"He's Such a Boy!"

I've always known that there are distinct differences between boys and girls, but seeing as I have only younger sisters, Ethan is the first boy I have lived with from day one. He is such a BOY!! Cars, trucks, "choo-choos" and balls are his favorite toys. And I'm already getting glimpses into what our grocery bill will look like once the teenage years hit. For a toddler, this kid eats a lot! Anyway... The other night, he proved that he was his father's son. As we were unlocking the front door to go into the house, Ethan noticed a daddy-long legs spider on the front porch. "Spider!" he said. First of all, I didn't even know he knew the word spider, so I was pretty impressed to hear another new word and see that he was able to identify it. Then, it true boy fashion, Ethan leaned down and picked the spider up!! That's right. My little boy is already picking up creepy-crawlies. Dang it! I'm not afraid of daddy-long leg spiders, but as a rule I hate spiders. Sean does most of the killing of them for me, though occasionally I have to pick up the slack when he's gone. I've also been known to trap them under a container in the bathroom and leave instructions on the door for Sean to dispose of it! Still, I could not believe that there was no hesitation on Ethan's part - he just bent over and picked up a spider like it was no big deal. Yikes!

Black Friday

Well, I did it. I braved the early hour and the big crowds to do some Black Friday Christmas shopping. Christine, Elisabeth and I decided that we didn't need to do the insanely early get in line at 4am thing - so we got up at a slightly more reasonable 6:30am and met up at Target by about 7am. I scored a dual-screen travel DVD player for 1/2 off for Sean and I - something we were hoping to get before our long drive down to Cali next month - along with a few DVDs to add to our collection. However, after some debate and research, Sean and I decided to take the DVD player back - it didn't quite have all of the features we were looking for. Christine had to get to work, so Elisabeth and I headed to Shopko where they had advertised a Fisher-Price car garage toy that I have wanted to get for Ethan. Toys'R'Us has it for $37, but Shopko had a $9.99 deal. Too bad it was sold out before we got there - darn it! Their regular price is only $19.99, so I think I'll have to check back sometime before Christmas. So after we were unsuccessful with any great deals at both Shopko and Toys'R'Us, Elisabeth and I headed back to our house to take naps, eat lunch and watch one of the new DVDs. After lots of lounging around, we bundled back up - including Ethan this time - and head over to Valley River while Sean went to get his hair cut. Elisabeth found an AWESOME deal. A pair of bermuda shorts and a cute top for under $5! I got a couple more Christmas presents bought and then we headed back home - very satisfied with our purchases.

Here are the Toftdahl girls displaying some 'highly fashionable' sunglasses we found at Forever 21. We are so totally stylin' - right?! ;)

Turkey Stuffer Tradition

Thursday morning we kept the annual Thanksgiving morning tradition alive and all of the Springfield Toftdahls and Southworths ran or walked in the 5k Turkey Stuffer. The course starts and ends at Lively Park Swim Center - just a couple miles from Sean and I's place. We signed up at almost the last minute - just the day before - and had decided we would all participate. So at 8:30am the start gun went off and we were on our way!

Ethan at the start of the race - finishing his breakfast. And yes, it was very cold!! Of course, the well-trained local runners finished the race before we finished the first mile! But it was nice that everyone participated - Ethan was nicely bundled up in his stroller and we walked the whole course. Along the way we saw several familiar faces, including:

- my kindergarten teacher - Mrs. Nowak

- (I think I saw) my 7th grade teacher - Mrs. Chapman

- my HS swim coach and Calculus teacher - Mrs. Barley

- friends from church - Sis. Boman, Sis. Batey

- my good friend, Heather pushing her little girl, Kaitlyn in her stroller - and Heather's mom, dad and sister

- my auntie Kay, but only at the finish line - she finished a ways ahead of us!

The group, minus my dad who was taking the picture.

After the race, we continued our tradition by having our annual post-race breakfast at good, ol' Mickey D's! I know, so healthy!!

Then it was back home to finish the Mississippi Mud brownies we were bringing for the Thanksgiving feast and get ready to go.

We had Thanksgiving dinner in Glide, OR (near Roseburg) at the high school! My uncle Gale (mom's older bro) and aunt Sue are both teachers there at the high school. Gale teaches music and Sue is a math teacher. Their three boys and their wives and kids were also there, along with their youngest, Heather. So we had 5 grandkids there (and one due any day!) Also my uncle Gary and his wife Linda. Lost track?!?

- Uncle Gale, Aunt Sue and Heather

- Nick & Christi + their girls, Reagan and Alice

- John & Stephanie + their little boy, Jackson (Baron should be here soon!)

- Jeff & Shalene + their baby girl, Summer

- Uncle Gary and wife, Linda

- My mom, dad, Christine and Elisabeth

- Sean, Ethan and I
Total: 22 people including 5 under the age of 3

They had decided that it would be a little easier to have Thanksgiving dinner at the high school since there would be so many of us - especially with the young kids. It worked out great! We dished up buffet style and when the kids were bored, they just ran around in the gym. Also, my uncle set up Guitar Hero: World Tour on the projection screen and everyone took turns playing one of the guitars or the drums. I passed on my turn and opted to hold Nick & Christi's super cute, super smiley 6-month old, Alice. She was adorable and fell asleep in my arms. Sometimes I really miss those days, so it was nice to get a 'baby fix'! We had a great time chatting with everyone, playing Bingo (it's tradition!) and of course, eating yummy food! I was very happy that the brownies turned out quite good, but I mostly saved room for some marionberry pie - yummy! Here's some pics from the rest of the day:

"Tia" giving Ethan some Cherry 7-Up. Tsk, tsk.

Playing some Guitar Hero - Jeff, Heather, Christine and Christi (on drums).

Ethan playing his own 'guitar hero' in uncle Gale's band room.

More percussion in the band room.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Top 5 things our family is grateful for...

1. A warm and cozy home that fits us just right.

2. Food in our bellies and cupboards that aren't bare.

3. Family and friends who love and support us.

4. The gospel, scriptures, prayer, priesthood and our testimonies.

5. Each other!! Despite the messes and trials, the laughter and smiles are far more common and we are grateful for that!

Wishing everyone a happy Thanksgiving!

Enjoy your Turkey, Ham or Tofurkey and don't forget the pumpkin pie!

It's only Tuesday...

...and already this weeks blows. I must've missed the 'dump on Jennifer' memo because it sure seems like everyone else got it!

I'll start with Monday morning. Wake up late and first thing, what happens, our toilet had backed up a little. So I go to stop the water and end up flushing the toilet again and flooding the bathroom. Luckily the water was clear, but still, nothing like standing in icy-cold toilet water. Plus, with the mold issues in September, the last thing our bathroom needs is to have extra water on the floor. Mop that up with a ton of towels and it's already time to be heading out the door, but I haven't gotten ready, packed lunches or gotten Ethan up. Joy. Finally get going and Ethan is screaming at me because he's ready to get up. Get him out of the crib and he's fighting with me because he doesn't want his diaper changed, but wants his toothbrush right that second - he's been obsessed with carrying around a toothbrush lately, but that's another post. Get him changed and we're finally out the door - already 15 minutes late for work and about 25 minutes behind schedule. Call work to let them know of the 'emergency' and that I'll be late. Drop off Ethan and finally get to work - 45 minutes late. Guess I'll be making that up later. To top that all off, I sent Sean a text to whine and he also had not had a great morning. The bus he rides up to work broke down and he had to wait an hour for the back-up to come.

Moving on to today... Start my normal morning work routine: start-up computer and clock in, bring internet up and print daily vendor invoices, check email. Stop. The email is what wrecked my morning. Last night I stayed up perfecting a Christmas gift on Shutterfly.com in order to save 20% and get free shipping via an email promo code from them. I did not want to miss out on the opportunity to save us some cash this holiday season, so I made sure to get the order in - submitted order at about 11:30pm. The time stamp on the shutterfly email I received this morning was for 3:22am - less than four hours after I had finished my order. And of course, it's a WAY better promo and would've saved me $32 and still get free shipping. I was ticked!! (Luckily, this story has a happy ending - I called after work and after much discussion was able to get a $32 credit on my account for future use. Phew!)

Later in the day I got accused of refusing to do computer training yesterday for a new warranty process we're implementing from one of our vendors - too bad I had said I would do it but the lady didn't have the online website/log-in info and didn't ever come back to train me. Nice to take the blame on that one. Then, and here's the clincher, near the end of the day I got RAKED OVER THE COALS for another accounting issue - partially my fault, but I was currently working on balancing that vendor's account and had not been informed that we would be paying them earlier from now on. Nice.

Work days like these make me SO HAPPY that we are focusing on getting to the point where I can quit work and be at home - even if it does mean moving to Salem. I do work Saturday, the trade for getting Friday off with the holiday, but I'm glad I only have one more day til we get to enjoy good company and good food. :)

Ethan Gets the Giggles

So this is just a cute video I caught on my phone when Ethan and I were Christmas shopping Saturday night. He had been really good the whole trip - flirting with all the ladies in the stores. "Hi-ya!" he would say to all of them. They just ate it up. Don't blame them. Anyway. The last stop we made was to visit the puppy in the display window at Scamp's. Ethan thought he was hilarious!! He was busting a gut watching this little puppy running and jumping around. Of course, when I finally went to video it, Ethan had calmed down a little but there's some big giggles at the end!!

$200 later...

...our car is fixed! They were able to keep the new-old muffler (we had replaced in January) and replaced the connecting pipe and did some welding to fix the problem. So, we're back in business, $200 poorer and no longer a fireball hazard. Yay!

Duct Tape to the Rescue!

Or... a new answer to the "what's that noise?" question! This time it was the muffler of our '91 Accord hitting against the pavement on parts of the road that had any sort of dip. I was informed by Sean yesterday that the muffler seemed to be hanging a bit low and was hitting the road on some turns and with bumps in the road. Great! One more thing to worry about! He said that he thought it would be ok for now and would probably make it to Salem and back when he has to go this coming Saturday. Nope!! I had a stake meeting tonight and Sean had mutual, so I took the Honda and Sean took Ethan in the Explorer. I noticed the muffler scraping as soon as I pulled onto the main road, but that was to be expected. I made it to the freeway and my exit and then I noticed it scraped a few more times and I had already decided that once I got to my destination I was going to try to just take the whole muffler off. Nope!! Didn't make it that far either. I was barely off the exit when the guy behind me was flashing his brights on and off. I knew what he wasn't going to tell me. My muffler is dragging a little. Wrong again. The muffler was sparking against the pavement!! Well, that pretty much left me stranded. I called up Sean to bring the duct tape once I had come to the conclusion that I wasn't going to be able to get the muffler off by myself. But believe me, I tried. So the muffler is being held on with the almighty tape of duct. Joy. Granted, this is not the first time this has happened. Last year, on Christmas, the muffler fell off (where it connects to the car, not the tailpipe) and was seriously dragging and sparking. I also had a good samaritan stop me that time to warn me. Merry Christmas!! The muffler was then replaced as needed. It is the next connecting piece that has since rusted, broke, brought on more aggravation, etc. and will need to be repaired. Yay.

What's that noise?

Over the past couple of weeks we have come to truly understand that the answer accompanying this question is usually not an answer we really want to know. I'll wait, though, to give you our own, personal examples. First, an outside (i.e. movie) example!

The Movie: Home Alone 2 - Lost in New York

The set-up: Harry and Marv (the blundering crooks) have chased Kevin (the scheming pre-teen) into a house undergoing major renovations. Kevin slams a door at the bottom of a staircase and runs up the stairs. Marv and Harry are both running after him and Marv yanks on the doorknob. This triggers a booby-trap sending a large 5ft. tool chest down the stairs.

Marv: "What's that sound?" as he puts his ear to the door.

Harry: "I don't know..." as he also puts his ear to the door.

CRASH!!!

Marv (with broken nose): "That was the sound of a tool chest, coming down the stairs."

See?! Not a good outcome!!

Now to our own examples.

This was the answer to the question a couple of weeks ago after running the garbage disposal:

Apparently Ethan's fork was down there, and yes, I did this one.

And then Friday night, on our way to meet my parents for dinner. As soon as we're on the main road I start to hear something. It sounds like there's something caught underneath the car so Sean pulls into the right hand lane and I think he's going to pull completely over. Nope, he keeps going because he doesn't see that we're dragging anything and isn't hear the noise at the particular second. Just as I'm about to tell him to still pull over, I see in the side mirror something fly off the roof of the Explorer and land in the street. I knew what it was immediately. "YOU PUT HIS PLATE ON THE ROOF?!?!?!" That's right, Ethan's personalized lunch-tray plate that was filled with his yummy dinner and covered with plastic wrap had been flung to the street. Sean pulled over and I hopped out to go get it. I picked up the loose saran wrap, expecting to see the plastic plate scratched up but still intact. After gathering up most of the pieces, this is what I was able to reassemble:

I know that we will ask ourselves this question again... and probably not like the answer, but with kids it is bound to happen.

So in response to the question, "What's that noise?" hopefully we can try to avoid such answers as:

"Ethan coloring on the walls."

"A baseball through the dining room window."

"Ethan's bike that was left out behind the car."

etc, etc, etc.

Jungle Book and the Toy'R'Us catalog

Ethan has two current MAJOR obsessions right now.

#1: 'The Jungle Book' Disney movie.

#2: The Toys'R'Us Christmas catalog.

He LOVES Jungle Book. Every day I hear, "Gook" which is 'Jungle Book' in Ethan-talk. He doesn't watch much TV, but when we turn that movie on he is hooked! He will sit on the couch, completely mesmerized. His favorite part is the elephants. "Two, two, two!" he says when they start their march and sing, "Hut, two, three, four..." Soooo cute!! Also, Shere Khan, the tiger is referred to as a 'kitty'.

His other obsession is with the current Toys'R'Us Christmas catalog. He flips back and forth through the pages, over and over again and will keep himself occupied with it for 5-15 minutes at a time! We've already lost the front/back cover pages and at least the next 3 or 4, but he keeps looking through it. There's one page with some Elmo and Handy Manny toys, so I usually hear him turn several pages ahead and then go back to those pages since he actually recognizes something. Here are some pictures of him with the catalog.

[Check out his first pair of Nikes in this picture. Pretty sweet shoes, huh?!]

Catching up...

So.... I still have no Halloween pictures. ARGH!! But, that's probably no excuse for not having a new post. Nothing too exciting recently. Last Friday and Saturday was our Tri-Stake youth conference - our stake was in charge. Of course, being in the stake YW presidency meant I was there almost all day: 8:30am to 5:30pm. I did get a little break, though, to go home, change, get our baby-sitter and then head back with Sean to chaperone the dance at 7:30pm. We got home at about 11pm and my feet were KILLING me. It was a long, long day but still fun to work with the youth.
The posts below are my attempt to catch up a little!

Wednesday Off

On my day off I....

* folded and put away 3 BIG loads of laundry (I'm really good about getting the laundry washed/dried, just not put away!)

* played with Ethan and watched Elmo's World on Sesame Street

* washed, dried and put away another load of laundry

* washed and dried yet another load of laundry - this last load was just whites, so it's still sitting in the dryer!

* played cars/trucks with Ethan

* changed the sheets on our bed - this was overdue and it was so nice sleeping in fresh sheets that night!

* gave Ethan a bath

* loaded the dishwasher and cleaned the kitchen

* fed Ethan a healthy breakfast and lunch - dinner was mainly pasta while I was at a meeting

* went to the 3rd ward's stake leadership training meeting - after one of the speakers Ethan said a nice, loud "Amen!" - only about a 1/2 second behind everyone else, so it got a little chuckle out of everyone.

* went home, helped get Ethan ready for bed, said family prayer, ate a late dinner and crashed... and watched my recording of America's Next Top Model - it was totally time for Marjorie to go!

Not the most relaxing day off, but I felt pretty accomplished. Now if I can just get Sean to do the kitchen/dining room floors and the bathroom tomorrow!!

Rocky Road Ice Cream

Rocky Road Ice Cream

Who knew?! Apparently everyone but me! All of my life I have avoided Rocky Road ice cream with a 10-foot pole. "Yuck!" I would proudly say with my nose high in the air. Sean even attempted to get me to try it a couple times. "Nope. No-uh! No way! I didn't like it then and I won't like it now!" Finally, last night when I was at the grocery store, Sean called to see if I'd pick up some ice cream. All right. Breyers was on sale, so we went with that - just had to decide on a flavor. Sean said he'd been craving some Rocky Road and suggested I really should give it a try. "It's got everything you'd like in it: chocolate ice cream, marshmallow swirl and almonds."

"Whooooaa. Back that up. Did you say the nuts that are in the ice cream that I have detested all these years is almonds?!?! I LOVE almonds. My favorite nut. And they're even chocolate-covered! How had I not known all this time that it was almonds?!" See, I am not a big fan of nuts in anything sweet - cookies, brownies, ice cream, etc. They just don't belong there most of the time. So I bought the Rocky Road and had my first-ever bowl. Not my favorite ice cream - that's still reserved for Ben & Jerry's Phish Food - but I've decided Rocky Road definitely deserves a little more respect than I had been giving it!

So tell me, what's your favorite flavor of ice cream??

Coming Soon...

Halloween pictures are coming... Hopefully by the end of the week I will have them and can finally do a new post! For now I finally finished a post about our trip to the Children's museum in Salem.
Phew! It's so hard to stay on top of everything when you can't download the pics into your own computer. It's such a hassle, so sorry for the delay!

Children's Museum and other Pumpkin Merriment

So it's been almost 3 weeks ago, but we've just been so busy with other Fall activities that I haven't had a chance to post about our trip up to the A.C. Gilbert Children's Museum in Salem. We went the afternoon of October 18th and it was a great family activity! The museum is made up of 3 large Victorian houses with a large playground sorta in the middle. The main house had a HUGE rocking chair on the porch, so of course we had to stop and take pictures - an "Edith Ann" moment on film!After that, our first stop was the BUBBLE ROOM. A fun idea in theory, but so messy. It was still pretty cool to make Ethan-size bubbles! But I'm not sure if it was a good or a bad idea to go to this room first. Ethan was too quick for us and his long-sleeve shirt was soaking with bubble solution after we'd only been there 5 minutes! It dried out by the third building, so it wasn't too bad.Next was the Body room - complete with giant, open-mouth face. The teeth were the size of Ethan's head. The next room Ethan LOVED! It was for children under 3 and had lots of books, climbing mats, farm animal toys, trucks, etc.Below is one of my favorite pictures from the day.
Other rooms included:

* Water Cycle room

* Jungle room (with stage, stuffed animal puppets, costumes and a camera so they could see themselves on TV)

* Storybook room

* China room (with Chinese tea set and a Chinese character writing station)

* Grocery store (with carts, plastic produce and a check-out scanner)

* Light/Shadows room

* Dinosaur room

* Train/Communications room

Here's some pictures from the rest of the day.

Steering the ship in the Water Cycle room.

Serving tea in the China room.

Sliding down the Dinosaur slide - a picture and a video clip!


Chasing the model train around the big track! We had to do this a couple of times!!


Finally we went outside for some fresh apple cider and apple wedges with carmel dip. We were too late for the petting zoo, but Ethan had fun on the huge playground. There's even a 2-story erector-set play structore with a 2-story slide - Mr. A.C. Gilbert himself was the inventor of the erector set (and is also considered the "man who saved Christmas" - click on his name for the Wikipedia info) among many other things. If it wasn't so dark, even Sean and I would've played! Ethan loved going down one of the shorter slides - much faster than the one at the park and always a big grin on his face when he got to the bottom.Our last stop was also outside - where they had live music for their 10th annual Harvest Festival and Pumpkin Merriment. They were also in the process of lighting all of the carved pumpkins from the day - you got free admission if you brought a carved pumpkin. We brought 2 and only had to pay Ethan's admission - a whopping $2.50. Not bad. :)
Their goal was 500 pumpkins. I'm not sure how many they got but there was a LOT of pumpkins there. Not the best smell when they're all lit, but still neat to see.

Here are the two (somewhat hastily carved) pumpkins we brought - vampire jack-o'-lantern and a star/moon.

Not too bad, but here's me with my favorite little 'punkin'!!