7 Months Old

Carson is 7 months old today. My how the time flies!! He is such a joy in our lives. Both Phil and I thank our Heavenly Father everyday for such a wonderful little baby. We both never imagined that we would be able to love someone so completely. He is growing and changing so quickly. He rolls all over the house and sits with no problems. He really really wants to crawl, but hasn't caught on yet. He loves to walk around, although he needs some assistance to do that. Everyone that meets him says that he is the happiest baby they have ever seen. He will smile, laugh and talk to anyone. He is such a little charmer. He loves animals, especially dogs. He loves to take baths. We have transitioned him from his infant bath to the big bath and he loves it. I made the mistake of teaching him how to splash. He soaks Phil and I every night, but it's hard to be annoyed because he is so cute and happy while he is doing it.

Here are a few new pictures of out little cheezer. He has finally gotten over his fear of the camera and smiles whenever we pull it out.

Rolling over

Blues eyes

Big boy!
Cheese!!

We forgot to take a bib to cousin Cassie's baby blessing so he had to borrow one.

Not every man can get away with this shade of purple.

Carson's hair was like this when he woke up from

his nap and it would not lay back down.

Our little Alphalpha

He usually has this toy in his mouth like

this through his whole bath.

This is what we see every morning and when he

wakes up from his naps. Aren't we lucky?

This is Carson's new trick. He can pull himself up to kneeling

with no problems. He has also pulled himself up to standing once.

There goes the neighborhood.....

Here's a little update for ya'll.

We are currently in process of getting everything in line to go to BYU asap. Our biggest worry was to get rid of the house by selling it, renting it, leasing it out and then giving people an option to buy it at the end of the lease, just anything we could do to get the mortgage payment out from under us while we are down at BYU.

We have been working with a Realtor who sets up Leases w/ an option to buy at the end of the lease agreement. We think next to selling the home outright (which we don't think we could do in this market fast enough) it's the next best thing.

So while all this craziness was going on, we felt pretty confident about everything...Then, Phil's (my) car broke it's timing belt. For those of you who are not mechanically inclined, that's bad news, because when your timing belt breaks, you have a very high chance that it ruined some major things in your engine. Yup. My engine is now shot. Basically I have 2 options: replace the whole engine, or scrap the car for 500$ and go get a new one. Well, we aren't really in the position to want a car payment while going to school (who does?), when we are so close to having it paid off. (Seriously...10 days away!!) So, now we are in the process of looking for cars to buy for cheap. That's a lot of fun, let me tell ya.

I found an old '94 van that might have been a possibility (118k miles on it), but it looked like crap. (What else can you expect when they are selling it for 1500 right?) And after getting a second opinion on the van, isn't going to work for us. So time to jump on KSL/Craig's List and see who has a cheap car they want to get rid of. I do have some leads, but it's still a pain to try and get everything taken care of at the same time.

On top of that, we found someone who is interested in our leasing our house with an option to buy, but needs to be in it by March 1st. (Yeah as in 03/01/2009...AKA 2 weeks away). So we don't know if that is a blessing or a curse. So now on top of finding a cheap car, we have to find housing, (Probably asap) down in Utah County. Fun Fun Fun! We are really glad to get out from under having the mortgage payment, but that's really quick, and we haven't started anything in the way of getting prepared for that.

Who ever thought that doing what you always dreamed of doing, was going to be so complicated?

Car Woes = Phil's rambling and venting

So, when it comes to car repairs, I am no newbie. My first car I had, was one that my Dad and I swapped out an automatic transmission for a manual one. My second car was a truck that I got from my brother that (again) my Dad and I swapped out the broken engine for a new one.

Car repairs is something that I have grown up doing with my dad and brother, but I don't think any of us really enjoyed that much. So when it came time to trade my truck for a more fuel friendly car, I was ecstatic that I wouldn't have to deal with car repairs for quite a while.

But of course, my fate had already been set. We are a family (or at least I'm feeling that way now) that always has to deal with car repairs. So, when my transmission on my car needed to be replaced after having it for only 20k miles, I was very upset, but not surprised.

But our car woes seemed rather subdued since that incident. Just tires and brakes needed to be replaced, and I don't mind taking care of those things, as well as oil changes.

But the latest advancement in our car woes just has me baffled.

I was dropping off one of the young men in our ward at his house, car was in drive, foot on the brake, car idling. Then it just died. It would crank over (Which told me it wasn't the battery or the starter) just wouldn't start. So I had him drive/steer the car down the street while I pushed it to our house.

So, what's next? Fuel. I checked those out, and the fuel pump is working, and I have 3/4 of a tank. So it's not that. What's next after that? Spark. Checked out my spark plugs, they all looked fine, but one problem. They weren't sparking. So for some reason, the electrical system wasn't telling my spark plugs to fire.

I looked online at possibilities, and how to check/test stuff out, and I came across a little thing called a Crankshaft Position Sensor. It basically tells your car where the crankshaft is at, and when to fire what spark plug so you can have ignition. I did a little test, and found out that it isn't telling my car when to fire the spark plugs. So I said to myself, "Let's replace it." I got the part from Auto-Zone, picked up a book to tell me where it is, and went back to my car to replace the sucker and hope that the problem would be fixed.

There is only one problem....I can't find the stupid sensor! I know it goes into the engine block, and has electrical running to it, but it's nowhere to be found! The book I picked up has this lovely picture of looking up from under the engine with this arrow pointing to the sensor, but apparently it's the wrong engine, or something, because when I look at that spot on my engine, there isn't anything there. No Sensor, and not even a spot to suggest that one is supposed to go there, and no wires showing where it would be.

I followed the rest of the electrical (wiring harness) and found as many other sensors as I could to see if they were the one I needed to replace. Nope. Now there is only one sensor I can't see plainly (it's between the engine mount and starter) that possibly could be it, but it's on the opposite side of the engine of where the picture is pointing to. So in order to even see if it is the right one, I have to take out the starter, and my view may even still be obstructed.

Stupid car repairs.

Maybe I need to call my Dad....

Carson and Wrapping Paper

Okay, so I know that these videos are old and not in chronological order, but I am just glad that I got them off of our camcorder and onto our blog finally! Here's one of Carson during Christmas time, and the fun that he was having with the wrapping paper.

How carson eats Cereal now... : )

Carson tries Rice Cereal for the first time!

Carson Rolls Over

Our Boy's Got Rhythm!

So watch all the way to the end, and listen to the little tune that the Toy train plays.....

Carson watching his favorite thing on TV!

Carson's Favorite Thing to Watch

The Result...

Dear Phillip,

The BYU School of Music is pleased to inform you that you have been accepted into the School of Music as a music major in the following studio/area: Saxophone. Your outstanding accomplishments and audition truly helped set you apart and we look forward to working with you throughout your university career.

The Audition....

Well, I am finally done with the audition for the School of Music at BYU. Overall, I thought it went pretty well! I couldn't expect it to have gone better. I think that I performed to the best my current abilities would allow me. So short of a miracle stepping in and making me sound like Charlie Parker or John Coltrane. I couldn't have asked for more.

I was most worried about having to play my scales in front of the judges, but they didn't even ask me to play one!! : ) There was a bullet dodged.

I had to take an Aural test that tested on how well I could identify rhythms, intervals and chord progressions. There were 64 questions, and they said that most people got about half right. When my results came back, I had gotten a 37, so that wasn't too bad.

We should hear back if I actually got admitted by the end of February at the latest, but most likely in the next couple weeks.

We feel pretty good about getting in, but time will tell!