Children's Discovery Museum

Ethan and I had quite a fun today at the Children's Discovery Museum! They have a really fun exhibit completely designated for infants and toddlers. It's called the "Wonder Cabinet" and it has all sorts of stations for the little ones to play in. Ethan especially loved the station called the "Crawl Space" where it had mirrored cubby holes, cupboards to open and pull out stuff, musical instruments, and tons of toys. Other stations included story time area, a smelling station, art wall, building blocks area (with huge soft blocks), and tunnels to crawl through. He had so much fun investigating everything they had to play with. We also went down to their water exhibit so he could watch the bigger kids play. The cool thing was, they had a water exhibit just for 4 and under too. Ethan loved splashing in the water and picking up the balls and throwing them. He ended up getting totally soaked and his smiley picture was taken right after he got done. I think we will be going again very soon. I had so much fun watching him discovering new things and just being a kid. As we were leaving he turned his head around to look at me and gave me the biggest smile and that totally made my day. I hope that Ryan can come along and experience this with us sometime.

Standing

This is just a little video of Ethan playing on his car set. Hopefully it isn't too dark to see. He's so cute!

It's Been Awhile!

I feel like I haven't posted in a super long time. There is a reason...I've been super sick! I started getting over my sinus infection and then ended up getting food poisoning or some sort of stomach bug on Friday. It was awful! I really didn't enjoy having little Ethan bawling his eyes out every time I got up to run to bathroom to throw up. Luckily I have wonderful support people in my life that my things so much more bearable! Ryan came home for lunch so he could take Ethan for an hour and then Mike and Emily took him for the rest of the day. I don't know what I would have done without them! It's just a shame I had to use my "alone time" being so sick. I started feeling better on Saturday, but I think I got going to quick and got sick again in the afternoon. I swear it's the worst feeling in the whole world! Good news though, I'm back in action. I started to realize how much I really get done when I'm feeling good. I had 4 days worth of "chores" to do and I finished them all in one day. Go me! So now my house in clean, my fridge is stocked, and I even have some meals made in the freezer. Now I'm just going to have to sit around and sip lemonade by the pool. Just kidding (although I will have to get some serious pool time in this week).

Here Comes Trouble!

I heard Ethan rustling in his crib after his nap on Tuesday so I went in to go get him. Well, I was shocked to find him standing up and lunging over the railing! He has learned to pull himself up, climb on top of the bumper, and try to lean over the bar! We lowered the mattress all the way down, but he still trys to do mini pull ups so he can look over the edge. Now that he's learned his favorite new trick, he won't go down for naps. He just stands up, grabs the bars, and shakes them like he's in jail and he wants out NOW! I guess it's bad timing for this no nap thing since I'm suffering from a serious sinus infection and just need a little bit of sleep. I feel bad since I usually take him out everyday to do something whether it's to the store or out for a walk. I just don't feel like doing ANYTHING and he's got all this energy. He crawls all over the house and climbs on everything. Maybe he has tons of boy energy, but I feel like I've got an energetic (and a little mischievious/curious) boy on my hands.

Childhood memories

So I discovered some old videos on the internet of some of the childhood shows that I watched. It was so crazy that I could sing every word to every song even though i probably hadn't seen these shows in like 18 years! I want to post just a few of the wonderful treasures that I found. Maybe it will spark a few memories of your own.

Sunday Lesson

I'm teaching Relief Society on Sunday and it's about the talk that Elder Stone gave at this past April conference. The talk is "Zion in the Midst of Babylon". I'd love for all of you to read it and email me your ideas, impressions, comments, etc. I'm interested on your thoughts on what kinds of things are "Babylon" in our lives? What effect does our American culture have on our lives (good or bad)? How do we create our own "Zion in the midst of Babylon?" I'd love to hear from you!

Happy Father's Day!!!

Today was Ryan's first Father's Day as a "Daddy." We started out the day with no pre-church meetings and a side of fresh pancakes. Then at church Ryan got a special Father's Day candy bar from the Young Women. We did a post-church grill out complete with homemade ice cream cake (made by yours truly). Ryan even got a special gift of Father's Day shirts and a nap. I hope Ryan felt special today. He's such an awesome dad and Ethan and I love him so much! I just wish I could have given him a win for the Dallas Mavericks tonight!

Old Pictures

As I was looking through Ethan's old pictures I also found some good oldies of us before he was born. Enjoy some more good photos.

Making a really good cake for my best friend's baby shower while we were living in lovely Wymount June 2004
Family vacation in Orlando June 2005 I think I was about 21 or 22 weeks pregnant at the time.
Some of my nursing school buddies trying to revive "SAM" in our ICU lab. Unfortunately "SAM" didn't quite make it :( August 2003
The graduates August 2004
My cousin Stockton and me at Grandma's Christmas Party 2003 ( I think Ethan looks a little bit like him)
In San Fran with Xander & Tanya and Mike & Emily Sept 2004

Another Pool Day

Hello to all my fellow blogmates and family! Today was a pretty good day. Ethan slept for just under 2 hours for his morning nap and then we went swimming at the pool with our friends. Ethan LOVES the pool and swimming with Mom. All of us girls were running races in the water(trying to get in a good workout) and Ethan totally cuddled up to me and enjoyed the ride. All the swimming totally knocked Ethan out and he slept over 2 hours for his afternoon nap. I hope he sleeps well tonight, but at least I got tons done today while he napped.

The Early Days

I know Ethan is only 7 1/2 months old, but I was looking through some pictures of my little guy from when he was born all the way through now. It's so interesting to see how he's changed, but also stays the same. Enjoy some fun pictures!

Progressing Through the Months

Paper Wrestling

So I was talking on the phone with my wonderful sister-in-law (she's pretty much my own sister) and trying to get ready for my friend's baby shower. Basically, I wasn't paying too much attention to what Ethan was doing and he got into Ryan's Young Men's papers. I looked down to find Ethan wrestling with a wad of "Zion's Camp" forms. He was crinkling the paper, flinging them around, tearing them apart, and then trying to chew them. I was finger sweeping slobbery globs of paper out of his mouth for like 10 minutes. I'm sure the "parenting" classes advise not to allow babies eat paper. Oh well, put me on the bad mother list.

Such Cute Spikey Hair!

I decided to put a little gel in Ethan's hair the other day and spike it up. It looked so cute! For those of you who were at my wedding were warned that I loved playing "beauty shop" with all my cousins when I was little. Ryan isn't a fan of the "spikey do", but I'll spike Ethan's hair when Ry's not home.

They Have Arrived!!!

Finally, the pictures have arrived straight from the White House! I'm hoping to post the official "Presidential Pictures" soon (once I find someone with a scanner). The pictures are so cool! I got 2 8X10's of the President holding Ethan and you can even see Ry and me in the picture. They included a card with a presidential insignia on it and it says "With the compliments of the President" and then the pictures say "To Ethan Elmer with Best Wishes" and then they are signed by the President!!! This will be framed and on Ethan's dresser forever!

Summer BBQ Season Has Begun!

Mike and Emily threw a hoppin' BBQ tonight! It was quite fun and there was great food (including an extremely burnt hot dog and really good tri tip as shown). The kids got to play some baseball and run around, the babies hung out, and the "pregos" got to show off the bellies. We should really do this all summer long! It gets me out of cooking for a night so I'll take advantage any time I can.




Just a reminder for all the girles here in Cali...The Diaper Days is this Wednesday at the camera 7 theater in Campbell. Just search "Diaper Days" on yahoo and it should pull up all the info. The movie is The Da Vinci Code and it starts at 12:30. Call me or e-mail if you want to go. I'll be skipping out of playgroup early to get there so you can follow me if you like. Hope to see you there!

Rub a Dub Dub

Ethan is now big enough to sit up in his little tub so Dad took a little snapshot of him playing in the tub. He was too interested in his toy to look at the camera, sorry.

Ethan and Sydney Video

This video was from a couple of days ago at Janelle's house. Ethan and Sydney love playing together and you can't keep them away from each other. Sydney is about 3 months older than Ethan. They are so cute!

So You Had a Bad Day...

You know that new song by Daniel Powter, "Bad Day"...that song has been my soundtrack for today and it has been in my head non-stop. Today has just been a day full of all sorts of sad news, bad news, and disappointing news. I guess everything hits all at once. To make matters worse, the people I mope with were either part of the "news", working, or "unavailable". I wanted to get out today, but things just didn't happen so I stayed in all day. Not good for the soul.