State Pen. Pen Pal

Just when I was thinking I couldn't decide what to write about for my next post, opportunity presents itself!

This:came in the mail today.
Need a closer look??

Yeah, that's right. The return address says Oregon Department of Corrections - Inmate Mail.
What the???
Seriously?!

And I was not the one who checked the mail today... Sean did.
Sean (coming back in the house): "Uh... Do you have a pen pal at the Oregon prison?"
Me: "Uh... What?"

Or, you could picture it going down something like this...
"LUCY!! You've got some 'splainin' to do!!"

This, by far, surpasses other weird things received in the mail - including my sample hearing aide and when Christine received an offer to join AARP!

And let me just include a few excerpts from the letter...

"Jennifer,
Long time, no write :). That is, I'm hoping this is heading to the right girl. How many Jennifer Southworths could there be?.....

I've had cool feelings for you since Kristie's apt. on __th. Whether your with a man or not girl, I'd like to at least hear a "I got your letter" from you. Can you do that? Thank you baby girl......

Over these years, what have you been doing with yourself? I could no longer stand just imagining the goodness of what you could be, so I got your address from the phone book. I bet your more beautiful then the most precious of diamonds. [Maybe this guy does know me! He he he!!] You always were before........."

So, that letter is being returned. Without our forwarding address because I absolutely do NOT know this guy! Yikes!

What was I thinking?!

I know what I was thinking... I was thinking I was being a good mom by finally cleaning Ethan's main carseat.Um, yeah. 45 minutes LATER!! I ended up having to completely disassemble the dang thing just to get the cover pieces completely off.
Backrest off. Seatbelts and all straps removed. What a PAIN!! But it is clean now and reassembled correctly and back in the car and it better stay clean because I do not want to do that again.

February Recap

Recap time again! [By the way, I am currently typing this up on our brand new laptop!! That means I get to be a bum on our couch and enjoy that we have a working computer and wireless internet. Oh, I have missed this!]

* Date-night-movie-of-the-month: Thanks to Lizzy for watching Ethan while she was up here visiting one weekend. It was so nice to get away for a little movie date. We learned that movie prices up here are the same as SoCal and a lot higher than Eugene/Springfield - $10 a ticket! Ugh. Luckily Costco has the 2/$15 deal, so we will be taking advantage of that in the future. Anyway... We decided to go see:

The Lovely Bones

It was pretty good. Very intense. Not quite what we expected. Very good cinematography. I have to say, Stanley Tucci did a very good job of being a sick creep-o because the whole movie I was saying not-so-nice things about his character, Mr. Harvey. I was more than ready for him to get his come-up-ins!! And the scene where the sister breaks into his house - holy intense! I didn't think I was going to make it. This is not a happy, feel-good movie and not really a murder mystery, but if you like a good suspense thriller I would recommend it.

* Potty training: We had just a hint of potty training last month! We're not really pushing it until Ethan is ready, but I think we're getting close. He has gone potty on the toilet several times and occasionally lets us know when he has to go. Nothing consistent yet. This week is pretty busy, but I'm hoping to push the issue a little more the next week and see if we can't get a little farther on this. I would love if he was potty-trained before his birthday!

* Stardust Diner:

Photo courtesy of William200549 at Flickr.com

What a fun place. Very cool diner atmosphere and pretty good food. I always like to try just a plain cheeseburger when we go to a new place like that. I have this theory that you can judge a lot about a diner based on their burgers and pancakes. Good burgers and pancakes should basically be a requirement! So I had a cheeseburger while Sean opted for the chili burger.

* Ethan and I went to the Portland, Oregon Zoo for $2 Tuesday, but that already has its own post.

* Valentine's Day: This holiday never gets too much attention in our house. Pretty much we acknowledge it with some decorations and maybe some special goodies, but that's about it. Friday night, while Lizzy was visiting, we got one of the Papa Murphey's heart-shaped pizzas. For Ethan, we got the Mary Poppins DVD, which helped to break the Sleeping Beauty, errr, Dragon movie spell! This year I tried to get fancy with our sugar cookies, thanks to ideas from Our Best Bites. Here's the final results:Wednesday, while Ethan and I were down for our weekly Oregon trip, we delivered them to some friends and family. They were very well received!

* Ikea: We had our first Ikea experience this month. That place is a well-oiled machine! I think they must have talked with the Disney people. The first time we went we just browsed through everything - it was a bit overwhelming. The second time, though, we took Lizzy and Christine when they came up to visit. Christine especially wanted to go as she is getting ready to go off to BYU. Of course, we had to take some pics...

Ethan loved playing in the "kitchen"....

And pretending to talk on the phone.

Lizzy wishing she could do a whole room make-over.

Christine and I share similar tastes in home decorating. By the way, light grey walls with white cabinetry is one of my new favorite looks!

If we had a family room, this is the couch we would get - extra storage and it very easy converts to a full size bed.

* More from our new ward: They got to me fast.... I have already given my first talk! My topic was "An outward expression of an inward commitment" - in layman's terms basically practice what you preach. Interesting topic, but actually a lot harder than I thought it would be. Overall, I thought it went pretty well though. I received lots of positive feedback on it, so that's always good! Plus, I got to introduce us a little bit - another good thing since they never actually read our names into the ward. :) That same day, we received our new callings.... Valient 10 teachers in primary! Sean and I will actually be working together, which is cool. We have 12-13 kids in our class and 8-10 that come regularly, so big class! Time to dig out my church bag and our primary song book. Anyone who has worked more in primary - tips??

* Random pictures: As if there aren't already enough pictures in this post, but here's some other random one from the month....

One of Ethan's new favorite things is climbing up on one of the stools and playing with the bubbles in a sink full of dishes.... Now if I could just get him trained to do the dishes!

Lizzy's self-photo from one of her weekend visits. It's been so fun to have her come up - she comes home with me on Thursday nights sometimes when she doesn't have school on Friday.

Zoo... with the animals!

Well, now that we live so close, it's hard to pass up $2 Tuesdays at the Portland Zoo!

We met up with my cousin's wife, Steph, and their two adorable boys (Jackson-3 and Baron-1) for a fun afternoon at the zoo - it was Ethan's first trip by the way. Below are lots of pictures from our adventure:

First stop was fishes from the Pacific Northwest.

Ethan's so washed out in this picture, but I love his expression!

We love our ducks!!

This otter was very active and put on quite the show for us.

The boys loved this bubble feature on one of the exhibits.

The penguins and polar bears were also a hit.

Had to get a picture with the hippo statue for daddy.

And we know uncle Todd loves the elephants. :)

Ethan really liked the jeep that was half-way in one of the exhibits.

I loved watching Jackson and Ethan get excited about the exhibits and all the animals.

This is my favorite picture of them - such handsome boys!

Personally, my favorite exhibit was the seals and watching them swim and dive in the big tank - and watching Ethan observe all their movements.

It was a very fun outing - plus, I can't pass up a good deal! If the weather's nice, I think we're going back this Tuesday (it's the 2nd Tuesday of every month). [And Steph, next time we need to make sure we get some pictures with us in them!!] Oh, and with the title of this post, I had to add the "with the animals" because every time we talked about going to the zoo, Ethan would always add in, "with all the animals!" :) [Love that kid!]

Date Night w/ My Favorite Little Boy

Ok, I admit, I was thinking of titling this post "Date Night - Not w/ My Hubby" but I thought that might be a bit extreme when people saw it in their blog reader list thing! Anyway... Ethan and I rushed off to the theater last night after a last-minute decision to go see a movie together. We went to see [drumroll please................]

The Princess and the Frog

It was SO GOOD!! Parents of toddlers: take them! Ethan sat still the entire movie - no climbing or wanting to get down or even wanting to sit in my lap. We munched popcorn together, shared some soda (yes, I gave my almost-3-year-old soda - you have to have soda with popcorn!) and thoroughly enjoyed the movie. Two thumbs up! The music, story, characters and animation were all great! My only complaint would have to be that it seemed like there were too many "backwoods" or "hick" type characters with missing teeth, etc. Definitely one I would want to own and may even get the soundtrack to since we don't really have much "kid" music to rock out to at our house. Bottom line: Especially if you've been missing some classic Disney animation (not that we don't love the Pixar movies)... Go see it! :)