Random Updates

Hi Folks! It's been a bit hasn't it? Life seems hectic to me lately. I have been feeling a little overwhelmed lately but I think that's going to be about standard for the rest of my life. Ethan is doing well. I can't stress enough what a cutie he is. :) When he wakes up in the morning the first thing he does is smile. I love it! And the best thing? When Ethan smiles, it's impossible not to smile back at him. It just lights up his whole face. Someday I'll be lucky enough to catch it on camera. But for now I am content just looking. :)

I am heading to Cali at the end of the week. I am meeting my family down there to visit with Bro as he is on leave from Iraq. I am bringing Ethan with me and I am already so stressed about it! (proof? I am already packed because I am so worried about leaving something important behind). Our flights are at his usally nap times so I am hoping that he'll just sleep. The bad news? Lately Ethan has been refusing to take a bottle- from me or anyone. That doesn't help the situation at all. I'm excited to get to Cali (and to come back) but I'm not too thrilled about the flying part. I am looking forward to seeing my family and also meeting up with some old friends from Hawaii (Hi Heather and Myka and B!).

And the other thing that I am really excited about, but I'm not really going to talk about (sorry!) is that I am getting my endowments. I still have to make the appointment, but I want to go to the Salt Lake Temple.

Anyway, that's the haps from around here. Fall is marching its way in. The trees on the mountains around my mom's house are turning vibrant Red. I love it and wish she were here to see it. Oh yeah, I guess that's another thing! I don't know if I mentioned it before but about 3 weeks to a month ago my mom's retina spontaneously detached. There was a trip to the ER followed up by an emergency surgery. As soon as my mom was travel ready she headed down to Cali (to meet up with my Bro) and where she could get some follow up health care. Well, this past week her retina detached again, so she had to go in for surgery #2. :(

Okay One More...

Ethan's Halloween Costume- He's going to be a Monkey... My Chunky Monkey to be exact. :)

I love this picture too...

That's a big baby (Mommy's work out)

My best friend April had her baby, Sylas, 2 weeks after I had Ethan. They're going to grow up to be best friends. The babies were roughly the same size- Ethan was 7 lbs, 9 oz and Sylas was 7 lbs, 1 oz; okay so there's some pretty good difference there, but still...

Anyway... Keep in mind that these 2 babies are only 2 weeks apart...

The proud mommies with the future friends.

Yes, that big buddah baby is my "little" Ethan. And that's Sylas... It looks like Ethan could go on a rampage and eat Sylas as a mid-day snack. I love it.

Ethan's 2 month appointment is on Monday so I'll find out for sure what he's weighing in at.

Oh yeah, bonus- Ethan is bigger than most of the other babies in our wards and he's the youngest. Dave and I were the runts of our families... kind of makes you wonder...

Lottery

So we drove up to Idaho (Malad to be exact) to pick up some lottery tickets and scratch tickets. We go up every once in a while to fill my need to go on road trips (even small ones) and because it's just fun to scratch those little tickets.

It was the first time we had taken Ethan on a long trip (my marathon errand running sessions don't count). Silly me. I was thinking that it would be a quick trip up and then back down so I skimped on bringing the baby stuff. I learned my lesson quickly. We pulled into the parking lot to discover that Ethan had a blow out. A big one too. His onesy and his blanket were covered. Yuck. So I had to get him out of the carseat and into the gas station changing table without spreading the love around. The really fun part was trying to get his onesy off without spreading the poo all over him... I'm glad I brought a huge wad of wipes to clean up after that. Luckily there was an extra diaper hidden in the bottom of my diaper bag but I didn't bring an extra change of clothes. So Ethan had to class it up by sitting naked in his car seat while we scratched our tickets and then for the car ride home.

Anyway, Ethan's first road trip/scratch ticket:

Pictures

I promised to post some of my favorite pictures of Ethan... so here are my 2 current favorites.

Just before bathtime. I know it's playing with fire but I just love my little naked baby and we had to pause to get some good pictures.

I don't know why this one is popping up like this but honestly I am too tired to try to figure out the problem so just tilt your head for the full effect.

Handful- More like an armful

Well my little chunker is keeping me busy. His personality is definitely emerging. And he's still the cutest little boy around. :) Ethan is the sweetest little boy in the morning- all smiles and giggles (yes- he's working on giggles now) but by afternoon it's a different story. Ethan gets more high maintenance as the day goes on, so by about dinner time all the attention has to be on him (makes making dinner quite the task).

I am up at my mom's this afternoon (Hi Mom! I'm watching your place). She's in Cali getting ready for a little family reunion. My brother is heading there for 2 weeks of leave from Iraq. I had really hoped that we would be able to go down and meet him as well, but it's just not going to happen. The most we would have been able to do would have been a long weekend and most of it would have been spent driving and the thought of trying a 10 hour drive (twice) with a 2 month old was a little deterring. So I made a whole bunch of videos for bro and sent them with mom. And as soon as I find my connector cable I'll post one or two of them on here. Ditto for some pictures.

Speaking of pictures, I took a photography class in High School and learned that while there is definite skill involved in taking pictures, by sheer multitude one can come up with some amazing pictures. I have so many favorites of Ethan (I plan on posting many here) but we recently took the most amazing pictures of him. I know it's not fair to talk about the pictures without sharing, but like I said, I need a connector cable. That and I just wanted to brag about how photogenic my boy is (but really are there any unphotogenic babies?).

Anyway, life goes on. We celebrated Dave's 30th (!) birthday this weekend. Amazing! Now I get to tease him about being old for the next few years... at least until I turn 30. Then we'll talk about how young we are. My husband looks darned good for a 30 year old, actually he's pretty hot for any age. :) (Hi baby!).

It's now the middle of September, I dropped into work yesterday and everyone wanted to know when I'd be back. I can't believe I only have another few weeks of "official" leave until I have to return to work. I guess I keep waiting for something to happen to cause time to stop or keep me in my little bubble. I am also hoping that something will happen so that I don't have to go back at all. :) (Speaking of, I guess there's a big pot for the lottery.)

Still not eating...blah

Well I'm still on my pseudo-liquid diet. I should say squishy food diet. Okay, I'll admit it, I've been pushing it... I just can't do squishy foods/liquids only. My dad is heading back to Hawaii tomorrow so we all went out to breakfast this morning... so I got the french toast, the bacon, and the eggs. And I don't regret it! (Don't tell my dentist). I took little bites and pretended like it was all squishy/liquid food. But that's been my only cheat so far. Over all I feel a little bit better so that's kind of nice.

Dave is at the US vs El Salvador World Cup Qualifier this evening. I am excited that he was able to go. In about 20 years, be sure to watch for Ethan to be on the US' national soccer team. :)

We got Dave the new My Touch phone for his birthday. Those things are pretty cool!

Other wise not much going on here. Wish there was more to write but I've been on pain medication all weekend and I am thoroughly useless.

Oral Surgery

Sorry it's been so long since I've posted. I finally have regular internet access and I still don't have time to write. :) Ethan, David, and I are all doing great. Dave is busy at work and Ethan is busy at keeping me busy. :)

Let's see- last week my mom had a spontaneous detached retina. That meant a midnight trip to the ER and a follow up surgery the next day. So that kept us pretty busy last week- I was taking care of Mom as much as I could. Much to my mom's joy, my dad flew in last weekend to help take care of her so that was pretty awesome.

Then this week was my turn for surgery. Yesterday I had a molar pulled and an implant put in. I have had a problem tooth for a while now and finally the dentist and I said that enough is enough. So no more tooth. Unfortunately my mouth hurts a lot now so I'm taking it pretty easy this week. Down side- liquid diet for the next few days. Commercials suck. The second I couldn't have any of it I started craving hamburgers and french fries and pizza and those commercials just made everything look so tasty. Why aren't there any soup shops? Anyway, so I'm pretty hungry and I'm already sick of pudding, ice cream, and yogurt and it's only been 1 day. Great. It's going to be a long weekend.

Ethan is growing so quickly. I love it. He makes the cutest faces and does the cutest things and is generally the most wonderful little boy. :)