Meltdown Madness

Ethan's stomach flu only lasted a day or so, then he was pretty much back to normal. Unfortunately, Jen caught the same thing a few days later and was up vomiting all Monday night/ Tuesday morning. It just doesn't seem fair moms get sick with all they have on their plates! It took a few days until she felt like she had much of an appetite again . . . not even ice cream sounded good for a few days.


Ethan has been very emotional for the last week. It has been so difficult to deal with. For example, today decided to save time to put Ethan's socks and shoes on in the car when we got to church since we were running late. Ethan was very upset that we disrupted the order of things and demanded that we return home to put his shoes on. He was wailing in the foyer of the church for about 15 minutes before we finally figured out how to calm him down. We hope this phase ends quickly.


Anyway, we managed to snap a few pictures of the kids this week.


Brooklyn loves Ethan's toothbrush. We think she is just envious that he has teeth.



The other day, Brooklyn saw some of Ethan's "big boy" underwear in the laundry basket. Ethan saw her reaching for a pair and threw himself into the laundry basket to prevent her from touching his property. I couldn't help but laugh and had to grab the camera.

We worked in the garden this weekend digging up some ugly shrubs and rose bushes we inherited with the house and replacing them with plants we like. While clearing out the area, we picked our pumpkins. This spring, we had numerous volunteer plants pop up in our compost heap. We saved a few to see what they might become. To our surprise one plant that we thought would be a squash turned out to be a pumpkin plant! Ethan is excited about them.

Ethan and Brooklyn helped dig in the dirt. Ethan thought it was funny to put dirt in his ears, head, tummy, etc. Brooklyn just wanted to eat it. She wasn't very happy when we would wash her off, move her from the dirt, or when it was time to come inside.

Puke

The other day we were having dinner a family in our ward, and we were telling them how Ethan rarely gets sick. We must have really jinxed ourselves, because that night Ethan woke up at about 10:30 pm. We went in to see what was wrong and found puke covering everything in his bed. Poor kid. We cleaned everything up and Kyle slept with Ethan to keep him comforted. Ethan threw up three more times that night and once the next morning, but has been himself ever since. Thank goodness.

Other than that this has been a pretty dull week. Shiver me timbers! We didn't even get a chance to really celebrate National Talk Like a Pirate Day on Saturday.

We need to get better at taking pictures of things.

We're pretty stoked about the Heroes premier tomorrow.

September Harvest

How can September be almost half over already?!

Brooklyn is now 10 months old. She has been especially cute and sweet lately. Here are a few things she has started doing lately:

• She is now crawling really well on her knees. It probably took her a little longer to get it down than Ethan because of all the dresses she wears. We didn't realize how much harder it is to crawl when wearing a dress.
• She loves to clap her hands and pull herself up to her feet holding on to anything she can find. This has caused quite a few spills and tumbles lately since not everything is as sturdy as she thinks it is. She has pulled the garbage can down on herself a time or two.
• She also loves to cuddle. She loves to lay her head on our shoulders and say, "Ahhhh."
• For a while now she has loved dancing with Mom and Dad. It is probably her favorite thing to do. It is failproof for cheering her up and making her laugh and chuckle. Even when she is sobbing one minute, within a few seconds of dancing her mood will change completely.
  

Ethan's potty training has been going really well. He has been diaper-free for over two weeks and has only had a few accidents, and only one at night. We were away from home all day yesterday and he had no trouble.

When Ethan's food is too hot, he asks us to blow on it for him. The other day when his carseat was too hot as we were getting into the car he asked us to blow on that for him too.

He has lately been obsessed with "Toy Story." When he picked out underwear a few weeks ago, we got him a pack that included an assortment featuring several Pixar movies. He hadn't seen the movie then, but has since and loves to fly his Buzz Lightyear and Woody toys (thanks Grandma Morrey) around the house saying, "To infini'ee ba'ond!"

Yesterday, Kyle's work had an open house at their office/campus. They only open their doors to non-employees once every few years because of the nature of the work they do. It was fun to see some of what he does and to actually see his desk. Ethan was excited to get to go to his work and Kyle's parents even joined us. Jen has two uncles that work there too, so it was fun surprise to bump into family while there (Uncles Dave, Jim, Randy, Russell, their families and even her Grandpa Nelson). Due to security restrictions, however, we unfortunately couldn't take our camera so we don't have any pictures.

We have been so busy harvesting from our garden lately. Over the last few weeks we've been canning like crazy and still have so much more we want to do. We've canned stewed tomatoes, a few batches of plain tomatoes, salsa, spaghetti sauce, green beans, and applesauce. We've also blanched and frozen our corn. We still plan on doing at least two more batches of salsa, apple pie filling, apple slices, and more applesauce. Maybe it will be a blessing when our garden freezes. We are grateful for all we've been able to add to our food storage.

Hurray for the premier of "The Office" this week!!

Potty Party

The other day we realized we only had two diapers left for Ethan before we would run out. For the last several months we've talked to him about how nice it would be when he could use the potty and have no more diapers. We also told him if he hit certain milestones he would get certain rewards. We would remind him often about the potty and he would respond telling us about the toys and rewards he would get. We did our best to not give him any pressure about it. Recently he started to show lots of interest, but we didn't know exactly how to handle it. After getting lots of advice, we felt really good about going all out, so we did it. We threw Ethan a potty party on Friday to celebrate the end of diapers. He was so excited about it. We went to the store to pick out underwear and came home had brownies and ice cream and played some games. For one of the games, we played with some balloons. As you can see below, the kids loved it. They were probably the favorite part of the party.
Since then, we've been amazed at how well he has done. We tried a pull-up the first night, but he has since pleaded to only wear underwear. He has only had two accidents during the day, none while sleeping. He did great at church today and has no problem using any size of potty. We hope this post doesn't jinx us, but we have been pleasantly surprised at how smoothly and low stress it has been so far. It hasn't been very long yet, but we already feel that it has been successful and it already feels so great to only have to buy diapers for one kid!

When we were at Thanksgiving Point a few weeks ago, we took this panoramic picture of the waterfall down there and forgot to post it with our Thanksgiving Point post below, so here it is (click on it to see a larger version of the picture):

A Miracle at the Morrey's

Praise the heavens! Last night Ethan wanted to eat lettuce and he liked it. He's so particutlar about what he puts in his mouth. The only fruits he will eat are bananas, raisins, and applesauce (if you can even consider those last two fruits) and the only veggies he would eat before last night were peas, corn, broccoli, and french fries (he won't even touch mashed potatoes)! There have been a few times I've caught him picking and tasting something from the garden, but he never will allow us to put the same item on his plate later. I think this is the beginning of something beautiful. Maybe tonight he'll let me put a carrot shred in his salad.

Yeah, I know it's kind of sad that this is what makes my day.

UPDATE: Alas, he refused the carrot shred.

Storyteller

Last Tuesday, we met up with my mom, sister-in-law Heather, and her kids to Thanksgiving Point to take advantage of their August promotion to get in to events for only $2. (Even the fudge in the store near the gardens was only $2 for half a pound!) It was a very sunny day and the flowers were gorgeous. I wish my yard could look like the gardens there.

This ark was in the children's garden there. We wished we would have brought some swim trunks for Ethan. He wanted to get in the water really badly. We are definitely coming back again.

Ethan had a cute milk mustache the other night. We couldn't resist but snap a picture.

We had an eventful week. My mom came to stay with us for a few days while my dad was in Alaska fishing with some friends. We had a great time with her. We took her garage saling with us on Saturday and had a blast. It was one of the best garage sale days we've had all summer. We also had Kyle's family over on Sunday for the Temple dedication. His parents watched the kids so we could go to the dedication. It was so nice to get to go together and sit through a church meeting without wrestling the kids. The talks were so inspiring.

Brooklyn had her 9 month check-up this week. I was sad to find out what I had suspected to be true--that she wasn't gaining weight like she should be. She's always been tall, but only around the 25th to 30th percentile for weight. She is now in the 6th percentile (weighing in 15 lbs 11 oz) and the doctor wants me to supplement her with formula or give her more milk. This came as I was considering starting to cut back on the feedings (to prepare for weaning her completely around her birthday). I think part of the problem is because she is easily distracted when I feed her so she doesn't always get enough. Hopefully with a few changes we can fatten her up a bit. I was so looking forward to flipping her carseat forward when she turns one, but it looks like it might take a little longer to get her to weigh enough. :(

On a happier note, Brooklyn is now crawling on her hands and knees. She still does her army crawl often, but she seems to have figured out the real thing. Still no teeth, yet.

Ethan has started to tell us stories. He always starts "One day . . ." I've recorded a few of his stories so we can remember them down the road.

"One day, Grandma and Grandpa went on a hike."

"One day, Ethan, Brooklyn and Mommy got an owie."

"One day, the 4-wheeler (a toy he has) drove on the rocks and the road. Listened to music on the road."

"Tell a funny story. One day, Mater had some funny wheels."

So far, our favorite story was told last night after our Family Home Evening lesson.

"One day, Grandma and Grandpa went to the temple and saw Jesus. Mommy and Daddy and Brooklyn and Ethan were there too."

9 Months

Our sweet little Brooklyn is 9 months old now! She is growing up so fast. Here is what she is doing.

She...

• has started pulling herself up on her feet
• loves lots of fruits Ethan won't touch like grapes, watermelon, strawberries, prunes mixed with squash. She also really likes bananas grass, paper, and any cereal left behind by Ethan
• loves the TV remote, being outside, going on walks, socializing with other babies, clicking her tongue, hitting keys onf a;jdklfy keyboard
• a daddy's girl through and through ("dada" is her favorite word--she still won't say "mama.") If daddy comes into a room, she has to smile and look at him. She gets upset when he leaves. In her mind, seeing daddy is more important than eating.
  

No, her hair isn't on fire here. Kyle laughed when he saw this one, saying it was a Brooklyn candle.

A few weeks ago, Brooklyn had her first taste of watermelon. She really liked it, but wasn't used to having something so cold in her mouth.

Ethan loves to help pick things from the garden, and feed them to Brooklyn (since he won't eat them himself. He seems to have an issue with the textures of many fruits and veggies).

We were surprised though when he decided to taste each of the tomatoes he helped pick. For anyone who cares, the small orange tomato is a Sungold cherry tomato, the two top red ones are Akers West Virginia, the green one is a Green Zebra, and the dark one is a Black Russian. We love heirloom tomatoes and planted 12 varieties this year.

We found this train table at a garage sale for $10 last weekend, and Ethan LOVES it. Mom and Dad love it too because now his track is not spread out across the floor. The track actually stays together for more than five minutes so there are fewer meltdowns.

Last weekend we went to the Salt Lake Parade of Homes. This was the third year we've gone and by far the least inspiring. We'd like to continue the tradition, but they made some changes to the parade this year that ruined the show. In the past they had nearly 40 homes to see of many styles and prices. It was fun to go to get decorating ideas, but also to see the creativity and what is possible. This year they had 10 show homes to see for ticketholders plus some model homes and homes that builders are trying to sell (open to everyone). We could understand why they made some changes because of the economic turndown, but if they don't go back to the old way they had it, we probably won't continue going.

The kids were really good during our travels around the valley and through the homes. Despite the changes made, we had a really fun day out together.

We loved this playhouse built on the top level of one house.

Brooklyn was tuckered out by the end of the day.