Message from Mom, Etc.

Dear Family,

Here we are in the middle of April, and I'm trying to remember March. I have a blurr of events whizzing through my mind. That's kind of how we remember our lives as we get older. Time passes faster and the memories slur together in an ambiguous happening. I visited Atwoods in March for the finishing touches on my new smile, and then a scenic tour of Seattle's famous fish market blooming with spring flowers. April dragged on with taxes, the usual nightmare. This time it began with a whole evening of struggling to get the software to work...what fun to have new stress in our tax time adventure! Meanwhile, there was Alma's funeral, and all the thoughts and memories he brought back. His memory reminds us of just how mortal we are, and how one never knows when our time on earth will suddenly end. So we postponed our spring break trip to Tucson until the next week. We basically just relaxed with the Bryces. Saturday Nick had a visit from the stake president, so we extended our stay till Sunday when they set Nick apart in the Bishopric. And that's our month (and a half) in a nutshell.

Love & prayers, Mom

Melanie & Andy

Martha & Jeremy

The future is too stressful for me to write about, so I'll focus on the lighter side of our life: our children!

Lyle is growing up so fast and really exemplifying some responsible attributes. He has proudly become "the older brother" around the house and daily reminds me of this. If I ask him to do something that he does not want to do, he will look at me and simply say, "No Mom, I'll ask Rummy to do it because I'm the older brother here!" The other night I heard some sounds in the bathroom so I got out of bed to see what it was. Phew, no mouse! Instead I saw Rummy sitting on the floor with Lyle handing a glass of water to him. Lyle's explanation was, "Mom, Rummy woke up thirsty so I'm getting him a drink of water." I just stood there stupefied. In the meantime, Rummy finished his drink and the boys, hand in hand with Lyle in the lead, went back to bed. Another night after the kids had gone to bed, Jeremy and I went downstairs to watch some T.V. A while later we heard little footsteps. Jeremy called down for the child to come down and surrender. It was a Lyle. Jeremy asked him if he wanted to come and watch some T.V. with us. Lyle looked at the screen, gave us an indignant look and said, "No, Mom and Dad, I do not watch Adult Shows!" With that, he turned around and went back upstairs to bed. I guess we'll have to watch more "adult shows" if it helps keep our kids in bed! A few days ago at dinner I asked Lyle if he would like another serving of food. He looked at me, rubbed his belly and said, "No thanks Mom, I'm full of it." He couldn't have said it any better!

Hyrum puts all his energy into keeping up with Lyle. When he falls behind he'll do something mischievous to slow Lyle down. It works well. In one of these instances, Jeremy and I sent Rummy up to his room to think about how to obey better. After a few minutes we heard some shouting from his room. What could all the noise be? We went upstairs to investigate. Rummy was in his room, sitting on his bed, shouting with all his might, "I OBEY! I OBEY!" He is a very dramatic child. When something disappointing happens to him, he tightly scrunches up his face, makes grunting sounds and slowly shakes his head. He continues until someone acknowledges his disappointment. In contrast, when something positive happens to Rummy, his entire face lights up, he begins to jump up and down and makes various happy sounds until his happiness is acknowledged. A few weeks ago before bedtime we were playing hide-n-seek. It was beginning to get dark, and with the lights off, the house looked pretty spooky. It was Rummy's turn to hide and he bravely found a spot. Lyle was "it" and went to look for Rummy. Because it was getting dark, Lyle didn't see him and walked right by and headed to another room. Rummy began to make nervous sounds for someone to find him. In a hushed voice I scolded him and told him to keep quite until Lyle found him. Rummy let out some whimpering sounds and then bravely hid as quietly as he could. Lyle finally came back in the room and found Rummy. Underneath Rummy was a small puddle of pottie. I guess he had the pottie scared right out of him!

Elizabeth loves to smile, coo, be cute, be good and take baths. She and Jeremy have a lot of fun with each other. It doesn't get much better than that. He can get her to smile under any circumstance. Did I mention that she is cute?

Mouse happenings: I see so many of them I decided to include them in the family newsletter. Over the past week, mouse signs have popped up again. Friday night, Jeremy saw a mouse dart from our bathroom to the boys' room. We decided to set up some sticky pads in the room to see if we could catch the rodent. Jeremy put a pad against the wall. Later that evening, Rummy got out of bed to go to the bathroom. On his way out, he walked right up to the wall and "accidentally" stepped on the pad. Rummy let out shrieks saying, "Dad, I'm stuck, I'm stuck!" Jeremy unstuck him and sent him back to bed. In the morning, the boys woke up early and kept saying, "Mom we hear the mouse!" "Ya right" I thought, "those stinkers will do anything to get out of bed." I let them get out of bed and go to the bathroom and then sent them back in their room with firm instructions to go back to bed! I shut the door and went to tend Elizabeth. Moments later I heard Lyle shrieking that he was stuck. I was really annoyed by now. I marched in their room and flipped on the light. I was not expecting what happend next: Lyle was in the middle of the room standing up kicking his foot around in the air. Attached to his foot was the sticky pad, EXCEPT, wedged in between the sticky pad and Lyle's barefoot was a live mouse. I could see the tail wriggle around. I began to scream, threw Elizabeth down and started trying to push Lyle down. All three kids began to scream and then I don't remember much after that. Jeremy ran into the bedroom, I ran out of the bedroom and into the bathroom and shut the door. Later, when I was brave enough to open the door, there was no more crying and no more signs of the mouse. I'm not sure what happened, and I don't really care. I'm just glad Jeremy was there. I'm looking forward to living in a house newer than 60 years old and that is not connected to houses on either side with people who own cats!

Have a good month, and I hope you don't see a single mouse!

Love, the Tanners

Becca & Nick

The most interesting part of the Bryces revolves around the Bryce children.

Elissa is getting along better with her big sister these days. Now when Estelle grabs hold of Elissa's ear, Elissa reaches back and grabs one of Estelle's curls in return. In fact, aside from anything edible, hair has become Elissa's favorite plaything, especially Estelle's irresistable curly blonde locks. Jonathan is learning how to write his name and especially finds it fascinating to see all the different words he can make while spelling his name, such as J, Jo, Jon, Jona, Jonat, Jonath, Jonatha, and Jt. He continues to experiment as he looks for a way to spell "Jonny Popper" out of his name. A Jonny Popper is a type of tractor that Uncle Tim used to tell him about. Jonathan also has been carrying his Woody Doll's guitar around the house while singing songs he makes up. He is practicing for American Idol. Estelle is learning to work the system. She knows a song, dance and smile will get her just about anything from anyone. Mom likes to believe that she is the exception. Although Daddy is in denial, he loves to spoil his little "sweetheart." You should see her work him over! Also, Estelle has been saying the prayer for dinner now. Only when she says it, she is a little hard to understand, and it takes a little longer since she sneaks food between every phrase. When is the last time you tried eating with your eyes closed? Whether this is an April article or May article, I hope everyone is having a fun month!

Love, The Bryces

McKay & Keresa

March has been a fast month for us. We received two acceptances: Ohio Northern and Appalachia University in Virginia. They require a deposit to hold your seat, so we decided to pay Ohio's in order to have a seat in case we don't get accepted anywhere else. Of course we would like to be at UNLV, so we will hope to receive that acceptance.

Keresa had a horrible headache that wiped her out Saturday, Sunday and Monday. So I took Sydney to church alone this week. When we had about 10 minutes left to finish Sacrament meeting, she put her little purse on her shoulder and whispered to me, "I'll be right back." It cracked me up.

Also while Keresa was sick on Monday, Syd and I played in the backyard for a while. She stood on the sprinkler box and said, "Daddy, this my scale. I weigh twenty-seven." Then she sat on a sprinkler and pretended to go to the bathroom. She is pretty creative.

Jackson turned six months. It is amazing how it seems like he has been here for a long time, but also how it seems like we just got him too. We are both glad he is past the infant stage. It is much more fun to play with him now. He is always laughing and smiling.

What if the reunion this year is Matt's wedding? We should correlate and all stay in the same hotel and Nick & Becca show us some cool hike or other thing we might do together. Is there a water park there? Is there a fun thing we can do with the kids? You Arizona kids please let the rest of us know if there is anything like that in Mesa and the surrounding area.

We are really on pins and needles until we know where law school will take us. We figure we will have received all our acceptances and denials by May 1st. Just to add some excitement to the wait, Appalachia U called us up to ask why we hadn't accepted their offer, especially since they had a full tuition scholarship waiting for us. I can tell the next few days will be interesting. We will let you all know.

MK KGW SRW JGW