Sunday, September 27, 2009

Life is what we make it, always has been, always will be. ~Grandma Moses

This week was somewhat of a blur. Tuesday was my birthday, and it was everything I could have hoped for. After taking Ethan to school, Elliott needed to go to the Dr. He had a double ear infection, so he and I stayed home and hung out until we went to get Ethan from school. Then the fun began, for me anyway. I took the boys to Shannon's, and she gave me a gift card to go to a spa and have a 1 hour massage. It was the most relaxing and glorious 1 hour I have had for a long time. I am so lucky to have such awesome friends. After I picked up the boys, I treated us to 89 cent burritos from Taco Bell for dinner. That's right, I went all out! : ) Unfortunately, I was rushed to get the boys ready for bed and tucked in so that I could go to a hockey meeting. Thank goodness for Erica. She came to sit with them while I went to the meeting. I would like to say that the meeting was great and totally worth my time, but it wasn't. This will be my life for the next 6 months. Good thing I love Ethan and he loves hockey (and he's so cute when he plays). Strange how all of that went on and I loved every minute of my birthday. Guess I am officially old and a mom. The rest of the week must have been pretty bland considering I don't remember what went on. If I missed something, just know that I don't mean to leave anyone out. Yesterday, my friend Jill and her grandson Joe, invited Ethan over to play. He had such a great time, and Jill swears she loves having him over. Then, Jackie and I went out for a little while last night. I hit all 6 numbers and won $60 on the keno machine while playing on $3, and only betting nickels, and Jackie hit all 7 of her numbers and won $500! It was SUPER exciting. In fact, we took a picture!

Today we, AGAIN, had to do our grocery shopping on a weekend. When will I learn? But it was worth it to be able to share this. Ethan has become quite a reader. I make the list and he checks it off as we go. I love watching the look on his face when he is able to read the word by himself. I also love watching him work with the words to figure them out. It has made me much more aware of my hand writing, even if it is just the grocery list.


I cannot believe that September is over, and it looks like our summer weather is going with it. Time to pull out the jackets and pants and put away the flip flops. I do love fall. Have an awesome week!

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Jewelry Pictures

Ok, another shameless plug for Jaymee. She did an amazing job taking pictures of the jewelry I made. My jewelry has NEVER looked better. I'm very excited to put them to use. Here are a couple, you can see all the pictures on the slideshow to the right.

Monday, September 21, 2009

I couldn't wait.

Jaymee never EVER fails. Not only am I so lucky to have her as a friend, I love having her as our family photographer. Her business link is under the "Links We Love" tab. Check it out. Here are a couple of pics from Elliott's 10 month photo shoot. These are not necessarily my favorites. Basically because I can't pick a favorite. I would love to post them all. Enjoy.
I have to have "baby feet" pictures. "Why?" you ask. Because Ethan recently grew out of his. It was all I had left to hold onto, and now he isn't a baby anymore. So I have Jaymee make sure we get pictures of these cute little piggies.
Elliott would not sit still for Jaymee. He is a kid on the go.
He wouldn't stand up on his own, he would just get right back on his knees and take off, so we got this instead.

So we don't have a wagon. I borrowed this from Shannon. After seeing how much fun both kids (and Raigan) had with it, I think we need to invest in one.

And lastly, at least for the purpose of this post, I bought a lollipop for Elliott. He had no clue how to fit it all in his mouth, and he was covered in sucker and the sucker was covered in grass by the end. But we did get some CUTE pictures of him with it.

Saturday, September 19, 2009

Carpe Diem.

I guess I am just a once a week blogger now. I don't understand where all of my time goes. We did have a really good week though. I worked quite a bit at Shannon's this week, and that definitely makes my day fly by. On Thursday, I had my first school open house to go to. Ethan's teacher had a slide show to tell the parents how she does things and things that will be happening. It was great to be able to hear what they are doing from someone. Ethan seems to have forgotten everything they did, each day, within minutes of leaving the school. He was very excited to show me his classroom and have me at the school. He loves school.



After we got home I was going through the paper work she had given me and Ethan saw a sheet with the upper and lower case letters on it, and was so excited to take it and trace all of them. Then he sat at the table for quite a long time and after a while, told me his arm hurt. As it turns out, he wrote the upper and lower case alphabets, and wrote the numbers from 1-93 before he went to bed. I was really impressed.



He also has been reading books with little or no help at all. I tried to get him to read to Jason on Skype, but he was too tired the night we tried and he wouldn't do it.



I have yet to figure out his obsession with bouncy balls and throwing them into the door, over and over and over. I have started making him throw them away when he does it. Not only do I not want him throwing them in the house, but the repetition of the sound is enough to make me scream. I have come to the conclusion that he will not have any left before he learns to stop doing it.



I really love my days with Elliott. He has really developed a huge personality. He thinks he is very funny and loves to dance to the songs on t.v. I have tried to capture this on video, but he hears the camera beep when it starts, and all I can get is him staring at me. He plays with the hot wheels cars and loves to crawl around and make them go. He even makes the sound for them. The other day in the car, he kept throwing his pacifier, and it soon became a game for him. In the process, he learned the word Uh-Oh, and he now over uses the word. He will stand in his crib and throw EVERYTHING out, and each time something hits the floor, there is an Uh-Oh that follows. This can be very annoying at 6:45 in the morning.



Elliott also thinks that everything in our house is made for him to crawl on top of. All of his toys, the couch, the chair, the t.v. stand, literally everything. Unfortunately, the reality of danger has not set in for him. Going off the couch head first is a good time, and he does it and laughs, then wants to do it again.



We spent most of today just cleaning and doing laundry, and then Jaymee called and invited us to meet her at the mall play area. Thank goodness. The boys were so bored with staying home. They had a great time running around and climbing on the play equipment.



Not sure yet what tomorrow might bring, but it's never dull. Have a great weekend.

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Love our weekends.

i have to start with friday. when i picked ethan up from school, he was so excited to tell me that they all got their own "6th grade buddy". he was a lucky one, and gets to have 2 buddies. he couldn't remember their names, but made sure i knew that "6th graders are HUGE!" haha. after we made it home, we let elliott get a nap in, and then we walked over to the school for the 100th birthday party. they had a bbq dinner, a clown with balloon animals, a book sale, root beer floats, and ethan's favorite part by far, the FIRE SLIDE! yes, this building is old enough that there is a slide that goes from the top to the bottom floor and you end up outside. it's no longer used as a fire escape, but the kids are rewarded for good grades with a ride down the slide. ethan went down it several times. it was definitely a great way to spend a friday evening with the boys. saturday morning, we went with jaymee and raigan to the farmer's market. love that place. neither one of us needed much, so afterward we decided to go to the absolute best place in billings to get breakfast. proven by the 30 minutes we waited for a table. : ) great friends, great kids, and great food, makes an awesome saturday morning. after breakfast, i took ethan to emma's 5th birthday party and elliott and i both came home and napped away the afternoon. unfortunately, i had to spend part of our evening grocery shopping. i really need to work harder on planning to go during the weekdays when no one else is shopping. it makes it so much more frustrating to know that i don't HAVE to go on the weekend, but yet there i was, pushing my way down the isles, excusing ourselves through people stopped to chat, and standing for several minutes waiting in the checkout line. you would think i have learned by now. today will be football on t.v. and chores. hope everyone had a great weekend.

Friday, September 11, 2009

Is it just me?

Today just feels strange. Like an invisible dark cloud covers this day every year. I try to not let it get to me, but it's there. Ethan's school is turning 100, and the party is tonight. I just don't feel like today should be a party day. The fact that I can't tell you what we did last week, but I can still see every detail of this day 8 years ago, is so crazy. Something with such a huge impact on everyones life. I have to say that I am glad that I didn't have children at that time. I'm thankful that even though their dad is fighting in the war because of this event, they are innocent enough to believe that him being gone, is normal for his job. I pray that they never experience the fear and confusion that we all went through while watching those planes crash into the buildings over and over and over. We may never forget, nor can we forgive, but we have to hope that the future is brighter.

On a lighter note, I decided to dress Ethan as the 80's for decade day at school. It was the best I could do with one days notice. So here it is..............He could have used a mullet and some high top shoes, but it will do. Have an awesome weekend.


Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Let's try again.

i know, i know. i can already hear it. "UGH, another Guge website? really?" well, i love my husband, and i love that he created our most current one after our first site was shut down. however i have had some complaints from our "fans" about not receiving updates, and not being able to leave comments. so here we are. i hope everyone likes this site, and that it's easy to use and follow.

elliott and i have both been sick today, so we have spent most of the day on the couch, cuddling, or trying to let him get some sleep. it's been very trying on my patience. fortunately, the boys don't get sick often, but this means that i forget how frustrating it can be to have a cranky baby that doesn't feel good.

ethan has had a great couple of days at school. he is getting better about telling me what they did and how much fun he had.

shannon has been giving me some quick and easy recipes that work awesome for small dinners for the three of us. i haven't come across one that we didn't enjoy. tonight was Swedish meatballs and noodles. i like to use the trick i remembered from being younger too. i just warm up a can of whatever veggie, add it to the plates, and VOILA! dinner is served.

i will try to get this new site all up to date ASAP. until then, look around and get familiar.