Marcus really needed to get away last weekend so we took a quick trip to Branson...well, really Silver Dollar City. The 3-hour drive was his compromise for me not wanting to drive 12 hours overnight to Florida. Anyone else want to drive overnight with 2 kids and then get up to go the beach the next day? While the beach sounds great, the drive doesn't.
Anyway, big news for Garrison, he was finally 36 inches tall and was able to ride on the kid rides for the first time!!! Marcus laughed when I started to tear up, but I could tell that he was beaming with happiness, too. He would have cried had he not been laughing at me. Garrison and I rode the Giant swing together (which he was brave enough to not cry, but sure wanted to get off as soon as it started going), and he did several other rides with Marcus that I don't particularly remember. Poor Lorelei, at almost 35 inches she was not quite tall enough but still enjoyed herself.
Since it's been 7 months or so since I last blogged, here's the update:
Marcus graduated May 9! and he has been amazing at starting up the (public health) dental clinic in Potosi, MO. He has been in the paper (Farmington, MO) I think 4 times...and here is the link to the last one: http://www.dailyjournalonline.com/articles/2009/08/07/news/doc4a7c48a9b1f7b465043267.txt

He is working a lot... He gets up a little before 6 a.m. and comes home at around 7 every Mon-Thurs, then on Friday about 6. The kids sure love when he gets home and lately have begun to run to him for hugs, leaving him to hurry and take off his nasty (blood, spit, etc.) scrub top off before they touch him. I am so proud of him.

Garrison is still so sweet. He loves to carry around my childhood teddy bear "Browny" because I explained that he couldn't sleep with me every night but that Browny would make sure he wasn't scared, just like Browny used to do for me every night before Marcus made me stop bringing it to bed... and Browny definitely seems to help, believe it or not.
Garrison loves to compliment me, even when I know I couldn't look worse. Whether it's my pants, my shoes, my hair, my eyes, or whatever. And sometimes he'll look at me and tell me that I am so beautiful, and I can tell that he means it. He is an angel (99% of the time when he hasn't found some paint to use on the carpet/walls/closets/himself).
He has a belly laugh that is contagious. He loves to jump, and got stitches in his forehead while Lori, my saint of a sister-in-law, was watching him and Lorelei during our move from Kansas City. Luckily Grandma Joyce was able to come to the rescue (despite not feeling well at all) and took him to the doctor. Oh, and Garrison has been potty trained for several months now which is great. With the approval of his daddy, he loves to go "tinkle" out in our backyard. I let him, but can't say that I just love the idea. We did have an empty field backed up to our backyard. The few days that the tractors were out there, plowing the field, loading the large round hay bales, etc., Garrison loved to just watch. Lorelei is his biggest fan and every time he'd say "Lorelei, come here, the tractor...!!!" she'd come running an they'd just stand and look out the window together. A few weeks after the tractors seemed to be done we started to see some growth out in the field. Garrison, being the smart kid that he is, told me that the farmer had planted corn. I was just sure that it was just weeds again, and kept telling him so, but Garrison was emphatic that it was corn. When I relayed to Marcus that Garrison wouldn't believe me, he told me that Garrison was right! Sure enough, it's corn and is now higher than our small swingset.
Lorelei and Garrison have become best friends, fighting some but mainly they just love to play together. About a month ago I was trying to get them out the door to run an errand and Garrison said "Please, mom, can't you wait a few more minutes while we (him and Lorelei) play in the basement?" That was an odd moment for me, realizing that they were really friends, not just siblings with no one else to play.
Lorelei's bottle (water, not milk) was taken away in March I think, because Marcus said it was past time, despite my pleadings to let her have it until I finished school in May. It was rough for a while, and if given the option, I am sure she would love to have a bottle still. Marcus, being the loving daddy and sucker he is when it comes to his baby girl, couldn't bear to see her cry when I left him to put her to bed the Saturday night after the Monday I took it away, and so she was so happy that night. As many of you know, she is my "easy" baby to put to sleep because I used to just put her in the crib and she'd go right to sleep. When I took the bottle away, though, she cried every night, and pretty much has until 2 weeks ago when suddenly, while I was trying to rock her, she said "crib" (more like "curb", but I understood) and as soon as I put her in bed she curled up on her side, smiled, and closed her eyes to go to sleep. She's done the same thing ever since with the exception of a couple of times.
She is starting to talk a lot, but is so hard to understand most of the time. When I think I understand but want to make sure, I ask her, and she'll tell me "yeah" and the cutest little voice and inflection or, of course, no if I'm wrong. When I ask her a question she doesn't know she hold her hands out, shrug her shoulders and say "know" (as in "I don't know"). She loves baby dolls, necklaces, shoes, clothes, and pretty much any toy that Garrison likes. My favorite thing I hear her say right now is "read, book" which she says perfectly. It is very hard to tell her no when I have to.

I finished school May 9th! It was crazy trying to get the last two weeks done in one but thanks to Joyce and Larry I got it done so that I could enjoy Marcus's one week off before he started work. I took one of my finals in California, but was still able to have lots of fun visiting my sisters Rach and Liz and their families.
Marcus was "called" (literally, on the phone tonight) to be the 1st counselor in the young men's presidency, and I as primary pianist. We like our new ward a lot.
Liz and Charlie, you might be interested to know that Marcus replaced some of our kitchen lights last week/weekend and has plans to change out 3 more ceiling fans (1 which we brought from KC). We also had Garrison and Lorelei's rooms painted. Funny thing unless you're me or Marcus, we hired a kid from our ward to do it for us. After seeing the yellow color I'd picked out on Garrison's wall (it wasn't finished because the green from before was still showing through quite a bit) I decided I didn't like it. Then when we left for Branson we left him a key to finish up the job with instructions (over the phone) to finish up the coats of kilz Marcus had started to cover up the yellow and continue with the blue color I'd picked out and set by the piano. We were quite shocked to come home to a yellow room. The kid did great work, but there was definitely a miscommunication. We asked a friend in our new ward to finish it up for us (we'd pay him while I watched his kids) but he did it and wouldn't let us pay him. Amazing, huh? That night I finished it up by doing one coat to finish off the pink in Lorelei's room and the last coat of blue in Garrison's room. And you know what Garrison thinks? I didn't consult him in choosing the blue that matched his quilt (the light turquoise, actually) and he was excited to have his room yellow. He STILL wants his room to be yellow and doesn't like the blue at all, but he is out of luck with me and Marcus. At this point, we're definitely not changing it back!