Halloween 2010

The pumpkin from our garden finally turned orange and we spent yesterday afternoon carving up our creations.  Ethan said that the garden pumpkin was a Spider pumpkin he was making for Grammie.

 

Then last night I went to Amy's Halloween party while Jeff and Ethan stayed home and rested, Ethan hasn't been feeling good the last couple of days.

Buzz Lightyear to the rescue was so excited for this day to come...

 We went to Lloyd Center Mall again this year for some trick-or-treating and then a couple of houses on our block.  He had a good time and didn't want to take his costume off.

Check ups

Today I had my 6 week postop from foot surgery.  I am almost walking normal, just a slight limp is still noticeable, and I still have some numbness in my pinkie toe and side of my foot but my doctor said that my incision has healed very nicely and that the numbness will go away in the next few months. 

I also had a 2-week blood check with the Coumadin Clinic again today.  It has been a month since I started, and my number was 2.3, which was perfect.  I now just have to go once a month with only 5 months left until hopefully I can be off the Coumadin for good and life can resume to normal.

Apes & Monkeys

Ethan and I went to the zoo this morning for the Apes and Monkeys class.  We learned that Monkeys have tails and Apes do not have tails....interesting fact.  We were able to walk through all the monkey exhibits and learn about all the different types of monkeys, then had snacks and story time and then painted a monkey, banana and tree for an activity.  It was a rainy day today so we didn't get any pictures of the monkeys but we were able to get a rainy picture of one of the tigers along the way.

 

Pre-Penguin

Ethan started his swim lesson this morning...YAY, Mommy doesn't have to go with him in the water for lessons any more.  Peyton is also in the same class.  Nicole, Brandon and I had a few laughs while watching the boys and they both actually did pretty well for their first time by themselves.

They were making a pizza in the water, Ethan's topping was chocolate.

Practicing his kicks.

Blowing water bubbles.

Motor boat.

Back float.

He had a fun time and is excited to go back again next week.  

We have lessons every Saturday morning until the middle of December.

Birthday fun....for me!!

Today is my 34th birthday.  Jeff had to be out of town on business...this is becoming a pattern, last year it was our anniversary...so Ethan and I decided to have a whole day of partying.

We first headed to Piece of Cake to pick out dessert.  I really don't need to make or eat a whole cake so I picked out cupcakes...they look so good.

Dreamsicle (Ethan's choice), Carrot Cake, Chantilly, 

Black Forest, Double Fudge and another Chantilly.

We then headed to Old Spaghetti Factory for lunch.

And then went to see Secretariat with my free birthday movie pass, but the $6 small Crackcorn for Ethan...oh my golly what a joke, it cost that much to get him into the movie.

One of my favorite places to go is the zoo and I had signed E and I up for the Monkeys, Apes and Me class at the zoo for this morning.  Unfortunately, we were the only ones who had signed up for today's class so they canceled it and moved us to a different monkey class for this Sunday morning instead.   

Now it is close to E's bedtime, and I am looking forward to a 

quiet night all to myself and to catch up on DVR.

Pumpkin Patch

We took advantage of one of the last sunny dry days and headed off as a family to Lee's Pumpkin Patch today.  It was in the 70's today and this weekend and next week will be heading to the 50's and rain.   Ethan likes the attractions just as much as getting a pumpkin...and they also have the best warm, hot apple cider cake donuts as well.

Robots and remodels

On Sunday I was able to celebrate my birthday, it is not until this Friday but we celebrated early, and have some much needed girl time with my two best girlfriends, Amy and Nicole.  We had a great time eating and chatting at California Pizza Kitchen and then saw Life As We Know It (a cute chick flick).  Ethan and Daddy had a great time while I was gone and I returned home to a family of robots made of Tinker Toys, which Ethan was very proud of...and he told me that Mommy was the tallest one.

This past week (Thursday and Friday), Jeff's company had a lab inspection, which they did awesome on, and so he decided to take this week off to relax...HAHA.  He actually decided that we needed to do some remodels/repairs around the house.  Monday morning we decided to jump in head first to see what was causing the upstairs bathroom floor to have a soft spot...here is what we found.

Pre-tear apart, with extremely hard to clean flooring.

Post-tear apart with a nice sized hole right in the center of the bathroom.  

Today (Tuesday) we replaced the broken front window.  

Lots of work but glad to at least have it installed and it looks great!

   The old window was 9'2" x 5'2".  The bottom middle pane was broken by Charlie. 

The thumbs up always makes me laugh.

Our time capsule for our hard work...our house will probably fall down before the window does so no one will probably ever see it, but if they do they will know we were here.

And Ben helped Jeff frame up the new window and nail it in place.

The new window is 8' x 4 ' with openings on both sides.

The dogs were so glad to be let out of the kitchen and had to check out the new scenery.  

Tomorrow (Wednesday) we will be finishing up both projects as much as possible with final pictures to come soon.

Puppies...

Well aren't they cute....when they are sleeping.  

Charlie has turned out to be no different than the other 3 in their puppy stages, however, he is really giving us a run, literally, for everything.  Now, yes, all 4 have definitely done their share of damage...Peaches and Shadow were puppies together and daily Jeff and I would return home from work/school to find destruction to clean up, including the stuffing from two, yes I said two, couches.  Thankfully they were from DI (Goodwill) so we weren't out much.  When we lived in Ogden we were renting a townhouse and came home to find a hole, the size of a small salad plate, in the middle of the carpet that they apparently decided to eat as a snack...really !?! you couldn't have eaten it in the corner where we could at least cover it up for a while.  Then we moved to Oregon, and destruction still happened, including the hot cocoa incident, where I had made a package for our families stockings stuffers, left my office door open while at work thinking they were out of their reach, and came home to find close to 20 packets of hot cocoa opened, scattered and licked into light beige carpet.  I laugh at that now but at the time it was so not funny.  They eventually outgrew the puppy stage and we didn't worry too much, until we sadly had to say goodbye to Peaches.  Shadow was a lonely dog for a while, and eventually decided he needed a playmate, aka Copper.   We got Copper when I was pregnant with Ethan and really out of all the dogs Copper was by far the least destructive.  As Shadow was getting older and had his hip problem he was unable to get around as well so he wasn't able to show Copper all the fun thing he could have destroyed and other than coming home to an irreparable tear in the armrest of the love seat and stuffing all over the living room as well as him getting sick with diarrhea on the since replaced carpet, he wasn't a bad puppy.  Copper was also enthralled with the little thing that was making funny noises and moving all over so he wasn't concerned with much else...and I was also always home.  Then came Charlie...cute, yet tests me daily, Charlie.  He is one fast dog.  Ethan is learning that he has to keep his bedroom door shut all the time so that Charlie doesn't take off with one of his toys or stuffed animals, and sadly he has lost quite a few toys because of this.  Some of Charlie's favorites have been, or still may be, shoes, the soaker hose for the garden, any food from the kitchen counter or table including cooking food in a skillet on the burner, a knife, dirty clothes, and two small dinosaurs, which both he of course had to throw up on the carpet at 3 am on different days...but we love him anyway and hope that the puppy stage will soon be over.

Along with his taking off with things, let us not forget the broken front window.  We are replacing the window this Tuesday and so we had to take the trailer to Lowe's today to pick it up.  Since we didn't want to drive my car on our newly placed lawn to get the trailer, Jeff jimmyrigged us a trailer hitch of sorts to use the 4wheeler.  He makes me laugh...

 

and if the 4wheeler is running we know where Ethan will be.  Love his thumbs up!

Crackcorn...

Earlier today I was blog stalking one of my new favorite blogs, Single Dad Laughing, and his topic today was about the funny words that kids says.  Ethan has many words that make Jeff and I laugh, one of which is Crackcorn for popcorn.  Daddy and Ethan both really love their Crackcorn.  We are probably supposed to correct him but some of his word are so cute that we usually say them along with him.  I need to write them all down so that I remember them as he gets older and I am also going to record his voice and his laugh, which always makes everyone laugh, so that I can remember what he sounds like for when he hits puberty and loses such cuteness.  Here is a start to the list, I will update it as I remember them:

Crackcorn for Popcorn
Eatmo for Oatmeal
Oascream for Ice Cream
Tar Tar for Train
Sauce for Soda
Dip for Ketchup and Mustard...This boy loves Mustard.
Rhinarus for Rhinoceros...and they say rrrraaaaarrrrrr.
M for M&M's...the kid is addicted and will probably always call them M's, which they are my favorite also (Peanut M's) so I know where he gets that from.
Case for DVD or CD.
Gigphones for headphones.
Darkin for dark...he says "it's not darkin anymore Mama" when he gets up in the morning.
Rhinototops for Triceratops.

Ethan also is an extremely friendly boy and when playing with other kids, whether he knows their name or not he calls them his kids.  "Gotta go play with my kids, Mom".  He also frequently yells over the fence to our neighbors, "kids, kids, where are you kids?"


Another funny that he does that makes us laugh is his bedtime routine.  I don't remember when he started doing it, but each night as we would put Ethan to bed we both have had to do his little routine.  It first started as a kiss, a hug, double fives, and double knuckles.  At some point along the way he added a zerbert, so it then became a kiss, a zerbert on the cheek, a hug, double fives and a zerbert on each hand, double knuckles and then a zerbert on each knuckle...this really grosses Daddy out. It has now evolved into Ethan picking an animal, that both he and Daddy have to do (sound and action) from the living room to his bed, which is quite entertaining, and then we have to do the whole kisses, zerberts, fives and knuckles routine.  It is always a good laugh for the end of the day...and then Mommy is so excited for a quiet evening without him. 

Today we also ventured down to the park, we had to drive there today as it is a really long, painful walk for me right now, but we slowly made it there and Ethan always has great fun there....I love you hear him laugh!

Tired of seeing medical personnel this week...

Again, I am so very thankful that my blood clot was really low down in my leg and did not cause any major damage or death, however, I am glad this week of seeing multiple medical personnel with Ethan in tow is almost over.  Monday evening started with an ER visit, pharmacy on Tuesday to begin daily Warfarin (generic Coumadin) and Arixtra (5 shots in the belly the rest of the week of blood thinner), my PCP on Thursday to discuss the effects of Coumadin and then sitting in the lab for an hour waiting to have my first PT/INR drawn (Prothrombin Time/International Normalized Ratio - a blood test that evaluated the ability of blood to clot properly and monitor the effectiveness of blood thinners), Friday I was able to get the sutures out of my foot and I now get to start slowing walking in a regular shoe a few hours each day and should be out of the air cast by the end of next week, and today Ethan is getting his flu shot.

During all of these visits I have been so glad to have Ethan's My Busy Book that my MIL and SIL gave him.  It has been a complete lifesaver and everyone who has seen it has been enamored by it.  And he has been a really good boy while at all of these appointments.

My INR turned out to be 2, which is right where it needs to be for basic blood clotting so they adjusted my medication to only a half a pill each day.  I will begin seeing the Anti-Coagulation Clinic on Monday to monitor my PT/INR from now on and hopefully after the 6 months will no longer have this problem.  Unfortunately, I am now unable to have my other foot repaired until at least after the 6 months, will have to wear a medical alert bracelet and if I ever get a blood clot again I will have to be on Warfarin for the rest of my life.