Number Two turns 2!

Ethan turned two years old yesterday, Sept. 5th! His little life has truly flown by so quickly that I have a hard time remembering details. I was feeling kind of bad about that so I went through some of our picture files from when he was a baby and refreshed my memory. Thank goodness for cameras! All day we kept asking him, "Ethan, what's today?" Then he would happily answer, "My bir-day!" He's such an adorable, sweet little addition to our family and we are so happy to have him with all his hugs, kisses, and cuddles.

We spent the day together at home and had a special dinner for him. We invited our home teacher, Jason, and his two girls. They're much older than Craig and Ethan (7 and 8 I think) but they love playing with them and are fun little girls. We had Stoufer's lasagna (one of the boys' favorites), garlic bread, and fruit salad. And, of course, cake and ice cream. It was a carb fest, but Robert and I made it a cheat day, gave the left overs to Jason, and now we're back on track. Ethan loves strawberries, so I decided to make a strawberry cake with strawberry filling, strawberry icing, and strawberry ice cream. Oh, and strawberries on top. The cake had its issues, but it turned out okay and tasted good so the rest doesn't matter.


We opened presents, of course. He got a Wonder Pets toy from us, a walking Rex "from" Craig, and a book and puzzles from our friends. My parents mailed him a huge collection of Lego Duplo pieces, too.


Right before our friends got here, we noticed Ethan was a little groggy and warm so we took his temperature. It was 104! He does this a lot, though. He'll get a little virus with no other symptoms which causes a really high fever and sometimes he even gets shaky. But once he gets some medicine in him, he's as good as new. We gave him some ibuprofen and within 30 minutes he was ready to celebrate. We warned our friends, just in case, but I'm sure it's nothing they haven't already had when they were toddlers. Poor kid, though. It stinks being sick on your birthday. Good thing he didn't really notice. :)

My Little Angel

Now's my chance to brag about my new little boy. This here is the sweetest, most pleasant little baby anyone could want. I have two theories...1) Based on 1 Corinthians 10:13 (one of the scriptures that says the Lord won't give you anything you can't handle), He knew what we had here in our little family with the youngin's being so young and one in particular being quite a little stinker, so the Lord sent us the sweetest little baby He had or 2) we just lucky and Grant happened to choose our family. Maybe he thought he was tough enough to handle Craig and Ethan as big brothers. Whatever the case, he's such a great little addition, and here's why.

1) He sleeps all night long! He had one bad night, the second night home from the hospital, but ever since then he has been great. Sometimes I have to wake him up to feed him because I can't make it all night without feeding him. There have been occasions (usually only once per night, though) where he'll stir a little and make some little noises to tell me he's awake and hungry, so I bring him in bed with me and feed him. Then I go right back to sleep.

2) He takes nice long naps during the day.

3) When he's awake he loves to sit and look around, content to observe the world.

4) The only time he really cries or gets fussy, for the most part, is during that fussy-baby time of day right before bed time. And then it's easy to calm him. He just wants to either nurse or be held, sitting up and facing out.

5) He's a great eater.

6) He LOVES eye contact and has attempted some cute facial expressions and almost-smiles. I think all babies do this, but I just love it. I love wondering what he's thinking and telling him, "I see you, Grant-sully." Never has a movie quote made more sense to me. That's from Avatar...the native people say "I see you" to mean they acknowledge you, respect you, understand you, etc. But you probably knew that already.

I'm sure there's a lot more, but right now the angel is sleeping and the older two are pulling on my arms and distracting me with cries of "up!" and "snack!" I'm sure Grant will grow up one day and turn two, then three, and he'll be just as annoying as Craig and Ethan can be. But I'll still love him, of course, because he's mine and will have his redeeming qualities, just like his brothers. I just want to make the most of the next year and a half with him, though, because these are the golden days. Even my sweet baby Ethan is leaving those days behind as he approaches his second birthday on Sept. 5. Sigh...the loss of innocence during these terrible twos is sad. I'm just grateful for this new little guy to bring it back into our lives.

His first bath at home.

ANOTHER new addition to the family

We got a puppy! Her name is Jade, she's a Rottweiler, and she sleeps about 90% of the day. As you can see, she's just about the cutest little thing you've ever seen. We were looking at either her, her sister, or another person had an English Mastiff male puppy we were THIS close to getting. Both Robert and I really like Mastiffs but I was a little nervous about the size of them. I know they're really gentle and friendly, but with such little kids I was concerned he would just be too much for me to handle. We decided to go with the Rott because she's a girl, she's really mellow, and she'll be smaller than the Mastiff, of course. We came up with the name Jade because Robert has been trying to convince me for years to name our first girl that (if we ever have one). I, however, think we're just asking for trouble if we name our daughter something that sounds like an exotic dancer's stage name. (No offense to anyone out there named Jade who's not an exotic dancer.) It's a great name for a dog, though. Anyway, she's seven weeks old and is so cuddly, cute, and loves playing with the boys. They love her, too. We're trying to get Ethan to say "Jade" since he's pretty much called her "Kitty" since we got her. In his defense, she's a small black animal, just like the cat, so I can understand the confusion. Well, wish me luck!