A Brother on a Mission

This picture was taken back on January 1st when Ethan was blessed.

My brother goes into the MTC tomorrow and I can't believe it! He's headed to the Tempe, Arizona mission. This entry is dedicated to my bro, see ya in two years (unless we end up moving to Arizona and living in your mission)!

Just Another Day at the Pool

I love hanging with the girls. We have so much fun together!

Memorial Day

We had a little Memorial Day BBQing going on today which was fun. It was a good time to get outside with the kiddos and enjoy some sun. We were going to go to the beach in Santa Cruz, but Ethan hasn't had the best day today. He didn't sleep last night and he only slept in the stroller for about 20 minutes while we went on a walk. I have no idea why he's so upset. It doesn't look like he's teething at all and he's not sick. Go figure. Anyway...He did have some fun with his little girlfriend, Emily (they're two weeks apart).

Take Me Out to the Ballgame

My good friend Emily works at a law firm that totally hooked her up with some sweet tickets to the San Francisco Giants game. Her husband called us up with the invite and even a volunteer to baby-sit so we couldn't turn it down. Andy and Angie came over to watch little Ethan for the evening and we got the night off. Our tickets were right behind homeplate, we had an awesome view of the game. We were hoping Barry would break the homerun record while we were there, but that didn't happen. We did get some really good ballpark food though. We had some "Gilroy Garlic Fries" that were the best fries I ever had (we all had to eat them though or else our breath would kill someone). Thank you Emily and Mike for such and awesome night and a huge thank you to Andy and Angie for taking care of our "little angel".

Here's a video from the game. I wanted to capture the moment that Barry Bonds hit homerun #715, but it didn't happen. Well, enjoy the crowd, the guy selling lemonade, our friends, and a good game of baseball.

The Crawlmeister

Ethan has been trying to crawl around these days. He hasn't quite figured out how to pull his legs underneath him so he crawls around army style. One day while Ryan was getting ready for work he came out to find Ethan in his computer bag. I guess Ethan justs misses his Daddy so much that he wanted to go with him to work. Ethan has also started making funny sounds that sound like words. He didn't want to start with the typical "mama" or "dada", instead he chose "head", "hit", and "hat". I have a picture of Ethan with Uncle Randall in his favorite "hat". I also wanted to announce that my parents finally bought a house down in Dallas! They will be living in Keller so be sure to give my parents a holler once they get down there. I think they close on the house towards the end of June so they are very excited!

I Love Girls' Night Out

It was Hilary's birthday this weekend and a bunch of us went out to celebrate. We had about 14 girls come to dinner at Cheesecake Factory (yes, I buried the hatchet) and then about half of us went over to Ginger's for cake and ice cream. We had so much fun chatting into the wee hours of the morning. I swear I haven't stayed up past 12 with friends since Ethan was born! Anyway...My friend Michelle had a funny experience at the restaurant with some random guy trying to hit on her the whole time we were there. It was hilarious! Well, I stole this picture from Hilary's blog so I hope she doesn't mind. I really think we should have girls' night out more often! So when's the next time we're going guys?

Ethan's First Invitation

So Ethan got this in the mail about 2 weeks ago, but I haven't had the chance to post pictures since I left for Ohio. I'll be catching up on picture posting for the next few days. Anyway...Ethan got invited to his cousin Tyler's 1st birthday party. How exciting is that! I just wish we lived in Dallas so we could go :( By the way Molly, your invitations are soooo cute!

Baked Potato Anyone?

This is a video captured from my brother's floor at Helaman Halls at BYU. I thought it was pretty incredible. Basically, about 15 guys covered a kid's room completely in tin foil while he was gone on a date. They covered pretty much everything including pillows, hand towel, toothbrush, chairs, books, and every individual soap/shampoo bottle. Randall said it took all of them about 2 hours to complete the whole room. Gotta love the BYU Helaman Halls experience!

High Tech

This is a video from awhile back when we met the President. A guy at the discussion ended up taping the "moment" with his PDA and then e-mailed it to us. It's only a few seconds, but you can see President pick up little Ethan and all the people clapping in the background. I swear Ryan and I have watching the stinkin' thing a million times. Anyway...My good friend Hilary let me know how to post video on my blog now so I can be cool like her. Enjoy!

New Tricks

Well, I'm still out here in Ohio visiting my family and it's been great! Ethan has also been doing awesome too. He's learned a couple new things since he's been out here. Yesterday we went out to breakfast at Bob Evan's (the best breakfast place ever!) and Ethan kept grabbing my water so I let him try to use the straw and he actually got the hang of it! So now he loves drinking from a straw. The best trick of all that he's learned here is sleeping through the night! He went to bed at 8 and didn't get up until 6:30! I actually slept from 11-5 and then I got up to be sure the kid was still there (and the fact that my milk machines woke me up :(). I couldn't believe it! My mom thinks he'll be walking and talking by the time we go back to Cali.

Home Sweet Home

Well, we finally made it home to Ohio. I had to spend an extra 2 hours in Chicago with flight delays, but I eventually got here. It's just so nice to be able to go spend some time with my family and to have some extra hands to help with Ethan. I'm also excited to do some of the fun things that I love about home.

Booo, Cheesecake Factory

So after all my cooking yesterday, I didn't feel like cooking this evening. I had to get a lot done around the house and finish up packing, but Ryan and I wanted to eat out too, so we decided to call up Cheesecake Factory and do the "To Go" thing. I got all my stuff done and gave Ethan a bath by the time Ryan got back with the food. I ordered a grilled BBQ chicken sandwich and I was so excited to get my little dish (as well as the cheesecake afterwards). So I took a big bite of my sandwich and the chicken was TERRIBLE!!! It was so chewy, I could barely even able to get it down. I had to spit it out! What a bummer! It totally ruined my mood for the evening. I don't think I'll be headed back to Cheesecake Factory for awhile. :P BOOOOOOOO!!!! I can't put into words how mad I am about it!

Healthy Meals

So I'm leaving on Saturday to go home to Ohio for 10 days and I'm soooo excited. I've been getting stuff together, doing laundry, making lists, etc (the usual travel preparations). Well, as a part of my preparation I've followed my sweet mother's example and made some meals for Ryan. The poor guy doesn't have the best eating habits! Despite the fact that his mom is a Registered Dietician, he hasn't really "caught the vision" when it comes to being nutritious. For example, Ryan's idea of eating fruit is a glass apple juice, orange juice, or juicee juice. I agree that fruit juices are good for you, but he DRINKS fruit instead of EATING them. I just know that if I left him without things to eat, he would live off of cereal, PB& honey, or Panda Express the whole time I was gone. So I spent the day making chicken enchiladas, homemade bolognese sauce, Mexican casserole, and oriental beef and veggies and stuck them in the freezer for him. As I was doing it, I started thinking I should just take one day out of the week and make a weeks worth of meals so I don't have to make dinner every night. Maybe I'll try that when I get back from my little visit.

6 month check up

Well, Ethan had his 6 month check up and shots today. He's grown almost 2 inches and has gained 1 1/2 lbs since his last visit. I'm so proud! The pediatrician gave me the go ahead on doing more solids now. It's going to be kind of weird having to bring along food whenever I go out instead of only nursing. It will be nice to be able to have other people be able to feed him, but it's a lot more convenient when I'm around just to "use what I got." Anyway...I l LOVE my pediatrician, she's so great. She's not the type of doctor that just writes you a perscription and sends you on your way. She's good at doing, what I call, a "nurse's approach to care" like spending time on education and using natural remedies before resorting to medicine. It's great. I've recommended her to a lot of people in the ward and I've gotten a lot positive responses so far. So the pedictrician gave Ethan high marks and says he looks wonderful. Good job, bud!

3 Year Anniversary

Wednesday was our 3 year anniversary, but we didn't celebrate until yesterday. Every year we get the "traditional" gift for each other. This year was leather so we set out to find some sort of leather gift. I wanted a leather couch, but that request wasn't flying with "Mr. Moneybags." I ended up with a leather belt and Ryan got a leather picture frame for his office. My friend, Amy, watched Ethan so we could go out to dinner by ourselves (a first since my mom watched him at Christmas time). Next year the traditional gift is fruits/flowers so that should be interesting. I'm requesting Harry & David's fruit of the month club memeberships for my gift!

Grandma Cheryl's Favorite

This is just a super cute picture of Ryan reading to Ethan. Ethan loves to be read to and he usually tries to mimick what you're doing so he tries to read along.

Ethan's First Swim

That's a sticker on his chest, it turns orange when he needs to get out of the sun.
Having fun with his "girlfriend" Becky
Cool dude in the tube
A bunch of us girlies decided to have a kid/baby/prego pool party. This was the first time Ethan has ever swam in a pool and he LOVED it! I guess it's just one big bathtub to him. He was so cute in his little floaty and swimmer diaper. It was so fun to lounge at the pool with the girls, eat twizzlers, and talk. Of course all the sun and swimming made him super tired so he's going to sleep well tonight. Afterward all the swimming we went to our apartment's "Greek Night" party so I got to try some good Greek food. I even won $25 off our rent. Doesn't help much when you're paying oodles of money for it anyway, but I'll take what I can get.

Ward Playgroup

Look at all these "hot mamas"! (this isn't everyone from playgroup, but just some of us that would get in a picture)
Sydney and Ethan playing together
Cute little Spencer on his "leash"

Today the ward playgroup went to a little farm with lots of animals like ducks, cows, sheep, goats, and roosters. We have an awesome group of fun moms to hang out with and the kids have a great time too. It's always fun to get together and get out of the house (and make the kids really tired).

Photo Shoot

My lovely friend Hilary took some of the best pictures ever today! Remember, she also did the pictures of Ethan when he was newborn too. She is super talented! I LOVE all the pics she got today. These are just a few from the shoot, but if you'd like to see more I can e-mail them to you. Thanks Hilary!!!

Hello, Mr. President

Ethan with President Bush
President Bush shaking hands with people
Ryan and Ethan at the event
Our front row seats

Yes, that is our son with the President! My best friend from high school, Tiffany, got us totally hooked up. Her husband works for the President and since the President was in town visiting Cisco Systems, they got us front row seats to the discussion! We even sat by the mayor of San Jose! So after the whole discussion we went up to the front so we could shake Bush's hand as he came around. Well, when he got to us, he looked at Ethan and picked him right up so I could take a picture of Ethan with the President. Everyone there started clapping when the President picked him up. Then he turned to the Presidential photographer so the photographer could get some pictures and had me get in a few too. The photographer gave me a card with all the info so I can have the pictures sent to me. Then the President gave Ethan a kiss and handed him back to me. It was incredible! A once in a lifetime opportunity! Too bad Ethan won't remember any of this, but at least we have pictures. After the whole thing everyone came up to us to see the "famous baby" and a newspaper guy got all our info for the paper. I'm excited to see if we made it in the paper. Thanks Tiff and Gregg for the wonderful opportunity! You guys are too cool! I just thought I was going to have good seats to see the President. I never thought I would actually get to meet him and have him hold my child. Too cool!