A Grateful Heart

David and I gave our final talks on Sunday in our little branch, and the topic of mine was "A Grateful Heart" and ever since then I can't help but be overwhelmed by the blessings that have been and are constantly continuing to flow into my life. We were so busy on Thanksgiving day that I only snapped a couple of quick pictures...but among many things, here are some of the things for which I am most grateful!

My Amazing, wonderful, goofy, spontaneous, extremely hott hubby... I have been so blessed to spend the last four years by his side...and so grateful for the 8 years...yes 8 that I have known him...so glad we picked "our chothers" ;) This is him preparing our very first Thanksgiving turkey

I am so blessed to have a sweet, mischievous, adorable, and smart little boy

Thank you for smiling, yes you may have your shower now!

Slobbery, open-mouthed baby kisses...ok toddler kisses, but he still seems like my little baby boy

Cardboard boxes, the indoor poor man's toy that may have saved our sanity this fall/winter

My two greatest joys at this point in my life are my two boys, if you can't tell. I don't know what I would do without them. 

I am resolving to become better at expressing my love and gratitude to those that matter most to me. I don't want to find myself down the road wishing I had made more of these moments count...they are priceless and can never be re-visited so let us enjoy each moment with those that we love to their very fullest!

Just for the Record...

It's funny, but when Ethan was newborn I remember that after every appointment I was so concerned about what percentile he was in, because I was sure that would tell how well I was doing as a mom. Am I feeding him enough, too much, is my milk pure fat, do I make skim? All of these things weighed heavily on my first-time-mother mind. Now every time we go I am always just anxious to see my boy grow and know that every child is different and they kind of do their own thing. I can always tell by the sparkle in his mischievous little eyes, that he is happy and healthy- so just for the records and future memories...here are the latest stats...and these are just downright funny. Just so you know, we are pretty limited in our medical care up here and in the nurse's defense, he WAS very wiggly and they didn't have his previous stats. to compare to so...

Weight- 25 lb.  70 something percentile...I was never told for sure
Height - 7' 4"....now that was originally an error in mental conversions from inches to meters, or something...needless to say when they plugged that number in Ethan became an instant child prodigy
Height round 2 - 30 in. - 15th percentile (the unfortunate thing about this measurement is that it is a quarter inch shorter than his one year measurement...so he SHRANK?)

Well I guess according to the records we either have an EXTREMELY tall and lanky oddity, or a VERY short, squat little ball of meat! Yes I found this whole thing very funny, so we attempted to measure him ourselves at home and figure he is somewhere around 31.5 inches...which puts him all around back in the big leagues again! Oh the joys! I love this little/big guy! So let me put up some pics...just for the record

We finally got enough snow to go out and play a little! 

"Ethan, Where's your head?"

Naturally Ethan wanted to touch the snow, but without his gloves...I told him it was a bad idea, but really since when does a one-year-old listen to reason...

So he used to be impossible to get pictures of, and now when I tell him to smile, this is what I get...so much like his father...yes it's cute, but way overboard! At least he hasn't figured out the retarded face yet that his father perfected and is so wonderfully documented in many of David's family snapshots!

"Smile Ethan"

He really is a very happy boy, you know minus the typical setbacks like teething, and tiredness, but his absolute favorite thing I am sure...besides wrestling with his Daddy, is being in the shower all by his big boy self!

Truly there is never a dull moment, and he keeps me on my toes. He is finally mimicking some words such as cheese and shoes...and he says the word train on his own whenever the trains go by, which is about every 30 minutes, then he runs to the window to watch...and he is so proud of his one word "train" that he is starting to say it more and more...it is the first thing he says when he wakes up, he says it when Dad comes in the door, apparently he really really likes the trains...well that makes one of us...yes only one...if I haven't mentioned it before, I HATE trains!

I can't believe this little guy will be a big brother before too long, it absolutely blows my mind, but I am grateful to be his Momma and look forward to his future developments. Every day is an adventure!

The Halloween That Wasn't

Well that title may be a little harsh...we did have some festivities spread out over a couple of weeks, and the silly thing is that Ethan didn't even notice the lack of Halloween Day activities, it was probably only that I felt let down that everything fell through. But all-in-all it was a fun "season" even if our branch party turned into a ten-minute trunk-or-treat, and the town party that was supposed to be for children either didn't happen or was in another town ;) Needless to say we made the most of it and even though we'd dressed Ethan up for a party and didn't get one, I still got pictures of him in costume and he got to show off for David and I.

Last weekend I made spider sandwiches to get us all in the mood for the holiday...

Sunday we carved Ethan's pumpkin...he was so serious about it that I couldn't get a smile out of him. I am not sure if he enjoyed it, or if it was like a duty to him to get it done, but whichever way it was it kept him entertained for an hour...all in all a success!

I'm working...leave me alone


Part of our Halloween dinner consisted of "Mummy Dogs"

When we showed up for the town trunk or treat and games, this is all we found...but Ethan seemed ok with it, he removed his coat and immediately took off down the hall! 

We were going to dress up as members of the Avengers...since I am the biggest comic book nerd...oh wait that's David...but  then life happened and we never got costumes put together other than Ethan's. So our one little dressed up family member was the cutest Captain America I've ever seen and no one will even notice we never dressed up since we had no where to show off costumes anyway!

Our little Captain America hamming it up as always!

And since he didn't get the party I was telling him about all day (I'm sure he'll remember ;) We stopped in at Dairy Queen and got him a Blizzard...ok who are we kidding? The ice cream was mostly for me and my pregnant hormones lol

And since I have jabbered too much already here is just a whole slew of pictures of the little Captain himself

Sucker from the Branch trunk-or-treat...he wouldn't let go of it for anything!