She smiled! My Mom even saw it! We still can't get her to do it on command, but she's definitely doing it. I looked up when Ethan smiled and it looks like he was nearly 3 months? I can't believe it was that late.

You should all be proud of me... I was very resourceful and reused the leftover cassoulet. I took out the chicken and set it aside for sandwiches. Then I took out the kielbasa and pork, and pureed half the beans with some water. I added back in the un-pureed beans, added the kielbasa and pork back, after chopping it up a bit. Voila! Bean soup. Had it with toasted french bread. Num. Ethan loved it too.

Today was our walking day, but it was pouring down rain. I went over to Mom's anyway in hopes that it would clear up by the time I got there. They are doing construction on a bridge on the one direct route to my Mom's house and so the bridge was closed, requiring me to detour an absurd 10 miles out of my way, to end up just on the other side of the bridge. So aggravating. Anyway, we got there and it had cleared up so we walked on the driveway, which is 1/2 mile and has two enormous hills. We really got a workout! Its gravel too, so Ethan and Gwen were bumped all over the place. They didn't seem to mind though :)

Ethan was such a ham today. He was all toothy grins and giggles. After dinner (when he was coated with bean puree), he was running around the house naked, laughing hysterically while we tried to chase him into the bathroom. He's also been very affectionate and slobbers me constantly with kisses, even grabbing my face and holding me still while he gives me them. Too cute for words.

I forgot to post yesterday that Gwen smiled at us! But I do not think it was intentional because she has not repeated it :)

We spend a lot on food each month. Based on our budget, we spend roughly double what my Mom spends... and we have half the people! Part of this is because I don't plan ahead for meals, so we make a lot of trips to the store and also because I have a fondness for expensive ingredients. I decided that for June I was going to try and make a meal plan each week to better control our spending. It was really hard actually. Hopefully I'll be able to make it work.

Yesterday when we were at Lowes, we were looking at some clearance appliances (sadly all the good deals were taken) and Ethan was really freaking out. He was doing his whine thing and thrashing and being generally disruptive. We didn't figure it out until we were leaving the aisle that the vacuums were right there. Some of you are aware that Ethan has a love/hate relationship with vacuums and lately it’s been hate. All that fussing was because he was freaked out by vacuums! Well, today we were at Fred Meyer and we stopped briefly so I could take Gwen out of her seat. Ethan immediately freaks out and sure enough, vacuums at 9 o'clock. SO funny... A lady that was nearby got a real kick out it.

As I emailed, the new pics are up on the site. Good stuff.

Below is a picture of the project I mentioned yesterday. Its Ethan’s handprint and footprint taken at 1 year and his 1 year pic. I just love it.

Tonight we had cassoulet. It’s a bean, chicken, pork and kielbasa dish. It took forever to prepare. However it was very very good. It made an enormous pot, so we'll be eating it for a few days :)

Ethans 1 year hand/foot prints and picture

One of those days

Today was much cooler. Yay! They're calling for rain and clouds for at least a week. I'm happy about that.

I had another bad headache today. It seems that drastic changes in weather sometimes bring them on. Gwen was fussy (I think she had an upset tummy for some reason) and Ethan was needy. It was just one of those days where you know you should do something but you can't get up the energy. I did manage to vaccum out the car and clean it out. Also swept and vaccumed the house and did some laundry. Made oven fries, hamburgers and red onion/spinach salad for dinner. Ethan is now into ketchup and he ate more ketchup than he did fries or hamburger! After dinner I finished up a framed set of E's 1 year handprint, footprint and picture. It turned out SO well. I'll take a pic tomorrow so you can see it.

Yesterday, I made those beef ribs and they were good. Usually we have pork ribs and can finish off quite a few of them, but the beef ones are so large and so rich that you can only eat one or two. Also, you feel like quite a cave-person while eating them. After we had those we headed out to Moms, cuz it was already super hot in our house. Stopped at Target and got Ethan another pair of sandals (he fed his first pair to the dogs). We also got him a little soft Spongebob chair. Its adorable!

At my Moms, we stripped Ethan down and let him play in the sprinkler. He wasn't afraid a bit and ran through it and had a grand old time. We have the cutest video and pictures of the whole thing :)

Thanks to those people who have commented on my blog! I'm always excited when I see that someone has posted something...

The picture below is just a test to see if we could put pics in our blog. Took it a few days ago. Ain't he a cutie? Jason has promised that the new pics (and maybe videos) will be up tomorrow. I am gonna hold him to it! We have tons of good ones.

Hotter still

Ugh. We must move to Alaska... The coldest spot in Alaska. I'm not designed to handle this heat. I should be living in cool spring days, rainy days, stormy days, snowy days and the occasionally sunny day (80's tops, please). 90 degrees and humid is not where I should be. It makes me a real brat. Just ask Jason.

I got out all our fans today and cleaned them. They were very icky and dusty. All day I had to keep Ethan from the oscillating fan because he was either fascinated by its movement or wanted to play with the plug. He either has a short memory or the allure was too great because we went through 'no touch' a million times.

Gwen almost smiled at me today. A couple times I could just see that she was on the brink of doing it! She will have a very cute smile, I can tell... though I don't think it will be the wide open mouth smile that Ethan had when he was little. This heat makes her sleep very long stretches but when she wakes up, she makes up for it by wanting to eat for a very long time. Fine with me, as I worry about the kids getting dehydrated in the heat.

We went to Costco tonight to return some diapers (bought wrong size). Of course we had to get a few other things since we were there. I got two books, which should last me maybe through the weekend. Once I get started I really fly through books.

There is an art to picking the checkout line at Costco. Jason seems to be drawn to the longest line sometimes, I swear. You need a quick mind to quickly calculate the number of carts compared with the number of items in each cart, then factor in the speed of the checkers and the relative stupidity of the person pushing the cart. That may sound rude, but it’s so true. For instance, this evening I picked a great line... Average number of carts, few items, fast checker, but I underestimated the stupidity of the people pushing the carts. The first few were fine, but the lady in front of us wanted her items checked out in two separate transactions, then they cost too much so she had to take some stuff out, then she had to write the check as slowly as humanly possible. We had quadruple the number of items and our transaction took 1/3 the time.

Tonight we were supposed to have BBQ'd beef ribs, but it was way too hot to BBQ. Between the heat, the complete lack of shade in the back yard and the heat of the BBQ itself, I'd be 'well done' by the time the ribs were done! We're gonna have them tomorrow, but as a late lunch so that I don't have to be out there in the heat. I've never made beef ribs before, but I saw them make the recipe on TV and it looked deeelish. It uses smoke, which I've only done a few times, so I'm excited to try it.

Tomorrow after our late lunch we're going to go out to my Moms and try to get Ethan to run through the sprinkler. Should be fun.

Have watched a lot of movies lately... Most of them quite good:

Closer - Dirty movie, but tolerable to watch since everyone in it was so pretty (Julia Roberts, Natalie Portman, Jude Law)
Sideways - Very funny, my type of content (wine/food talk).
I Am David - One of those depressing/inspiring true story movies about a refugee. Excellent.
Hotel Rwanda - Fantastic. Deserved every bit of praise that it got. A must see.
Oceans Twelve - Good. Not much to say. Kept my interest, but thats about it.

Well, this is long enough so I'll stop :)

Hot

Today I took Gwendolyn to her 1 month appointment. I barely made the appointment (I was 20 minutes late) because KUBE 93 was having a .93 cent gas thing at the station by the freeway and it was complete mayhem. Everett police were actually out there directing traffic and such. Irritating.

Gwen now weighs 8lbs exactly (15%), is 21 inches long (50%) and her head is 35cm (25%). She's on the small side, but she started out that way, so its not really a surprise. She didn't get any shots this time, so it was a very easy appointment.

After that, we went to Target and I bought a new purse/diaper bag as my beloved messenger bag has started falling apart. This one is more like a regular handbag and its pink. Very cute. I also bought some clothes that I can wear NOW (until I shrink to my pre-preg size), but alas, the bigger size is too small. Me not happy about that. Not happy at all.

Safeway was next and Gwen really attracted a crowd. One little old lady stopped to talk about her and before I knew what was happening there were all these ladies surrounding me telling me about their kids and giving advice and wanting to know how old she was, details of her birth, etc. It was pretty nice. I forgot how babies give people an opening to just talk your ear off about everything!

Unfortunatly, I had already defrosted some pork chops and so I had to cook them today, even though I would have preferred not to since it was so friggin HOT. Nothing like eating stuffed pork chops, gravy, mashed taters and peas on a day that makes you just want to melt into the ground.

Mom, Shelly and Jenni watched Ethan while I was out and about today and they all did nice things for us... Mom and Jenni cleaned the house and put away laundry and Shelly mowed our jungle of a backyard. Seriously ya'll, that backyard is scary for so many reason. Strange bugs, strange weeds. Icky. However, it was soooo nice to come home to a clean house for once and to see the backyard mowed. Good for the soul.

Well, its 9:00 and I'm tuckered out. I'm looking forward to retreating to the bedroom since its the coolest room in the house.

Night!

Ugh...

Today was not a good day. Woke up with a pain behind the left eye and it progressed from there into an all out, migraine-ish type thing. Nausea, neck pain, sensitivty to light, the whole bit. On top of that, little Gwen was needing Mommy a lot today and I ended up holding her nearly the entire day. I won't go into the gory details, but I think everyone in this house is glad the day is over! Luckily, Becki stopped by to drop off Shellys keys and she was kind enough to pick up my house a bit and put away some laundry. My family is the coolest.

Yesterday we went visiting/walking/shopping with my Mom. It went ok... We ended up having to stop all the time to deal with crying or vomiting (btw, there is no smell I hate worse than toddler vomit) or pacifiers being thrown out of the stroller, but we did walk about a mile. Not bad for our first time. After the walk, we went grocery shopping. Imagine... 2 adults, a 12 yo, 4 yo, 1 yo and a 1 mo old. We made quite the caravan! We all survived it though.

Tomorrow is Gwens 1 month checkup and I'm dying to see how much she's grown, etc. I'll post all the info on that then.

Ciao!

I'm finally getting around to this...

Well, I finally got around to making my first post on this thing. Lets see if I can keep up with it :)

Gwen is so fussy in the evenings lately. Its really the worst time for her to be fussy because my patience is worn thin and tired. Jason tries his best to help out with her, but she keep thinking she wants to eat and that means she wants me!

Ethan was fairly well behaved today. He was in awe today of Gwens feet. We compared my feet to his and his feet to Gwens and he thought that was pretty cool. He's really starting to understand shapes and difference in sizes and such. Its nifty to see him learning and growing at such a fast rate.

Tomorrow I'm heading over to Mom's to go walking and visit and grocery shop (not at Moms, but afterward!). We're going to try and go walking at least once a week

Gwen is calling so I'm off!