So far, successful

Well, the summer term has ended and Matthew has taken the qualifying exam. Not only did he get an A in the class he took, but he PASSED the exam! New graduate students get three tries during the first year and if they don't pass they have to get a master's degree rather than a PhD. It's quite remarkable that he passed the first time and means that he can start his research. Yay Matthew!

As far as the rest of the family goes, Hyrum has gotten pretty good at army crawling and I would definitely consider him mobile. His fine motor skills are also improving remarkably. He talks all the time too. He uses most vowels, though he favors "oo" and "ahh", and has added a couple consonants like M, L, and B. He loves going outside, though he's still not sure how he feels about grass. He's getting more and more interested in solid food and much less interested in the bottle. Green beans and bananas still seem to be his favorite. He is such a sweet little guy and I love hanging out with him. I'm slowly getting things unpacked and put away. It seems as soon as I cross one thing off my to do list, three more appear so I'm not sure I'll ever feel caught up. We bought a $5 chair for the nursery that I'm pretty happy with, and we've hung up some pictures which makes the house feel more homey. I also picked up a little side job, tending a little girl 11 days younger than Hyrum two afternoons a week. I get to spend the money on fun things like sewing projects or road trips.

A couple of other exciting things have happened the last little while. On Wednesday evening we had a real tornado warning! They test the alarm the first Saturday of every month, but it was much more exciting to hear it accompanied by super dark clouds, thunder & lightening, wind, and rain. We've had a couple pretty intense thunder storms this past week, but the cold front has cooled things down considerably which I am more than happy about. The bummer about all the rain though is that it appears to be leaking into our house. It looks likely that one of our outside walls as well as part of the floor needs replacing. Ahh, the joys of home ownership!