Okay here it is for real!!!

Alright, I have toyed with everyone long enough. It was fun though. Well, the baby
is



















a











BOY!!!!
So I had previously asked for names on the first post today, but I decided to remove that and ask for them after you knew what we were having. So Anthony and Rachel thank you for your suggestions, and everyone else, get on it, we are struggling a little with names so put your noodles to work and help us out. Everyone is super excited. Cora and Jess were both just bubbly at the doctors office. I think Cora especially was struggling to contain it. Then as we were leaving Jess pipes up and says "It's going to come out and were going to play with him and teach him nice words." I think he is going to have four moms taking care of him. And I think between Jess and Bear he will have plenty of wrestling and rough housing. And yes, I am super stoked. Carol informed me that I have a permagrin, and it has been a while since that has happened. Anyway, get on those names folks.
Love
Josh

Carol here. So now you know Zeb and Leah, your next child will not be a girl. Leah's going to have to get in boy mode too and you both better get at it. (smile)

And the baby is....

Did you really think it would be that easy. Carol and the whole family loaded up and went to the doctors office today for a sonagram. I think they are scheduling another appointment because the baby is not quite big enough for all of the measurements she needed, and wasn't in the best position, however, the sex was determinable and we are now taking guesses as to what we are having. The results will be posted tonight at 8:00 oclock our time. Have fun.
Love
Josh

p.s. if you don't have the capacity to leave comments, you can email them to jsaf64@yahoo.com

Thanks Carol

Love the crooked glasses. Man she is a hoot.

Okay, here is Cora reading Curious George to Maren. How cute is that. And below is the second edition of guess the child.

So, not much has changed. The girls continue to keep us entertained. We have gone swimming a few times but have failed to take the camera. (Not always the best company poolside.) It has been great to have Zeb and Leah so close. Carol and I actually went on a date. I know it was practically unheard of. We went to dinner and saw Prince Caspian. Carol screamed and clapped when the Twilight trailer played. I was a little embarrassed. It was a great night, right up until we got ready for bed and realized Carols phone was missing. I actually had to go back to the theatre to retrieve it. Fortunately someone honest found it as it was ringing. (I called quite a few times before they answered.) Then they turned it over to the security guard. I threatened to remove phone privaledges. She didn't think that was funny. It is the third issue we have had with her phone, she broke it within the first month we had it, thought she lost it at church and I spent an evening searching for it (she had left it on silent) and finally found it in the truck, and then the theatre incident. So I felt a little justified, and quite amused at her reaction, but then teasing is the Fish family trait isn't it? The girls came over the other night so Zeb and Leah could go to a company BBQ. The girls had a great time, right up until they fell asleep at midnight. Zeb and Leah chose to crash on the couch. It made for an interesting night, when we kept hearing kids laughing and playing, instead of sleeping. Many naps were had on fathers day I can tell you that. The girls ended up staying home from church and sleeping, which I thought was great until I realized I missed them singing in sacrament :[. Then fortunate me, I got to give a lesson and sharing time on Fathers day. Oh, and the other day Maren joined the amazing club. She walked up to me with a piece of toilet paper with a little black speck in between her fingers, and said "kucka". Low and behold it was a spider. The girls were quite impressed, and made a big fuss over her accomplishment. It was dang cute. One other little incident. Maren has figured out how door handles work, not just the lever kind, we don't have those. The normal round handles (probably because she gets shut out of her room so much.) I was on the computer, Carol was working out at the gym, and Cora was playing with me, as Jess went to the bathroom. I got the customary call from Jess to wipe after her deuce laying; I went to the kids bathroom, and no Jess, but I also didn't notice Bear. So I went back to my bathroom and wiped Jess, and began checking the other bedrooms for Bear. Nope, not in the bedrooms. I called her name and started looking in the front room, when I notice the door to the apartment is not closed fully. At this point my heart skipped a beat and I ran outside and down the two flights of stairs as fast as I could. I went out on the street running contingency plans in my head the whole time. If she is not here where do I go next. Back parking lot, then where, back up the stairs and look in the hallways. I suspect I was blocking the truly horendous thoughts that I could have been having at the time. As I jumped the last three stairs onto the sidewalk, I spot a little lost girl looking at a van on the street 60 yards away. I ran to her as fast as I could and scooped her up. That image will be blazed into my brain forever. So we are now locking the deadbolts at all times. It was dang scary.
On a lighter note we are slowing in our house hunt. We are keeping our eyes open, but the houses we have seen are ready right now and we aren't moving for another month so we are going to keep looking but are not going to make any definitive moves until the time gets closer. Oh, and Jess just tried to put on Marens shoes and told Carol, "they seem a little small." So cute.

luau and .....blah, blah, blah

Alright, here I am. Are you happy Josh?
So Thursday was Cora's last day of Pre-K and her class had a "luau" the day before. Cora was so excited and talking about it weeks before hand. As you can see, the girls were not disappointed with the party. Funny times, watching the girls tryout the slip-n-slide for the first time.


I laughed my head off watching Jess slip and fall flat on her back. Don't worry, she jumped right up with a smile on her face.

Josh thinks that this pic is pretty sweet, capturing Cora in the midst of landing on her knees.
She had such a blast on that thing. She was still playing on it after all the other kids had gotten bored.
Here is Maren looking dang cute and way, way to big. I can't believe that she will be two soon.

Well, I guess that I will take this time to kind of fill ya'll in with what's going on. We are currently looking to move into a rental house a little outside of Denton. The reason behind that is that this fall Jess will be able to go to public preschool and there are only a select few schools with the program. Well if we stayed where we're at, Cora and Jess would go to different schools and that means a lot of driving on my part, which means less cash flow. Anyway, Cora's Pre-K teacher is being transferred to a new school, and so we thought that if we can move into that school's boundaries, then I can walk the girls to school if needed and Josh can have the vehicle to get to school. Therefore, not spending as much time on the road between schools and home.
I can not begin to explain the level of my anticipation for a house. I want a place that has a yard where we can let the girls get out as much as they want. And Josh wants to be able to grill, as we are not able to here where we live. He wants a grill/smoker for fathers day, even before we know if we're moving or not. Anyway, my brain is gone and my stomach empty. I'll try to do this again sometime...if I get some comments.
-Carol

I simply refuse...

So, I have decided it is Carol's turn to post and I will not be posting until she does. And this post doesn't count. (I encourage razzing, goading, and smack talk to get her to post soon!) (And also TEASING lots and lots of TEASING!!!)

Here come the dog days

So I have not been the best at posting. I would have written sooner, but I just didn't feel like it, and there hasn't been much news. I had a job interview yesterday at Bass Pro Shop which is not close, it is a half hour drive. I got there about fifteen minutes early and filled out a survey and then refilled a application even though I had already done that online (can you use ctrl p people, honestly). Then I sat and waited for about 20 minutes for the interviewer. He was the manager for the hunting department (I had applied to the gun counter). We sat down I started introducing myself while he looked over my application. When he got to the part where I stated desired salary he stopped me and told me that the positions he had were only going to pay 8 dollars an hour. That pretty much ended the interview. On a good day I would have to work for 2 hours just to pay for the gas to get to work, it just didn't seem quite worth it, and then since we all know where gas prices are going, and if I got stuck in traffic... So I am still just kind of sitting and doing research. We have decided to wait until August to visit Utah, and we are trying to find a new apartment/house to rent. We really want out of the place we are in, not that it isn't nice but it is just really hard to live in an apartment with the girls wanting to get out and it just doesn't work that well. I think we are all getting a little cabin fever. That and if I don't get a home grilled steak soon, I think I might start hunting cows.
Carol took the above pics last night. I went to hang out with some friends from school. Jonathan, one of the kids that came in with me, has a cousin who's husband is entering the experimental program next year. They were in town, so Jonathan wanted me to come over and do a little meet and greet. It kind of turned into an interesting story but I will have to share that later, and probably not on here. Besides that everyone is well. I think Carol is starting to get over the morning sickness somewhat, which is good, and we are still really hoping for a boy, really hoping. I mean really hoping. A LOT. The girls are as cute as ever. Maren is entering the difficult, wait is in the difficult stage, at least it seems that way. She knows what she wants but can't communicate effectively to get it, and we can communicate with her, but can't reason enough to explain why she is being disciplined. To top it all off that girl is a bully. She hits me, Carol, Cora and Jess all the time, gets put in time out and then does it again. She has improved but it has been an uphill battle. Then recently she started biting. She has bitten Jess twice and the first one left a two day bruise, it was so sad. I think we jumped on that fast enough that it shouldn't happen to often, I hope. I don't think there is any other news, and as usual this is probably longer than I intended but oh well. So, I think I shall trail off aimlessly now........

AHHHhhhh...

So here it is. One week after finals. If you recall, I only had two classes this semester. I got an A in physiological psychology. It was actually a fun class, and reading the research makes sense which is always a bonus. Plus you can easily see the practical application for the research. I got a B in Human development. I am glad because that was a hard class. I don't know that I have had many harder. I don't mind the abstract, but it is difficult to follow a lecture that is entirely based on abstractions that has very little flow. I am currently hunting for a job, and doing research for one of my professors. I have a Monday meeting to go over all of the stuff I have been reviewing, and for once I have a lot of questions. Carol is doing well, she actually feels really good today, and we are planning on going to the temple tonight (thanks Chelsea). All the girls are doing well, Maren is continuing to learn. I think the sign language is helping because she will say something and do the sign at the same time which makes it easier to understand what she is trying to communicate. A few days ago Maren was standing on the table and I asked "Maren, do we stand on the table?" Not expecting any response, maybe a head nod and she pipes up "Yeah." Speaking of quotes, there was a little spider in the girls room the other day and Carol and I sent Jess to get it. She got a square of TP and squashed it and went to the bathroom to throw it away. Carol and I heard Cora say "Jess, that was awesome." and Jess responded "I am amazing." She is such a hoot. Especially the grown up things she says with that little cute voice of hers. Anyway, we are excited to come out to Utah, and see everyone there, so until next time, love you.
JOSH

A Very Happy Mothers Day to all and to all a good night!

I love the top picture of Cora. She looks like a spy or superhero or something. The one of Jess is also cute and as Carol pointed out one of the few where she is looking at the camera.

Well, as the title says, I hope every one is having a wonderful mothers day. Carol and I have had a somewhat typical one. I am officially done with school for this semester. Which is awesome. Michelle called and for both of us it still hadn't sunk in. I was done with my class work on Wednesday but had to continue to proctor and enter grades, etc... So for all the little kids who are reading, it is important to note that your teachers are just as anxious to get out of school as you are. Possibly more so, now that I have experienced it from both sides. Finals went fairly well, so I am just waiting for grades to be posted. I am also looking for a job, which will hopefully happen soon. Other than that there is not much else going on. Oh, and Carol is pregnant. Haha. Caught you all of guard didn't we. She is almost twelve weeks along. She is enduring the best she can, considering she feels like throwing up more often than not. Fortunately she hasn't yet, so we are hoping that might be a sign it is a boy. We hope. A lot. So now there really isn't any new news. Hope every one is doing well. Love you all.
Josh

1 year

I think Carol will be even happier about this being posted than she was about it being taken. Grumpy.

There isn't much new news. After this week I will officially have accomplished 1 full year. As great as that is it is also really, really depressing. I have one final on Wednesday and then I am done until July. The girls are pretty much the same. All of the ear infections are done. I don't know if we mentioned, but Maren also got Jess's ear infection and that was not fun either, though I don't think it was as bad as Jess. She wasn't nearly as vocal about the issue and not just because she doesn't have a large vocab. Today was also stake conference. It was quite the menagerie. It was converted into a tristake conference and they reorganized a bunch of wards and branches to create a whole new stake. It was kind of cool to see the process, oh wait, I didn't see the process. Carol sang in the choir and I had all three girls by myself in the UNT Collaseum where they have basketball games. Imagine the Marriott center but not quite as nice or new. I was on time but that actually worked against me since on time is 15 minutes early. As it turns out that fifteen minutes was as much time as Maren could handle being good. So we ended up outside in the first 20 minutes and I didn't see more than the initial reorganizing of the first two stakes. Oh well. At the time I was a little frustrated but I am getting over it, slowly. I think Carol enjoyed it (she better have, or else I shall shake my fist at her). I asked her how she enjoyed the meeting but she didn't give me much of a response. She said she wasn't able to focus as much as she would like to have since she had to be there early to practice. I say no excuse, she didn't have any kids. Did I say I was over it? Anyway, we also had some company over for dinner. Matt and Whitney. They are second year students in the psych department and are really nice. Matt comes from Colorado, so he has heard more about the church than most of the people I meet, which is kind of nice, I don't feel like I have to explain everything to him. Anyway, the girls need to be put to bed so, love you and good night.

A little old and a little new

First, I saw this picture in my widget bar and realized how much I miss Walter, and how much those kids have grown. It was a very sad moment. And then I noticed the fairy wings and had to smile. It's little things like that, that make me realize how much I miss living close to our Utah family.





Second, I told you about Cora's note to her mom. Well Here it is. You may have to open it to get the full effect. Go ahead and do that now.



Okay, so translated it says, Mommy, you are hurting my feelings. Carol saw it and had the expected mixed emotions given the seriousness of the note, but couldn't help but laugh since she is smiling so big in the drawing as if she enjoys hurting Cora's feelings. I have to say the faces are my favorite parts.
Anyway it is the weekend and I have a paper to do so, enjoy those big gulps.