Not much going on...

We went to the St. Patrick's Day parade a couple of weeks ago.. That was fun. Lots of green. Ethan got a little bored after a while.







Looking forward to:

1. Warm sunny days, every day. Although I'm glad we have as many as we do. He loves playing in the sunshine:




2. Ross being home for good in 3 weeks!

3. Going to Texas with Ross and Ethan to visit Kathleen and Phil in May.. right Kathleen?

4. Going to England with my momma in June- yes leaving hubby and one baby, taking one with me (in the belly)

5. And having new sweet baby in September


Okay so I guess I always have lots of pictures

Oh and I found these and thought Ethan's face is so funny! It was back when I did the stop-motion video.

Warning: Lots of pictures ahead

So my little boy turned 1 year old!! Sheesh! I feel like he's changed so much in the last month. We can see him learning, and understanding. He can do things when we ask him to (somewhat)! I thought that would never happen. He's walking! Slowly, and he still prefers the more efficient crawling, but he's getting there. Plus I think he's gained like 10 pounds. I don't know. But he's getting way heavy. Time for him to really get the hang of this walking thing! I don't want to lug him around anymore.

We had a little celebration on his actual birthday, last Sunday: Where he enjoyed this cake:

And then we had a party for him on Saturday with a few friends and some family:

Ross made his mom's famous (well, I think it's worthy of fame)
buttermilk chocolate cake. Sooooo good..

And then we made some vanilla-bean cupcakes
(from rookie-cookie) but with lemon custard frosting:

I made a birthday banner:

And we had lots of fun:

Ethan was surprisingly very neat and
tidy eating his cupcake:

And the balloons we blew up entertained him
for literally HOURS afterwards.. Seriously? Who needs toys?

And he looked so cute when he woke up from
his nap this morning I had to take some pictures:

He has brought SO much joy and depth to our lives. We love him. In fact, he's brought so much happiness to us that we thought we'd add another bundle of joy into our lives... and... I'm due in September!

Been thinking about this quote from Elder Bednar in last month's visiting teaching message:

"By divine design, men and women are intended to progress together toward perfection and a fullness of glory. Because of their distinctive temperaments and capacities, males and females each bring to a marriage relationship unique perspectives and experiences. The man and the woman contribute differently but equally to a oneness and unity that can be achieved in no other way."

It kind of makes you appreciate those differences that are there. I think you can let them put distance in your relationship, or you can come closer together as you realize that those differences are complimentary. Where he lacks, you are strong. Where you fall, he brings you up.

I'd like to think I appreciated Ross just as much when he was here all the time. But I know one blessing that has come from him being gone a lot is that I like to soak up every minute with him when he's here. I can feel myself becoming whole again.

Marriage between a man and a woman surely is divinely designed by a loving Heavenly Father.

For the love!

It was kind of a bi-polar weekend.

Yay: Ross was able to come home again this weekend! So far he's come home every weekend. It's been way nice.

Grrr: But I guess now 'busy' season is now kicking in to high gear and he won't be able to come home again for a while.

Yay: Ross got up early with Ethan on Saturday, to let me sleep in a bit. He started making my favorite breakfast treat, coffee cake. Delish.

Grrr: We were out of eggs. (My fault, he doesn't live here during the week.) Couldn't finish breakfast.

Yay: Ross went to play basketball with the Elders Quorum. Ethan and I met friends there and watched. Ross was having a lot of fun! But it's been a while.

Grrr: Ross severely sprained (perhaps broke) his ankle while playing. I had gone home after an hour and a half of watching, so I woke Ethan up from his nap, and went to pick up poor Rossy.

Looking kind of sad and pathetic:

Yay: A sweet family friend who is a doctor gave up his Saturday morning and checked Ross out, took him to his office and got him a cast and some pain killers (don't worry we paid for it).

Grrr: Ross is not currently insured.

Yay: Had a pretty relaxing day. Not much we could do.

Grrr: Ethan was pretty grumpy because his nap schedule was out of whack.

Yay: Ross made me some super sweet Valentine's cards! He made them when he thought he wouldn't be able to come home for the weekend and mailed them. It made my week to look at those.

It's a pop-up!

Each heart has a reason he loves me.
I'm pulling one out each day he's gone. Barf?
Well it's been pretty dang lonely without him.

Grrr: So then we had this big dinner planned to make, and we got a very late start because of scheduling difficulties, and made dinner in a huge rush, turning the kitchen into a HUGE disaster area. All the while Ethan is screaming because he's tired and grumpy and we haven't given him much attention.



Yay: Ross hobbled around helping the whole time, refusing to sit and watch.

Grrr: Even though he probably should have.

Yay: It was DELICIOUS. I can't believe everything turned out the way it did.

(Chicken roll-ups with a cheesy cream sauce, and
roasted sweet potatoes with lime syrup from rookie-cookie)

Grrr: Except now we had this huge mess in the kitchen. We didn't have a sitter for Ethan (my parents usually watch him and they were celebrating their own v-day, I haven't ventured trying a new one yet) so Ethan added to the mess.

Yay: Ross AGAIN got right to work doing the dishes.

Grrr: Even though it probably didn't do his foot any good.

Yay: We put Ethan to bed and watched the video of our proposal. Aww.

Grrr: I ruined our (easy) lime chiffon pie by adding too much water so it never set up.

Yay: But I tried to fix it and it turned out decently the next day.

Grrr: We were too tired to do much else so we fell asleep on the couch.

Hope yours was a good one!

It's all about Ethan

So it's been a long while since I've talked about my little one. He is almost 1 yr. old! Sheesh. He is becoming quite the busy boy. Loves to eat, loves to wrestle with Dad, loves to snuggle with mom, loves loves loves to play with balls, and loves being outside.


We know he has a gut. He's trying to work it off.

Pulling up:

(WHY do the colors look like that? 3rd time imported and still weird.)

And stretching:

Also he climbs stairs a lot. Gives me a heart attack.
No picture included.

Loving the beautiful weather at the park:

Swinging a la Poladroid:

Portrait of a baby in a rocking chair:

Jamie and Stewart

So when you first look at pictures you've taken (at least for me), all you see are the mistakes. And then you don't look at them for a couple of days, and you come back and you like them more, and then you come back again and you like even more. There are still mistakes, but I think overall the good outweighs the bad.

Stewart and Jamie are some of the nicest, most genuine people I've ever met. And I knew that way before I took their pictures. I'm so so happy for them. Oh, and we SO lucked out with the weather. It was beautiful- and like 45 degrees.

Here are some of my favorites from their day.

Beautiful Winter Quarters temple

Their first time seeing each other.

We got some fun shots with that set-up:

We went over to this really cool (Protestant? Catholic? I can't remember)
building that was right next door. I really liked the walls.

Ross was workin' the reflector here:

And of course my boys were super cute: