Graduation

This is my second graduation with Todd and I must say this one was a lot more special to me. Maybe it's because his undergrad I was only around for a year or so. This one with all the medical challenges and things was very rewarding. Todd doesn't officially graduate until August, but it was nice for him to be able to graduate with his class and all of his friends. There are about 150 MBA's in his class and they were a pretty close group. It was the first time since my own high school graduation that I new more than a couple of people graduating. It was fun.
Hailee, DJ, and I all went early to save seats. Hailee was so excited that her daddy was graduating. With everyone wearing big funny black robes and silly hats she kept getting confused. She fell asleep during the commencement speaker and woke up just at the end.

Brian Barnett, James Greaves, and Todd. These are two of Todd's best friends in program. Brian is off to Japan and James is back to London.

Todd's mom, Rutahnn, Todd, DJ, and Hailee (Charlie and Lola had to come too)

One of my favorite pictures. Hailee loved wearing Todd's hat. I was also glad that Todd's hood wasn't some crazy color.

We had to take his gown back to the Hinckley Alumni center so we snapped a few pictures there. It's such a gorgeous building.

I didn't say cake...

Wednesday was Todd's last final. Hailee and I decided to surprise Todd with a made-from-scratch German Chocolate cake. We had a good time making it together, and I completely forgot how much it makes. On the way to pick up Todd Hailee got on the phone and was talking to him. The first thing that came out of her mouth was "Dad we made you a cake." I quickly told her that it was a surprise to which she said "Look dad, there is a tree outside....I didn't say cake, I said tree." I was laughing so hard. At least she made an effort to save the surprise. She just gets so excited.

The other funny thing she said this week was when I was in my room changing into my pajamas. She came in when I was just getting my shirt on. I quickly told her to shut the door since DJ has been staying with us. She replied, "Don't worry mom I won't let you out." Right, because that is what I was worried about. I was worried that I would escape and run around the house with out a shirt on. What a funny girl.

Busy Times

We have had a very busy week or so. I need to get caught up on what has been happening in the Cunningham family.

This past weekend we had Todd's grandmother's funeral. It was very nice. She is such a sweet lady and I was so proud of Hailee, she was really good all day. We had lots of opportunities to talk about where Grandma is now and the whole plan. I love the gospel and am so thankful for the knowledge of where she is and how happy she is to be with her husband again.


All of Todd's Cunningham cousins were there. (from left to right) Todd, DJ, Ruthann, Kristy, Jan, Gena, Ty, and Troy.

We also had my cousin Mickelle's homecoming. She just returned from the Long Beach, Spanish Speaking mission. She is doing so great and had such a great mission. Talking to her makes me miss my mission so much. Her homecoming talk was great and it was so fun to see family. My grandparents, my parents and two sisters and Ted, Shauna and family were all there.


Saturday night my grandpa made strawberry shortcake for everyone. Hailee's comment was, "Oh grandpa, you made my favorite cake." It was so yummy.

The rest of the week has been busy for Todd. He is taking his last final today....HOORAY! Hailee and I made a German Chocolate cake for the occasion. He get's to walk for Graduation of Friday and then sometime the end of August we'll make our way to Oregon. (He has to finish up a few credits spring and summer semester.) It's nice to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Utah in the Spring

It was 80 degrees on Monday and so beautiful. Then Tuesday came and it started snowing on us. Spring in Utah is so crazy. Just when I think it's time to pack up the winter clothes it snows on us again.

Here are some pictures of Hailee enjoying the weather on Monday. We are at Aunt Brenda's backyard. Hailee loved it.

Bunny Fun

Some friends of ours in our ward went out of town for Spring Break and asked us to bunny sit. Hailee is in heaven! She kept forgetting the bunny's name so she called him everything from Peter to Compass. The bunny's name is Pepper and he is really cute and fairly good natured. He lets Hailee pick him up and carry him all around.

Grandma Cunningham

This is the first time Grandma Cunningham saw Hailee. It was so cute, she refused to take her eyes off of her to get a picture taken. The whole time she just sat at held her saying "Oh what a doll, what a pretty little doll." "Todd she is just such a pretty little doll." She LOVED babies. Any time we got together she just loved seeing Hailee.

She looked up for one second and I did manage to get this picture.

Friday night we learned that Grandma Cunningham past away. She has had some health troubles lately and I am sure she is happy to be with her husband again. One day a few years ago Ruthann, Todd, Hailee and I went to breakfast with her. During breakfast she was looking at Ruthann and said "Oh you have Jim's (her husband) eyes, Jim always had the most beautiful eyes. That is the first thing I noticed about him." Then she stopped talking and sat thinking, you could just tell she was missing her husband. I am happy that they are together again. We will miss her, but we know that she is in a better place with the love of her life.

Conference Weekend

I absolutely love Conference weekend. I really wish they did it more than two times a year. I loved all the talks especially Elder Uchtdorf, Sister Tanner, Elder Bednar, Elder Ballard, and President Monson's closing remarks. Really I enjoyed every talk from Conference. Elder Christofferson was in Mexico City when I lived with my grandparents, so I had dinner with him quite a few times that summer. It was fun for me to see someone called that I knew a little bit.

I also realized that Sunday was my 7 year anniversary of coming home from my mission. I can't believe that it has been that long, but I guess I am safe from Mad Cow disease now. Half way through my mission we had to stop eating any beef due to a mad cow outbreak. Of course after that, there were rumors flying all around the mission about Mad Cow disease. My favorite was the one that it takes 7 years before it shows up, then you get sick and die. Well according to Wikipedia it does take about 4 years for it to show up. But regardless I don't think I'm going to get sick and die from Mad cow disease any time soon...that is a relief. During that time in Portugal the butcher shop by our house had a sign posted that said "Our cows are not crazy." It made me laugh every time I saw it. Oh mission days....how I miss them. Such a fun time. I guess I can give blood now. Last time I tried they said since I had been in Portugal during the mad cow outbreak I needed to wait 7 years before giving blood. (I guess that reinforces the Elder's rumors.)

The other fun thing about conference weekend is we got to see some of Todd's family. Aunt Chris and Uncle Bob were in town as well as Mike, Becca and Ethan. They were all visiting Jeff and Susie and their kids. (Jeff and Susie just moved to Salt Lake.) It was so fun getting together with family. After the afternoon session we were still in the basement talking when the other kids ran up stairs. Hailee kept asking to go upstairs too. "I want to go upstairs too, that is where the noise is coming from." She was right, you could hear the kids having a great time upstairs. She loved playing with the cousins.

Saturday morning Hailee's fever broke and she is feeling great. Her appetite is back and I think for sure she has broken 30 pounds (see previous post). We double checked on the internet to make sure she wasn't contagious before taking her over to family's house, but it said as long as she had been on antibiotics for 24 hours she shouldn't be contagious. Since it was the 4th day we figured it was okay. The other great thing we discovered with this round of antibiotics are yogurt drinks. Her tummy usually gets pretty upset with antibiotics, and she isn't a huge fan of yogurt, but she loves yogurt drinks. Todd loved them on his mission and we can find them at our Korean store. So we stocked up and Hailee hasn't had a bit of tummy trouble this time.


We also woke up to snow on Monday morning. I am past ready for spring. When is it coming? We have days where it feels great and then snow. Hailee loves that it snows, she sat at the window for 10 minutes and just watched it snow. What a funny girl. We've decided she is going to love Oregon because she hates having the sun in her eyes so she wears these little pink sunglasses everywhere she goes. So she won't have snow there, but the sun shouldn't be a problem this winter.

Sick Day

Wednesday was a sick day at our house. Todd and Hailee were both sick. Hailee woke up with a fever, I went to get our thermometer only to realize that the batteries had just died. She was feeling quite warm so I gave her some motrin anyways. She just wanted me to hold her, she didn't want to eat and she told me that she was going to throw up. Well sure enough a little later told me she needed to go to the bathroom to throw up. Sure enough on the way there she threw up. Luckily most of it ended up in the bathroom, she is getting so big. I put her in with Todd and I went to target to get batteries, new books (our family tradition is when you get sick you always get a new book) and sick food (saltines, sprite, and anything else I though Hailee would eat). When I got home her temperature was 103.5, which is really high for Hailee. She just cuddled up and watched movies and slept with Todd.

We decided with the high fever and the throwing up we better take her in to the doctor. Dr. Kelly wasn't in the office so we had to go to the other doctor. She was a little sad about that but when she found out we were going to see Dr. Todd instead she thought that was fun he had the same name as her dad. She was so good at the doctors. She was also 29.8 pounds, when she got on the scale and I saw what she was I said "Oh Hailee you almost broke 30 pounds." She was so pleased. When we got home I was telling Todd about what a good girl she was at the doctor and Hailee added excitedly "Dad we almost broke a number...what was that number we almost broke mom." I guess that was the most exciting part for her.

While we were at the doctor I forgot to mention to the nurse that she had thrown up this morning as well. I remembered and mentioned it to Hailee, so as soon as the doctor came in Hailee blurted out "I threw up." He looked a little concerned, but I assured him that it was this morning before coming in and I just failed to mention it to the nurse. After we went and picked up her medicine at the pharmacy and went home. She had perked up a little bit by this point so she was excited to read her new books and lay down by Todd. It's the first time being sick that we've gotten her books that she reads herself, she was so thrilled to be reading about princesses and puppies.

Stories

Lately Hailee has gotten into making up her own stories and songs. It's so cute to hear her making up songs and singing them and now she's making up her own stories. Sunday night when she was going to bed she told me a story about the three bears coming and taking her from her house. Superman came and rescued her and was taking her back to her house when the bears caught up with them. They started fighting and in the end Hailee had saved the day..."Superman was so impressed mom." Love that confidence. I'm not sure where she even heard about superman, she's never seen the movie and we've never really talked about him at home.

Tuesday night she wanted me to tell her a Princess Hailee story. "The one with the dragon mom." Todd made this story up (all his stories have princess Hailee out-smarting the villian). It's about a dragon that goes and eats all of the villagers food. Princess Hailee came for a visit and wondered why the people were so sad, she find out what the dragon is doing and goes up and tricks him. She does this by painting a big boulder pink, painting to leaves pink and a smaller rock pink, to make the rock look like a pig. Then she goes and makes little pig noises. She had found out that the dragon couldn't see very well and that once he got started eating he wouldn't stop. So the dragon wakes up and comes and eats that whole pig and gets so heavy that he can't move. Then Hailee tells him not to eat the villagers food any more. The End.

That is until last night when Hailee decided to add her own ending. She went back to the village and they were having a party to celebrate the dragon being gone. The dragon showed up and was trying to eat people and everyone was running away. The dragon sat down and started to cry. Princess Hailee went and talked to him (quoted as best as I can remember italics is the dragon voice she used)...." 'why are you crying' 'I'm sad because all the people are running away from me' 'they don't want you to eat them, you're not suppose to eat people' 'I'm not!' 'no you're not' 'I didn't know' 'That is okay, I have a surprise for you that will make you happy. I will be right back' Hailee leaves and goes back to her castle to get the surprise for the dragon. 'Here it is, it is a dragon size hula hoop' 'oh it is just what I wanted' 'Now you can stay here and be a nice dragon' 'but I don't have a place to live.' So everyone got together and built that dragon a big house. And they all lived happily ever after. THE END."

I guess she wanted the dragon to have a happy ending as well. What could be better than a dragon size hula hoop and a new house in the village with lots of new friends.

Garlic

So it feels like every other post for me is about food...but I can't help it, I feel like I'm either shopping for food or cooking food every spare second I have. Yesterday Hailee and I went grocery shopping to pick up the essentials (you know apples, oranges, five bulbs of garlic, milk...). While I was checking out the cashier asked me about the five cloves of garlic...yes I know it's a lot...but I quickly explained we were on a low sodium diet. I failed to mention I was thinking I hadn't gotten quite enough.

It's a good thing I served my mission in Portugal. There, they buy garlic by the dozens, onions in big bags and olive oil by the gallon. I think every Portuguese dish I ate had those three ingredients. We would always laugh that Portugal had a smell to it and we figured it was all the olive oil, garlic and onions people were eating. I am hoping this was not where the smell was coming from or pretty soon you'll start smelling it from our house.