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.