up to 5 weeks and I ran four times this past week and I feel much more comfortable running and rarely feel sore the next day at all, although I still don't enjoy running all that much and I hope to be able to find some other activities to exercise.

It's been really great and Mary has been really helpful and supportive with both the eating aspect as well as the exercising aspect during this time. The great thing about this is that I haven't felt like I was dieting... I really have enjoyed the food that we've eaten and haven't missed (with some exceptions of course) some of the foods that we cut out of our diet. I anticipate that we'll continue with this healthier eating and I hope that I'll continue to exercise. Here are some cool benefits of this weight loss:

1) I can wear my wedding ring again... comfortably! I'm ashamed to admit that the marriage weight that I put on made me have to not wear my wedding ring and Mary got me a cheap one for my not so slimmer days. It's nice to wear that ring again!

2) People noticed, and it felt good to get those compliments!

3) I can wear some of those clothes that I loved from a few years ago that have been sitting in the "Jeff - smaller clothes" bin and I like some of my new/old wardrobe. My white shirts for church aren't as tight around the collar either and I can wear some of those suits that I haven't been able to wear for a while.

4) Everybody knows that guys like to look at themselves in the mirror... and I do more of that currently and I generally like how I look (I'm not sure if I'm more interested in the cool beard that I'm growing or how I generally look, I guess we'll see when I shave)

5) I am more optimistic that I can keep this weight off or at least maintain this or an even better physique. Getting down in the 160's (albeit barely) seemed way out of reach for me but I still see plenty of room for improvement... not necessarily weight loss, but definitely body toning... and I feel motivated to do it and that I can make that change... this is new for me!

Anyway, this is something I've been working on for a while and I haven't really had these types of successes in quite a while... and it feels great. I hope to enjoy a little more self-indulgence (read mint chocolate chip ice-cream and beef occasionally), while also maintaining a more healthy diet and regular excercise... it's cool! I don't have any pics right now but when I post some pics of my beard you can check it out then.

Fillin' Drawers

The other night, I was helping Sarah and Nathan brush their teeth while Mary was in Nathan's room putting laundry away. As I was walking out of the bathroom I heard some rear-end emissions coming from Jane's direction in the living room. I said "Whoaaaaa, Jane is really filling her drawers!". To which Sarah replied "No Daddy! Mommy's filling the drawers." And I looked over and realized that Sarah had seen Mary putting some of Nathan's clothes away in his dresser drawers. It was a funny, coincidental play on words that Sarah had caught. I laughed at that one for a while. And I had to explain to Mary (who had overheard the whole conversation) what Sarah had heard and seen and why she interpreted it that way. As adults, we use sayings where our intended meaning has a vague (at-best) connection to the literal meaning of something. But when I made my statement, Mary's mind interpreted my intended meaning without thinking about the literal meaning of what I said while Sarah understood only the literal meaning. If I hadn't seen what Mary was doing at nearly the exact moment that Sarah corrected me, I probably wouldn't have caught on either. I thought this was pretty funny! Sorry I couldn't find a good pic on Google images to fit this post.

Last Class

So, I finished my last class teaching Social Psychology for Park University the Monday after Jane's arrival, which was just administering a final exam. It's crazy to think that less than a year ago I was facing my professors and now I have students facing me. It's been a weird role-reversal experience in that respect. Overall, it's been pretty good, though I grossly underestimated the amount of time it would take me to prepare for each class, which was frustrating and resulted in Mary and I feeling like I was back in school (at times) in terms of study and preparation time for each class. It was nice not to have assignments but I had to prep for a lengthy lecture (five hours every Monday evening) each week and I had to be the more knowledgeable one with regard to the material. It looks like I'll be teaching another class starting in mid-August. This course will be Human Growth and Development. It should be an interesting course. I hope to divide it up between two days and we'll see how it goes. It's been fun!

Another healthy breakfast...

This one was totally introduced to me by my mom and dad... though I didn't try it for quite a while... and I mocked it until I tried it. I am totally a rice person, always have been and Quinoa is just as good, cooks the exact same way and apparently more healthy (for details ask Mary or my Mom). Mary and I eat this for breakfast on occasion and we both enjoy it, with different individualized spins. So here are some pics and a basic recipe.

Cook your Quinoa. Typically it's two parts water to one part Quinoa. We do half of the liquid with vegetable broth instead of water and we also add some cumin and have started adding coconut oil to the mixture recently. You throw that all in your rice cooker and cook it just like rice. It tastes great... I haven't met anybody that didn't like Quinoa after introducing it to them.

While the Quinoa is cooking, I cut up the following ingredients (made for two people): one avocado, at least one roma tomato (I'm not a big fan of tomato... you may want one per person) and about a half of a cucumber. We also cut a lime in half and juice that to add as desired.
Mary likes a lot more lime than I do. I prefer to use Braggs Amino Acids (some healthy sauce similar in taste to Soy Sauce) and some salt with a little lime. We just put the ingredients together and mix it up and it tastes great. Because I'm such a casserole-type guy... always mixing my food together (sorry Leah!), this is a great meal... one I've eaten for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I would like to add a fried egg or two to the mixture but haven't yet.

Do you have more than one blogging disorder too?

In my early blogging days, I posted about binge blogging, which you can read here. While this is still true of me, I have also discovered that I love (gross understatement) to receive comments. The problem is that this combination of binge-blogger-comment-hound usually doesn't work very well when placed together. If I do a binge-blog, most people get tired and don't read all my posts and other's just leave a long comment on one of my posts, which is fine because I like quality comments, but I also love quantity comments. Mary often laughs at me because I check my blog regularly to surf for any new comments on my posts. I don't subscribe to updates on my comments (which I probably should to save myself some time and a mild amount of comment searching anxiety). Anyway, this combo has often disappointed me (stupid/silly, I know). But fortunately for me (and probably many others) Blogger has come up with a great way to circumvent this problem, a feature they just recently streamlined and advertised. You can now schedule your posts in the future (click here for an explanation of how to do this). So if I do a binge blog I can schedule consecutive posts to come at different times in the future. So, I just finished a post and scheduled it to post tomorrow afternoon and have another one scheduled to post shortly after that one. So I think this will help me garner comments on multiple posts while also being able to binge-blog. Nice work Blogger! Oh and BTW, these are not my only two blogging disorders. Oh yeah, and this is a "real time" post... not a scheduled one.

New Pics of Jane

It seems like every night I've wanted to blog but there have been other pressing matters... trying to get a garden in, keeping up with my yard, trying to get our swamp cooler prepped for the upcoming forecasts (it's supposed to be 91 this weekend!!!), and trying to exercise to get to 20 lbs. lost over the last 3 months, completing paperwork stuff to teach another course on Human Development starting in August, enjoying having my mom here, oh yeah, and adjusting to having three kids. Anyway, although there are many posts that are in the mental hopper (most I just mentioned above), I know this one is what most people want to see... so without further adieu here you go:

This one's from the hospital after my first post. I just loved how she has her little hands clasped.

This is a pretty cute pic that Mary staged the other day.

Here's Sarah being the loving big sister in the morning.
Here's Jane in her swing... I love those tiny feet and all that hair. Sarah and Nathan didn't have much hair but maybe Jane's will stay... much like Heather and Robb's kids.

Here she is wide-eyed on my lap. Again, I love the eyes of newborns, so clear and pure.

Sarah's Coloring Contest

Mary got a call last week from Parks & Rec here in Mtn. Home and they informed us that Sarah had won the coloring contest for the "Preschool" division. Her prize was $20, which we were to pick-up at the Parks & Rec at our convenience. So the next night we went to the office, just telling Sarah that she was going there to get "a surprise". She was pretty excited about where we were going and why. She was given her money and the picture she colored. This was very confusing to her and she didn't quite grasp the concept and why she was given money (it was a cashiers check) for coloring a picture. She also asked a lot of times why they chose hers and what the other kids had done wrong that they didn't "win". It took a lot of repetitive explanations, it was pretty cute. So after picking up the prize we went to the bank and had them give it to Sarah in "ones". She was pretty excited about it!

Nathan just had to get in the picture, much to Sarah's disliking! Here is the picture of the ant (?)

Sarah is really good at coloring, though this wasn't her best product. She did a good job using a lot of colors and coloring inside the lines, but the aesthetics aren't the greatest, but we were very congratulatory of her hard work and efforts. I took her shopping yesterday (daddy-daughter solo time) and she was excited to choose two "Littlest Pet-Shop" toys. She was very excited. She also paid her tithing with two of her dollars (which is a fun story as well) and saved two dollars to ride the "carousel" twice next time we go to the zoo, hopefully some time next week with Oma around.

So, yeah, we had a baby girl this morning...

Yesterday Mary had a check-up and she had dialated to a 5 since her last appointment, which signaled to us that we were pretty ready to have this baby. Though with Nathan, Mary was dialated to a 6 for a few days before we broke her water and that put her into active labor. So I went and taught my last lecture for the class I'm teaching on Monday night and got home around 10 pm last night. We stayed up chatting and making sure we were on the same page for plans and all. We had planned on going in on Wed morning to have her water broken if nothing happened before then. We went to bed around 11:15 pm last night. At 3:29 AM this morning, Mary woke me up and said "Jeff, get up, we need to go". I called our pre-arranged friend and she came over to our house. I still am not sure what time we got to the hospital... it couldn't have been too much before 3:45 AM... and Jane Azreal Hamm was born at 4:02 AM... so yeah, it went pretty quick! They didn't even have time for her to do anything before she was on that bed and ready to go. As is the typical fashion, Mary performed better than I did and I think I was pretty close to fainting and had to stay seated... it all came pretty quick. Jane weighs 7 lbs 5 oz and measured at 20 inches in length. And, yeah, it is 6:15 AM and I'm home so that our friend didn't have to wake Sarah and Nathan up to take them home so her hubby can go to work. We'll let the kids get a little more sleep and then I'll do breakfast with them and take them back over to our friends. I left right after they did their first feeding and Jane seemed to have a pretty good appetite! She was sucking on her hands, thumbs, fingers right after she came out, it was pretty cute. She seems healthy and seems a little smaller than Nathan and Sarah was. Mary, of course, did an amazing job and seemed very in control and was able to be patient with the nurses when they were wanting to do the typical mandatory things when she knew there wasn't time for that. Anyway, I left the camera at the hospital, so I don't have any pics to post, but I thought I would let everyone know... and come on! My wife just had a baby like 2.5 hours ago... I'll try to get the pics posted in the next day or so.
Oh, and her name is Jane Abigail Hamm... I didn't give her a middle name after Gargamel's cat from the smurf's, don't worry!

Can I just say that Mary is amazing... like with everything! There were three main goals with regards to the timing of the baby, some obviously more important than others. First, we wanted this to happen after my last lecture class (which happened last night, I just need to administer a final next Monday), second- we thought it would be nice if it happened a day or two before my mom gets here (she comes on Thurs afternoon), and third- just for funsies, we thought it would be fun for us to have Jane on a birthday in the 20's. My birthday is on the 21st, Mary's on the 22nd, Nathan's on the 25th and Sarah's on the 26th, and now Jane's on the 29th... not that big of a deal obviously, but kind of cool. Oh yeah, and we wanted to make it to the hospital, and we did... barely! Nathan just woke up... he takes after his dad... up with the sun!