Finished

Today I finally handed over my recently completed watercolor paintings to Blip copy place, and seriously I gave a sigh of relief that they were out of my hands for the moment and someone elses problem...I've been really working hard on them for over a month now- so much for trying to keep them simple. Blip is going to be putting them on a CD for me so that I can put them on the internet. It's times like this that I wish I had a nice printer, a huge scanner, a nice computer, and the programs photoshop, in-design and illustrator so I could just do this part myself.....maybe someday.

This morning Ethan had pre-school, so when I went to put him in the car to go I noticed how gorgeous of a day it was. I decided to check to see if any of the tulips had started to poke out of the soil, and I'm excited to say they have. I'm very ready for spring. This afternoon we had a thunderstorm, so the sky clouded over, but it still has been a pretty day.

Funny Things

Here are some cute things Ethan has done lately:

When I go to lay him down in his bed for the night sometimes he will throw his arms around my neck to get me to stay with him.

Squint his eyes and wrinkle his nose and try to get some tears out.

Throw his hands over his eyes in a dramatic attempt to look like he's crying.

The other day Ethan found a can of pears in the pantry and brought it to Grandma. She told him just a minute, as she was ironing. A moment later he was back again, holding the can of pears and a can opener and handed them to her.

If he sees Grandpa sitting on the couch he will go grab his hand and make him go upstairs with him to get him ice cream.

Attempts to do the itsy bitsy spider hand gestures.

Can put his shoes and socks on, and even gets them on the right feet.

I put Ethan down for a nap the other day, and after leaving him in there for several hours came to get him up so I could go to Twin to run errands. I opened the door and discovered it was obvious he hadn't taken a nap. Instead he was laying in bed on his back, books covering the bed, along with some toys. He had one leg crossed over the other with a book resting on his leg and he was reading. He looked up at me and gave me this look that seemed to say, "did you want something?"

How can you go so wrong?

Last night we decided to try another chinese food resturant from the area, a new one we hadn't yet tried. I LOVE chinese/oriental food, and I have good memories of the few oriental resturants I've been to in the Seattle area, they were SO good. How is it that people can go so wrong on oriental food? Seriously? Many people have never had any chinese food other than their local small town Idaho restuarant, and they think that is what chinese food is supposed to taste like. And therefore they decide that they do not like Oriental food. I have tried to make oriental food and it never turns out quite right, something always seems to be missing... and it makes quite a mess and takes a lot of time. I do think I am coming close to getting my orange chicken recipe tweaked to taste right, but it means the family ends up being my test subjects, and when it goes wrong oriental food REALLY goes wrong, at least in my opinion. If anyone has any good oriental food recipes, I would love to get some, or if anyone has an idea of why it is so seemingly hard to fix a good oriental dish I would like to know. Maybe I can convince Ryan to move us to Seattle (Ryan thinks it's hilarious that I still hold out hope of moving to Seattle, esp. in his opinion just so I can have a good chinese food resturant to eat at....:) )

play group

Ethans playgroup started again today, and he was so excited when we walked in the room. He immediately ran for the toys and started playing, and when I came back to get him he didn't want to leave. I'm so glad he has this to go to, so that he can be around other children and learn and grow. Plus I get an hour and a half to myself, which is also nice.

Today Ethan is sick, so I decided for lunch I would make him something light that would help with an upset stomach. I made him some chicken noodle soup, but he doesn't want to eat it. I know he's hungry because his stomach is making noises, but I don't know what to give him that would help with an upset stomach and still be something he will eat... I'll figure something out, I'm sure. I hate when he gets sick, it's so sad when your children don't feel well.

Christmas And Then Going Home to Washington

The following are pictures from Christmas, and then Ryan, Ethan, and my unexpected trip home to Washington this last weekend. Most of the scenery pictures are ones I plan on adding to my file of reference pictures for painting and drawing. We were surprised when we got to Coulee Dam and saw the ammount of snow they had. It was 18 inches at least, and after we left sunday they ended up getting more snow that evening. There was so much snow that is was very beautiful and made everything a winter wonderland. Our town is lucky because being that it is a government town (because of the dam), they have the equipment and people available to plow all the roads. I hope you enjoy all the pictures.

Here is Tonya and Joan decorating Don up as a christmas tree (?) for one of the family Christmas parties.

I don't know whether Asia buried herself in the blankets, or whether Ryan piled them on top of her...I'm going for the latter of the two.

Trip to Washington

This is the view from my parents front door. My Dad had to carve out a spot for us to park.

Ethan looks so excited, doesn't he?

Rachelle got a hold of my camera... she's an odd girl...:)

These were taken out by Steamboat Rock, near my hometown.

These deer looked like they were having some difficulty getting through the snow, esp. the one in behind the first deer. I think the second deer was a baby, since it was smaller, so it really was struggling to plow through it all.

Devils Punch Bowl. In the late winter sometimes this gets a solid mass of ice down it from the runoff that freezes, and you will get ice climbers out climbing it. As it was there was only a little ice to the right of the waterfall (in spring it's a waterfall at least). When we were out there driving around some guys were gearing up to climb the ice up there, but to me what was up there looked pretty wimpy for ice climbing.

This is part of the lake behind the dam.

Ethan was so tired saturday night that he fell asleep on Ryans lap with the tv going- which is quite amazing seeing as how loud the tv has to be for my Dad to hear it. He was so tired.

Rachelle you crack me up. Lesson learned: never leave a camera around where Rachelle can get to it....:)j/k

These pictures were taken when we were driving through the Bend/Le Grande area of Oregon. I love this area, it is so beautiful. My pictures do not come close to doing the area justice, esp. since they were taken through the windows of our blazer... I would love to go through that area when I actually am not in a hurry to get somewhere else, and just spend time taking pictures of the area, because it is so beautiful. I am envious of Josh and Kari that they get to live there, even if it does get a lot of snow.