Preschool Dress-up Thursdays: Crazy Hair or Hat

Dress-up Thursday a couple weeks ago was Crazy Hair or Hat and when I told Ethan that the about it, it only took him about 1/2 a second to inform me that he would be doing "crazy hat", NOT "crazy hair."

Why does this not surprise me?! This boy already has his signature look and it is not be messed with. No spikes, no faux-hawks, no hair product. Just straight and "like Ethan."

So, crazy hair was out of the question. He chose his Mickey Mouse ears that "don't light up" and, naturally, we had to pair it with his Mickey Mouse shirt!
Oh, and he is absolutely LOVING Preschool!
On this particular day they made snowglobes. Super cool. And this weekend he had "Molly", one of the class stuffed animal pets. Molly goes with him everywhere and is currently sleeping in his bed with him. :)

September Recap

THIS is the problem with getting behind on blog posts... you end up trying to rack your brain about things that happened in September, late at night on the last day of November. Tomorrow is DECEMBER!! That means I have three recap posts to be working on!

* Date-night-movie-of-the-month:

I did a brief review of the book and the movie here. Basically: loved the book, loved the movie. Which means: Go read the book, see the movie.

* Group-date-night-movie-of-the-month: This was a defining movie for me with our circle of friends. This was the movie that made me realize I side more with the husbands in our group over which movie to see than I do the wives. They were all bored. I loved it! Even if the battle scene was a bit long. I am not afraid to admit I am a woman and I LOVE action/adventure movies!!! Thank you, Mom, for making me a lover of movie genres other than just romantic comedy!

* I made jam. Cooked jam. For the first time in my life. My very first experience with canning of any kind (by myself). I was so pleased when all my jars sealed and the jam is tasty!

* Baptism: Our friends' only boy (Ethan) got baptized! He is an awesome little boy and it was great to be a part of his special day.

Here he is with his parents (his mom is also a Jenn).

And here he is with all the men that were there to support him that day. Blurry picture, I know, but it was cool to see him with family, Bishop, teachers, etc.

After the baptism, the family hosted a huge BBQ potluck lunch and since it was early in September and still warm, all the kids went swimming.{Ugh, these pictures from the warm summer are killing me!! It's freezing up here!}

* Random, cool train track Ethan's baby-sitter made while she was here:
By far, the coolest, most creative track anyone has ever built. I was quite impressed!

* Sunday evening Pot Roast dinner: When Ethan is a hunger-driven teenager eating us out of house and home, he will better appreciate this meal and then be sad he missed it! Totally thrown together at the last minute, this meal was a team effort between Sean and I. He cut veggies and got the roast in the crock pot in the morning. I made dough for rolls in the morning. I made gravy, cooked the rolls and Sean made mashed potatoes when we got home from church. Soooo good!
* Labor Day weekend: Had some friends over for dinner/fire pit on Sunday night. Eventually, the guys (minus Sean) ended up around the firepit while the ladies had an impromptu karaoke night, courteous of Sean playing requests. I'll spare you the video.

Meanwhile, Maddy kept herself busy with a little manicure.
* Took advantage of the last days of summer:After 3 summers in those swim trunks (size 18-24 months) I finally bought him some new ones at the Freddies clearance sale! I think I got 3 pairs in sizes he can grow into for maybe $14. Something crazy-cheap like that.

* Last trip to Klineline. Mixed emotions. Fun to go one last time, but sad to think it will be another 10 months before it is warm enough to go again!
Gotta love the three-man totem pole!

* And finally, a random Ethan picture: It just wouldn't be a monthly recap without a picture of Ethan sleeping! On this night, he had decided not to sleep in his bed and instead laid out his mini couch on floor and slept on that. With his pillow pet on his head. Nice.

Thanksgiving Weekend 2011

I did an awesome job of photographing our Thanksgiving weekend.... NOT! And it didn't even really dawn on me until just now, as I was looking at pictures and starting this post. And every year I vow to do better about taking pictures of family, etc. at Thanksgiving and it never happens! So here is a little written rundown of our weekend in Oregon.

Wednesday evening: Filled the gas guzzler up, grabbed a couple burgers for the road and headed out of town. Lots of traffic, but it was moving fairly fast. No problem... Until we got just outside of Albany. Total standstill. Ugh. Apparently there was a huge pothole in the road and they were fixing it right then and the freeway was down to just one lane. Yay. Drive took us 3 hours instead of 2.

Thursday: HAPPY THANKSGIVING!! My dad ran in the Turkey Stuffer while the rest of us "slept in". Ethan was up by 7am (a bit early for him) so I was also up nice and early. No worries. We had rented Cars 2 at Redbox and it was an instant hit. So Ethan watched that for a while and then we all watched a bit of the Macy's parade - and I was lucky enough to sneak in a little power nap. We had such a small group at dinner this year. Three groups of three. My mom, dad and Lizzy. Sean, Ethan and I. And my uncle Gale, aunt Sue and cousin Heather. Dinner was delicious. Turkey, funeral potatoes (or Pat's potatoes in my family), broccoli casserole (love!), green salad, mashed potatoes (made by Sean), homemade rolls (made by me, using grandma Sandy's yummy recipe!), carrots and pumpkin pie (made by Sean) for dessert. If I would have thought about it soon enough, I would have loved to have made a jello salad - I've been wanting to try that rainbow one or the stained glass blocks one from Our Best Bites. Oh well, next year. We had more than enough food.

This actually did not happen on Thanksgiving... We're a little more behaved around company!
PS: That's my mom doing the spray can whipped cream decorating on Lizzy's face!

We played our annual post-dinner Bingo game and Ethan was our caller - with a little help from Lizzy. I've got to say, he did pretty good! Just some confusion here and there when he would call out "N 34" when it was really "N 43". There were a couple of false alarm BINGO's. "BINGO! Just kidding..." It sure kept us on our toes, though! And made the game a little more interesting.

Thursday Night: Lizzy and I headed out for Black Friday shopping at about 9:40pm because Toys-R-Us had opened its doors at 9pm. I had a couple things I wanted to get for Ethan so I could get them crossed off my list. I did NOT like the idea of starting Black Friday on Thanksgiving but I was hoping to get Ethan a Leapster 2 for 1/2 off. We got there and had to wait in line, in the rain, for a good 20+ minutes just to get in!! Then the Leapsters were sold out. Grrr... So we waited in a huge line to get a couple other things. Misery! I don't know if I'll do that again. Black Friday, early morning shopping is ok - huge, ridiculously long lines is NOT! We finally got out of there at midnight and then headed to Walmart because my Mom and Lizzy's friend had attempted Target but there was a crazy-long line to get in there too.

Friday EARLY Morning: You can read this post to hear how our trip to Walmart went. In the end, I just got a couple DVDs - nothing exciting. Next we met up with my Mom and Allison (Lizzy's friend) at the mall for "Midnight Madness". Madness was 100% accurate. It was so busy!! And I didn't even have anything I was getting there. I just went because that's where the rest of my group wanted to be. It was quite weird to see the food court in full swing and people eating Panda Express, Arby's, etc. at two o'clock in the morning. Are you people crazy?! Of course, I had a little breakfast sandwich myself at about 3:15am because staying up that late does weird things to my body and makes me hungry at odd hours. Finally we left the mall and went to Target. Heaven! No crowds. No lines. Got EVERYTHING I wanted. Sweet! Then we went to Freddies for the 1/2 price sock sale. Cracks me up that people get up before 5am for that sale! Ha ha!! I got Ethan a couple more Transformer cars to add to his collection because they were on sale and are getting harder and harder to find! Our last stop of the day was Bed, Bath & Beyond for my Mom, Lizzy and Allison and Old Navy for me. Half-price pair of jeans for Sean and I was done. Home by sometime after 7am and crashed until a little after 1pm.

"Mistletoe Not Required"
This shirt on my baby sister scares me...

"An Elf's Four Main Food Groups
Syrup, Candy Canes, Candy Corn, Candy"
Gross!!

Friday Afternoon/Evening: Woke up to the sound of Tory and Sean talking in the living room. Hung out for a while and had a pretty low-key rest of the day including eating yummy left-overs and a couple little cat-naps. :) Sean managed to drag me and Lizzy (see pictures above) to Walmart one more time to get some snacks for Saturday's Duck game and check out a gift for Ethan - which we ended up getting. Shh... It's a surprise!

Saturday: Oregon/Oregon St. Civil War football game!!! My Dad had to work, Lizzy was given a free ticket and my Mom worked concessions with my Aunt (fundraiser for the high school my Aunt works at). This left Sean, Ethan and I with the house to ourselves! Ethan had come down with a cold (cough and runny nose), so it was good that he stayed home to rest. We watched the Ducks win {49 to 21!!}and had another fairly low-key day. In the evening, Sean took Ethan to the 3D showing of the Lion King at the cheap theaters and Lizzy and I saw Cowboys and Aliens. Ethan loved Lion King and told me that he "tried not to cry when Mufasa died". Cowboys and Aliens was interesting... Worth seeing once - especially if you are a Harrison Ford and/or Daniel Craig fan.

Sunday: Went to 5th ward sacrament meeting to listen to Tory give his homecoming talk (very well done!) and then back to my parents' house for lunch, Muppet Christmas Carol movie and naps. Packed up our stuff and headed for home.

A couple of the only Fall leave pictures I have managed to catch this year... And these were actually quite dull and gray, but I'm planning a little Picasa tutorial to show how I brightened them up and made the colors pop a little.

PS: You know I did not take many pictures of an even when I have ZERO pictures of Ethan from the weekend!! Funny, but so sad...

Z.C.C. spells "ZOO"

Well, it does in Ethan's eyes when you're using Scrabble Cheez-It crackers and can't find an "O".
But, obviously, what impressed me the most was that our little dude spelled "ZOO"!! I wasn't even in the room, but he called to me while I was in the kitchen making dinner {yes, I was letting him snack before dinner - no, you should not judge me!} and said he'd spelled "Zookeeper" {which we had just rented and watched not too many days before} and then he yelled, "well, actually it's just 'zoo'!" So I came to have a look and, sure enough, he'd spelled "zoo". Then he made sure to point out that he couldn't find any O's, so he'd used C's instead. Pretty brilliant substitution considering the situation!
That same week, when I was putting away Halloween decorations and rearranging harvest decorations, Ethan saw one of our everyday decorations that says "Establish a House of God..." among other things, but "God" is the biggest word on it. So he picked it up and asked me what it said and then proceeded to sound out the word God on his own. It took a few tries. He recognized the word "Go" right away in the beginning of the word, so that was throwing him off. He was wanting to read it "Go-awd" so I reminded him a few times to sound each letter out and then he got it! All on his own. I was so impressed!

He's been reading other three letter words here and there, so long as they are phonetic. It's exciting and scary at the same time!! Hard to believe my little baby boy is growing up.

My life flashed before my eyes.....

Ok, it was the entire contents of my purse. Or what I could remember was in there. Because for the brief-but-seemed-like-an-eternity 4.2 minutes it was missing during the Black Friday madness at Walmart, I was 99.7% convinced that my purse had been stolen.

This was the evidence:
1. I knew I had walked in with it - why wouldn't I??
2. I knew I had felt the weight of it on my shoulder because, obviously, I knew I had walked in with it. Refer to evidence #1.
3. I still had the Walmart ad in my hand - another thing I knew I had walked in with.

I had 1 lousy DVD to buy and Lizzy and I were debating as to whether or not the registers in the electronics section were really open when it clicked. I. Had. NO. Purse. On. My. Shoulder. Ummm...... What the heck?!?! THIS can not be. I am so screwed. EVERYTHING IS IN THAT PURSE!!!!! Well, everything but my phone and keys. Phew. At least I'd get to keep that. Great. My crappy, old phone and keys to my ride. But EVERYTHING ELSE was in that purse. Credit cards {not that they'd get very far with those} checkbook {again, couldn't really do much damage there}, our brand-new camera w/ a new 8GB memory card, several lip glosses {do not mock - they were Clinique and about $12 a pop!}, Ethan's Transformer cars, cash and who knows what other crap... I mean, incredibly valuable goods.

I tried to remain calm. Tried to think rationally. I retraced my steps to the toy department and back by the DVDs and finally started toward the front door. Meanwhile, Lizzy was running to keep up with me and asking me what she could do. Finally I told her to tell the lady at the entrance that I may have had my purse stolen and to watch the door. Not that it would do any good. I mean, really, it was Black Friday - there were TONS of people in that stupid store and the thief was probably long gone.

But I had to check my car.... just in case. I was doubtful - I mean, look at the evidence I provided. But I checked just to be certain my Thanksgiving weekend had, in fact, been ruined and would be spent on the phone with credit card companies, the bank, etc, etc. I got to the car and was hyper-ventilating. I threw open the back door and saw nothing. My worst fears were confirmed.

But wait...

What was that black thing that I could not see because it was dark and hiding under other sales ads???

My purse!!!!

Oh my gosh. I'm pretty sure the heavens parted and angels sang.

Granted, it took me another 15-2o minutes to calm down and stop talking about it. But still! There it was. Safe in my car and now back on my shoulder, where it belonged. Huge, huge, HUGE sigh of relief. Life may now resume as normal. Walmart shoppers, you may continue your Black Friday scurrying.

"Never mind..."
{Threw that last line in for you, Dad!}

Surprise Oregon Visit - October 2011

Mwah ha ha ha!!! Ethan and I (and Christine, she was in on it, too) were sneaky, sneaky this year. {insert devilish grin and maybe a single eyebrow raise - which I can't actually do, but whatever} We drove down to Oregon to surprise my parents for their birthday!! They.had.no.idea! It was great. As usual, I planned on leaving mid-morning but it ended up being closer to 1pm, which meant we didn't roll into town until about 3pm. And by then my mom was at my grandma's house and Dad and Lizzy were still at work and school, then volleyball practice - respectively. So we scrapped our original idea of showing up at my parents' house with balloons covering the peephole and decided instead to still do balloons, but also decorate the dining room!
We got to my parents house and then I quickly unloaded the car and then stashed it a couple blocks down the street (opposite of the way they would be coming home). Ethan kept himself busy (and out of my way) playing in living room and I hung a banner, streamers, ribbon things, etc. I was terrified that any second I would here the garage door start to open, meaning my mom was home. But really, I had nothing to worry about. We waited... and waited.... and waited... and waited some more. Finally, worried that maybe they were all going out to dinner straight from work, etc. I called my mom to "wish her a happy birthday" and get a feel for where they might be. This was really hard to do because Ethan was in on the surprise and I was afraid he would spill the beans over the phone! He actually sorta did, but it was not caught. Phew!! Finally, I learned that my mom was picking up Lizzy from practice and would be home shortly (I knew this because my mom had passed the phone off to Lizzy so she could drive legally). But, oh crap!! This meant they were coming from a different end of town and would drive right past our "hidden" parked car!! Yikes!! But I had no time to try and hide it again, so I crossed my fingers that they would be oblivious to the WA license plate and identifying stickers/license plate cover on the back that they would drive RIGHT BY!! Lucky for us, they didn't even notice it. Ha ha!! Lizzy walked in the house first and was slightly confused by the decorations. I think she was thinking, "you decorated for your own birthday... uh, Mom? That's a little weird." But then my mom walked in and was equally confused and then finally Ethan and I jumped out and surprised them!! Ha ha! It was awesome. :)
That night we had Papa's Pizza and ice cream cake. Well, my Mom and Lizzy ate the ice cream cake. I am not a fan. They are obsessed.
The next day (scary!) my Grandma Mary (mom's mom) called up saying she thought she may have had a small stroke. Uh, say what?! So my parents took her to the hospital and Ethan and I hung out at my parents' house. Not our original plan, but Grandma Mary was the primary concern. Grandma Sandy (dad's mom) dropped by so we got to chat with her a little and then that evening, once it was determined that Grandma Mary had, indeed, had a small stroke and would be staying (at least) overnight in the hospital, we went to go visit her. It was good to see her, but I missed being able to hang out with her at Kay's house (she moved in with my Aunt after Grandpa died earlier this year).

Next day Ethan and I went to my old high school and saw a couple of my old teachers and then took Lizzy out to lunch. We also made a quick stop to visit my friend Danae and her family and then were back at my parents house. My mom helped me make a tunic for Ethan's knight costume - I cut, she sewed. It worked well. We didn't leave until late, but were able to finish the tunic and get a quick visit in with Grandpa Chuck and Grandma Sandy - they stopped by again since Grandpa had been out of town the day before.

And that was it! Short and sweet and a fun surprise!

Preschool Dress-up Thursdays: Costumes

Thursdays are dress-up days at Ethan's preschool. From what we have on hand, Ethan could pick from pilot (last year's costume), knight (this year's costume) or pirate (just have the stuff on hand). He chose pirate. So Thursday morning I got him ready. We decided he would wear his black church pants, long-sleeve gray shirt and then this pirate vest I found on clearance at Target for 50 cents! Oh, and his Captain Hook pirate hat. It had to still be functional since they would be doing art stuff (i.e. possibly painting), outside, etc. He looked great!

[He's making a 'hook' with his finger.]

Took a couple pictures and then Ethan informed me he didn't want to dress up anymore.

Uhhh... what?!
Are you sure?
He decided he wanted to be a pilot.

The pilot "costume" consists of a bomber jacket my uncle gave him, a dog tag necklace that was an Army freebie at some outdoor event we were at years ago (Em's baseball game, maybe?) and some Aviator sunglasses. Well I couldn't find any of the "accessories" and I knew he wouldn't wear the bomber jacket all day so I put my foot down and told him we had to scratch that idea! I know, super nice mommy. But at that point, time was an issue and luckily Ethan didn't argue.

Phew!


Got to school and his teacher loved his costume.

"What a great pirate costume!" she said.

"Captain Hook." Ethan corrected her.

Day 2 of Preschool was a success. With macaroni necklaces to boot.

Pumpkin Patch 2011

Opportunity to go to the pumpkin patch was extremely limited this year. As in, I think we had ONE sorta-free Saturday! I don't remember what we had going on the 8th but I remember we were busy. Then the 15th was Super Saturday. The 22nd Sean was gone all day with the youth for an EFY thing in Portland and by the 29th it was too late. So we went late in the afternoon on the 15th and I'm glad we got too!

Last year we went to Bi-Zi Farms, which is super close to our house, and had lots of fun. But it's also $8/person to get in (though this includes a free pumpkin, hay ride, etc.) so we skipped it this year due to lack of time to enjoy it. Instead, we went to Joe's Farms which is just up the road a few miles. Free to get in, $1 hay rides and we were still able to get 5 pumpkins for less than the cost to get into Bi-Zi Farms, so we were happy with that. Besides, my 1st reason for going to the pumpkin patch is to get pumpkins/keep tradition/make memories, but a close 2nd reason is for PICTURES!!! Initially, Ethan gave me one shot. He wanted to go play on the hay bales and I said I wanted a picture first, so he sat on a pumpkin, flashed me a grin for about .25 seconds and was off! This was the result:

Not bad!!

But, of course, I couldn't leave it just at that. Ethan ran off to play with the kids on the hay bales and I got a couple pictures there (and a short video).

And here's what I got during the rest of our hunting for the perfect pumpkin...


And here's a funny little story from when we went to pay for our pumpkins inside the little store... Ethan immediately went for a shopping basket. Not the top one, mind you, like most people would do. Not the second one down, either. Nope, he kept handing me the "reject" baskets until he found just the right one. RED. It IS his favorite color after all! And then he carried that basket all around, even though we didn't put anything in it!


Oh, and check out these monster cabbages they had!! You don't see cabbage in the grocery store that size, that's for sure.

First Day of PreSchool

I know what y'all are thinking... Where's the Halloween post?!?! And the pumpkin patch post?! Well don't get your panties in a knot. Those are coming. Slowly. But I couldn't pass up writing about Ethan's first day of Preschool today!!

Thumbs up for first day of Preschool!

He was so excited and I was so happy to see that he was excited. The Preschool is at one of the local high schools, 2 days a week for just over 3 hours. It is partially run by the students so they can get some work experience, but this also makes the cost a lot lower. Only $35 for this session, which will go until Christmas break - so 11 actual classes. This is exactly what I was looking for in a Preschool because I was kind of hesitant in sending him to one. Preschool seems to be one of the child-raising trends that comes and goes. I don't remember a lot of kids going to Preschool when I was younger, but now it seems pretty common. So, I wanted Ethan to get a Preschool experience a couple days a week, but I was not willing to pay a small fortune for him to go. I think this will work well for us. :) They even feed the kids a light lunch and another snack. Perfect! And, the icing on the cake, Ethan has FOUR friends from church in the class. Yay!

This morning he knew exactly what we were doing: eat breakfast, get dressed, brush teeth and go. to. School!! He was a little concerned, though, that he didn't have a backpack! There were no tears at drop-off or pick-up and I think he had a great time. He told me the lunch/snacks were a sandwich, carrots, raisins and apple with caramel and that he ate it. I looked online and found the menu and it said a turkey/cheese sandwich so I really curious to know if he ate that! It took him a while to even warm up to PB&J.

Dang! He is a good-looking kid!
{Though the lighting is not the greatest in this picture... We were in a hurry to get out the door so we'd be there early.}

I have to admit, though, while there were no tears on my part at drop-off, I didn't get a little sad filling out his admission form and realizing we have no family close enough to be back-up for pick-up and/or emergency call. In the almost 2 years we have lived up here, I have never felt so far from any family than I did just filling out that dang little form!

And what is Ethan doing right now?? Out cold, sleeping in the recliner!

Oregon Coast 2011: Day 3

Day 3 of our little trip to the Coast started off with....
a breakfast of mini muffins!! Ethan loved these (part of the free breakfast). Me, not so much. I had some of my leftovers from the Newport Cafe.

Anyway, we loaded up the car, checked out of our hotel and headed to Nye Beach! I don't think we'd seen the ocean in almost 2 years! Isn't that sad?? We are so close to the Coast, but don't go nearly as often as we should. Pretty sure our last trip was Labor Day weekend 2009 w/ Tory {who gets home from his mission in less than 2 weeks! Ahhh!! We can hardly wait!!} It was a little overcast, but still so nice to spend the morning at the beach. Ethan played in the sand and the waves, Sean played in the sand with Ethan and I dipped my toes in the chilly Pacific and took pictures. We were all happy as clams {had to throw that in there for the beach reference!}

I so wish I hadn't missed part of this action shot!

Love this picture of Ethan!

I guess I played in the sand a little, too!

Fisherman's knot bracelet I got at the Aquarium (which I don't think I included in what we got from the gift shop). I loved the beachy colors.

I thought these footprints were a little odd - looked like men's dress shoes. Yeah, I tried following them and had to leap from footprint to footprint. Whoever it was was tall and had a looong stride!

Beach toes!

Oh my heavens, he is a cutie!

Family pic #1 - beach view

Family pic #2 - ocean view

And Sean's such a good dad, he let Ethan destroy their sandcastle/village thing! :)

After the beach we headed on up North to Tillamook for a little Cheese Factory tour. Not much to it, but still fun to do. We watched them cut and package the cheese (no actual cheese-making was going on at the time), sampled some cheese, bought some cheese and then had ice cream!

The smoked black pepper white cheddar cheese is super good, just so you know.

And then we headed for home. No major traffic until about Beaverton and then a major slowdown. Ugh. That part of the trip was not fun. The rest was pretty dang good, though!