Kiddos Pics

So here are just some random pics of our cute kids. Sarah and Nathan play very well together, generally, and Nathan copies just about anything that Sarah says in her "excited" voice. Sarah adores Jane and Nathan is beginning to clue into the fact that he has a little sister and is starting to show her more attention. Sarah loves to show Jane attention and to hold her, which is great, though her interest in this seems to increase particularly when it's time to go to bed, or clean up, naturally. Jane rolls over all the time and seems to enjoy spending time on her tummy when there's people to watch around her. When she's fed and well-rested, it's adorable to watch her on her tummy with her head high tracking Sarah and Nathan as they play around her. She's also starting to reach out to things and twist around on her tummy. Here are some pics:

Sarah loves to hold Jane this way and Jane generally likes it as well. Sarah doesn't like to do this when Jane spits up or slobbers. They're pretty cute to watch like this, especially if Jane's happy.

Sarah absolutely loves to color and draw. Here she is teaching Jane the ropes. And anything that Sarah does, Nathan likes to mimic!

Sarah goes to school now everyday, which has been an adjustment for Nathan. He looks pretty bored in this picture looking at a book by himself, but he's actually adjusted quite well. Mary says that often this is her most productive time of the day as Nathan is frequently very willing to play quietly by himself while Sarah is gone (we love that about both Sarah and Nathan). This isn't always the case of course, but it's great when it happens. He's always very excited to pick up Sarah though when it's time.

Air Force Air Show

Every year the Mountain Home Air Force Base hosts an Air-Show. Last year we didn't go (I can't remember why) but this year we kind of decided to head out there and take advantage of it. We were really glad that we went. When a town of 12,000 people draws 60,000 people in a two-day span... it must be an event worth seeing. Going to it is free and the Thunderbirds come and participate, which is always really exciting. The weather was gorgeous and it was a lot of fun. The Thunderbirds were so exhilirating to watch, we were just at awe of their sheer power, speed and precision. The kids got bored of their act pretty quick, but I could have watched them for quite a while. We also ran into the Angerbauer's, so we hung out with them and were provided with details of some of the planes that you could go into that were parked from both Mark and their boy Tyler (always full of knowledge!). It was a great time. With the really hot sun and the crowd being out on the runway, shade was at a premium, so everyone was gathered underneath the different planes that were parked for tours and we were fortunate to find a good spot.

Here they are screaming over head... it was hard to catch a good pic of these with our camera, but this works.
This one was cool because he was going really slow and keeping his plane at a vertical slant while not ascending but continuing to go parallel to the ground. It was noisy and looked really cool.
Here are Sarah, Nathan and I in front of some big plane. The kids were exhausted at the end of the show and we still had a long walk, then a short bus ride, then a long walk to find our car. That part of the show was not very fun. Plus there was the long waits in the car lines to get out of the parking lot (think decent-size town Firework show)... it took forever and the kids were hot, dusty and tired... good combo.
While we were exiting the Air Force Base, Nathan, who was eating raisins, started putting up a stink about his nose... yep, that's where he had lodged a raisin. We pulled over and Mary couldn't get to it with her finger, so we had to make sure Nathan didn't play with it during our 15-minute drive home (The AFB is about 15 mins outside of the town of Mt Home). We were able to keep him occupied until we got home. Did we get it out? Yep... evidence below:
It was a screaming fit to pin him down so we could remove the raisin with tweezers. But we were successful without a Doc visit. I remember that I crammed a huckleberry up my nose when I was younger.

LIfe is Precious

I don't post from work on this blog... typically. I just don't know what else to do right now. This morning, I was looking at who had blogged recently and saw that my friend's 15-month old son, Evan, passed away yesterday morning and that both he (Tymon) and his wife (Bridget) had blogged about it to inform people. I'm just sitting here at work balling and wishing I was a better parent and took advantage of each precious moment with my 3 little ones that I love so much but don't always appreciate from moment-to-moment. As a parent, you realize on some level that something like this could happen to one of your kids, but you obviously can't live in a constant state of worry and fear and protectiveness and you have to live with the belief that this won't happen to you (a good and generally healthy defense mechanism). Even though I know that my family (and, fortunately, my friend's) is an eternal one due to the nature of our marriage in the Seattle Temple, a loss like this would be extremely devastating. I work with trauma of all kinds on a daily basis at work, so I know that life goes on but is typically never really the same. I know that such would be the case for me.

While I can't quote it off-hand, I often remember Neal A. Maxwell discussing trials and difficulties and talking about how it often feels that these experiences carve out spaces in our souls. He went on to say that that new space often makes greater room for added love, compassion and empathy for others. I know that Tymon and Bridget will have an added measure of love to show to their three other children (soon to be four as Bridget is expecting their first daughter) in the long-run as they move through this loss of their little Evan.

Any prayers or thoughts in their behalf would obviously be greatly appreciated. I know I'll hug my little ones a little longer and have a little more meaning when I tell them of my love for them tonight. God be with you Bridget, Tymon, Graeden, Elliott, and Jett (as well as Jovana).

Sarah's First Day of Kindergarten

It's still crazy to me that we have a Kindergartner! Sarah absolutely loves it and looks forward to it each day. She's in the AM half of the class and I think we have to wake her up about 15 minutes earlier then she would like. It's a bit of a scramble every morning to get Sarah off to school by 8:30, but it seems to be going well. Mary is enjoying her more focused time with Nathan, and he seems to be benefitting (read: talking somewhat coherently and a little bit more) from the added attention and tutoring. Sarah's teacher, Mrs. Murphy, seems really great with the kids and has over 20 yrs experience teaching. Sarah, who's not used to using Mr. or Mrs. with people, will often refer to her as "Murphy", which I always laugh about. Mary has discouraged me from telling Sarah to refer to her as "Murph" or "Murph-Dog", which I've been able to restrain myself from. We're happy with things so far and Sarah seems to really enjoy it. The routine board has been helpful for Sarah taking responsibility of getting ready each day on her own(though it's certainly been far from perfect!).

Sarah's very conscientious about her manners at school (at least we taught her something... even if it isn't always applied in the privacy of her home... neither are some of our parenting beliefs :*). Anyway, she will often come home and tell something to Mary about another student at school, ie: "Mom, there's a boy in my class named Nathan, just like my brother Nathan" or "Tayah was there today, Mom" (a friend from church). Mary will often then ask "did you talk to them" or something along those lines. Sarah will tersely reply: "No Mom! That would be interrupting!" Oh yeah, what was Mom thinking! It's pretty cute. Anyway, just the beginning of a long road for us and her!

Become a Follower

I know, it doesn't sound that great or that inspirational. Yea! Be A Follower! Kind of lame, I know.
But this is different! Blogger now has this new feature that is pretty cool and allows you to see who actually is a "follower" of your actual blog. If your name/blog appears on my bloglist to the right then I have already done my work to become a follower on your blog. All you have to do is add the widget/gadget which is accessible under your "Layout" icon and then you just select the "add a gadget" icon and then you click the "Followers" icon and... viola, you're a follower. Join the club. I like how blogger is helping this thing to do some of the cool social networking stuff, but not all of the other stuff from those sites that I find somewhat lame.

------------------------------ 30 ---------------------------------

So I turned 30 recently. It's kind of weird for me to realize that I'm that old. Not that it's that old, it's just a lot older than I like to picture myself. I, like many others (I believe), still talk to teens as if "I was just in your shoes" and now I actually agree that they should respond with a lot of skepticism... I'm twice their age (more or less)... I'm twice as old as almost all new freshmen in High School. It's somewhat depressing. Anyway, it's not really that big of a deal, but I will honestly say that I am more aware that I am older now that I'm 30 then I was with any other preceeding birthday.... like when I think "I'm 30", the word "old" or at least "older" comes to mind more readily then before.

Some things that help this... It feels good when I stop to shoot hoops with a teen (at work or if I'm on a jog and stop to shoot with a kid's family I home teach down the street) and they're somewhat impressed with my ball skills. Recently when I went waterskiing with the youth in my church, they were surprised to see me getting on a wakeboard behind a boat. Not knowing me very well, I apparently "wowed" them when I cleared the wake after getting right up. I honestly felt pretty cool with that one. Something else that helps (though I don't know if it's good or not): I generally look older than I actually am. If you doubt this, check out this previuos post. So I think people think I'm an old guy that can do "younger guy" things, so it's nice when I get some props for stuff like that (is "getting props" an old or a young term?)

Some things that I thought were weirdly coincidental: When I had my birthday, I only had 10 clients at work and I shared the same birthday with TWO of them. That's weird right? And then I was sitting in a meeting with a family and it turns out I shared a birthday with one of my client's step-dad's. Weird.

Something else that is cool: I share a birthday with the new President of our Church: Thomas S. Monson! I'm 51 years younger than him! Cool.

FYI

I have been busy and gone a bunch recently (blogs to follow) so I haven't been able to update my own blog yet. Additionally, I haven't been commenting much recently, for the most part. Just so you know I have read your blog (if you have a link to the right) and caught up as of a few minutes ago. Thanks for continuing to post your stuff and to read mine!

It's Inevitable

When you're starting to see how your kid does without naps, this is definitely inevitable at times. Today, Mary went to the broadcasted dedication of the Twin Falls Temple (click here to see our recent visit). After the kids cleaned-up the mess they had made, I put on the movie Legacy and they sat down to watch it while I was in the other room. About ten minutes later, Sarah came in the room excitedly and announced that Nathan had just fallen asleep on the couch. So I went out and snapped some cute pics. The kid slept for a good 1.5 hours before I woke him up (with much effort), and it was a late nap, so it turned mostly into crankiness.

Then this evening, after we got the kids down to bed, Mary ran to a friends house to return a borrowed book and got caught up in some good conversation. While she was gone, I was watering the plants in the front yard. I decided to lay Jane down on the grass. She tracked me while I watered and then I decided to read outside on our front porch for a bit. I had to distract Jane a little as she got somewhat upset, but then she fell asleep. The only reason I woke her up was because it was dark and I was worried about her getting bug-bites. She slept for a good 30 minutes out there. I had the touch today!

Jane Is Now Rolling Over...

.... but she doesn't really like being on her tummy. She sure smiles big and easy!

McCall Summer '08

We had a great time in McCall this year! We were there at the end of July and beginning of August and it was so great to spend over a week there... we haven't done that in quite a while! This has already been blogged about quite a bit by family members... and you can see their better pics and some good descriptions about our time here and here. So here are the pics in no particular order.

My Uncles Jim and Warren got some sweet new Sea-Doo's. I haven't ridden on one of these in a while. I couldn't believe how fast they went and how quickly they accelerated! Sometimes I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to hold on it took off so fast! I enjoyed taking lot's of kids for rides, including this hotty I picked up off the beach one day! These certainly are babe magnets! (These last two sentences sound like something my dad would say, kind of corny)

Opa holding his newest little granddaughter... she's not so little now!
Oma with her "touch" and ability to get kids to fall asleep in her arms. Do you like her sporty "Lifeguard" chap-stick?

Due to Nathan's fractured foot, he had to wear hard-soled shoes the entire time. He didn't seem to mind but I could tell it made it hard for him at times and he had a lot more on his feet. It was obviously more of a process to clean him up when we came up from the beach, but it worked out fine. The hard part was keeping the dry shoes dry and keeping the wet shoes somewhat clean. He was a trooper though!
Jane did pretty good, though there wer some rougher evenings and we obviously had to have some restrictions when we were down at the beach or when she needed to take a nap. We generally had some takers to hold her though! Here she is with Sarah's little visor that she made. Here's Nathan with the visor that he made. It was an activity that we did with all the kids one morning.
We played games quite a bit in the evening. We played cards quite a bit (Hearts and "Mormon Bridge") and also played Ticket to Ride: Europe and Alhambra. The above picture is me and Jane playing Alhambra. We enjoyed the relaxed atmosphere in the evening when the kids had gone to bed.
The kids had fun when a mother goose visited the beach with her goslings. They would come up on the beach towards us and then go back in the water and then come back up on the beach. It was cute... I think they were looking for some hand-outs and eventually left when we didn't give them anything after a while.

Some things that I love about McCall: Being there usually means that there is at least some extended or immediate family, which is great; lounging on the beach; watching my kids enjoy the beach as much as I do/did; My Father's Place shakes and food; the town; The Pancake House for breakfast around lunchtime; the reunion; games at night; and many more little things. We enjoyed all of these things up there and more.

Uncle Warren's Cooking!

Another thing I love abuot McCall is the occasional opportunity to be fed by my Uncle Warren... who is a great chef. After Braden and I went wakeboarding on Saturday morning with my cousin Jimmy, he mentioned that Warren was cooking breakfast and asked if we wanted to come along. Uh, yah! He's got a sweet outdoor grill and this is what he had for us when we arrived:

Hash Browns (w/ plenty of onions of course), eggs ("fried or scrambled"), bacon, toast and OJ! It was good stuff! Below is my Uncle Warren getting ready to crack an egg. Thanks Warren!

I made sure to make up a plate of breakfast for Mary before we left, which she enjoyed. Mary and I have enjoyed being treated by Warren to fabulous breakfasts specifically, but he's also a master chef with other things as well, it's just that breakfast is always a particular treat. When Mary and I were engaged, we stayed at Jim and Warren's cabin and enjoyed this a few times. We also enjoyed being there when he "broke in" his griddle this last winter when we were up there for the Winter Carnival. I hope this continues to be a tradition!

Twin Falls Temple Open House

On Friday, August 8th, our little family drove to Twin Falls (about an hour away) for the Open House for the temple that they have finished. The temple will be dedicated this Sunday afternoon and will be broadcast to our church building. The people running the tour showed us a brief video in the adjacent church building and then went with our tour group. All temples are beautiful and are certainly fitting to be called a "House of the Lord" and it's so neat to be able to go inside them as they are all unique in their own way, while the Holy Spirit's presence is consistent among all of them. They are all definitely houses of prayer, worship, and holiness!

This is the "celestial room" of the Twin Falls Temple.
This is the "sealing room" where couples (and families) are married to one another for eternity. As we walked through the different rooms, it was amazing to be in there as a family together. When we went in the sealing room, it was so neat to stand with our little family (us holding our kids up high enough) and look into the large mirrors that face each other in the room that symbolize the eternal nature of our family as a result of our sealing in the Seattle Temple almost 7 years ago. It was really special to be there together. The kids did great generally and were fairly reverent throughout the whole tour, which was nice. If you would like to see more pictures of the Twin Falls Temple with the different rooms and such, click here.
Here is our family at the back of the temple. It would have been nicer if it was more close-up for us, but my sister wasn't there to help out with all that. But it is a pretty good picture for us!

After we toured the temple we went back to the adjacent church building where they had cookies and drinks as well as pictures and different things that teach about the temple. We then went out on the temple grounds and had a "picnic" with just a bunch of snacks for the kids to eat. I loved how when we were just sitting there snacking, Sarah asked me out of the blue: "Daddy, do you feel special here?" That made me smile! And I certainly did! We had a fun time sitting in the shade of the temple by a little fountain and were able to get some good pictures. The kids seemed to enjoy the trip.

Here is a cute picture of Sarah and Nathan together. Enjoy these pictures of Nathan's adorable hair and it's luscious length, because it's now much shorter... and Mary is actually more devastated about having to cut his hair then I am/was.

Behind a Boat

There are few places I love being and few things I love doing more than being in or behind a boat. I LOVE IT! When I was in McCall I had a couple of opportunities to do some skiing and wakeboarding. It was a lot of fun. Here are some pictures.

Here's me making a cut early Monday morning behind my Uncle Jim's boat. It had been about two years since I had slalom skied, and I was somewhat proud of myself that I got up the first time. I went twice and was pretty sore for a few days (not as proud of that!), but it was a blast.
I went wakeboarding at the end of the week with my cousin Jimmy and my brother Braden, that was also fun, but I didn't do as well as I would have liked. Again, though, it felt so great to be behind a boat.
Robb also came with us and he did good on the slalom ski as well.
Jordan went too! After several attempts at getting up (definitely the hardest and most exhausting part) he was worn out and threw in and opted for the towel.
Braden went wakeboarding with me too and I think he had a fun time. This was my best shot of him.

Sarah's B-Day stuff in McCall

I'm sure this will turn into an annual event for as long as we live so far away from our family, as Sarah's birthday is close to the annual "Farmer Family Reunion". So, for the second year in a row we had a birthday celebration for Sarah up in McCall with most of my family. Sarah enjoyed getting presents from her family and everyone LOVED the large ice-cream cake that her Mom made, with Heather's little message on the top.

Sarah's B-Day Celebrations

Braden and Amanda came up and spent Fri night with us and got up here in time to enjoy the bed-time routine with Sarah and Nathan. We are a good mid-way stop for them on the way to McCall and it worked to have them participate in Sarah's birthday fun in the Boise area on our way to McCall.


It's crazy to think that my baby bro is going to be a dad very soon. And the cool part is that I could totally tell that he is excited about it. He was very engaged with our kids and they seemed to really enjoy being with them (both in the time that we had them to ourselves and when we were all in McCall). It was neat to see and he and Amanda are going to be great parents! Here is "Uncle Braden" holding his newest niece, Jane.

A well-known Hamm tradition (from when I was growing up) is getting to choose your favorite cereal for your birthday. This year Sarah chose Froot Loops and enjoyed them for several days!

She was looking forward to going to the zoo on her birthday.... even if she really just wanted to ride the carousel. The zoo was a lot of fun and it was great to have Braden and Amanda with us on this leg of the journey as well. We next went to Red Robin... Sarah's favorite restraunt. Nathan loves ketchup, so he decided to dip his straw in the red goodness and then put it in his drink.... stir... and:
...bottoms up. He probably did this 6+ times and seemed to enjoy the extra flavoring.
Sarah was really shy when the RR crew came and sang her happy birthday, but she enjoyed the sundae they provided.
Here is a pic of us at the RR in Boise. It was a lot of fun!