Big Boy Bed

Yesterday we set up a twin bed for Ethan to start the transition before baby comes. We don't want him to feel like she is kicking him out of his crib. We had dinner at a friend's house last night and unfortunately got him to bed when he was overly tired and loopy. We first tucked him in all happy, but he got really upset when we shut the door. Later, we tried to lay down with him but he kept giving kisses and jumping on the bed. By about 10:00 we gave up and put him in his crib.

Tonight we tried again and he instantly jumped out of bed and started crying. We just left him in his room to cry. He only cried for about 10 minutes before we found him fast asleep in his bed. We've been stressing about this transition for weeks now since Ethan doesn't always want to go sleep, and now we feel like celebrating. Hopefully we'll be just as successful at getting him to nap in his bed.
Ethan has been fascinated by Kyle's harmonica for months now. He used to hum into it to make noises on it, but this week he figured out how to play it. He has actually gotten really good at it too. Unfortunately we haven't been able to capture more than a few seconds on video. Here is what we have and a little bit of him playing in a box.

Spring 2007 we planted strawberries in our backyard and it has since been our dream to have enough to make a fresh strawberry pie. They are such yummy strawberries. We finally reached our goal. It isn't much to look at, but mmm...boy! We came upon the recipe last summer and love it. It doesn't use any Jell-o or junket or Koolaid. You make the filling out of strawberries, sugar, and cornstarch. If anyone wants the recipe let us know. Making, or rather eating this pie was a highlight of our week.
This week our little babe is just under 4 pounds (like a large jicama) and almost 17 inches long.

Our 1st Yard Sale

We've been wanting to hold a yard sale all summer, and finally got around to doing it Saturday morning. We spend all day on Friday cleaning two rooms in our basement and collecting items to sell. It was a lot of work, but really nice to get rid of stuff that just sits around anyway. We didn't sell as much as we would have liked, but still came out with quite a bit of cash.
We sold the swing set that came with our house. It wasn't in too bad of shape, but it has been a major wasp nest for the last two summers and we really didn't like Ethan going near it for that reason. We'd like to get a nicer one in the future, but for now, he'll have to settle for the swings at the park.
Probably the hardest thing to let go was this little cheap raft. Kyle and I have some fond memories of it from when we were dating. We haven't used it in the last two years are tired of storing it. We'll probably get another one in the future that is a little larger. It was a bit cramped for the two of us anyway.

We were putting price tags on all of our stuff, and decided to put a price on Ethan. We're not sure if it's legible, but the sticker says "priceless." Nobody made any offers... Ethan has been such a funny little helper lately. He loves to help pick produce from our garden. When he sees mom and dad pick tomatoes he likes to pick small green ones to add to the lot.

We have a small plum tree in our back yard and were pleased with its production this year. They are really tasty, but tiny! Last year we probably had about 5 on the tree , but this year we had about 20.
We had another good day in nursery for Ethan (except for the nasty diaper that got mom taken out of Sunday School). His teachers say that he is really good. He is quiet and loves to play with the cars (especially the large pink Barbie car). They also said he is a good listener. He was also super cute during Sacrament Meeting today. We wonder if the nursery lesson was about reverence today because he kept folding his arms and walking around with his eyes shut tight. It was so cute!! He has folded his arms for us during prayers, but not usually with his eyes shut. We've been so amazed at how much he has learned over the last few weeks. This week he also started saying his own name. He calls himself "E-E."

This week our little girl is over 16 inches long and weighs about 3.3 lbs (about the size of 4 navel oranges). That is also about the size that Jen's mom was when she was born. She was born very early, but it is comforting to know that we've reached this point without any problems and that if something happened her chances would be good.

Getting it all back together

We are starting to get things back in place in our house from painting. It will probably take a while to decide where to hang our pictures. This week we purchased a nice mirror to put over our fireplace. We still have many things planned that will have to wait until after the baby comes. We eventually will replace the tile around the fireplace and put a tile back splash in our kitchen. At that time we will hopefully be able to get new counter tops too. Soon we would like to find a kitchen table that fits our bay window well, and get two chairs to go in our bay opposite of our couch. Kyle's mom knows how to upholster furniture so for fun we would like to build our chairs this winter. We'll have to see how it turns out. The wall color looks a bit too green in this picture. Yesterday we got this car for Ethan at a garage sale. He has been having so much fun with it. It kept him busy all morning. He has seen ones like this before and wanted to play with them so badly. It really has been 5 bucks well spent.
We went to a farmer's market yesterday morning and couldn't resist picking up a few cobs of corn (since we didn't grow any). Ethan loved his corn so much that he had to suck on all of our leftover cobs when we were finished. He also wanted to sit on the big chairs with us. He seems to not like sitting in his highchair anymore. We'll have to keep our eyes open for a booster seat. He also no longer lets us spoon feed him. He is a little messy still, but it is nice to be able to give him a bowl of yogurt or applesauce and let him feed himself.
We've been trying to get more organized in our house lately (thanks to Jen's nesting instincts probably). In doing so we brought the baby car seat up to help us get prepared for our little friend. Shortly after bring it up, we found Ethan sitting in it an playing. (Yes, he is playing with a fairy wand, which is NOT a regular occurrance we assure you).
This week our little babe is just under 3 pounds (like a cabbage) and approx. 15.7 inches long. Jen starts seeing the doctor every two weeks now. It is hard to believe that we are this far into it.

Fruits of our labors

Last Summer we were very disappointed at how our garden turned out. We have pretty lousy soil in our garden. This Spring we splurged a bit on our soil and in putting in a drip system and are very pleased with the results and wanted to share a few pictures of our harvest.

Ethan is standing between a few of our tomato plants. We trained them to grow up a trellis.

Here are a few things we picked today. We have several varieties of tomatoes, green, red, banana, and jalapeño peppers, cucumbers, green and yellow beans, strawberries, lettuce, squash, and carrots.
A lady in our ward is really big into growing heirloom tomatoes. She gave us a few plants to try out.

We are still finishing up painting some of the trim and our fireplace mantle. We should have everything cleaned up and put back together in the next few days. Ethan has been such a good helper. We tried to get a picture of him helping me sand the mantle, but he wouldn't pose for us. He loves to copy whatever we are working on.We took Ethan to Nursery for the first time today. We were going to wait another week, but Kyle got a new calling this week that made it more difficult to watch Ethan. As we expected, Ethan did great. He loves toys, especially ones that are new to him. The Nursery leaders said that he didn't make a peep the whole time and just played. Hopefully he'll go so easily in the future. With Ethan in Nursery it was nice to get more from the lessons again. During Relief Society and Sunday School Jen saw the other moms and babies and missed having a baby to play with. Good thing her arms will be full again soon!

This week our baby weighs about 2 1/2 lbs (like a butternut squash) and is a little over 15 inches long.

Big Brother

Lately I've been thinking about how it is kind of sad that Ethan doesn't really know that he is going to be a big brother soon. He'll be 18 months next week and hasn't seemed to understand when I tell him that he is going to have a little sister or that Mommy has a baby in her tummy.

Just the other day Kyle and I were talking to him and asked him where Mama's baby was. He lifted my shirt and eagerly pointed to my belly. Then he kissed it repeatedly after we prompted him to kiss the baby. I am often surprised at how much he picks up and understands when I don't think he does. It really made my day. I know he is going to be a great big brother, though I'm sure it will take some adjustment. He is such a tender and sweet natured boy. I can't wait to see the love he will have for his sister.

Work in Progress

Kyle and I have been planning on repainting our interiors for quite a while. Last winter I removed lots of nasty wallpaper that had been painted over in our hallway and bedroom. It is probably more of a nesting thing, but I wanted to take advantage of the little time Kyle has before he starts school again to get most of our painting done. We worked each evening this week prepping our walls and painted all day Friday and Saturday. Kyle spent last weekend painting our storage room which seemed to be more work than we anticipated (especially since one of us has to keep Ethan away) so we were grateful that Kyle's mom was so willing to come help us paint our entire upstairs (excluding bedrooms and bathrooms). We couldn't have done it without you, Lynne!! The whole process took about twice as long as we thought it would, and took about twice the paint we anticipated (1-1/2 gallons of primer and 5-1/2 gallons of paint). We still have to paint all of our baseboards and around our doors and do some touch ups so I don't have any after pictures yet, but here are a few we took during the process.

This green covered about 1/3 of the area we painted.
Kyle priming the green walls
We have vaulted ceilings in our house making some places a bit difficult to paint. For anyone interested, we went with Kwal's color called "plant stand." It is kind of a taupe but more greenish yellow. It is funny how different it looks under different lighting, but we love it already.
Ethan had a great time seeing his grandma Morrey over the last few days. He even had a little sleepover in her room one of the nights. We were glad he was as good as he was during the process.

Baby weighs about 2-1/4 lbs this week (like a Chinese cabbage) and is just under 15 inches in length. Although I feel huge and find it hard to imagine nearly 3 more months of pregnancy, I can still see my feet so I guess I mustn't be quite as large as I feel.

Parade of Homes

The last two weekends we have been going to the Parade of Homes in Salt Lake. We went last year and got lots of fun ideas and won an LCD TV so we thought it would be fun to go again this year. There are some amazingly huge homes out there! Ethan had a lot of fun going around to the different homes and exploring the nooks and crannies while clinging to his toy cars. We took too many pictures to post them all, but here are a few fun ones.

Here, Kyle and Ethan couldn't resist trying out the trampoline.
This was a playroom in one of the houses. Ethan didn't want to get off of the swing. We liked the painting on the walls. It might be a fun idea for a kid's room.
Some people are so creative with the space under their stairs. We've seen many turned into playrooms. This one was awesome! It looked like an old English storefront including a few light poles and a sign that read "toy shoppe." It had all sorts of fun things inside.
This same house had a play area built like a pirate's ship complete with a crow's nest, hot tub, slide and a rope bridge.


We thought this was a fun idea for a decorative pillow.Baby weighs about 2 pounds this week (about the weight of a head of cauliflower), and is about 14 1/2 inches long. This week she has gotten much more active and started kicking a lot stronger. Today marks 3 months until her due date.

Pregnant moment: Last night Jen decided to quickly throw a load of laundry in the washer before bed. While lying in bed, she wondered where her brand-new cell phone was and remembered that she left it in the pocket of her jeans she just put in the washing machine 20 min earlier. We thought it was toast for sure, but after letting it dry out, it seems to work fine!! What a miracle!! It is amazing what affect pregnancy has on the mind!