Time keeps marching on.  We planted some grass seed in the backyard after some friends gratefully took all the rocks off our hands.  It's still a little sparse but hopefully it will be ready to be played on in another month.  We're also learning about plants, trees and flowers to make our yard beautiful but drought tolerant.  Those things don't really go together very well.  I want flowers that need lots of water and Dustin wants cacti. 

Alex turned 10 last month.  We had a family party at Cici's Pizza and that went over really well.  He was given some new Wii games along with clothes, cooking lessons and money that he's used to buy more Skylander characters.  Unfortunately he also created a Facebook account with his stepmom and didn't tell me so he lost all electronic media for a week and had to write some apology letters and an essay.

I headed up to St. George on Saturday with Mom and Dad.  Dustin's cousin had a baby shower so I went to represent the family.  After a little misunderstanding with the time, it was fun.  Apparently if you send a Facebook invite to someone in a different time zone, it automatically changes the time to what it would be in the other time zone.  Just a little PSA.

Mom and Dad came with me to visit with Gary and Diane and then we hit up one of my favorite stores, Tai Pan Trading.  Man, I could spend hours there.  I like to make a circle of the whole store before going back through and picking up what I really want.  We didn't have that much time there as the day was getting long and poor Ethan hadn't napped much.  He was a trooper though.  After TPT, we stopped by the bread outlet to get some Grandma Sycamore's bread.  It is seriously the best bread I've ever had and you can't find it in Las Vegas. I have to stock up when I can.

Ethan had his 15 month check up last week.  Two shots and 22lb 13oz and 31 inches.  He's at the 25th percentile but I think he's huge.  Until he gets next to his cousin Tyler who is 5 months younger and the same size.  Ethan has about 10 words now and understands a lot more.  He can put his clothes in his laundry basket and put his dirty diaper in the trash and he knows what "No" means.  Doesn't mean he listens every time but he's getting better.  He also has almost all his teeth!  He loves the water so we'll be doing some swim lessons this summer once the outdoor pool closest to our house opens up.

I've been trying to find the time to write more but its hard to do.  I sit at the computer and my mind freezes up so I play some games and check my forums and then my time is up and Ethan is pulling me away from the desk.  I do little bits and pieces when I think of things so eventually something will be finished.

Dustin recently installed two ceiling fans for me.  They look great and help keep the temperature down.  Next step will be to install one in our bedroom and fix the electrical in Ethan's room.  He has a ceiling fan with a light on the switch but also has a plug on a switch too so we need to separate them.  By "we" I mean Dustin.  He's a good worker.  He was enjoying a day off work when I went to St. George and when we got home I noticed lots of changes.  The changing table was put away, the living room rearranged, some light switches were switched to rockers instead of switches and the closet door pulls in our room were changed out from ugly brass plated to nice oil-rubbed bronze.  He works so hard for us.  The house is slowly becoming what we envisioned.

Pics of the new house

Here are some pictures of the new house. We were forced to finish the unpacking to about 95% for Ethan's birthday so here you go! It definitely has the lived in look.

The entry. The living room is to the right of the front door with the formal dining room to the left. We're using it as an office space as the kitchen has a space for a small dining table and we don't need more room yet.

The family room is behind the living room. We've tried to barricade the fireplace until we can get some glass doors or something but Ethan still enjoys pulling the baskets out and playing with the Wii games we keep in there.




The kitchen is behind the dining room. The eat-in area works perfectly for our hutch and little table but its a little tight when we have more then the 4 of us for dinner. It doesn't happen often so its ok for now. The kitchen storage is actually less then at the old house but I love the island. Alex wants us to build him his own kitchen but I told him that he could use mine to practice cooking. Ethan has discovered the fun of drawers and cabinets so we've got child locks on the ones with breakable or dangerous stuff in them. The others won't hurt him, its just annoying to pick up the same tupperware lids all day.

As you can see we haven't replaced the tv that was stolen during the move yet. Very soon though. The little one from Ethan's room looks pretty sad in the family room.

The laundry room is off the hallway and leads to the garage. Its actually a pretty good size and there's a far bit of space across from the washer/dryer that I want to put another pantry to store food storage. There's some cabinets I want and I want cabinets above the washer and dryer too.

Alex's room is straight down the hall. Its a bit bigger then his other one but we decided not to put the futon in there again to give him more space. He's not quite done unpacking yet.

Ethan's room is across from the bathroom (no picture) and is much bigger then his old one. His closet has some shelves and stuff that came with the house.

Here's the master bedroom. There's two closets, a walk-in to the left of the door and a wall closet for Dustin parallel to the bed. Its a lot bigger then our bedroom at the old house and its even big enough for a reading area to the left!

The master bath is huge. The soaking tub and separate shower are sooo nice. After trying a few different cleaning products on the glass shower, a squeegee works the best to keep the glass clean.

There's not a lot of cabinet space though. I have big plans to redo this bathroom and the kitchen but that's a ways off. The yard needs work too. The backyard is rocks and we want grass so that will probably be the first project before it gets hot.

So, there's the house. We love it!

Ethan also celebrated his first birthday on January 31st. We had a small party for him on Saturday with his Utah family and a small party for him on Wednesday with his Las Vegas family. He enjoyed his cakes and loved his birthday presents. We got a package today with a gift from his Aunt Mandy and Uncle Joe and Ethan was very anxious to play with his new toy.

We've moved!

I'll take some pictures once we're unpacked a bit more but we closed on our house on December 28th and we're all moved in! It was a roller coaster there at the end but we got the keys and were able to move two loads of stuff (I didn't realize we had so much) before we were able to catch a flight to Salt Lake City to be in Brigham City for Dustin's dad. He was called to be the bishop of his ward and we were so glad to be able to be there for the announcement and the setting apart.

Alex is still attending his old school and we intend to keep him there through the end of the school year. The drive is quite a bit farther but he'll be able to attend the cool field trip in May.

Ethan is almost walking. He cruises along furniture at a pretty quick pace and is finally adjusting to the new house. He had a rough two weeks during the packing, traveling and unpacking but he's back to normal now. I can't believe he turns 1 in three weeks! He's still the cheery little guy he's always been even if he has a little more attitude now then before. He likes to "help" take the tupperware lids out of their drawer and "help" take the laundry out of the washer. He's discovered all sorts of neat things live behind cabinet doors and tries to kill himself multiple times a day. I'll be buying child safety locks tomorrow and installing them.

Christmastime!

This year we decided to go all out on Christmas. We are going to spend the most money we'll probably (hopefully) even spend on a Christmas.

We are scheduled to close on our house December 23rd!

I hope to never move at Christmastime again. Usually we put up the Christmas decorations the day after Thanksgiving until New Year's day but I'm not decorating while trying to pack. It's counterproductive and sounds like a nightmare with a very inquisitive baby crawling around.

Speaking of Ethan, he has started to stand and let go for the briefest of seconds. He doesn't topple over as much and instead lowers himself to the ground. He has a knack for knowing what he shouldn't play with and makes a beeline for it. He also doesn't say any words yet but I practice Mama and Dada with him every day. He likes to imitate weird noises though and growls at me when he thinks I'm being mean. We could have gotten a puppy and spent less money.

Alex's teacher is back from maternity leave so he is adjusting to her. Class is going well and his GATE program is taking a very cool field trip in April to a camp where they have gourmet chefs that make macaroni and cheese for lunch. I didn't know mac 'n' cheese was gourmet. Also, his pop culture education is sorely lacking. He asked for some potato chips and I handed him the Princess Leia BBQ. He asked me how a princess lays a bbq?

Packing. Packing is the bane of my existence. I want to pack everything but then we just pull it out again because we are, in fact, still using pots and pans and towels. But they are easy to pack and make such a difference in how empty the house looks. The knickknacks are harder because you can pack 50 of them and its like they multiply and replenish the shelf! Pictures are hard too because if I take all of them down, we're stuck looking at ugly empty walls for three weeks.

Wait. Is it really three weeks until Christmas? Crap.

I love fall!

I love this time of year. The air is crisp and smells like leaves and woodsmoke. I can finally wear long sleeves and sweaters again and the power bill is a lot lower with the a/c turned off.

Halloween was fun. Alex was Harry Potter with my very first handmade Halloween costume. Grandpa made the wand and I painted/stained it. All in all, he looked great.

Ethan was an airplane pilot. I wanted to do coordinating costumes with Alex and have Ethan be Hedwig but I couldn't find an owl costume small enough. I felt ambitious enough to make Alex a cloak but there was no way I was going to attempt an infant owl costume. He looked adorable though and got lots of compliments. Dustin came to the ward party straight from work so we have a picture of my captain with his first officer.

We carved two pumpkins this year. Alex chose a vomiting design and I picked the spider. I'm pretty happy with how they turned out. I actually printed off the designs and we taped them to the pumpkins and did the outlines rather then just drawing them like we usually do.

The biggest news is that we're in the market for a house. We put an offer on one a week ago and it was rejected and we are currently waiting for a response to a house we put an offer on last week. I was hoping to be in our own house before Christmas but if its not the right house, we're not in any hurry. Apparently what we need/want in a house and what is actually available is a pretty small overlap. But I'm looking forward to owning our own home and making it exactly what we want it to be.

What We Did on Our Summer Vacation

School starts in two weeks for Alex. He'll be in the fourth grade and while he's made it into the highly gifted program, I wish he'd use his ability to remember everything for good instead of remembering all 64 Mario Super Slugger characters. Its like Superman using his super hearing to listen to crickets talk. Do you think he can remember what happened the portable DVD player remote? Nope. But he can tell you exactly why Harry Potter is the most powerful wizard out there.

He's also gotten pickier about his clothes. I'm taking him school shopping this year instead of my sister, the cool aunt. Hopefully we'll find enough pants to last him through the school year but he keeps growing at the most inopportune times. Not during summer when the shorts can stretch a little longer but in January. After Christmas gifts but too early for his birthday.

He's a great brother to Ethan though. He comes back every Sunday evening and wants to know what Ethan did over the weekend. Is he walking yet? Crawling? Maybe we should show Ethan how to crawl so he can see how to do it. Any new teeth?

Ethan is rolling everywhere now. He's just figured out that he can roll to get to something he wants. Maybe its that vibrating ducky toy or maybe he wants to chew on the power cord in the office again. But he's learning how to get there. He's also determined to hold his own spoon at dinner when he gets solid food. He looks longingly at my plate and then opens his mouth wide for sweet potatoes, bananas, carrots, applesauce but not peas. He doesn't seem to like peas. His aunt would be so proud!

Ethan had his 6 month check up today. 18 lbs 1 oz and 26 1/4 inches! He's growing so fast and his legs are so chubby, they don't fit in his bumbo anymore. He can't quite sit up yet but he hunches over and can balance for a few seconds. He had two shots today but only cried for a few minutes, the little trooper.

I earned my Bachelor's in Business Management this summer. Graduation was in July, right before we went to Minneapolis and Philadelphia to visit Alex's grandma and Mandy. The Minneapolis trip wasn't too bad and we went to the Mall of America. Didn't do any shopping but Alex completed a ropes course and climbed about 60 ft in the air to walk the plank. A couple of roller coasters later and it was time for everything to close and we went back to the condo we stayed at.

Philadelphia was a lot of fun. Dustin had to get back to work, so it was me, Alex and Ethan. The standby trip out there was hard but eventually we made it and Mandy got to meet Ethan. We went to Hershey Chocolate World so Alex could do the Make Your Own Candy Bar attraction. It was pretty neat but they change the inclusions every day and you don't know what they'll have on any given day so we ended up with choices between chocolate chips, cookie pieces, pretzel pieces, raspberry fruit and toffee. It was still a lot of fun and a great place for kids to see how candy bars are made.

We also went to Valley Forge where Alex joined the Continental Army at kids' muster and then the next day we went to Independence Hall and saw the Liberty Bell. A friend suggested watching National Treasure to get Alex excited about those two things even though he had seen them before. Brilliant idea! He was so into finding the clock tower and learning about the Declaration of Independence!

Now we're just recouping before school starts. Only two more weeks and it will be back to the regular routine and thank goodness! Once school starts, it finally starts cooling down and then it's Christmas.

Summer is here!!!

The last few months have been very busy for my little family. For starters, we added a new person, Ethan Jon, on January 31. He was so excited to be here, he came two weeks early and rushed me through a 4 1/2 hour labor. We were barely at the hospital for the vbac when he decided to make his appearance. Thank goodness my ob/gyn was on call that night so he was already there. Nevada law says for a vbac, the ob has to be at the hospital throughout the whole labor so that was a relief we didn't have to wait for him.

He's been a complete angel. Slept through the night by 6 weeks and naps a few times a day for me. He decided to roll over yesterday! But only when we weren't looking. I think it was purely accidental as he had a look that said "What just happened, Mommy?" on his face when I found him on his back.

Alex is a great big brother and is always wanting to hug Ethan or play with him. Usually when I've told him to do a chore and he's trying to put it off.

Alex's last day of school is today. He earned straight A's all year and really enjoyed the G.A.T.E. program. He also played baseball this spring and has a good eye for bad pitches. We went to a Las Vegas 51's game last week and he was given a cracked bat from Mike Venable, a player on the Tucson Padres and he was on the San Diego Padres until two weeks ago. We stayed after for a bit to see if Alex could get it signed by Mr. Venable and he was gracious enough to do so. Alex is just tickled about his new bat.

Dustin has been working hard as a captain.

We've got a few road trips planned for the summer. We have the annual Bear Lake trip at the end of June, I'm taking Alex and Ethan to Minnesota and Philadelphia in July as well as family reunions in July and August. It's a busy summer!

The news with me is I'm now a stay-at-home-mom but I don't really do a lot of staying at home. Its amazing how much there is to do and makes me wonder how I did it plus working full time. I'm loving it though! Every time I try to get a schedule going, something comes along and laughs at it. Oh well. Keeps things interesting, right?