Whole Family Update

As you may have noticed, ever since Zach came along he's kinda taken over the blog. He's the one who's always learning new things and who we love to take pictures of so we don't mind :). So here's post to update on things that all of us have been doing.

Derrick - Derrick's busy finishing his last year in BYU's Master's program for Information Systems Management.
- Since this is our last year here Derrick's been job hunting. He's gone to careers fairs, information sessions, and given out several resumes. So far he's gotten 1 offer and is in different stages of interviewing at other companies. It's crazy to not know where we'll be in just over half a year! We're looking forward to posting about the results since it will mean the end of the waiting game.
- Other things that keep Derrick busy have been his job as a programmer/web developer (not sure if I have the title right) at CleanBrain Software, a free lance job at EscrowTech International, and the Omniture Web Analytics competition.
- With all this Derrick isn't home much and when he is, he's usually working on homework. Things should hopefully calm down a bit in the next few weeks.

Jen - Most of my time is taken by Zach and the normal mom activities.
- In my ward I'm Enrichment counselor so there are meetings, enrichment groups/quarterly activities, and managing the email announcements, the ward blog, and the ward relief society calendar.
- Recently I've gotten sucked into spending way too much time reading through craft blogs and bookmarking more craft ideas than I'll ever get enough time to make.
- My latest projects have been Halloween decorations, baby shower gifts, and the beginnings of Christmas presents.
- My sister Melissa lives in the area and has deferred classes for the semester so we get together and do things almost every day. Her baby is due in 10 days and we are so excited to meet him.
- I've also been reading several books. My favorite has been one called A Mother's Book of Secrets by Linda Eyre and Shawni Eyre Pothier. I definitely recommend it to any moms (especially ones with small children) who read this blog.

Zach - Zach recently turned 15 months and is as active as ever. His stats are: height - 33.85in (97th percentile), weight - 26.4 lbs (73rd percentile), head circ - 50 cm (off the chart).
- Lately Zach's favorite things to do are to put little toys in a saucepan and stir with a wooden spoon, climb into boxes, stack things, run around outside, and make as big of a mess as possible.
- We've been working on weaning him off the bottle. We're doing it slowly so we're down from 3 to 2 and will take away another in a little while. I think I'm going to miss the bottles as much as Zach.
- He's getting practice at trying to feed himself with a spoon but usually gives up and moves to using just his hands.
- Zach's been learning a few words and combines sign with about half of them. He regularly says: "Ma", "Da", "Ma" (with sign for Grandma), "Baby" (with sign), "Ball", and "Bah" (which means more and sometimes comes with the sign). Zach will sometimes do the sign for "Again".