Phenomenal Cosmic Power.....

trapped inside an itty bitty living space! Maybe Maren and I are gluttons for punishment when it comes to encouraging Evan, but here are the two newest accomplishments! Sorry about one of the videos, it is a little dark, but totally worth watching.

Suzuki GZ250

So most people that I have spoken with have not believed that I bought a motorbike. As weird as it is, yes I have a bike. It is considered an entry level bike by retailers and enthusiast. Most people buy this bike to learn how to ride a bike, and then quickly move up on the size once they feel comfortable. To give you a better idea of what kind of power and size I am riding on, here are a few specs and comparisons.


Your typical (stock) Honda Civic EX usually has a about 115 HP from a 1.8 Liter engine. If my math is right then that is about 1800cc. My bike is a Suzuki GZ250 and it is 250cc. Or 0.25 Liters. It pumps out about 18 HP. Not even enough to lift my front tire off the ground (which is what both Maren and I prefer). My bike weights roughly 350 lbs. A Honda Civic weights about 2000 lbs.

Maren and I decided to go this route because I have to drive 2.5 miles every day to go to work. My previous commuter is a wonderful car, but it only gets 17 mpg in the city. My bike will do 65mpg in the city. I fill it's 3 gallon tank every 3 to 4 weeks versus my car's 1 to 2 weeks between fill ups.


One more factor went into getting a bike. We went car shopping several times and while we found things we liked we still would have been locked into payments of 200 dollars a month for something that is not as efficient as this bike. So I bought it outright. I own it and now I only have to pay for gas... and insurance, Which is a whopping $108 dollars a year for full coverage.

Yes I like riding my bike, but if I had the money then I would be in a car. I have seen too many accidents here at BYU involving scooters or motorbikes.

Look What I Can DO!!

Many new and exciting things happen when Duane comes home on his lunch breaks. Yesterday, Evan started clapping for the first time. He is now starting to recognize what we mean when we say the word clap. He does it more when he's happy. So I think that this may be one of his ways to show that he's happy. It's so cute!! FYI, The Halloween Post is coming very soon! It will include Evan's first really good standing caught on tape.

Halloween (sorry it's late)

Evan has now officially experienced his first Halloween! Unfortunately for him, he is still too young to enjoy the candy aspect of the holiday. Darn...no sugar high for mom to deal with yet. That will come in time I guess. For Halloween this year, our family decided to go with "The Wizard of Oz" as our theme. Duane was the Scarecrow; Maren was Dorothy; and Evan was the Cowardly Lion. Evan looked SO CUTE!!! We must gives props to Aunt Teya for picking the lion costume out and Grandma Miner for buying it. Nice work ladies! It was a hit! We even won a prize at our ward Halloween party for our family's costumes. There were a lot of awesome costumes and costume combos at the ward party! Some included the Big Bad Wolf and Red Riding Hood; a Ghostbuster and the Stay-Puffed Marshmallow (wo)man; Captain America and mini Captain America; a family of Newsies; and many more. There was lots of creativity this year. Although, last year's Chef and "Bun in the Oven" duo was pretty great too!

Halloween and Christmas are Maren's favorite holidays and so she goes all out for them. She spent a lot of time making and decorating some cakes for the ward party. The pictures need to be lightened a bit but you get the idea. She made a mummy, werewolf, Frankenstein, and eyeball and a couple of random monsters. The Werewolf seemed to be the most popular. It has lots of frosting, made to look like hair. It was a red-velvet cake with raspberry filling. Yum! She would love to make cakes more often, but she likes to make and decorate them more than she likes eating them. (Still trying to get back to the pre-baby body) Those who ate tried them at the party said they were yummy! YEA!!

Duane carved a pretty cool pumpkin this year. It was a big pumpkin eating a little one. He's definitely the pumpkin carver in the family. So much more creative and skilled at it than Maren. With our powers combined...we make a pretty good Halloween team! (bet you thought I was going to say "I am Captain Planet!") All-in-all, Halloween was pretty great this year! We had lots of fun.

In other news;

Evan is getting really good at standing on his own. We finally caught him on video. He started standing by himself on November 1st. He is growing up so fast! Before we know it, he'll be walking on his own.

We finally found a family dentist. Maren Has already had her appointment and despite going 4 years without a check-up, she has no cavities!!! We got fluoride/vitamin drops for Evan, so that his teeth will be nice and healthy. We also got his first toothbrush from the dentist... not that we're able to do too much with it yet. Duane will have his appointment next. We're keeping our fingers crossed that all will go well.

Duane has been working super-hard at work and school. Evan and Maren have been so proud of him! There is only about another month and a half left in the semester.
The spiders are showing up in force lately. We killed a Black Widow spider outside our front door. That got Maren really nervous and she went around the apartment spraying windows. Hopefully, we'll be able to keep those coming into the house, under control.

Teething and Boxes

Evan is getting big. He's a funny little kid that loves his parents and we love him too. He recently started teething and so far he has two teeth. Together those teeth have quite an impact when he chomps down on your finger.




Maren and I decided to test the theory that children love boxes. It's true, they provide hours of fun for them. Between two boxes Evan has inhabited one for a period of time and the other he has taken up traveling. He's moved it from the kitchen to the living room and then back to the kitchen.
Seriously sometimes I think of Evan as a child pinball. The kid moves with lightening speed from one side of the house to the other within seconds, just to head off to another side a few minutes later.
Evan is more likely to end up like his Dad if he keeps it up. He may find himself in a harness whenever we go out.

He's got it figured out!

Evan recently took up impressions. He has a really good one. Check it out!





Evan recently started to pull himself to a standing position. Here is his progress after two weeks.

I want an Otter Pop!

Funny as it my seem, Evan does not like the sound of a vaccum or in this case, a dustbuster. Maren and I have tried to break his fear from the vaccum cleaner, but I guess it is not working.

7 Months

I turned seven months old on the 15th. What does mom give me? She gives me my first new hair-do! I look awesome! I was thinking about changing my name to spike, but I didn't want to do the Indiana Jones thing and have people laugh at me because I had fond memories of a dog.




Then daddy decided to teach me how to fly. I love it!! In the picture mommy took, I look like I'm pouncing on him though. Grrrr!

In the Last Two Weeks

In the last two weeks three things have happened with Evan. He has started eating solids. Naturally with that comes the much stinkier diapers.
He as started to crawl. Which means he has become a full time job for Maren. If he sees something he will crawl to it and begin to play with it. Of course there are thing that he sees and can't quite safely grab. Here come the bumps and bruises.
Finally he as learned to sit up on his own.

Our Cute Little Cricket

Evan likes to kick his legs like a cricket. However, he lifts his hands and arms in order to start kicking. It's so cute!

Time For Firsts

Another month has flown by and several things have happened!


We finally sold my grandpa's 76 Monte Carlo! It only took a little more than a year to do it, but it's a big relief to have it sold. Because of it's sale, we were able to get the Rodeo brought down from Hyrum, UT. Now we are deciding whether we want to fix it or sell it. We're not sure what we're going to do yet.

Duane and I went to see "The Dark Knight" recently. It was so good and creepy! I think that Christian Bale is probably my favorite Batman. I just think he plays the part the best of those who have done it. Heath Ledger...what can I say...he did an amazing job as the joker. He was so creepy! I would recommend the movie to all. It was very well done!

Evan has learned to roll from his stomach to his back. He now rolls right to his tummy then left to his back. In the process of doing this, he inches his way in circles around his blanket. I guess that's his early form of crawling. He has also learned that the vacuum cleaner isn't scary! It can be fun depending on how you use it.





The most exciting development is that he said "Mama!!!" It was especially exciting for me, since I am the mama. I didn't even realize he was old enough to have a first word. But it's so exciting none the less. He is growing up so fast. Like my dad has said, next he'll be asking to borrow the car. :o)



Evan and I are currently visiting my brother Ryan and his family in Washington. We hitched a ride with my mom since she was coming here. Ryan and Shauna have two girls (Mckenna and Ashley) and a brand new baby boy named Paul Brennan Miner. It's the longest trip and farthest from home Evan has ever been. Due to this, he's a little of his schedule and is letting me know it.


I also think that he and I are getting the cold that's circulating within my brother's family. Hey...more antibodies for my little guy! Despite that, we are having a great trip so far.

On our drive up here, we went through some beautiful country. We took the scenic route through northern Washington. We passed through the Northern Cascades National Park. It was so beautiful!!! I only wish that Duane could have come with us. But alas... he's being a trooper and is working hard to support our family and we love him for it! My thanks goes out to those who have been so kind to feed and visit him while we've been gone! At least he's getting more than just meatballs and corn dogs for dinner.

Sharpening the Coordination

Evan is our little monkey. He likes to grab things with his feet. It's some fun entertainment for his parents.

Bla Bla Bla

In the past month, Evan has developed new sounds! It's so adorable!

Standing Strong

So six days ago was Evan's 4 month mark. He recently learned to roll over from his back to his stomach. Which is great, but he doesn't like to be on his stomach. So he rolls to his stomach and then he gets agitated because he hasn't learned to roll to his back.
Yesterday we took this video of Evan. It shows how strong he is getting. The funny thing is he can't even sit up on his own yet, nor can he stay balanced on his own when you do sit him up.



Maren and I think Evan is starting to laugh.

Ward Slip and Slide

Happy Father’s day! As my first father’s day Maren and I are taking it easy today. She is making a Carrot Cake for me today. And I literally mean for me because she does not like carrot cake! Even though she just admitted to me that she might try one.

Yesterday our ward had a barbeque with a slip and slide. Some guys bought about 100 ft of plastic and ran some water on it. For all who don’t know where this is at. It is at Rock Canyon Park in Provo. These hill’s take some serious abuse during the year. From sledding in the winter time to Ice blocking in the summer, students have no end of creativity for new abuses on these hills. A few of the video’s that you will see express that we didn’t have enough plastic to come to a complete stop. I’m sure more than one person had to clean grass out of their shorts after the day was over. Still I am not alone in my sufferings from yesterday’s fun. Just about everyone has sore muscles, grass cuts, and bruises. I personally have about 30-40 cuts from the grass on my shoulder, stomach, back, and yes even my head! Every time I sneeze, cough, or laugh my stomach remains me of the fun I had on Saturday. My knees even have bruises. Between all of that I am having a fun time trying to figure out how to lift Evan without hurting or kneeling.

Maren and I decided that Evan should have some fun on the slide too. We took him down once and he responded like he did that kind of thing everyday. No smile, laugh, frown, cry, giggle, crossed his little face at any point on the slide. Maybe in a few more months he will enjoy going sledding with daddy.

Evan's Getting Big

Evan is doing rather well with sleeping habits. He has started to sleep through the night. Maren puts him to bed with a special self made routine of feeding, humming and rocking. He rarely cries when he goes to bed around 8-8:30pm. However a few times I have gotten up around 5am to check on him and he is just playing, having a good time playing and chopping down on his fingers. Sometime I seriously wonder what is going through his head. About the same time he discovered that his fingers are so darn yummy, he also decided that he doesn’t like the pacifier as much. He can hardly keep it in for more than 30 seconds before he spits it out and locks in the fingers. We tried to keep his fingers from his mouth for a little while, but then decided that he is going to do what he is going to do. Just like Heavenly Father tries to help us. If we are persistent, then he will let us do what we want even if it is not the best thing for us. Evan doesn’t really care what fingers are in his mouth. Usually it is his right hand pointer, and middle finger, but I have seen him try and get four fingers in at the same time.

In other exciting news! Evan learned to move his arm out of the way, so now he is rolling over. Maren and I were both there during lunch time to see it. We had left him on a blanket in our living room to go into the kitchen and eat. After about two minutes I came back into the living room and he was on his stomach. I asked Maren, “Did you roll him to his stomach when you left”? She said no, so we set up the camera, and he did it again. He seriously wouldn’t stop rolling over all day.
However the fun would come to an end and he had enough one night. His crying woke us up and I went into his room to see what was the matter. He had rolled to his stomach and started to drool. Apparently he doesn’t like his head in a puddle of drool and wanted let us know. Speaking of drool, it comes more often then a poopy diaper and with warning. Half the day he looks like he has been working up a sweat underneath his chin.

After the Surgery

Our little Evan has been growing lots and lots! About a week and a half after his surgery, Evan went from eating 3oz. to eating around 5oz. per feeding! I guess he's making up for lost time now that he has better suction. He's healing extremely well. Dr Warnock said that his lip may continue to be tender for up to 6 months. Poor little guy! He's getting better at not hitting himself in the face with those crazy arms of his. He's starting to be more careful about how quickly he sticks his fingers into his mouth.

He has also started sleeping A LOT BETTER at night. In Fact, he slept through the whole night, twice!! (cue the Halleluiah Chorus) Maybe he was just giving us a preview of future sleeping habits. We can hope!

Good News!!! Duane got a Fulltime job with BYU! This means that I will get to be at home with Evan Fulltime! Unfortunately, both Evan and I are sick with colds right now. I guess that means we'll have to take an extra nap (hopefully) each day! Duane may be catching the cold bug as well. Hmm... maybe it is true that if mom gets sick, everyone catches it!







I'm bushed! Could you please leave me alone for a few minutes!





I'm Hungry! Feed Me! You will not like me when I get mad!

Surgery

Maren and I wanted to post a few pictures on how Evan's lip surgery turned out. His lip is looking good and he is already feeding again, but he's already learned that his lip is a little sensitive. Still feeding again is a great sign, but the hospital still wants to keep him over night just to make sure everything is okay. Please keep him in your prayers!

Lip from the Lion

Looking at photo albums from my childhood, I've always thought that parents loved to torture their kids in photos. Well I guess we're carrying on the tradition. Today was Evan's last day before his cleft lip surgery. We decided to dress him up in the halloween costume that Grandma Miner gave us. As Grandpa Miner sang, upon meeting Evan for the first time... "I am the king of the forest" (sung like the Cowardly Lion from the Wizard of Oz). We just think he's a precious little guy!

We've had a fun time watching Evan grow. I have returned to work and Duane is finishing the winter semester at BYU. For the past couple of weeks, Evan has been able to join his daddy in attending some of Duane's classes. When they're not at class, Evan gets to do two of his favorite things... 1)Hang out with his daddy and 2)scream like crazy. Ok... he doesn't scream like crazy...at least not too often. Actually, he's a pretty good baby. He's not overly fussy at this point. However, we'll see what happens this upcoming week. Evan has his lip surgery on Monday (4/21/08) and then he gets his 2 month shots on Thursday (4/24/08). It's going to be a rough week for our little guy!

Between the two un-fun events, he will get to meet Grandma Tucker for the first time. She will be arriving for a visit sometime on Tuesday or Wednesday. We're so excited for her to meet Evan! We know he's excited too. Hanging out with a grandma is so much more fun than with boring mom and dad! While Grandma and Grand-Daddy Tucker are visiting, Evan will get his baby blessing at church. We're all excited for that!

Everyday is a new adventure for our little family. We love our little Evan! Each day he gives us new reasons to smile.

Being new parents isn't easy, but we're enjoying our time together! With all the fun and the not-so-fun experiences, Duane an I are learning to really appreciate all that our parents did for us! To them we want to say, "We love you so much and thank you for all you have done! You are wonderful!"