Surviving Christmas

We had a great Christmas this year. We ate lots of good food and got to spend time with lots of loved ones, but we will forever remember this as the holiday of sickness. So many of our family and friends were sick and in the hospital over the last few weeks. Here is a quick rundown of what we were aware of.

Ethan had a cold, that turned into the stomach flu the week before Christmas. He got both of us pretty sick delaying our trip to Cache Valley and making Kyle miss a day of work. Some of our friends had the stomach flu hit them on the plane to Utah causing one of them to go to the hospital immediately after landing. They then, passed it to their entire family. My brother had a scheduled surgery the week before Christmas which eventually lead to him catching a staff infection and many ER visits. My grandpa also had surgery too, but luckily didn't have complications. My cousin's husband almost broke his leg the Saturday before Christmas and ended up in the ER. My aunt slipped on some ice on Christmas day and shattered her shoulder needing a complete replacement. After a Christmas party Kyle and his sister fell ill and later spread it to their dad, who was affected for a few days. Oh yeah, my sister and sister-in-law were trying to get over being sick, as well as my brother who recently had a bout of mono mixed with strep. Whew!! We hope that was all!

Anyway, here are some highlights of our Christmas.


We put bows on Ethan and he didn't like it too much. Here is one of him trying to find them to pull off.
Grandma Taylor gave Ethan this cute outfit for Christmas. This was him right before church today. It was so fun having him all dressed up for the occasion. He is such a little man (though he sure didn't act like one today!!).

Santa Claus is Coming....

Last week, we got a bunch of snow in Stansbury Park. Something like 8". More than the ski resorts did. Ethan kept begging us to take him out in the snow to make a snow angel, but when we plopped him down into the snow, he didn't know what to think of it.

He quickly attempted to make a run for it, but all he got was a face full of snow. We all had a good laugh about it, and then took him inside to get him nice and warm.
Later, we took Ethan to see Santa Claus. We think he took it pretty well.
Ethan has been growing up so fast. In fact, the other day, we found him counting his carbs.
In other news, Jen has been baking up a storm this week. To date she's made:

-four batches of cranberry-orange bread
-carmels
-fudge
-more carmels
-macaroons
-four more batches of cranberry-orange bread
-normal bread
-chocolate chocolate chip cookies
-Chex Party mix
-a cheeseball
-probably some other stuff, but we can't remember

We've had our share (yum), but we've given a lot of it away.

Christmas Goodies

We've been cooking a lot of Christmas goodies this week to take around to neighbors and friends. As you can see, we made a LOT of caramel. We also made a batch of rocky road fudge, some cranberry-orange bread, and a batch of macaroons that didn't look pretty enough so we ate them ourselves.

To burn off the calories, we walked around to the neighbors and delivered them. It's been fun visiting with them, and getting to know them a little better, all while spreading Christmas cheer (not to mention that we don't have to worry about doing our Christmas baking until next Christmas). We're going to make this a Christmas tradition for sure.

In Ethan news, he had a lot of fun playing his bff, Nolan. The two of them were having a great time playing with cell phones together, although he did start crying his eyes out whenever Nolan would start making loud noises. It made him really upset. Funny stuff. We'll have to work on Ethan's people skills (or just make sure he gets to bed on time so he isn't so touchy).

Ethan also had his 9 month doctors appointment, and he is doing swell. He's still growing like a weed and hitting all of his milestones.

Ethan's Winter Walk

Ethan went with Mom and Dad to delivery some Christmas goodies tonight. It was a bit cold, but he enjoyed the ride. This picture was taken after returned home. You can see that his nose and cheeks got a bit rosey from the cold. He didn't like it when Mom put his puppy hat on, but I'm sure he was glad Mom insisted he wear it.

In related news, Ethan is 9 months old as of yesterday. To commemerate the day, Ethan finally decided to oblige his mom and dad by saying "dada." He also started signing back to us the sign for milk.

Mom and Dad are good too. Mom and Dad got a lot of yard work done before the snow storm hit. Dad sawed down another tree and Mom followed by chipping all of its branches. Mom is getting over a bad cold, and Dad is hoping he won't catch it. As you can see it has been an eventful weekend.

Finally, we decided our previous post of our christmas tree didn't do it justice, so we tried again. This one really shows how many lights there actually are on our tree. Sometimes we get dizzy looking at it.



This picture, inspired by Heather Taylor's picture of her Christmas tree, used a tripod with no flash, an open aperture and very long shutter speed to capture the lights. Unfortunately, this method empahasized the lights too much, so we then took a picture from the same position with a flash to capture the ornaments, and did a little Photoshop magic to get the finished picture.

Deck the Halls

We've been so excited for this time of year! We didn't have a Christmas tree last year because we had just moved into a new apartment the week before Christmas. This year, we found a great deal on a 9 ft. artificial tree with probably 1800 white lights. It is almost too much on your eyes to look at when lit. It is amazing how much it takes to fill it up with ornaments so we're glad it has so many lights to make up for it. We went to Michaels early on Black Friday to get our ornaments. We think we came out well, though we still want to find at least a star for the top and a tree skirt.
And here is our little helper. He has been a bit croupy the last few days, but seems to be getting better. He just got his 5th tooth through, with the 6th expected any day. Ethan also has started giving kisses. It is quite funny. He will touch his wide open, wet mouth to yours and do nothing. Kyle and I think it's funny.

Two Years Later...

Today is our second anniversary. We celebrated by going to the Utah Chocolate Show on Friday. We got to sample a LOT of chocolate. Even after that, Jennifer still fits into her wedding dress just as well as that special day two years ago (if not better).

And, because we know that the real reason you all look at our blog is because of Ethan, here is some bath time with Ethan.


These were taken a few weeks ago, and he actually has one more tooth on the bottom than is shown here, and another one on the way on the top.

Happy Birthday, Mama!

Jen celebrated her 26th birthday on Friday. Her mom made her this cool giant cupcake. We went to Cache Valley this weekend to go to Emily's bridal shower.
Ethan and Grandpa Morrey with Billy Bob

Sleeping in on Sunday Morning
We found this hat at Kohls this weekend and couldn't resist!
Here is Ethan's hat hair when we took off the fuzzy puppy hat. You can also really see his new teeth.

Happy Halloween!!!

Wayne the Squash

Lots has happened in the last few weeks. Ethan started crawling. He threw Jen's comb in the toilet. We've done a lot of yard work, and had flooding in our basement again. All is well though. We have been having great weather and are still tending our garden. It hasn't frozen yet and we are still enjoying tomatoes. We planted squash in the spring, and had dreams of piles and piles of squash at harvest. Well, they flowered all summer, but never produced any squash until about the end of August. We're not sure why, but we think it might be due to our soil lacking something. Now the largest is a bit larger than a softball and we are determined to have one make it to maturity. I think Kyle has more faith than I do. We decided to name our squash Wayne.

Our little family went to the Thanksgiving Point corn maze and pumpkin festival yesterday. Jen won some free tickets to it. Unfortunately, we forgot our camera. It was a little chilly, but we had a good time. It would have been more fun for Ethan if he was a few years older because they had lots of fun games and activities for little kids. He did get to go down a big slide though while strapped to his daddy's chest.

For those of you still interested in seeing yet another picture of Ethan in his highchair, here you go. This is one of Ethan after he finished eating some bananas. I couldn't resist snapping a few pics of this one! (Yeah, we need to take some more creative shots! Good thing Halloween is coming.)

Ethan and his cousin Jackson had fun a few weekends ago at Grandma Taylor's playing with some giant foam letters.

Our Little Pumpkin

Last Thursday Ethan got his first teeth poking through. There were two that first day, then three the next. We have made many attempts at trying to take pictures of them, but being that Ethan is so wiggly, it was impossible. We'll post a better picture once they come in more, and once he stops wiggling for us (if ever).

This picture was the only one that wasn't fuzzy. You can see a tooth on the bottom. Below that is a representation of what Ethan looks like with his new teeth. He has two on the top (one is a front tooth, the other is the one left of it, then one bottom front tooth. Please forgive the crudeness of the drawing (it was done using a laptop).

Ba Ba Blacksheep

Ethan is 7 month's old today! It has been an amazing week. It seems like Ethan learned so much. He really started babbling a lot more this week and now says "bababa." He also has gotten really good at scooting around. He can definitely get where he wants now. We are terrified! Also, Ethan likes to pull himself up to his feet. I snapped this picture of him today. I had my back turned for a few minutes. When I turned around he had pulled himself up to his feet and was smacking his hands on this TV we had on the floor. We know it is probably wishful thinking, but we hope we still have many, many more months until he is walking. We fear that it may be just around the corner though!

Crazy 8's

My friend Amy tagged me so here is goes . . .

8 Things I'm passionate about: (yeah, I notice 3 are foods)
1-My hubby
2-My baby
3-My family
4-Ice cream
5-Really good chocolate
6-My faith
7-The Chinese/Taiwanese culture
8-Making homemade crepes with fresh peaches (or strawberries) and sweetened cream cheese with my hubby--we do it as much as we can when these fruits are in season

8 Things I want to do before I die:
1-Travel to a warm exotic place with my hubby
2-Take Kyle (and possibly some kids) to Disneyland
3-Pay off our mortgage
4-Tour Asia
5-Be a cute grandma
6-Go on another mission, but with Kyle
7-Get my dream kitchen
8-Grow cherry and peach trees

8 Things I say Often
1-Oh, Gross!
2-Dadda's home!
3-Do you see the baby/kids?
4-Ouch! Don't pull mama's hair!
5-How was work?
6-Yeah, we got that at a garage sale too.
7-Guess what Ethan did today?
8-I don't know...what do you want to do?

8 Books I've Recently Read:
1-Baby Talk
2-Secrets of the Baby Whisperer
3-Baby Wise
4-The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
5-Prince Caspian
6-The Horse and His boy
7-The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
8-The Magician's Nephew

8 Songs I could listen to over and over: (okay, so I'm cheating on this one)
1-Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing
2-I Cross my Heart by George Straight (We aren't country fans, but Kyle sang this song to me as he proposed, so it will always have a special place in my heart)
3-When You Say Nothing at All by Alison Krauss, but sung and played by my hubby on his guitar
4-Anything my baby sings while we are singing in church
5-8-really anything that my husband plays on his guitar

8 Things that attract me to my friends:
1-Great Listeners
2-Can always turn to for advice
3-They are good examples
4-Loving
5-Sincere
6-Forgive my faults
7-Supportive
8-The memories and laughter we share

8 Things I've learned this past year:
1-I can survive child birth
2-Epiderals are a great blessing
3-There is nothing more cute than hearing your baby's voice (except when he's screaming of course)
4-Oatmeal mush and peas don't make a good combination to give a baby
5-Grass injested by a baby comes out looking still like grass
6-Babies always seem more interested and entertained by things they shouldn't be given to play with (at least my baby is that way)
7-An emergency fund is essential and used often when you buy a home
8-There is nothing better than being a mom!

8 People I think should do Crazy 8's
1-Heather
2-Michelle
3-Lacey
4-Christin
5-Kyle
6-Mom
7-Suzie
8-Heidi

Singin' n Clappin'

We didn't do so well teaching Ethan how to whistle this week, but we did get plenty of practice clapping, but he refused to show off for his Grandma and Grandpa Morrey when they came to help us fix our fence. So, we tried to capture the excitment.



Have you ever teased a cat with a laser pointer, and laugh as they chase the little red dot all over the place? Well, we found out that it works for babies too. In fact, he's so interested in it that we may have found the tool that teaches him how to crawl.
Today during sacrament meeting, Ethan wanted to join with the rest of the congregation in singing the hymns. It was really funny. Whenever everyone started singing, Ethan would start yelling full voice, and when the singing stopped, he stopped too. This looks like the beginning of a promising career either as an opera singer, or the lead singer of a boy band (he already knows half of the words to "Mmm Bop" by Hansen..."mmmmm" is his favorite word)

Peas, Sweet Potatoes, and Trees

We've had a fun week of food with Ethan. He sure loves his peas! We gave him sweet potatoes for the first time this week (and he likes them almost as much as he likes paper). He was so excited to eat his sweet potatoes one day that he lunged for them and got a spoonful on his nose as seen below.

He is getting ever so much closer to crawling. It shouldn't be long now. Jen has been trying forever to get him to start clapping but to no avail. This morning he just started clapping for daddy out of the blue. This week we are going to try to teach him to whistle.

Lastly, here is a picture of what we did all of Saturday. Our neighbor loaned Kyle his chainsaw to help clean up our yard from the storm we had. We also took down a tree that we wanted to take down eventually. We learned that if you don't have any rope to anchor a tree to fall the right way, a garden hose works just fine. This picture really doesn't do justice of showing the piles of branches and wood that came from the 5 trees we no longer have standing.

More FOOD!!

We've been experimenting with all sorts of different foods lately. Here's a chart of what we've tried, with a ranking of how well Ethan has liked them (based on what we have observed after feeding him only a few times).

:-(     Squash
:-)     Rice Cereal
:-)     Oatmeal Cereal
:-)     Peas
:-l     Avacado
:-D     Grass
:-D     Paper
:-)     Peach Juice (from Mommy's Peach)
:-(     Tomato Juice (from Mommy's Tomato)

KEY:

:-D     Loves it!!
:-)     Likes it!!
:-l     I'm not sure about this...
:-(     Doesn't Like it.
:-p     Hates it!!

Here is Ethan trying one of his first bites of squash.

We were having trouble getting Ethan to eat all of these new foods, and then we realized that if we just let him hold the spoon while we guide it into his mouth, he is more than happy to eat. The only problem is that he hardly gets any food into his tummy.

You may have heard on the news that Stansbury Park got hit pretty bad by a storm that rolled through Northern Utah last week (we heard reports that people in New Mexico were calling up friends up here to make sure they were OK). As seen in these pictures, we had some damage to some of our property. We lost a few trees, a section of fence, and some shingles from our roof. No one was hurt though.

Kyle was out working on our "new" truck when the storm hit, and we decided it would be best to move it into the garage to keep it safe. We soon discovered that it BARELY fits in the garage. (Forgive the crude picture...It is four pictures spliced together with photoshop, and Kyle doesn't feel like spending any extra time making it look pretty. It's just here to show how tight things are.) There is less than an inch of clearance on both the front and back.

Happy Half Birthday to Ethan

It's here...Ethan's SIX MONTH BIRTHDAY!!!

To start things off with, here's a before, later, and now comparison of Ethan. Enjoy.

As he always has, Ethan just loves going outside and playing in the grass. Now that he's growing up, he really enjoys going outside and eating the grass. (We promise we DO feed him enough...really)

Ethan is getting big enough now that he can sit up in the bathtub. He is getting the hang of splashing in the water and having fun.
And after his bath is over, Ethan loves to get his picture taken by his Mommy.

As John Lennon once said, "All that I'm saying is give peas a chance." Ethan took his advice, and he loves his peas. Today was his first try (Picture 1), and after a shaky, "not so sure what this stuff is" moment (Picture 2) start, Ethan gobbled it up, not even bothering to lick his lips (Picture 3) until he was all done (Picture 4).
After all of the healthy greens Ethan has gotten lately, he is getting strong enough to dance with daddy...

...and stand up all by himself (for a few moments anyway) with a little help from his crib.

Finally, here's a few cute shots of our little guy.

Jen and Kyle Update

We would like to take this time to announce that we thought that our home was not full enough with just Ethan, so we figured that now was a good time to add a little more warmth to our small, but ever growing, family. (Actually, we didn't really have much of a choice in the matter. It just kind of happened.) We found out last week that our lives will never be the same again. Kyle actually knew before Jen did, and when he told Jen the good news, she could hardly keep her joy to herself, and she had to spread the word. So, here we are, spreading the word.

In other news, we bought a truck a week or two ago, and Kyle has already had to fix a few things on it. Yesterday, Jen looked at the work he was doing, and thought he would never get it back together again. But he did.

We were just proof-reading our blog, and realized the paragraph about our new bundle of joy, or in other words, the 32" LCD TV that Jen won last week from a drawing, might have been taken the wrong way. Jen is not PREGNANT. We just wanted to make sure there were no misunderstandings here.