Miriam: Ahead of her game

Ever since Miriam was born she has been cruising through life wanting to see and do more. From Day one she could hold her head up. In the hospital when checking her and she was on her belly she looked like she was ready to crawl off. She has always tracked sound really well. I know now she definitely responds to her name but I'm not certain when exactly she started to.

This was taken at 3 days old and all I'm doing is holding her sides so she doesn't fall over! Just one example. Looking back it sure is hard to remember her that size! Also in the beginning she didn't like to be flat on her tummy, propped up on the nursing pillow was fine but otherwise no way! Well just a couple of months later when she learned to roll we couldn't keep her on her back! She would compulsively roll over every time we put her down. Sometimes she would then start to complain like how did I get here!

Here she is in May "reading", I have great hopes for her! Her book is her first book, one of black & white baby animals. This book is what truly showed us how well she could track I think the colors distracted her otherwise. I also have read to her since the womb, mostly Book of Mormon but also I'm working my way through the "Little House on the Prairie" books. We mostly read during nursing. Now she likes to 'see' mommy's books and play w/magazines ;)

Intro

Yes, I've been pestering Jessica with the idea of setting up a blog for awhile now… The bloggish contraption we setup on our website wasn't working out too well—It is fairly easy to update, but I have to be the one to update it… so it doesn't happen very often, or much at all. The other drawback is that it isn't formatted or programmed as nicely as this one. I think it also makes sense as Jessica is around Miriam more and can blog about those daily events, happenings, and quotes…

If history is a good teacher, my posts will probably be infrequent and short, with few pictures (you can go to our website for those). But with both of us contributing, I'm guessing we'll have regular updates to the blog.

So my current update on life is that I will graduate with a master's in Civil Engineering in December; I have finished my project, will present on my work today, and then I focus on finishing the writeup. I have the first rough draft completed, so now I just need to go the rounds on my committee and get it accepted by everyone. Currently I work at Aquaveo developing the Watershed Modeling System (WMS), HY-8 (culvert design software), and Hydraulic Toolbox (a simple calculator for hydraulic structures). I am looking at a few different companies as opportunities for employment after I graduate, but Aquaveo is looking the most promising at this moment of time.

Miriam is growing bigger, faster, and more fun every day. Somewhere between Thursday and Saturday she developed a lot more speed and confidence in her crawling. Until then we could put her down, leave for a few minutes, and expect that she wouldn't be more than 5 feet from where she started. Now she covers that distance in seconds! And it changed in just a matter of days! Then while we were at church on Sunday, we put her on the floor, and she took off towards the podium, and climbed the stairs as if she had done it hundreds of times, no hesitation, and didn't slow down from crawling—it was the first time we had ever seen her climb stairs! It seems she has a certain fetish about eating hair—but more than just mommy's long hair, even daddy's short hair—or anyone else's hair that strays too close, even another baby's… We have also been locked in a vicious circle: Miriam will come and give me kisses somewhere on the face (generally open-mouthed and very slobbery) but the whole thing makes me laugh, which than makes her laugh, and often will encourage her to do it again, which then makes me laugh harder… Hearing her laugh alone is contagious… Last night was a night filled with laughter—I don't recall the last time I laughed so hard or much. She is so fun to have at home. She brings so much joy and love.

The Beginning

So Eric has finally convinced me to start one of these things. I finally gave in because I enjoy reading others and would like to share our stories more easily. I thought I would give a history of our family for kicks and grins.

Eric grew up in Delta Utah and I spent most of my life in Rigby Idaho. We got together in the Provo MTC on May 23, 2001. While there we decided we had a lot in common and decided to write each other which we did. We started dating as soon as Eric got back in the end of May 2003. After some long distance dating we became engaged the end of Sept to be married December 27, 2003.

We lived in Provo from Jan-Aug 2004 while Eric went to BYU for a civil engineer degree and I substituted while looking an elementary classroom. I had graduated in Dec.

We then moved to Springville where we currently are living and renting from my Aunt Jamie and Uncle Craig (which we are eternally grateful for!). Life continued much as before until the end of July 2007 when we found out we had a dream come true we were expecting! After a mostly uneventful pregnancy we had Miriam Afton join our family on March 23, 2008- Easter.