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