Ethan turned Five

I really can't believe he is five years old. I remember right after I had him all the old women told me to enjoy my baby because he would grow up so fast. I just smiled and nodded because I felt like I was barely making it through a never ending successions of days. Well they were right, mostly. I think I heard it best described as Parenting : Where the days are long and the years are short. I can't believe my baby has grown into this little person.

He has his very own leatherman pocketknife now to prove how big he is. He started asking for one months ago and I told him it probably wasn't going to happen. Well Aunt Amy, or more precisely Uncle Rob, thought if a boy wanted a leatherman then he needed a leatherman. They did have the courtesy to ask permission first though. Ethan has used it to cut everything that may have possibly needed cut in the two days since he has got it, including his thumb. We are still working on teaching him how to use it safely and prudently but cutting his thumb taught him quite a bit more, much faster then Mom and Dad's lecturing.

Ward Christmas Party

Ethan was so excited for the ward Christmas party. He spent the week before it counting down the days because SANTA was going to be THERE! Libby decided early on she was not sitting on any bearded mans lap even if he did have candy (when you put it that way you can hardly blame her). Ethan and Libby both thought it was pretty fun that they got to wear their pajamas to church though. Our ward does a breakfast at 8 a.m. so everyone comes in jammies. After breakfast the primary children performed a little nativity. They all just stood around while the Christmas story was read which is a great way to do it. Ethan was Joseph and was very cute. The towel on his head fell off halfway through. It was pretty funny watching Mary tell him how to put it back on. She finally gave up and reached across the manger and put it back on him herself.
Yep, that is pretty much our whole primary. We are in a newly wed or mostly dead ward.
Libby decided that she wanted the treats enough to stand next to Santa but that was as good as it was going to get and she wasn't going to be happy about it.

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

So the neighbor gave me cookie cutters that end up making a cookie Christmas tree. So I tried it out and it was cute. But I don't like sugar cookies very much and we definitely did not need that many cookies in our house. I stared at my creation with pleasure but wasn't sure what to do with it. Michael didn't want to take it to work because it would be to hard to get it there in one piece. I was flummoxed. Then he suggested we give it to a family in our ward that has four teenagers at home and a couple more coming home for Christmas. The problem was solved. We sent it on the way to some very grateful boys and we were back to low sugar levels. Karma then caught up to us. In less then a week we had no less then eight plates of treats dropped off at our door. I shared the first wave around with as many people as I could and the second wave is still sitting in my freezer. Don't get me wrong. We LOVE homemade cookies, candies, and treats but I can only eat a little bit before I start feeling sick (darn baby) and I try not to let the kids be on a constant sugar high so we are just on treats overload. That's not even taking into consideration the treats Santa, church leaders, and virtual strangers gave the kids. I love Christmas but I think we are all on sugar detox for awhile.

Sesame Street LIVE!!!

Alright, I will admit it. I don't let my children watch very much TV. Sesame Street is one of the only ones they are very familiar with. So when we found out Sesame Street Live was coming we bought tickets as an early Christmas present. The day of the show Michael showed the kids a commercial for the performance. Ethan said, "Can we go." Michael said "YES, go get your coats on." There was a mad excited dash while the kids got ready to go. They really seemed to enjoy the show, even if we didn't buy them any of the keepsakes (they wanted $8 for an Elmo balloon, $8 I tell you).

This picture didn't turn on out at all, but it was a very cool part of the show. They had a black light on the dancers and monsters. It was a great effect.
This was Ethan's face throughout the entire performance. It was almost as much fun to watch him as to watch the show.

Sometimes I Do Believe They Actually Love Each Other

I went into a very dark bedroom to kiss the babies goodnight. I bent down to kiss Libby and got quite a surprise. She was much bigger, with much shorter hair then I expected. I chuckled to myself and told Michael he needed to go kiss Libby goodnight. I asked if he noticed anything and he said "Well she was warm and sweaty." I replied "Um, that was your son."

Just an Update on Random Things

We haven't updated our blog in a while. It has been pretty crazy around here. Michael is trying to keep his head above water in his five classes and I am trying to keep my head out of the toilet. But life is slowly improving. I went two and a half days without puking and Michael has his final in his hairiest class tonight. Life is looking up. We had a crazy, but mostly fun Thanksgiving. We did Thanksgiving with my family on Thursday and celebrated with Michael's family on Saturday. Ethan and I both have a bit of a cold, but nothing big.

The kids are so excited that I am having "baby Kelly" (their name, not mine) in May. Just two minutes ago they were talking about how fat I am going to get. Lovely children I have.

Also since we last updated, I had my 30th birthday. I didn't have much time to reflect on what this means because, as previously mentioned, I have been busy retching. I think the thing I found the oddest was that I am the baby of the family. If I am thirty, that means my family is all grown up. It really doesn't seem very long ago that I did chores for my brother, so he would let me use his headset and record player to listen to Strawberry Shortcake. Me and my record were banned from the family player by the rest of the siblings. It seems odd that I am not a kid running around anymore, and that I have my own kids running around.
I don't have any good pictures of anything for the past several months, so I will leave you with what happens when mom falls asleep and dad is on the computer and Ethan finds the camera.

This is a picture of bubbles in the sink

We've got news!

We're pregnant!

She's 14 weeks along, due May 14, 2009, and Mama and Baby are doing great! The ultrasound picture below was taken November 10.
And no, we're not going to find out what it is, so don't ask.

This is only a test!

After Katie spent the week yelling at me about it, I decided to put Picasa back on the 'puter so she can get back to blogging. This is a test of the new Google Picasa3 Beta.

Happy Fall everybody!

Africa

Our humble little zoo just opened a Africa exhibit. We now have lions and giraffes. The kids saw the giraffe heads poking over the fence when we were biking past and the begging commenced. They had to wait until the following Thursday (Thursday being the half price zoo admission day) and then we bundled up and headed out. My friend Whitney met me there with her little ones, Savannah and Addie. Ethan and Savannah were in heaven. They have a "thing" for each other. Savannah has informed her mom that Ethan is sexy and she is going to marry him. Ethan has informed me he loves papa more than me, but Savannah more then papa.

Once again we are slacking

Life is a little nuts right now, so the whole blog thing has fallen by the wayside. Someday I will add some cute pictures and funny quotes, but right now I am just letting my adoring public know that we haven't forgotten you.
Michael is gone ALL THE TIME. We knew it was going to happen, but it is still hard. Thankfully he is doing well in all of his classes and work still loves him. His family is another matter though. Actually Ethan told me the other day, "Mama, I want you to go to school, and work, and do homework, because I love Papa a lot more then I love you." Just warmed the very cockles of my heart. Ungrateful little toad. I will try to post some pictures soon, but be very surprised if I get anything posted before Halloween.

Where does she come up with these things?

We were all in the car coming home from dinner with the in-laws. Michael and I got in a conversation over which of us is better looking. We, being the good parents we are, drug our kids into the middle of the fight.

"Ethan, who is better looking, mama or papa?" My dear husband asks.
"Um...Papa is."

Well, then I needed to ask Libby in hopes of evening the score.

"Libby, who is better looking, mama or papa?"
"Umm....um...I AM." followed by giggles.

****

Yesterday, the kids and I were taking the trash down. I stopped in surprise and pointed into the tree. There were three fuzzy gray and black raccoons. We stared at them and they stared at us. Ethan was fascinated. Libby was terrified. She is not an animal lover by nature, and wild animals in her tree was just to much for her. She was crying and fussing. She finally conceded to inch past the tree, as long as I stood between her and the raccoons. We got down to the dumpster and Libby finally regained her ability to talk.

"Mama, the rattoons scared me."
"I know, baby."
"The rattoons really, really scared me."
"I know."
"My eyebrows were scared of the rattoons."

We Can Hardly Believe it Either

Camping Above Cascade - Part 3

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I am exhausted! It's a lot of work to enjoy our summer to the fullest. This time we went camping with my family in the Boise National Forest. Dig your own latrine, haul your own water, get eaten by horseflies type of camping. There were roughly a dozen adults and a dozen children under 18. Everyone found something that brought them great joy while we were up there. Everyone that is, except for the 17- and 15-year-old nephews, who are filled with teenage angst and can't function without electronics. We were camped next to a pond filled with frogs, polliwogs, bugs and shoe-sucking mud. My twelve-year-old niece made a small fortune retrieving lost children's shoes from the muck.

Kylynn showing off two of the frogs she liberated from the pond.

If mud and muck aren't your thing, my brother Joe and his wife Kerry brought up their horses. Everyone but my little Libby loved the horses. Libby is still chicken. She lives in fear the horse "will shake [her] off". Uncle Joe promised her the horse has never "shaken" anyone off, but she doesn't seem to believe him. If you knew my brother, you probably wouldn't believe him either.

I have been on a horse about four times since I was twelve, and all of those in the last couple of weeks. So of course when Kerry asked if I wanted to run a horse with her I said yes. So there I was clutching the reins and pommel and bouncing around in the saddle like a yo-yo. Things were going well and life was good. Then Kerry ran her horse past camp with me close behind. My horse did not want to run past camp, my horse wanted to run TO camp. She threw herself around a corner that was more then 90 degrees with me screaming "NO, NO, ARGGG, NO, AHHHHH!" My foot slipped out of the stirrup and I was clutching the horse for dear life. Thankfully I stayed on and only suffered minor bruises. Kerry got down to the end of the road and realized I wasn't there. She came running back to camp panic stricken. She was terrified that I had been thrown. I took pity on her and only rubbed it in for two days that she could have severely injured me. I also made it a point to show her my bruises and complain about my twisted ankle, just so she would learn her lesson.

The only time Libby even sat on a horse. Her cousin Aubrey (the racketeer) with her.

The children were covered with dirt and mud the entire time we were up there. We tried washing them in the creek, but they were too smart to go past their ankles in the frigid water. We are still trying to soak all the grime off of their feet.

This was Xander during a clean moment. Yes, he does seem to be a bit of a pervert.

Oh, I love the dirt.

I had a brief manly moment and chopped this pile of wood. It was a pathetic thing to see, but the wood was chopped, I walked away with all my phalanges, and I only got two blisters. I count that as a success.

It did rain the last full day we were there but it didn't really come down until everyone went to bed for the night. Then it stormed. Thankfully it had almost quit by the time we got up.Rain....The creator of family togetherness.

Joe took Ethan fishing and he caught his very first fish. And his second. He was very pleased with himself. He even ate a few bites and deemed it good.

More Xtracycle Goodness

Okay, a little background: We subscribe to a Yahoo group called AdaCountyFreecycle. It is a group of people that post offers and requests of stuff they have or need. The primary, main, and abiding rule is that it all has to be FREE, with no strings attached.

Recently someone on this end of town posted "4 bags of men's clothing, various sizes". I thought "Heck! I can surely get some clothes I can use out of FOUR bags!" So, I asked for them, was given them, and set a time for pick up. It was about 3 miles away, and I figured I could just jaunt over there after we got the kids in bed and pick them up.

I arrived at the woman's house, and saw four HUGE bags full of clothes. Assuming these to be my cargo, I started looking in the bags. It seriously looked like someone's dirty laundry. I was in a nicer subdivision, so I thought it a possibility. I went and knocked on the door, and asked the woman to show me what I was expected to take.

She waddled out her front door. She stopped a moment and balked, "Oh. You brought your bike." After assuring her my bike could handle the load, she confirmed the four bags of dirty laundry were for me. I thanked her, and proceeded to load the 1 full + 3 half-full bags onto my bicycle.

About 10 minutes and a good deal of grunting later, I got it all loaded up, secretly hoping I would be mugged by a gang of relatively harmless homeless men running around in their skivvies looking for something to wear to the evening's barrel burn. Alas, I had no such luck. So, pedaling down Parkcenter Ave at 9:15 at night looking like a large, homely, overzealous bag lady I made the 2.4 mile journey home. I called Katie ahead of time to make sure she had the camera ready to snap some pics.

Here they are!

See the white bag hanging off the very back? I had another one of those strapped on the right side of my bike, which you obviously cannot see.

I unloaded them all, spread a blanket on the lawn I found in one of the bags, dumped out one bag at a time, and went through them using only my Leatherman to touch them. There were dirty socks, boxers, shirts, pants, backpacks, aprons, hoodies...it had most everything, and most of it was gross.

I sorted out a small pile of things I could probably put to use and give a good washin' to and stuffed the rest into one bag. I got a wash going for the stuff I was going to keep and took a thorough shower to scrub all the invisible ickies off me.

I was going to be nice and take all the rest of the stuff to a laundromat, clean and dry it, then donate it to the mission. I didn't have the time, and Katie didn't have the patience for a huge bag o' crap sitting on the front porch. So she started to wash it. Before she could finish the first load, she was sufficiently grossed out, and, going against our deep-seeded reduce, reuse, recycle mentality, I hauled the lot of it to the dumpster.

I did end up with some nice work shirts, a canvas apron, a down coat and several flannel jackets.

Camping Above Cascade

Yep, more camping pictures. Different trip though. We are trying to take full advantage of our summer. In August Michael starts back to school with five classes. Plus he will be working 36 hours a week. We are trying to play just as much as humanly possible because soon life will suck. A lot. In the mean time, life is wonderful and happy.

We went camping with my brother (Joe) and his wife (Kerry) and her whole family. Ethan and Libby think Joe and Kerry hung the moon. It doesn't hurt that they own horses and let our kids ride them, or that they take them to McDonald's, or that they take them to parades, or that they...well you get the idea.

This was the first time on a horse for both of the kids and the first time in almost 20 years for both Michael and I.
Super-flattering picture of me, yes?
Libby was a little afraid of the horses. She was willing to sit on them and pet them, but they had better not move. Any time anyone asked her if she wanted to ride one, her answer was an emphatic, "NO."
A pretty little meadow we found while riding the horses. I think this is where Joe let Michael shoot his .22 rifle and .44 magnum handgun. For the first time in years, Michael felt like a "true man."

Ethan is becoming quite brave! He used to be a bit of a pansy, but he is quickly becoming more and more willing to try just about anything!Ethan and Uncle Joe taking on the river.

Really, I don't need a nap anymore!

Michael's Great Joy

As I have already mentioned, we have been biking a lot this summer. In the last month we have driven our car a total of four times. Once to go camping, once to go to a movie when it was raining, once when Michael woke up to find his bike had a flat, and one other time that I don't remember the reason for. I can hear you asking, "How do you get the kids around?" "How do you get your shopping done." It is because of this thing.


This is Michael's true love. It is called an Xtracycle and he loves it more then he loves me (almost). It is really the neatest thing. Once we save up the money, we are getting one for me too. He has hauled over a hundred dollars worth of groceries and both kids home on this thing. In the picture he has a lamp, our tent and the kids on the bike. We had just come home from Con and Linda's.

Camping in Cascade

Dad's ward was having a campout at Horsethief Reservoir and Mom didn't want to go, so Dad asked Katie and I if we'd like to go with him. After some minor hemming, hawing, and a promise of homemade ice cream, we conceded to go.

Ethan and Libby were all ecstatic about going camping with Grandpa and eating ice cream while doing it. We also lured them with the promise of canoes out on the water.

We arrived safely and set up our camp. Our family in our tent and Dad deciding to camp under the stars. We took the kids out in the canoe. Upon getting myself into the canoe, ensuring I was keeping "three points of contact" at all times with the boat, it tipped to the point that a slosh of water got in. This, I believe, was due to the kids not understanding how to balance themselves, let alone themselves in a boat. So I paddled across the reservoir with my knees in an inch of water.

Upon arriving on the opposite shore, we took a short little hike. We found a MONSTROUS ant hill made of dirt and pine needles with thousands of red ants crawling all over it. I managed to escape with only one of the little buggers biting me on my tow.

The rest of the trip was very pleasant and uneventful. Ethan spent about 3 hours on the dock fishing with a bunch of perfect strangers and, generally speaking, got along quite well with everyone there. We went out in the canoes a couple more times, Dad and I played a game of Scrabble on our Palm TXs via Bluetooth by the light of the campfire, slept, woke up, ate breakfast, canoed some more, made lunch, watched Libby play Frisbee, then came home.

Thanks for the trip Dad! A buncha pictures follow, in chronological order.