Our Wee'est Buckeroo

For some reason the biggest events in life seem to be the hardest to blog about, or maybe it's just finding the time now to getting around to it. For whatever reason, this is long overdue. Ethan joined our family on September 30th at 3:00 am. My contractions started at 6:00 pm on Tuesday and were 10 minutes apart from the beginning. After Danny got home from YM's and we packed us, Luke and the dogs in the car my contractions were 2 to 3 minutes apart. Yes, I was silently praying that I would not have the urge to push in the car and that we wouldn't be doing a 911 call on the side of the freeway. But I guess I secretly feared that I would reach the hospital and they would tell me I was only a 3 or four and send me home, but that wasn't an option for us, living in the SC and choosing a hospital in the UC. Nice one eh? I walked in and told the lady that I thought I was in labor (there was not doubt in my mind, but I just felt I should preface it that way just in case I was dreaming all of this). So the lady takes me to the room where they check you and the bed isn't made so I'm standing there and have a few contractions while she's making it, she has no idea. The nurse comes in to check and says "oh, you're at a 9!" Let's just say that I was raising the roof, with a woop and a woop. Nevermind that I stayed at a 9 for the next two and a half hours, they make you sit in that dang bed and I got a spinal, all of which I'm sure contributed to the slow down. But he's here! Yeah. It was so much easier than Luke.

He weighed 8 pounds 1 ounce and was 20.5 inches long. He looks just like Luke did, but we seem to be enjoying Ethan much more than we did Luke. Guess we feel more experienced. He's a great baby, most of the time. What is it about not getting enough sleep that makes you want to just cry and cry and cry? It is a rough gig in that sense, but I keep telling myself that it doesn't last long and just enjoy him while he's little. I will survive.







































































First week at home.

Fall in the EC...again!

I posted about this last year, but I love this little area in our canyon that has a great little trail and amazing aspens. We went up Saturday evening, the leaves aren't just right yet (this next week they will be)...but we weren't sure that we would get another chance to get up there with baby being due and all.














































































I know this picture is a little fuzzy, but you can see the amber rays of the sun as it was setting coming through the trees. Loved it!





















I have to say that I've never really loved the fall, I guess because it meant winter was coming and growing up in Canada it was dreadfully cold and long. Sometimes downright depressing. But I'm learning to love the fall. I also love Halloween, this is also a new thing for me, I used to hate it as a kid, but the last five years or so I love trying to come up with a costume that I think is hilarious...for me if it's not funny there's no point in dressing up. But that's just me. Sometimes I hit the mark and sometimes I don't. But c'est la vie eh?

Here's a favorite of mine. People seriously didn't know who I was, and that makes it even better. So I hammed it up and totally played the part. Very unusual for me.

Oh, have mercy on that sweater!

So I've been meaning to do this for a little while, but I figured I should do a post about my pregnancy, since it's pretty much almost done. I was 37 weeks on Friday, so a little less than three weeks to go. Shall we sing the hallelujah chorus again? It's actually been so much easier than with Luke and I believe it to be that way because I'm not working. I think it's hard to work and be pregnant. So I've felt great. I still try to walk everyday and we even went on a three mile hike with the webelos on Saturday and I had no problems, so I feel quite fortunate. And yes, I'm still stuffing myself into my regular clothes. It's getting ridiculous. I just can't bring myself to wear maternity clothes and I don't want to buy new clothes at this point.


But you know you're out there when you start getting "those" kinds of comments. Here's one example. On Saturday I was over at a friends garage sale and a lady that I've never seen before in my life took one look at me and said "Oh dear! How much longer do you have!" She insisted that I had dropped, which I think is funny because she's never even seen me before, but she's apparently some sort of expert on "dropping." Then today at church, I got a few sad eyes, along with some fun little comments. Luckily I'm not so desperate to have this baby that I want to poke their eyes out yet, I still find it quite amusing the things that people will say to you. Like the passing comment that I didn't quite catch all of but seemed to be along the lines of "here comes the Labor Day parade." Followed by boughts of laughter. Oh, and to add injury to insult, while cooking dinner today I was trying to reach in the cupboard over the stove and totally gave myself a 2nd degree burn on my belly from the potato pan that was boiling on the burner. I yelped! It hurts so bad and is about 3 inches long...I just forget how faaaaar out there this thing is.

Still no name yet, and we probably won't have that figured out until he's here. So we'll keep you all posted. I am super excited for this baby to come! I never felt this with Luke because I was so preoccupied and panicked with kick counts and monitoring because my midwives had me a little freaked out about any decrease in movement. So it's nice to feel the excitement and not be worried.

The Government Can!

A friend posted this on her blog last week. And I've been singing the song every day since then. I don't care what your political views are, it's funny. Even though I happen to whole heartedly agree with it. Enough said.

I think the rule is don't ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever....

try a new recipe when you're hosting book club for the first time! What was I thinking? I certainly know better, but I just thought it was simple enough that I could pull it off. But no. I decided to try this fruit pizza recipe out of the Family Fun magazine, well here's how the scenario ended up. The crust was made out of regular pizza dough with butter and sugar added and it was slightly chewy, and a bit soggy on the top where the cream cheese layer was. Lame. I actually asked one lady if she wanted a steak knife to cut it with, she was fighting with all her might to cut it with a fork, while trying to not launch it all in the air at the same time. This is a useless post too, but I just have to get it off my chest, because it seemed like one of those elephants in the room that I didn't have the guts to acknowledge and say to everyone "I'm sorry the dessert stunk tonight!" There were a million other things I could've made that I know people like, but alas...I chose to venture out!

Anyway, I love our book club, especially when I'm not hosting! :| The ladies are hilarious and I love just hanging out and talking with them all. Good times.

"Banas" are a nice gift

A few weeks ago there were five houses behind ours that were completed and families moved in...almost all of them have boys, little boys. Luke happened to see them all playing outside while he was taking a bath and was just in awe of them. I felt so bad that he had to go to bed while they were all out playing in the dirt having fun. But he didn't really say too much about it; he just watched intently. Every night at bedtime I rock with Luke and talk about our day, which usually turns into listing everything that we did that day. I was going through the usual list, when he interrupted me and said "maybe tomorrow we can take some 'banas' (bananas) over to those boys and say hi?" Of course I said sure, that's a great idea, while I'm wondering how in the world he came up with this idea. I hadn't said anything about taking anything over to our new neighbors and was a wee bit shocked that he did. Kids are better than we are eh? But I loved it that he wanted to take bananas, because hey, who wouldn't want some nice fresh bananas that we just bought at the store?

On another note, if you're familiar with my hair issues, getting a good cut that is...I would like to report that I finally got one. Hal-le-freaking-lujah! I was so happy to actually like my cut. The night after I got it cut I had a dream that I was heading to something very important and special, and decided that I needed to "fix" my hair. And if you know anything about me, you also know that I tend to take the scissors to my hair right after I get my usual crap hair cuts. So in my dream I got the clippers out, yup clippers, and went straight up the sides of my head, leaving the top long of course (didn't want to be too drastic), but just shaved the sides. My hairdresser was all of a sudden in my dream, although it wasn't the real lady, it was a man, which I imagine to have looked something like "Cinna" might look in the Hunger Games (if you've read it). He was looking at me like "you just ruined such a good thing, and now look at you!" My new hair cut was hideous and I'm just in shock at myself for being so stupid to ruin what was a good cut...finally! I was so mad at myself. And I was of course running late for me very special event and didn't have time to change/fix my hair before I had to leave. And then I woke up. Nightmare eh? I think part of my trauma with hair cuts since I've moved here is just getting used to the Sanpete way. If you ever plan on moving here talk to me first before you get your hair cut here.

Yellowstone 2009

We just got back on Saturday. It was fantastic. We went with Danny's parents and sister and kids. Not much to say about it other than show you the photos...lots of photos! We camped half way the first night and Luke was SO excited to sleep in our new (to us) tent trailer that my mom and her husband gave us, which we love and are so happy to have. He was excited to put his jammies on, brush his teeth and get in bed. Quite miraculous. So this first picture is him, just being so excited he can hardly contain himself.




































Day 1 in Yellowstone...nice and foggy. I love fog.


















































































































Day 2 Clear Lake hike...it's beautiful. I loved this tree.






























































Stinky hot pot, or "hot puddle" as Luke called them.






































































Fun with pipe cleaner...










































This one cracks me up of Luke...does he remind anyone of the kid in Sandlot?
















































































This big ol' bruiser wasn't there when we parked the jeep (we were watching a grizzly on the other side of the road in Hayden Valley) but he found a nice little spot next to the jeep. These things gore people every year, I don't like to mess with them.


Day 3 Playing in Yellowstone Lake


Can you tell he's tired?



Day 4 Tower Falls hike










































Eating ice cream after the hike. It was hot.

























































Day 5 Craft Day
I meant to do this fun little craft that I found in Family Fun on the first day that we were there so we could have them all week, but I completely forgot. So we did it on the last day when it was a little rainy for an hour or two. I did Grandpa and Alyssa did the other three. It was really fun, I quite enjoyed myself.


All the kids in their Yellowstone shirts that Grandma Summers bought for them. That's the best they've every posed for a picture.