Holidays

So awesome, I hope this works!!

Amber and I love being parents.  Hyrum is the man.  We had his four month appointment yesterday.
He is in the 98th percentile for height and 25th percentile for weight.  Crazy.  He keeps dropping with his weight, the doctor says it is probably just because Dad is tall and skinny but there is a small concern he is just not getting enough calories.  He's a very distracted little boy while he feeds, he's at the age where every noise and every new room he looks around all over the place so we have to try to limit distractions while he feeds so he gets all of his calories.  Today we will try rice cereal for the first time.  Hooray.  He's generally a pretty good sleeper and he's just a joy to have.

Christmas Eve we did with Mom and the Griffins.  It was nice.  Bread and Milk, nativity, and after the Griffins left Amber, Mom, and I worked on a puzzle of Jerusalem we got her for Christmas.  It was finished Christmas night by a slew of people, not including me.  A couple Griffins (Amber was impressed by Ben) A couple Jackman's (who knew Trent was crazy about puzzles) and some hot chick named Amber (she's always loved puzzles, one of her Grandpa's favorite activities).

Christmas was nice.  Amber's family came over.  We opened presents and had breakfast here.

In the afternoon we headed to Mom's where we saw Ashley and Dennis, ate soup, played some fast scrabble, were joined by the Griffins and Jackman's later in the night, and finished a puzzle.

I have loved the Christmas break.  I've been doing a ton of reading, I've been reading Lord of the Rings.  I have read it before, but this time through I have loved it so much more.  I've looked at the maps, looked up pictures online, and just got much more into the journey then when I previously read.  I love Tolkiens characters, evil and good.  His creativity and imaginiativity (is that a word) to come up with this book and this history and this quest, and Middle earth, and everything else is so awesome.

I'm also excited because before Christmas I got a phone call saying I would continue teaching in the Seminary program.  This means I have more time to improve, receive more training, and hopefully show that I can be one of the Lord's tools in this work.  I am doing all I can to make it hard for them to tell me no.  I cannot believe the time I have put in to this.  I had no idea the time committment it would take, especially lesson prep.  But EVERY SINGLE MINUTE has been worth it.

It will be my second semester of student teaching.  The call will come in April with what will happen next year.  I thought it might come this December, but I am finding out this program is impossible to predict.  I have absolutely loved teaching Doctrine and Covenants and still feel there are so many things to improve on as a teacher.  It's fun to take the challenge and to watch the Lord bless me and my students through his Spirit.  The second half of D&C is packed with awesome sections.  I look forward to teaching 76, 88, 89, 107. 121-123, 135 and 136.

The highlight thusfar of teaching seminary was having Brother Howell come to our house for a home visit.  He is in charge of hiring for CES.  He was so kind to Amber and I and we could feel of his love for us.  One of the blessings/benefits of a seminary instructor that I never thought of before is the brotherhood that exists amongst the teachers and the CES overall.  I love Brother Sainsbury and Brother Clark (my instructors over this past year).  I loved those who have gone through the program with me.  I have come to love a few of the other instructors I teach with at Herriman.  It's fun to rub shoulders with really good people.

Amber is a dedicated Mom.  She is part of a neighborhood book club.  They're reading the Beekeepers appretice this month and read a book last month called Stargirl that she loved.  She does zumba a couple times a week, is an awesome YW president, and an awesome wife.  We have LOVED being together over the Christmas break.  My hectic work schedule, her business in life, and Hyrum have not allowed us to have a ton of time together from September-now, so we are taking advantage of the break and preparing for a busy 4-5 months that are about to come.

We love you guys and I'll see if I can post a pic for you!  From Hyrum's blessing day.

Update from the Jackmans

How exciting we have myfamily again!

I know I was one of the worst posters on the old site, but going through and archiving every post really made me want to keep in touch better.  This is awesome!

Our Christmas has been really fun.  It was our turn with Trent's family this year, so for the first time, I got exposed to a lot of new traditions.  It was great.  We all went to the Hobbit together on Christmas Eve afternoon.  It was such a huge relief to be done with work for a little bit (I had to work half day on the 24 and also on the 26.  Getting home on the 24 was awesome).  We loved the Hobbit.  In my opinion, it's not quite what Lord of the Rings ever was, but it's still entertaining and fun and good.  My favorite character was Bard, and, of course Bilbo.  It makes me want to go read the book again.  It was a little comical because with about 20 minutes left the sound went out.  While they tried to fix it, the movie was paused on a VERY close shot of Gandalf for half an hour.  Like, a little too close of a shot.  But they got it fixed and we got to see the end of the movie.  (We actually got to see Thorin die twice, cause they rewinded it for us.  Kind of painful).

Christmas Eve we had lots of party food, opened pajamas, played games, and read the Nativity story.  Trent's family has a tradition of drinking "Gypsy Sleep Potion" that was procured by their dad (usually just juice).  It was fun to see a different side of things.

We woke up Christmas morning at 6:30 to SNOW!!!  It was so pretty outside, and nice to have a white Christmas.  We opened presents (Trent's family goes in a circle and opens them one by one...quite a spectacle and takes much longer than the 20 minutes of madness at our home.  I like both ways.)  We got a Bosch from Trent's parents.  I gave Trent a really nice electric razor (he didn't have one), and he got me clothes and an immersion blender and a necklace (of the molecular structure of dopamine) that I had requested.  So fun!

Afterwards we ran over to mom's house to shovel the driveway.  It was good to see her on Christmas morning, as well!

After that, we traveled to West Jordan to Trent's grandparents' home.  We exchanged cousin gifts and ate a huge ham.  Trent's sister announced that she was pregnant, so that ended up being a big topic of conversation.  It'll be Trent's second niece/nephew on that side, and the fifth great grandbaby for Trent's grandparents.

We then made our way to Orem to talk to Trent's brother, Tate, who is serving a mission in Washington DC.  He is a really happy kid, and I think he's pretty excited to come home in April.  I'm excited to finally meet him!

After another round at eating the party food (originally served on Christmas Eve), Trent and I went over to Mom's.  We exchanged gifts.  Mom got us some amazing tennis rackets (Thank you!  And thanks Reed for your help in picking them out!) and nice clothes, shoes, and a Cafe Rio gift card.  Such a fun Christmas!  We finished off the day by doing a jigsaw puzzle of Jerusalem in the basement.  This is apparently a passion shared by Amber, Trent, and Eli.  It was really fun to connect with different people while doing the puzzle.

On the 26th, Trent and I left for SLC to celebrate our anniversary (the 28th is on a Sunday this year, so we had to celebrate early).  We got a really fun 'Arabian Nights' themed room at the anniversary inn.  We didn't get up there till late because I had work.  We did, however, enjoy Panda Express (in homage to our luncheon cuisine last year).

On Saturday, we went to see Body Worlds at the Leonardo.  It was so fun!  We got to learn all these crazy things about the brain and heart and skeleton.  We both really enjoyed everything we got to learn.  It was my second time (the first time was with a heroic effort from dad...he drove up from Price to go with me in SLC at midnight...such a sweet memory), but was still fascinating and precious to share with Trent.  On Sunday, (our actual anniversary) we broke out the cake from the freezer and had a little bit each.  It was pretty gross, in my opinion.

We're gearing up to go to Trent's family cabin tomorrow, and stay through Friday.  I can't believe we've been married for a year.  It's fun to learn different traditions and different thoughts and just experience the world differently with another person.  It's been a great year.

I'm also studying for the GRE.  I am applying to the Master's program at BYU.  That's been an added stress to the holidays, but I hope that I can get in and return to research and teaching.  Those have been my most enjoyable jobs over the years.  The application deadline is feb. 1, with school starting in August.  Fingers crossed!

Love you all!  SO happy to have this connection back!
Love,
Mary and Trent

NO IDEA WHAT I"M DOING

So I eventually will get the hang of this, but for now, because it is very late and I am frustrated trying to figure this out, I will leave you with a Christmas Eve shot.  Everyone looks pretty "nativity" except Ricky, who doesn't really look like a Wise Man, and Reed, who looks like a thug.
THANK YOU, BONNIE, FOR SETTING THIS UP!

Welcome to My Blackburn Family!

Hi guys!

Sorry it took me so long to get this blog up and running.  But it's going right now!  You should have all received invites to your email to be "admin" on the blog.  That means that you can write a post.  I did not invite spouses because I don't have email addresses.  If you will please text me the email addresses for your lovers then I will get them up and added to the site!

The address for this site is MYBLACKBURNFAMILY.BLOGSPOT.COM

myblackburnfamily.blogspot.com
myblackburnfamily.blogspot.com
myblackburnfamily.blogspot.com
myblackburnfamily.blogspot.com
myblackburnfamily.blogspot.com

Memorize that!

Let me know if you have questions about how the site works.  I think it should be pretty self explanatory... ?  I hope so.  For right now I have left the blog public.  If you want it to be private, just let me know and I can do that piece of cake.  I know we all miss myfamily.com but I think a blog will be better in the long run.  To start with we don't have to pay for it.  And we can include pictures right in the text of the post which is awesome.  Please let me know if you need help figuring out how to do a post for the first time (might be confusing to start with, but after that it should be super easy.)

I propose we all try to post the first Sunday of the month as we did with myfamily.com.  Even if you can't do a whole post, you can at least throw up a picture and it will help to stay more in touch.  I am trying to figure out how to do it so that we all get email notifications when a new comment has been added to a post.

Let me know if you have questions!  Love you all and Merry Christmas!

Oh- a tip for putting up pictures.  After you have put the picture up and it shows up on the blog click on the picture.  A blue toolbar should pop up.  Click on the 'x large' link- that way your pictures are nice and big like the one below!