Triforce

Caleb came downstairs this morning with his MagnaDoodle in hand. He ran up to Daniel triumphantly and showed off his artwork. He'd made a Triforce on it using a triangle stencil. For those of you not familiar with The Legend of Zelda video game series, this is the Triforce:

Daniel was so proud of him and Caleb was pretty excited about it himself. I think he likes artwork that is so easily recognizable. I didn't get a picture of his, but I'll post that later if he does it again.

It's MAGIC!

I just finished two days of training at work in a program called MAGIC. MAGIC stands for "Making A Great Impression on our Customers" and it was all about improving communication with people. The trainers emphasized that being "magical" is really about a way of life rather than just at work. It was focused on empathizing with people, being confident and treating the person you are communicating with as a priority.

I tried out some of the techniques on my calls this morning and I was amazed by how effective it was. More than half of the people I spoke with complimented me on how polite and helpful I was. I get compliments fairly frequently, but having so many was really different. I still have a lot of practice so that I have magic calls rather than tragic ones (I know, it's hokey... but it's funny, too. ;-D). It is a start, though.

Last night I was reading The Cat in the Hat with Caleb. He has progressed really well with his reading. He can sound out many 3-4 letter words. I had to help him, sometimes, to decide which vowel sounds to use, and he didn't like that "to" "too" and "two" all sound the same. I was really pleased overall, though. He's been learning a lot with reading lessons from Daniel.

At Church on Sunday, Caleb decided he wanted to work on writing. He wrote the letter "Z" and then asked me what words begin with "Z". I told him that I thought he could think of something. After a minute he said, "Zebra!" (Well, actually he says it "Zebwa".) He started sounding it out and said, "Zee" "Buh" "Wuh" and wrote on his paper "Zbw" I was pretty impressed with his deductive reasoning, even if he got the wrong answer. :-)

Kaiana is in a really loving mood right now. She is always running up to Daniel, Caleb or I and giving kisses. She also communicates very effectively. She says "Yeah" and "No" and will also shake or nod her head. I was counting and I believe Kaiana has 13 words/phrases that she says right now. It's really fun to hear her figure things out.

The Month of May

Caleb is working really hard at learning to read. Daniel's mom gave us a book with reading lessons in it and so he and Daniel work on it most days. He's really into sounding things out now and loves writing too. He's also trying to figure out humor. He thinks knock knock jokes are the funniest and is always making up new ones. He's cute enough that even when the joke itself isn't funny, it's still easy to laugh because of his facial expressions.

Caleb has decided that he likes sleeping on his floor. It's funny because he sleeps in the corner right in front of his closet door, but he likes to have the door open a little bit so that he has some light (we leave the closet light on for him) so he sleeps kind of cock-eyed. I guess it works for him, though, because he always insists on sleeping there rather than his bed or even the middle of the floor.

Kaiana develops more of a personality every day. She's talking some more now. She says "What's that?" "Hey there" "Daddy" "Jane" and I'm pretty certain she was saying "Love you" to Daniel last night. He's become her favorite person. If she hasn't seen him for a little while and then he shows up, her face lights up and she calls out for him. She's also figuring out how to communicate even without words. If she wants a drink, she goes to the fridge and yells until we come and help her. She also really likes having her hair brushed, and her favorite stylist is Daddy. Kaiana loves to play upstairs in her bedroom all by herself. Sometimes she'll spend hours up there entertaining herself.

From Blog June 3

Caleb and Kaiana love to play out in front of our apartment, so we all went outside to play one day. Caleb took this picture of Daniel and I.

From Blog June 3

It's really hard to convince Caleb to let us take picture of him, but I snapped this. The umbrella is one of his favorite toys.

From Blog June 3

Kaiana decided to work on blowing bubbles that day. She was pretty successful. I tried to get a video, but she was only willing to cooperate for still shots. :-)

From Blog June 3

We went on a hike with Daniel's family. We did the Green Mountain Trail up on Mt. Lemmon. It was fun, but a little too hard with the children. We had fun anyway, though. Here are the men:

From Blog June 3

Here are Kaiana and Jane:

From Blog June 3

She wasn't a big fan of the carrier, but I'm so glad we had it. We all took turns carrying her. Here is Kaiana at the end of the hike after a few good falls.

From Blog June 3

I put in an application for a team lead position at work. We had a team lead retire at the end of May so I was hoping to get his position. Unfortunately, management decided that rather than hire a replacement team lead, they just split his team among the other team leads so that they could save money. It was frustrating, but I still have hopes of a promotion eventually. The plan is to hire a new training class in August, which means that they will have to hire more team leads. I have some of the best stats in our department, plus I have the respect of the other team leads as well as the operations manager, so I figure I have good chances. I've been asked to do one-on-one coaching with some of my coworkers and management chose me to represent our location in a conference call with Medco and a focus group with a potential client.

Daniel's and my fifth anniversary was May 22nd. We took a trip up to Oro Valley and stayed at The Golf Villas there. They were really nice. We reserved a single suite, but got a comp upgrade to a 2 bedroom apartment that was bigger than the one we live in. It had a full kitchen, large living room, and a balcony. It was really nice. Here are some pictures of where we stayed.

From Blog June 3

The Living Room

From Blog June 3

The balcony

From Blog June 3

The kitchen (And Daniel... :-D)

From Blog June 3

Okay, obviously this wasn't part of the hotel, but I just have to say that you can tell you're in a nice section of town when you hardware store looks like this. :-)

I tried out golfing for the first time. Daniel has been before, when he was on his mission, and I think he did a good job. I, on the other hand... Well, let's just say that I can putt, but other than that my aim is atrocious. :-) We decided not to keep score so as to keep from embarassing ourselves. It was really fun anyway, though, and the weather was perfect. It had been raining in the morning so it was a little muddy, but we didn't get rained on and it was overcast so the temperature was great.

Daniel planned our meals. We knew we were going to have a kitchen, so we brought cookbooks and food. We tried out a few new recipes. They turned out really well.

From Blog June 3

This was our appetizer. I can't remember its name and for some reason I can't find it in the cookbook, but it was really tasty. I think when we have it again, though, we'll eat it for breakfast. I tend to view eggs as a morning dish, not evening.

From Blog June 3

I have to say that these looked a lot tastier in real life than they do in the picture. We had Asparagus Parmesan and Chicken Breast with Cheese Sauce.

From Blog June 3

This was the best food we ate all night... It's called Peaches Zanzibar. We had extra ingredients so we made it again Saturday night for the kids. Kaiana's been really picky lately but one bite of that changed her mind! :-)

Caleb's Birthday and the end of March

There's something wrong with the fonts on this post, but I played with it for a while and decided I just didn't care. I hope you enjoy the erratic font changes. :-)

Well, Caleb’s birthday turned out to be a lot of fun. He’d been asking to go bowling, so we got together with Daniel’s sisters and we all took a trip down to the bowling alley. All of the adults used a normal bowling lane, and Caleb and his two teenage aunts used one with bumpers. Jane bowled the best out of any of us, and she really didn’t use the bumpers more than once or twice. It was her first time to go bowling, so we were all very impressed. I think she got a score in the 120 range, which is pretty good in my book. ;-)

Jane and Caleb helped me decorate his cupcakes. Here are the ones that I did:

Caleb specifically requested these, but it was kind of funny because he called them “Spider Cupcakes”. I showed him some actual spider cupcakes, but he wanted these instead. Jane and Caleb decorated according to their own preferences. Here are Caleb’s cupcakes

And these are Jane’s:

Daniel’s parents came to party with us that evening, and both children had a lot of fun opening gifts. Kaiana’s favorite is her little pink stroller. We still haven’t convinced her that it’s for baby dolls rather than her. :-)

I gave Caleb an apron and promised to let him help me cook on a regular basis, and he;s been pretty happy about that. Anytime that I’m cooking, he asks to help. He loves helping me measure ingredients and dump them into bowls. He also really enjoys stirring, but I find that to be a little less helpful because he gets a llittle over-exuberant about it. In this picture he’s playing a memory game that Jane made for him. You match up the capital letters with the lowercase ones.

Work has been… interesting. I was pretty excited a couple of weeks ago because I got a promotion of sorts. I was made a “floorwalker” which means that rather than being on the phones, I would answer other people’s questions. It was really nice because I don’t really enjoy being on the phones. The other representatives are a lot nicer than some of the people who call in. ;-) There was no increase in pay, but I figured that better working conditions constitutes a promotion. Unfortunately, they decided to reduce the size of our department (they didn’t fire people, just transferred them. Rather than taking care of prescriptions, they are training to help with cell phone questions.) which means that we need everyone on the phones again. The team leads have told me that they’re pushing to be able to continue having floorwalkers but so far they’ve been turned down.

I also got a letter in the mail congratulating me on being a “Top Performer” for the company. I got a little pin that identifies me a top performer. I would rather have a monetary bonus, but I guess a pin will do. :-)

Caleb’s been really funny lately. It’s really amusing to see what he picks up on. The other day we were in the car driving home from my parents’ house and he said, “Kaiana is pretending to be Sarah!” I didn’t really think anything of it until we got home and I realized that she’d fallen asleep. My sister, Sarah, is often asleep when we go to visit and apparently Caleb had picked up on that.

Caleb has also been really into being like Daddy. On March 21^st, Daniel told him to get dressed, and he came out like this:

Yes, those are his father’s pants. :-)

Last week, Caleb had been playing in the backyard and all of a sudden he came racing into the house. He yelled, “Mommy! Mommy! I found a love you leaf!” Here’s a picture of what he was holding:

Daniel's brother, Nathan, got married on March 24th. Daniel flew up to Boise for the wedding, and then on the 25th, Nathan and Quincey joined Daniel on the flight home so that everyone in Arizona could meet Quincey. I was sure glad to have Daniel back home, and it was really fun to get to know Quincey. She and Nathan will be living up in Oregon, so we were glad to get the short visit.

Happy Birthday, Kaiana!

Well, Kaiana turned one today! It's hard to believe it's been a year since she was born. I had fun picking out her birthday cake. My mom has given me a couple of recipe books for cupcakes, so I've been really into making cupcake creations rather than full-sized cakes. It works out really well. Here is what I made for Kaiana:

They're Teddy Bear Picnic cupcakes, and I think they turned out pretty cute. ;-) On a related note... If anyone needs paper umbrellas, I can hook you up! The smallest package I could find was 144. For cupcake creations part 2, tune back in next Friday for Caleb's birthday. You won't see the umbrellas, though, he picked a different theme.

Kaiana loved chowing down on her frosting. She got full before trying out the cupcake, though. She's a girl after my own heart, I prefer the frosting the the cake, too.

We got together with my friends Lindy and Sarah yesterday. Lindy has a new baby, his name is Alexander and he is 4 weeks old. He isn't that much smaller than Kaiana, so we took a picture to compare. Can you believe how big he is? Or I guess the real question is: Can you believe how small she is? You can tell that Alexander has a great personality by his facial expression, isn't it great? :-)

Criticism

I wonder why it is that it's so much easier to remember the negative things people say to you rather than the positive ones. I had tons of great calls today where people told me how polite, helpful or efficient I was. And yet, the ones that really stuck out were the 2 in which the people were rude to me. In one of them, I was at fault (I was having trouble understanding her plan. She actually understood it completely, but didn't bother to enlighten me about what she knew. I never did find the part of the plan that actually explained the issue she was having.) For the other one, the problem was either that the customer was lying to me (which was a very real possibility with him) or that the previous representative had told him one thing and done another. I'm just reminding myself that two negative calls in 11 hours (I worked overtime) isn't too bad.

I did have to laugh after one of my calls. While the caller was hanging up I heard her say, "Wow! She sounded so young!" :-)

Busy, Busy, Busy!

Well, the month of December has been very full, but I think things are slowing down a bit now!

I am enjoying my job. We've just finished up our classroom training; yesterday I spent all day on the phones (and worked two hours of overtime) and it went really well. My training group is currently just on the "refill line" which pretty much means that when people call in to talk to the automated system, if they say they want refills and end up needing a representative, then we get to talk to them. Most of the people I've talked to have been really nice and friendly, although there were a few who were upset.

I have a recommendation to those of you who use mail-order prescription service: Have your doctor fax in your prescriptions! It takes us 5 days to process a new faxed prescription, it takes us 11 to process one that's mailed in, and that's only if we receive it in time. I had so many calls yesterday from people who were wondering why they hadn't received their orders yet, and they weren't even in the system.

I am also amazed by how many people on maintenance medications wait until they only have a week's worth of medication left before they order new stuff. It's funny because it seems like we rarely get calls for people trying to get refills at an "appropriate" time-frame. Either they want to do it way early (most plans don't let you get refills until 75% of your day supply is used up) or they wait until they're practically out and then they're upset that we can't magically make medication appear on their doorstep that afternoon. I had one lady call in yesterday who takes anti-depressants and sleep medication and she was out of both. I tried to convince her to talk to her doctor about getting a short term supply from a retail pharmacy to hold her over until her order could arrive and she just said, "No, I'll just drink a lot until my medication gets here. That works."

Daniel has been doing really well with the children. The first couple of weeks this month were pretty crazy because he was doing final projects for school, so my mom took care of the kids most of the time (Thanks, Mom!) They both love Grandma, so that worked out really well. Once Daniel finished up with finals, though, he took over. It's taken a bit for him to get used to it, but he's been doing a great job and the children are having a blast. I can already see the special bonds that they are developing, and I love it. I'd imagine that this experience will be great for their relationships throughout their lives. I miss all of them like crazy, but that's to be expected. I'm looking forward to Jan. 5th, because that's when I start my 4 day a week schedule. I'll really enjoy having an extra day to be home.

We've have a busy Christmas week. On Monday, we went caroling with my family and exchanged gifts there. The caroling was a bit of a bust, we caroled to quite a few houses, but only 4 had people home. It was fun, anyway, though.

Then on Tuesday, we had our annual Christmas bash with my Dad's sibling's families and my Grandma. That party is always really fun, and this year was no exception. My cousin, Christina, played a really showy arrangement of "Oh Holy Night", it was really impressive. Then my sister, Julie, sang a song that she wrote about the Savior. It was beautiful and touching. We also sang Christmas carols as a group and then Santa came. My brother, Jared, dressed up this year and did a great job. I'll have to post pictures once I get them. Caleb was really excited to see him. Kaiana was a little unsure, but she didn't cry. While we were at the party, Caleb just talked about how cool Santa was, but the next day he said, "Santa looks a lot like Uncle Jared. He sounds like Uncle Jared, too!" I guess next year we'll have to have someone else dress up.

On Wednesday, we went to my grandparents home to visit. We had to show up late because of work, but it was a nice visit anyway. Kaiana was pretty excited by their dog. She's a little one so she was only a little bit bigger than Kaiana.

We had a pretty quiet Christmas. We've made a tradition to stay home and just celebrate with our immediate family, and that works out well. We played with Caleb's new toys. Santa brought Twister for our family, so we tried that out. Caleb thought it was pretty fun.

Today we're headed over to my in-laws for a Christmas celebration there. I need to finish my mother-in-law's gift, but I have everything else done. I made pillowcases for everyone else in the family, but I decided to make a photo calendar for her. Unfortunately, with how busy I've been, I haven't gotten it finished yet. I'm close to done, though. :-)

Kaiana had a doctor's appointment a week ago, and she is now 16 lbs. and 25 1/4 in. That puts her at the 15th percentile for weight, and way below the 3rd for height. lol The nurse looked at me and said, "So... who in the family is petite?" :-)

Well, hopefully the next post I make won't be quite so long!