Finally... Our New Kitchen

Since we moved into this house we have hated our kitchen. We were spoiled in our last house so it made it even harder to move into a place with a tiny outdated kitchen with absolutely no counter space and a tiny fridge shoved in the corner. Here are some pictures from before we moved in so you can see the full effect. We have always had grand illusions of remodeling the kitchen once the house in North Carolina was sold. Unfortunately that took a lot longer that we had anticipated but we learned to tolerate the kitchen for the last year and a half. But finally with the other house sold we got our new kitchen. We had a lot of fun trying to figure out how to best lay out the new kitchen and we have been thrilled with the results. We now have some continuous counter space, which is my favorite part. Before when I was making dinner I had to move from one little piece of counter to another since there wasn't more than 3 feet of counter anywhere in the kitchen. It's still a small kitchen but it is so much better.


My favorite part of the remodel was coming home the first day of demolition and Ethan couldn't get over the fact that our kitchen was gone. He kept spinning in circles saying "what happened to my kitchen?" He literally stood there for 10 minutes just saying the same thing. Though the process is always a hassle and no one enjoys being without a kitchen for 2 weeks it was so worth it.

A Great Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful visit to Utah over Thanksgiving. Ethan hasn't stopped talking about it all week. He can't figure out why we don't get to play with his cousins or see Papa any more and mom isn't nearly as exciting. The highly anticipated trip was everything Ethan had hoped for. We have been telling him for months that grandpa had a digger, and with his obsession for construction equipment he couldn't wait. He probably would have spent the whole week outside if given the chance. Luckily for everyone the weather was pretty good so no one had to freeze to death while keeping an eye on him. I have no doubt that he would have been out there rain or shine. At least twice a day he talked Abe or dad into taking him up on the hill to drive the digger.

Ethan also quickly discovered the swing set and toy dump trucks in the sandbox. We are still trying to get the sand out of our shoes and suitcases.

Ethan still wants to know where Tuff and Gator are. As an animal lover he had a blast playing with the dogs and riding the horses.

The Bean Museum at BYU had a little reptile show. Ethan just wanted to hold the animals and didn't want to listen to the man talk about them so we didn't make it for much of the show.


It was so nice to spend some time with the family. We don't get out there nearly enough so it was great to chat with everyone and see all the kids. We missed seeing everyone else who didn't make it into town and we wish we could come at Christmas to see more of the family. We miss all of you and can't wait to see you all again soon. ~Meredith

Sold

It is finally done we sold our "lake house".  After having our house under contract for almost two months we finally closed on Monday. I can't believe how inept some people are at there jobs. After having a month to schedule the necessary things for the closing like home inspection, appraisal, and power of attorney (the buyers husband is deployed) in the last couple of weeks before closing they decide to start working on it. Needless to say it didn't get done. Then the buyers power of attorney wasn't any good because it wasn't notarized. So that took an extra two weeks, it was a combination of sending it snail mail and the fact that the first time he sent it wasn't notarized because he thought that it would be faster just to get it sent and then the second time sending it he sent it snail mail, which was annoying. At one point in time I was wondering if it was a good idea to for the buyers to make such a purchase because lets face it they don't seem to be very bright. But that is not our problem. Thank goodness it is done. 

Fall Fun

Ethan had the best time at Halloween this year. He was obsessed with pumpkins everywhere we went. I made sure to get him a pumpkin big enough that he couldn't pick up because he wanted to carry around every pumpkin he found. Ethan went to a couple of Halloween parties and it was hard to get him out of his costume afterwards. He tried to talk us into letting him wear it to church on Sunday.

Last week we got to take a little mini vacation to Williamsburg. We all had a great time. Ethan loved playing at the pool and enjoyed the "jumping place" as he calls it. They had lots of indoor inflatable play areas. Unfortunately Ethan had the most fun sitting on the coin operated toys that we never put money in. He's so easy to please.

My parents were even sweet enough to watch Ethan for the weekend so Abe and I could spend the rest of the weekend in Williamsburg alone. We had a great time wandering through all the historical sites. We definitely needed the break after a tough couple of weeks for Abe (and the rest of us).

Here are a few pictures from our trip. I think we are about the worst at taking pictures so we didn't get any good ones of all the places we saw.

Ethan's Songs

Ethan has gotten to be quite the singer these days. We are constantly amazed at all the songs he can sing. Finally we got him to perform for the camera. Last night at the ward halloween party he got up on the stage and grabbed the microphone before we could get to him. He made everyone jump as he started to sing.

You can see the nice little scratch on his face that he got at the beginning of the week. Right up there with singing is his love for playing baseball. He has an inflatable t-ball set that he plays with constantly (as long as mom or dad keep putting the ball back on the tee). Well every adult and child that plays with him and his t-ball set likes to play by hitting him with the bat. Of course it doesn't hurt and Ethan thinks it is a pretty fun game. Well the problem comes when Ethan uses other items as bats. The other weekend he set up our friend's vase as the tee and put one of her decorative ornaments on top of it for the ball and grabbed another vase to use as the bat. So he doesn't understand that it isn't a fun game to hit kids with all the other "bats" he plays with. So while playing with a plastic guitar and using it as a bat he decided to hit a girl at daycare with it and she got him good with a couple of scratches down his face. Having watched him do it before I truly think he is confused by why the kids start to cry when he does it. It is going to be fun to try to unlearn that little game. So if we come to your houses hide any long narrow bat-like objects you have sitting around.

And I just added a couple of more pictures that I like of my boys.

SOLD - well almost

We were super excited to get an offer on our house in NC today. It has been a LONG wait but it has taught us a lot about patience. We countered their offer but within an hour they had accepted our offer. So October should be our last month with double mortgage payments. What a relief! So one last trip to Sanford to do some minor repairs and we should be set. We will miss the excuse to go and visit all of our friends down there.

Nothing else exciting has been going on. Abe has been studying like crazy since he has had at least one test every week for probably the last month and has a week of exams starting tomorrow. But he has been doing well and we are very proud of him. Ethan continues to amuse us daily. Today at church there was a man sleeping a few rows back and Ethan noticed him. Ethan said (in his loud and very clear speech) "Man sleeping!". I tried to get him onto another subject but he was very concerned about this man. So he said it a few more times. Finally he stood up in the pew and said "Wake up man. Wake up!" Abe and I were dying. I didn't look back to see if the man noticed or not. I was wishing that Ethan would fall asleep during church but that never happens. He usually spends his time just hoping that nursery time is around the corner. After every prayer he said "Amen. Nursery time?" and starts to get up. I guess I'm glad he just loves nursery that much.

Do you know what today is?

If any of you have closely monitored your calendars you will know that today is September 15 but also the day we found out the sex of Baby Fish #2. So would anyone like to take a guess? Though the baby did not want to cooperate for most of the ultrasound in the end it let us have a little peek. And we are having a girl! We are happy to say that we have not broken any traditions in either of our families by having more than one boy in a row. We are very excited and nervous at the same time. Just when you get comfortable with raising a boy you get handed a little girl.

Sorry we have no adorable pictures or creative announcements. I had to leave town after the ultrasound for a work related trip so there was no time for anything fancy. So feel free to send some good advice to Abe on raising a girl 'cause I think he is more worried about this than me.

love,
Meredith

Everyone is getting potty trained

So we have been working with Ethan on potty training and he has been doing great. He is such a funny kid. He told me the other day that monkey needed to go potty so he put monkey on the potty. I think he is just the cutest thing in his little underwear. He has figured out that claiming he has to go to the bathroom will get him out of places he doesn't want to be, i.e. his carseat, church, or his high chair. We will let him watch some tv while he sits on the toilet so if he wants to watch a show and we say no then he will say "potty" and sit down. So manipulative but just adorable.

In other news we now know that September 15th we should find out the sex of Baby Fish if all goes as planned. So stay tuned for the blog announcement around then.

~Meredith

He's a Dancin' Machine

We finally got a clip of Ethan dancing while visiting our friends this past weekend. He loves to get down to any type of music. For the last several months his dancing was always one foot tapping on the floor. We finally figured out why he thought that was how you dance. He has watched a tv show with a tap dancing horse. So Ethan has been "tap" dancing. So now if we sing the theme song to the show he will do his tap dancing. It is so funny.

I can't believe summer is over. Abe started classes again today. We are very glad to have him back home but I know he isn't happy about starting back.

Ethan has something to say

Yes those are pictures from an ultrasound that Meredith had yesterday. So we have an announcement. Meredith is pregnant. She is 10 weeks along. We are very excited about it. The due date is Feb 9th. Here is the up close picture of Baby Fish.

In this picture the baby is facing us. The head is on the left side as you look at it. You can see the arms as you move to the right and down, then the body and the legs. It is to bad you can't do a little video of an ultrasound because its little legs and arms were moving as we watched. You could also see its little heart pounding away. So cool.

Summer Fun

We have been lucky to get to spend the last week with some of Abe's family. His parents and sister, Michelle, came into town for the week and we have had a wonderful time. Ethan adores his "papa" and "gran gran". He was a little confused when we talked about grandma and grandpa coming since he expected it to be my parents but it didn't take him long to warm up to everyone and he LOVED the attention. From the moment he woke up to the moment he went to bed he had to know where "Shell", "papa", and "gran gran" were. We did our best to show everyone a good time. I think Michelle has gotten more than her fill of the outdoors but the weather has been very nice and it was a good time to be outdoors.

We hiked up the Cascades during the week. It was a beautiful, cool day so it was a great time for a hike. Ethan was good on the hike and especially liked the dead deer that was floating in the pool under the falls. Needless to say no one wanted to get into the water.Ethan was not a fan of having me hold onto him while we walked on the rocks. He seemed to think he was big enough to do it by himself.

We got up close and personal with the animals at the zoo. Ethan had a great time seeing all the animals. (And no the alligator is not real, but Ethan was still a little hesitant.)

Ethan liked the animals he could touch. They had some goats wandering around that he followed.
His favorites were the chickens. We probably should have just saved our money and taken him to someone's farm where he could chase the chickens for free. Grandpa taught him to say "dinner" as he chased them. Lucky for the chickens he is still a little slow.


We also took a tour of Tech and wandered by the Duck Pond. Once again Ethan was greatly amused by chasing the baby ducks and telling them "hi".

The Ballad of the Green Beret

I have a great story to tell about Ethan and his night time routine. But first a little background information. Meredith is in Atlanta this week doing some training for work. I am in my final week of class for school this year so in order to make both of our lives easier her mom agreed to watch Ethan for the week. In order to stay consistent Judy (Meredith's mom) asked what his normal night time routine is. We normally read one story, say a prayer, and then as I am putting him down and turning out the lights I sing him the Ballad of the Green Beret. Judy of course didn't know this song. So they looked it up on the web. It played the song and had an animated soldier throwing hand grenades and shooting a rifle. http://www.brownielocks.com/balladofthegreenberetsWAVE.html Ethan heard the song playing and came into the room saying "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy". So cute. Then he saw the animation and pointed at it and said the same thing again. Finally when the song finished he said "night, night". If that wasn't the cutest story ever Meredith called on Monday to find out how Ethan was doing. Judy told her that Ethan has been taking her by the hand and walking her to the computer and saying "Daddy, Daddy" to get her to play the song again. This happened at least twenty times. He is the cutest little boy.

We love messes.

The other night we let Ethan feed himself and it became a real mess. So when he started putting the bowl on his head we decided rather than stopping him we would just get the camera. All the damage was already done by that point in time.

Here are some more of the pictures of Ethan helping Dad wash the car. Though in the midst of it all he managed to eat the soap bubbles and dump the bucket out, it was still fun to watch him want to help. His pants were a little big though so he was sporting a little crack most of the time. Good thing the diaper stayed up.

And for those that didn't know three weeks ago the weather started to get a little warm here so we decided to kick on the a.c. (it was 98 one day and I know that many of you live in warmer climates) only to find out that it wasn't working. So we thought that it was lucky that this happened before our home insurance had lapsed. We called them they set us up with a contractor who came out and told us that our heat pump needed replaced. Apparently the insurance company gave that contractor such a hard in the next two weeks that they refused to work with the insurance company. So after many hours on hold and countless frustrations we will finally are having our a.c. unit fixed on Friday. Luckily some friends let us borrow a window unit that they weren't using so we have been able to survive. The whole family has been sleeping in the basement. I forgot to mention that during this time Ethan also got an ear infection, and had a 103 degree fever. Not fun when the house is almost unbearable. With this ear infection we found that Ethan is not only allergic to penicillin but also third generation cephalosporins (the two main antibiotics for ear infections). One last story to go along with this and then the marathon post will be done. Monday we decided to go to Moes for dinner, they have 5 dollar meal deal on Mondays. We had just sat down with our food and given Ethan a corn chip (Ethan was still taking the antibiotics at this time before we found out his allergy) when he starts to cough and then the cough turns into throwing up. So fun. Countless napkins later we are walking out the door with a child in a diaper and the food in to go boxes. Good times.

Helping Dad

This weekend we got to spend lots of time together and outside. It was so funny to see how much Ethan loves to be like his dad and help out. He didn't want to be left out of anything. He was a big help with washing the car. Though I think he ate more soap then actually made it to the car. And in the second picture you can see that he managed to dump a large amount of soap down the front of his pants.
He had his lawnmower out when it was time to cut the grass. He walked around saying "mow, mow, mow" the whole time.
And he even managed to give dad a few pointers on his form. He's been known to put a few books on Abe's back to give him a little extra weight. What a sweetheart!

Our Little Ladies Man

I know we have told you about Ethan and all the girls he adores but I finally have some pictures to back it up. The other night one of our friends brought their daughter over so we could babysit her for the evening. They are only two weeks apart in age and play together all the time. Ethan decided when I told him to share the lion that Emma was riding on that I meant he should get on too. He was totally content to hold on to her and ride too. She was not a fan of this and gave him a push off pretty soon after. They made up later when he gave her a sweet little hug.

So as you all know yesterday was my birthday, my 25th birthday for the 5th time. thanks for the well wishes. Abe was very excited to give me my presents so we had decided that I would open them before work on my birthday. So the night before I was awoken to Abe jumping out of the bed. I looked at the clock and it was 12:05AM. I thought maybe he was just that excited to give me my presents. I asked him what was wrong and he said very clearly "Quick, get out of bed, its not stable!" So I was totally confused. I asked him again and he told me the same thing. Since he has been known to mutter things in his sleep I asked him if he was awake. He was totally annoyed with the question and said "Yes I'm awake. You have to get out of the bed." So I finally did. Abe was looking at the bed and I asked him what he was going to do about it. He told me to get back in bed to test it out. I didn't think it was very chivalrious for making me see if it was going to fall. Then he just got back into bed and didn't say a thing. Of course I laid awake for a while because I started to convince myself that maybe it did feel a little shaky. In the morning I asked Abe why he had thought the bed was unstable. He just looked at me and said he had no idea what I was talking about. So I guess he was asleep after all. All he remembers is that he was having some dream about something being unstable. So I guess I'll have to come up with a better way to decide if Abe is awake or asleep when he says strange things in his sleep.

I want to wish Meredith a very happy birthday. She is turning 25 again this year. Isn't it amazing how when we got married she was the same age. That is one great thing about her she never gets any older :). So everyone wish Meredith a happy birthday. Love you baby

Summer Fun

The weather here has been great so we have finally been able to enjoy the outdoors again. We took Ethan out for the first time in our canoe and we all had such a fun time. Ethan just needed a fishing pole to complete his look. For such a little guy he was great in the boat. He loved looking at all the birds and trees as we paddled through this lake at the state park near our house. I just wish I could have gotten some pictures of him in the boat but I wasn't brave enough to bring the camera out on the water just yet. Maybe next time.

On Friday I took Ethan to a park at a nearby river and as soon as Ethan saw it he kept saying "wa wa" which means water to him. He didn't stop saying it over and over again until I let him get out of the stroller to put his feet in the water. I think he has inherited his father's persistence. It's fun that he can finally get his point across for most things he wants. It makes life so much easier when we know why he is crying. Though when he is repeating the same phrase over and over again because you aren't giving him what he wants I think it was quite nice when he couldn't say anything at all. ~Meredith

Our Spotted Leopard

So the other day we were getting ready to leave for a trip to North Carolina and I noticed a few spots on Ethan's legs. I didn't think much of it because we had been playing outside a lot lately and I just assumed he had gotten bitten by a bug or something. Right before we left I went to change his diaper and took off his pants and he was covered in spots. I took him to the doctor and they said it was an allergic reaction to penicillin. Thankfully he wasn't miserable but they looked awful. The pictures here are from Saturday and they looked even worse on Sunday when we went to church. We went back to our old ward and everyone just starred at his poor spots. Of course Sunday was the day that it spread to his face so there was no way to hide them. I assumed that everyone who looked at us was thinking what kind of a stupid mother would bring her child with chicken pox to church. Needless to say the other moms kept their children very far away. Of course Monday morning most of the spots were gone, just in time to finish our trip.

By the way, I added a picture of Ethan and his nightlight to the post below.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ABE!

Would everyone like to guess how old Abe is today? Yes Abe has hit the big 30! Since he gets to celebrate his birthday today with a big test we let him have his cake last night. Ethan and I still love him even if he is old. So everyone wish him a happy birthday. Love you Abe.

Night lights

Last Saturday (the 5th) one of the clubs at school sponsored a 5K race to raise money for the American Cancer Society. So I decided it would be fun to run in it. I have been running on a regular basis because there is a pretty flat running/walking path between our building and Tech's football stadium. I have never been a fast runner but I do ok. There are however several really fast runners in my class that decided to run it also. In an attempt to keep my pride I thought it would be good idea to run and push Ethan. I know that you are looking at the picture thinking that it doesn't look to bad. Well only the beginning and end were paved (it started and ended in the same spot) the rest of the course was running through fields. The best part about it was that it was also full of hills. They weren't long hills but they were very steep. Oh and did I mention that it had been raining the week leading up to the race so it was also slick and muddy. Ethan did great until we got to the 2 1/2 mile mark and he wanted out of the stroller. At that point I am sure his teeth had almost rattled out of his head from the bumpy ride. All of that being said I finished in 30 minutes.

Now onto another story. I wish that I had a picture of this and maybe we can take one and add it later. Lately when Ethan is asked what mommy or daddy says he replies "no no no" which is very cute and funny. I am pretty sure that most kids go through this phase. The best part of this is that he has a night light in his room that he loves to pull out of the socket and play with. We however don't like him pulling it out and playing with it and tell him not to. Meredith was in our bedroom getting ready yesterday morning while Ethan played. Then she hears Ethan say "no no no" and then giggle. So she walks out of our room and there is Ethan standing with the night light. He then giggles and again runs into the guest room. What a character.