Hyrum

Hyrum is my youngest son, and while he shares many of the same interests with his older brothers, he is uniquely attracted to others.

Hyrum has always loved tools and projects. He has an assigned work space in the garage where he used to take apart broken electronics, just to see how they work. He still ventures out there once in a while, but now that he's older, he wants to do real projects--like defrosting the broken fridge with his dad.

He has more attention to detail than his big brothers, and he loves working out solutions to problems. They had that fridge thawed quickly, and he managed to save all the frost in the freezer for a snowball fight--in August, in AZ. The little kids thought that was amazing!

Hyrum also loves to bake stuff. He created a signature chicken dish with fried onions and spices that is really good, and his siblings all beg for tastes when he makes it.

His latest obsession is snickerdoodles. Since he's up at 6:30 every morning for scriptures but doesn't leave until 8:30, he has plenty of extra time. One morning, he decided to make cookies to take to his three favorite teachers and his buddies. After he mixed the dough, he walked to the back door, saying, "I bet Hazel and Ruby would like to help me roll the dough in sugar," and just like that, I had three littles in my kitchen, laughing and making cookies before 8 am.

He made snickerdoodles twice that week, and the second time he saved the rolling until Tucker's family came over for dinner. He figured Annie and Eli would love to help him--and he was right.

He's like that--sensitive to including the younger kids. I wonder if that is inherently part of his personality or a quality he developed as the sixth of seven kids who often got left out of the big kid things.

I love this kid. He's a keeper, that's for sure.