Christmas time is here.....

Just thought that I would post a couple pictures of our Christmas tree. I'm really excited for this Christmas. Ethan is at a really fun age, and I can't wait for Christmas morning to come! Ethan loves the tree, but he's constantly taking the ornaments off (some of them are little bells, and he loves ringing them). So needless to say, the bottom half of the tree that Ethan can reach is a little more bare than up top. The next pictures are of Ethan in his new Christmas pj's. I should've gotten a bigger size, but he still is super cute in them!!! The last picture, he's trying to show 3 on his fingers. He struggles with it a little bit, but is getting better.

The last couple weeks...

Ethan had a special birthday party on the 20th, even though his birthday was the 18th. He told me he wanted to have a special Thomas Birthday, and we had family and friends over to celebrate. I cannot believe he is already 3, but he's so much fun, and everyday he says/does something that just leaves me speechless. The only pictures I could find was of him opening up some of his gifts. He was definitely SPOILED ROTTEN!!!

So this year's Thanksgiving was pretty mellow. We went over to my mom's house late afternoon around 4 and started digging through our ads, planning the stops for the morning. The dinner was delicious (thanks momma for all the hard work in the kitchen), and I have to say that I think it was the quietest Thanksgiving I have ever had. But I enjoyed the time with my family nonetheless. After dinner, Rory was pretty tired from the graveyard shifts, and so he found a nice comfy (?) spot to take a nice little snooze while Ethan played with the little toys, and markers.

Here are the toys....

Here's from the markers.....

Notice anything at all in this pic? It's a little hard to tell, but if you look really close next to the wall......
Rory's comfy spot.......

The next day, I was among all of the crazies that got up before 5 am to try to hit the stores for the christmas deals. I love Christmas and buying for my family, and I LOVE BLACK FRIDAY!! I got some pretty good deals, but surprised myself when I got home and noticed the gifts I bought were all for ETHAN! Yikes! So needless to say, I still have a bunch of shopping left to do. :) (did I mention that I love shopping too?)

Ethans New Pet

Over the last couple of days, we have found a couple of crickets in our house. Each time I have got a cup and put the cricket in it and taken it out to the garage to dump him out. Well, I don't know if it's just the same cricket coming in desperate to get out of the cold or what, but the last time I saw it, I decided not to get the cup. Everytime Ethan see's it, he squeels and gets so excited. He'll get down on his stomach and talk to him, then try to feed him cereal or something. It is so funny, and really cute. Here's a couple pictures. The cricket is kind of hard to see, but he's up next to the wall, and ethan is telling him stories.

The beginning of winter

So a couple days ago it snowed, enough to have a nice white blanket on the ground. Ethan was so cute when he went outside. Last winter, he had no interest in the snow whatsoever, but this year has been different. He begged for me to let him go outside to play in the snow. Here's a couple of pictures I took. (taken from the comfort of my warm living room)

So while Ethan was out playing, Rory was working on his project. It has not been a cheap project either. He is trying to restore his dad's 1970 (?) Chevy pickup. He was pretty excited to FINALLY get it running after a few months, and a couple thousand dollars later. I have to say that the best looking part of the truck so far is under the hood. I will have to get some pictures of it to put up. It looks pretty good, and I know NOTHING about mechanics, etc. Notice in the pictures below, there is no seat, and one thing you can't see is that the floor is rusted out, so there's a nice hole in the floor... it still has a long way to go.

Man how the time FLIES!

So I was thinking today, 'it has been a long time since I've added a blog.' When I came and looked, I can't believe the last pictures on here were from August! This have been pretty crazy and any extra time I've had, I've spent with the family or slept. The house has been a disaster, the laundry and sink has been overflowing, and meals have consisted of very processed foods. (aka ramen noodles, mac n cheese, etc.) But finally work has slowed way down and my hours have been cut from 45-50 hours a week to roughly 25-30 hours a week. All the while Rory has been working about 50 hour weeks as well. Poor Ethan has been neglected by his parents, and I plan on making it up to him these next couple months while work is slow. So there hasn't been a whole lot that we've done, but I'll post up some pics from yesterday. We went to Green Bluff, WA which is a group of small farms that have activities for families. We didn't do much there except walk around. It wasn't even close to what we expected..... After wards, we went to Kohls and did some shopping, which was a little more up my alley. Ethan thought he'd try on some hats. I can't believe he's getting so big.

Ocean Shores and Seattle

The last few days of our trip was spent over in Seattle. We took Ethan to the ocean, zoo, and aquarium. He really loved playing at the ocean. It was a pretty nice day until we were about ready to go then it got all clouded up.We bought a kite and was flying it around but Ethan wasn't too excited about it. Ethan was happy to just run around and splash in some of the water. He would run up and down as the waves would come in, then towards the end, totally tripped over his own feet and feel face first into the sand and water. After that, he wanted out of there.








These next couple pics are from the zoo and aquarium. I would say Ethan like the aquarium better than the zoo, but seeing the animals was kind of difficult. They don't really have it set up for smaller kids, and so you can barely see over the railings.


Watching the elephants at the zoo.


Checking out all the cool fish



In this tank, there was an octopus Ethan was watching. I think he wanted it to come out from under the rock, but it wasn't going to. On Monday, we were able to meet up with Raven and her kids before we headed out. Raven had just gotten back from Southern Idaho on Sunday night from her dad's funeral, so I was really excited to see her. It had been almost 4 years! Way to long to go without seeing such a good friend!





These last couple pictures were taken on the way home. I was trying to entertain myself.



I really love this man!

Olympic National Forest 8/15/09

So this last weekend was our 6 year anniversary, and Rory and I decided to head over to western washington to get away and relax a bit. Things were getting stressful at home, and we hadn't really been able to spend much time with each other, so we both took a couple days off work and headed to Seattle on Friday. Most of Friday, our actual anniversary was spent on the road, and we got into Quinault River Inn at about 9:30pm. It's on the tip of the Olympic National Forest, and we were going to go hiking along some of the trails up there. The pictures and information we had gotten said it was like a rainforest, so we were anxious to see it all. So here's just a few pictures from our first day, which we hiked about 5 miles total.

Thumbs up mom!





I love this pic. I think it's my favorite!


What a strong man!






What a good looking couple!



Daddy and Ethan standing next to the worlds largest Sitka Spruce Tree.



Look at me! I'm a tree hugger!

Fourth of July Trip

So on the fourth of July weekend, Rory was wanting to take a trip to southern Idaho to pick up his latest project, a 1971 Chevy. (I think.....) We left late Thursday and got into Declo around 5am. It was a long and exhausting ride. So these first couple pictures were taken the day we got there. This is the picture of Rory's 'new' truck project. I think he was feeling a bit overwhelmed by the work he has to do on it. And of course, a picture of Ethan being a cheese ball. lol



The next couple pictures are just some pics while we were hanging around. Pics with the family, etc.



Grandpa is wondering if he really is related to this nut sitting next to him.


These last pictures was taken the night of the 4th. We had own firework show, and luckily, no one blew any limbs off or anything like that. Rory was doing a little dance with the sparklers, trying to make them more interesting. Ethan really didn't want anything to do with them, and was trying to get them as far away from him as possible.





After all the fun was over, we were having some more fun with the camera. I just love my boys!!!