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.

Ethan loves talking on the phone (which consists of "nuh nuh nuh nuh") , and he will try to pick up the phone and talk on it whenever he gets the chance. He's mistaken calculator's for phone's, and I'll find him wandering around talking to a calculator. My mom bought him a cute play phone for his first birthday, and I bought him another one for his second birthday, and he loves playing with them, but he somehow knows that they are just toys, and he will get more excited for the real thing when there is a real person on the other side. One night a couple weeks ago or so he kept trying to get the phone while I was on the computer, so I called my sister Rachelle and once she answered I handed the phone over to Ethan, and he was so excited. I've let him talk on the phone before, but this time he got so into it that I ran to get Ryan so he could see. Ryan ended up taking a video of him as he paced the floor carrying on his meaningful conversation with Rachelle, who in turn jabbered away back. We thought it was pretty funny. However, for some reason the video will not up-load onto my blog, so for those of you who have facebook, it's on there. Since that particular conversation with Rachelle Ethan has opened up in his speech and jabbers away almost constantly at times. It makes me happy to hear his voice more. At night when I put him to bed, sometimes I'll lay next to him and sing him Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, or Once There Was a Snowman. I like to lay there and listen to him as he is falling asleep and jabbering away.

Lately I've noticed how much Ethan has grown, and is growing... It's always good to see your child progress, and you want them to, but it's still a little sad to see the baby phase go.

Play Group

Today was Ethan's first day at the CSI play group. Up until now Ethan has had a developmental therapist come out to our house to work with him (it went along with the speech therapy he was getting). Ethan isn't as delayed in development as he is in speech, never the less it helps to have people and programs available to work with him, esp. when we don't have to pay for it. From now on until he turns 3 he will go to a play group twice a week, instead of having the developmental therapist come to our home. (He will still have the speech therapist, Lisa, come to our home though). He loved playing with the toys, and with the other children. I stayed for the first part because he was clingy and it was his first day, but once he got focused on a toy I snuck out. Later when I came back I watched through the observatory window they have (the kind where you can see them but they can't see you) and Ethan was having so much fun. He is becoming quite a social little boy. He was racing a truck around the room (he loves pushing anything that will move as fast as he can) and another little boy was racing alongside him with another truck. Whenever the other little boy would pause Ethan would stop and wait for him to start racing again. It was very cute to watch him interact with the other children, although the other children didn't seem as interested in social play as he was. I even knew several of the moms who dropped their children off, and even one of the CSI students who helps out in the play group. I'm really excited for Ethan to go to this group, I think it will be very good for him to be in a pre-school like environment and react with other children, and get away from me for a little bit. And I decided that while Ethan is in his play group, I am going to start working out at the YMCA, so it will be good for both of us.