February Recap

Kinda hard to believe we're already into March of 2012... And that the official first day of Spring is tomorrow!! Of course, we're still getting snow here and there. Not much. Just a dusting that lasts a few hours. And the next day it is beautiful and sunny. And the next day it is torrential downpour. Typical Pacific Northwest valley weather. I just have to keep reminding myself that that's what keeps everything so green and beautiful!!

* No date-night-movie-of-the-month. We had other stuff going on every weekend and did several group dates with some other couples. We both had movies we wanted to see, though... Sean wants to see "The Woman in Black" and I've been wanting to see "The Vow." This weekend is already pretty booked, but hopefully next weekend we can finally have our date night!

* 50s Stake Dance: I still can't really believe that we went to this! It's not really our "scene" to go to dances any more. Not that I don't love to dance, but I know it's not Sean's thing. But we decided to go check it out and it wasn't too bad. Sean and I even dressed up. I wore my jeans rolled up, Converse shoes, cardigan, pearls and my old letterman's jacket [go SHS!!] and Sean wore jeans and a white shirt with a deck of cards rolled up in the sleeve - he caught flack for that all night! The decorations were cute and there was bubblegum blowing contest, limbo and couples dance promenade. They had root beer and orange floats, but it was ALL 50s music - not going to lie, that got old after a while. Check out our good-looking group from the ward, though:

[Picture of a picture - original courtesy of Picture Perfect Photography]

It was the after-party that was the most fun, though! We went back to Tellez's house with some other friends, cranked up the music and had a real dance party!! Ha ha! It was awesome. Nothing like a bunch of 30+ year-olds {with the exclusion of me!} dancing in the living room. :)

* New Stake Presidency: We had our stake conference the second weekend in February and got a brand-new stake presidency. Nobody we knew, of course, because we don't really know anyone in our stake outside of our ward. And we stayed for all of the Sunday session. We couldn't believe how many people got up and left after the announcement of the new stake presidency. Wow.

* Lizzy got glasses!: My sister, Lizzy, finally got her eyes checked which revealed that she does, in fact, need glasses. We had suspected this for several years so we were not surprised! Here she is in her cute, new frames. Very stylish.

* Girls movie night: Even though Sean and I didn't get out to see a movie, I was able to meet up with some friends to go see "This Means War" with Reese Witherspoon. Hilarious.

[http://teaser-trailer.com/movie/this-means-war/]

* Visiting Teaching luncheon: My visiting teaching companion and I are less-than-stellar when it comes to doing our visiting teaching. I have never been good about setting up appointments and I blame myself more than my companion - she has 5 kids with another on the way. So, to make it a little easier, we decided to have the ladies we visit teach come to us and we hosted a luncheon! We all have young non-school-age kids, so we let the kids play while we chatted and then ate lunch together. PB&J with fresh fruit for the kids and chicken salad on croissants, broccoli salad and fresh fruit for the adults - with lime tarts for dessert. We had a wonderful time and I think this will become a semi-regular thing.

* Coca-Cola Cake: I discovered this little gem on Pinterest a few months ago. Here's the cast of ingredients:It goes together really quickly and uses just one can of soda. Of course, any flavor of cola can be used. Just before it comes out of the oven, you make the icing and then pour it over the top of the cake while it is still warm. I think the icing portion makes more than you need, but it seeps into the warm cake making the cake very dense and moist and also giving the top a nice glaze. Sorry, no picture of the finished product, but you can get the recipe here: http://mayflaum.com/2011/06/08/the-chocolate-cola-cake/

* Oscar night: We had our Coca-cola cake while we watched the Oscars at the Colemans' house. We may or may not have put 20 cent bids on the major categories. We had fun seeing Octavia Spencer win Best Supporting Actress for The Help {read my review of the book and movie here}, couldn't believe how many Oscars Hugo won and decided to add Best Picture winner The Artist to our must-see list!

* Already covered:
- Valentine's Day
- Cinder-Ethan
- Rash Wednesday
- Leap Year

* Sorry, no random pictures. It was kind of a slow month on the picture-taking front.

3, 4, 5... An Ethan Update

Three: the number of shots Ethan had to get today and the age he was when he last had a wellness check.

Four: The age Ethan currently is and the wellness check we were supposed to do almost a year ago.

Five: The age Ethan almost is and what will go in his chart as being done, just a little early. I prefer to look at it as his 5-year wellness check was done a couple months early as opposed to his 4-year wellness check being almost a year late!!

Other than the shots, Ethan’s check-up went well! Height, weight and blood pressure and then also a hearing test {Ethan loved it!! It was like a game to him, getting the ear right that the beeping was in – even when the nurse tried to “trick” him} and vision. Good marks across the board.

Height: 42 ½ inches (right at 50^th percentile)

Weight: just over 38 pounds (about 35^th percentile)

He passed the hearing and vision checks with flying colors. After the rest of the check-up it was time for the shots. Two in his left leg, one in his right. It was a battle and not fun. We attempted to do arms, but it was nearly impossible to get his shirt off – so we had to do legs and it took both the nurse and I to get his pants off and Ethan to lie down on the table. He wanted nothing to do with it! Once we wrestled him down to the table, the nurse was quick about getting the shots in and the band-aids on. Bonus: No breath-holding spells! And luckily, Ethan had been promised both a sticker AND a prize. He did not let me or the nurse forget!

The night before his appointment I had promised Ethan a treat of his choosing after his doctor’s appointment, knowing that he would be getting shots. Slurpee?? Ice cream?? Milkshake?? Nope, Ethan specifically wanted a doughnut from Krispy Kreme {I seriously don't remember the last time we went there!} So Krispy Kreme was our first stop after his appointment - we got some doughnuts for the family and also a chocolate milk for Ethan. He was a happy camper... temporarily at least...

By dinner-time Ethan was absolutely miserable. He had a fever (101+), no appetite and his legs were sore. We put in a movie and Ethan was out cold, asleep on the couch before 8pm. At 8:30pm I got him in jammies and he went right back to sleep on the couch. Sean got home from choir rehearsal at about 10:30pm and Ethan woke up shortly after - temperature was even higher (102+) and his legs were really bothering him. We moved down to our room where we made up a bed for Ethan on our floor (sleeping on his old crib mattress) and he started crying from the pain in his legs. Broke my heart. Unfortunately he wanted absolutely nothing to do with any fever reducing/pain relieving medicine. Flat-out refused! So some "powerade" was offered instead. Powerade that Mommy laced with a full dose of the clear fever reducing/pain relieving medicine! Ethan drank it all up while we snuggled in bed and watched Wall-E for a little while. He even told me how good it tasted. And by the time it was gone you could tell he was finally feeling better. I like to think it had more to do with the Mommy snuggles than the medicine, but whatever!

He slept through the night, ate a little breakfast this morning {so glad he finally got some food in his belly} and is now snacking on some crackers and apple juice {spiked with another dose of medicine}. I don't really like be sneaky and dishonest with him about the medicine, but it gets the job done. In the past I've tried giving him something to drink when he knew the medicine was mixed in and it took forever for him to drink it and he whined and cried and complained the whole time that he could taste it.

Finally, as if this post isn't already long enough, I thought I'd give a little update about Ethan in general because I think it's been a year and a half since I last did one!

Favorite Foods: Pasta, cucumbers, pickles, fruit (just about any kind - bananas, apples, strawberries, mandarin oranges, pears, peaches, mangoes, grapes, watermelon, etc.), crackers (goldfish, cheez-its and wheat thins), hot dogs, yogurt, string cheese, pizza, mac-n-cheese, fruit snacks, carrot sticks and cold cereal.

Favorite Books: Anything silly or that has to do with monsters, cars/trucks or easy-readers that he can read part of.

Favorite Movies/TV Shows: Movies - Cars, Cars 2, Despicable Me, Transformers, Megamind and Wall-E. TV - Octonauts (a new favorite from Disney channel), Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and Phineas & Ferb.

Favorite Things to Do: Ride his bike (weather-permitting), play outside, play Transformers, play cars/trucks, play with friends, "practice" piano, dress-up (pirate, fire fighter, knight), go to Preschool and play games on the computer (parents-permitting).

Friends: Coleman kiddos, Dahl kiddos, Owen, Jason, Jody, Thomas, Scout, Sam, Ben and his cousins (which he doesn't get to see very often).

Things He Knows: ABCs, capitol and lower case letter recognition, letter sounds, counts to 100+ (with a little help), shape and color recognition, counts objects, gets dressed head-to-toe by himself, reads/writes his own name, sounds out/reads simple 3-4 letter words and much more!

Cultural(ish) Night: DENMARK

Sorry for the week-long break between posts. It was kind of a rough week around here - in an emotional, stressful, hubby-sick, 4-yr-old-angst sort of way. Let's just say that after Sean coming home from work on Friday and going to bed at about 4pm and sleeping/resting for a full 24 hours, it's a good thing he was feeling better because I had "had it up to here!" with Ethan. Love the little guy, but there has been no middle setting with him lately - super sweet and nice or grumpy, whiny and headache-inducing. Ugh. But more about that in the next post. For this post I want to focus on Danish Aebleskivers!!


Never heard of or had an aebleskiver {pronounced "able-skeever"}, well you are missing out! It is basically a hollow pancake ball that you split open and fill with jams, applesauce and/or powdered sugar. The batter is made up of the same ingredients you see in pancakes, waffles, crepe - milk, eggs, flour, a little sugar, etc. But, just like it is a necessity to have a waffle-iron in order to make your own waffles, it is also a necessity to have a special aebleskiver pan to make aebleskivers.

Cast iron is best. I was lucky enough to inherit mine last summer. See, my danish heritage comes from my dad's side (Toftdahl). My grandma has (at least) two aebleskiver pans and my parents have one, so when my grandparents got another pan from the estate of some friends (the husband and wife passed away within just a few months of each other), they gave the pan to me. Don't be fooled by the "pancake puff" pans. They are not the same!

Anyway, it takes a little practice {I think I had two full batches of botched "practice" aebleskivers} and sometimes a phonecall home to talk to Dad to make sure the stove setting, oil amount, technique, etc. are all right but eventually you will get perfect, round, little balls of aebleskiver goodness! Here's a little look at the process:

After making the batter and getting your pan hot, you make sure to brush the whole pan with some oil, but especially the wells where the batter goes. Note: it does NOT take as much as the recipe says!! And your aebleksivers will turn out gross and greasy if you do. I learned this the hard way. And had to call and double-check with my Dad! You're not deep-frying the suckers - you just don't want the batter to stick to the pan. Lesson learned. Ignore recipe. Or make notes. You fill up your pan with batter and let it cook for a minute or so {I really don't remember!}


Then comes the fun/tricky part. Using a crochet-hook-thing {that I'm sure the people of Jo-Ann's would laugh about if they knew I had purchased it for cooking and not crocheting!} or knitting needles, you have to start moving the cooked part of the aebleskiver in quarter turns so the uncooked part of the batter goes into the pan and you start creating your sphere. This picture was after the first "flip".


And this is after they are all cooked and just about to come out of the pan.


And then, like I said, serve with jams, jellies, applesauce, powdered sugar, etc. We usually have breakfast for dinner with aebleskivers, so we also had scrambled eggs, sausage and some fruit. Not quite as authentic as our Brazil night, but still super tasty and the aebleskivers were definitely the star of the show!

Valentine's Day 2012

Valentine's morning started a little rough in our house. Ethan came into our room demanding a "Valentine's dinner" (meaning breakfast) EARLY in the morning. Rude! I don't remember what time it was, but it was definitely not the way to wake this mama up! So I forced a compromise. I let Ethan go watch cartoons in the living room, made him promise not to bug me for a little while and I went back to bed. In exchange, Ethan got his Valentine's breakfast. It did not disappoint. Heart-shaped pancakes, scrambled eggs and attempted-heart-shaped bacon. All of Ethan's favorites and worth the wait!

If you'll recall from last year's Valentine's Day post, Sean and I try to keep it pretty simple for the holiday of love. I have told Sean {on several occasions, just to reassure him!} that I am perfectly happy with the cliche flowers or chocolates or both. That's just how I roll.

For Sean, I tend to lean toward the corny, but cute. Last year I went the candy bar card route (see link above) and this year I wanted to do something similar. This is what I came up with:
The "You're Da Bomb" was an idea I found on Pinterest and loved the moment I saw it! So cheese-ball and funny, I couldn't resist. Just took Rolos and wrapped them in red construction paper and then added a black pipe cleaner to complete the dynamite look. Originally I had hoped to find some Crush soda in glass bottles for the "I've got a major CRUSH on you", but they didn't have any at Winco when I went, so I settled for cans. And finally, Reese's Pieces is a favorite candy of Sean's and from there it was easy to add the "I Love You to Pieces" tag. Corny. Cheap. Cute. Love it!

And it looked great on Sean's desk when we went and delivered them {in secret spy mode so we weren't caught!} at work. I'm hoping it was fairly unexpected since I had sent him to work with a huge plate full of triple chocolate chip cookies to share!

I also made/gave him this:

"We are all a little weird and life's a little weird, and when we find someone's whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love."
- Dr. Seuss

Back in December, I found this quote on Pinterest and thought it was cute and pinned it to my "Inspiring" board. Not more than a week later Sean posted the same quote on Facebook and tagged me. It was meant to be, I tell ya!! So I downloaded a "Dr. Seuss" font, printed the quote on cardstock and printed a picture from the day we were sealed for eternity in mutual weirdness. :)

Now, in past years, I have also told Sean that he can even wait on doing flowers until the day-after when they go on sale. This year he surprised me, though! With a beautiful bouquet delivered to our door on Valentine's day. {I had horrible lighting when I tried to take these pictures, though, which doesn't do these flowers justice!} I LOVE the dark fuchsia roses!
Throughout the day, Sean sent me texts saying some of the different things he loves about me - they were so sweet and really made my day. And that night, after he got done with work and piano lessons, he surprised me again with a box of chocolates - which we shared.

I had to laugh a little when I opened the card from Sean... Notice any similarities between the one he got me and the one I got him?? Apparently we had a love bird theme going on. It's the mutual weirdness. ;)

I attempted to do "fancy" with dinner that night... Steak, twice-baked potatoes, green salad, crusty bread and sparkling cherry juice. Ethan got FM deli mac-n-cheese. I figured it was a holiday and he should get to eat one of his favorites, too!

I am so in love with these two boys of mine and I loved our low-key, fun Valentine's day!

Leap Year = Bonus Day

Leap year every four years is just enough time for me to forget about it in between. It seems so foreign, even though we have been doing it every four years for a long time! And, I don't know, it kinda feels like a "bonus" day - you know, like getting an extra hour of sleep in the Fall for Daylight Savings when you "fall back" an hour. Let's see four years ago... February 29, 2008...
Sean and I had been married for just over 2 1/2 years. Ethan was almost a year old. We had just bought the Explorer (only one more year until it's paid off... yay!). Our nephew was born a couple weeks earlier. Three weeks later I started this blog. And I have NO IDEA what we did on that particular day! Oh, well. I did try looking for a picture around that time, but early 2008 is right in that scary time-frame of pictures I'm pretty sure are lost (before I started buying a new SD card once one was full instead of relying on the computer for the uploaded images). I'm praying they're on a picture CD somewhere, but I'm afraid to know for sure that they're gone forever.

Anyway...

So how did we spend our "bonus" day this year?? Ha ha! Nothing exciting at all. Typical chores were done... cleaning the kitchen, sweeping the floors, picking up around the house and making dinner. I did bust out two new blog posts: Cinder-Ethan {the funny tale of Ethan's shoes being accidentally dumped in the recycle bin and lost forever} and Rash Wednesday {the funny title, but sad tale of Sean's allergic reaction to something, though we don't know what!} And also trimmed up the mop that was sitting on top of Ethan's head!

Before

After

Dinner resulted in an empty milk jug, so I went to the store while Sean finished getting Ethan ready for bed. Glad I went to the store last night as opposed to this morning, because we woke up to this:

SNOW... On March 1st... in the valley!! Crazy!!

Driving conditions were fine - our school district wasn't even put on delay - but I still prefer to stay in, turn the heat up and enjoy the quiet whiteness from inside our home. Of course, it's already melting away, but I see some baking, snuggling and movie-watching in Ethan and I's day today!!

Rash Wednesday

Poor Sean.

Poor, poor Sean.

Last Tuesday he came home from work complaining of itching, thinking he'd gotten some bug bites and wondering if I had some too.

I did not.

By Tuesday night the itching was much worse and he discovered it was not bug bites, but a welt-like rash on his thighs, feet and hands. He called in sick for work the next morning - after waking me up at 5:45am to show me that the Benadryl he had taken hadn't worked! And that the rash had spread to his arms. He made an appointment with his doctor and went back to bed.

11:15am Doctor appointment and the diagnosis? Allergic reaction.

To what? We have NO IDEA!!

Doctor prescribed Prednisone in a pyramid pack - six pills for day 1, five for day 2, four for day 3, etc. Sean came home and took the first two after lunch. And then he slept. Honestly, I think the whole thing was good for him just to have a chance to catch up on sleep a little!

By bedtime, the itching and welts hadn't gone down, so he called in sick again for the next day. And then took an Aveeno bath. I had gone to the store to get some earlier in the day and was glad to see they still make it. It's a good thing to have on hand. I remember having to take these as a kid... when I had chicken pox, when I had bad mosquito bites after Girls Camp and the day I discovered I was allergic to horses and broke out in hives. {What's that? You didn't know I was allergic to horses?! Well, that's a post for another day!}

It was almost a full 24 hours before the Prednisone really kicked in, but once it did the rash and swelling disappeared pretty quickly. Sean was able to return to work on Friday. The only evidence we have of the whole ordeal is this cellphone picture Sean snapped of his arm. This is a mild version of what was on the rest of his body.
P.S. Sean was the clever one with the title for this post. And he really did stay home sick, with a rash, on Ash Wednesday!

Cinder-Ethan

Cinderella's adorable, lesser-known step-brother.

He's never mentioned in the stories.

Maybe because Cinderella's a little embarrassed...

She may lose one shoe, but it's eventually returned.

Cinder-Ethan manages to lose BOTH shoes.

Not just once.

TWICE!!

In a six-month period.

Ay-yi-yi! You're killing me, kid! And our bank account. Kids' shoes are not cheap!
Luckily, the first pair lost was at the end of summer and it was his sandals that he'd already outgrown. Not too much of a loss. We even tried to go back and get them. I hope whoever took them had a child in desperate need of sandals - even if they were stinky, little boy sandals!

Pair number two went missing just 2 weeks ago. Friday morning, to be exact. Sometime between 8am and 9am, or whenever we heard the beeping from the Recycle truck backing up. Of course, at the time, we knew nothing of the missing shoes.

But let me back up just a bit....

One of Ethan's chores is to take out the recycling. We keep a cardboard box by the front door, behind the recliner. We also keep some shoes behind the recliner. {See where this is going, yet?} Our garbage and recycling is picked up Friday mornings, so Thursday night Ethan put on his shoes, took out the recycling, came back in the house, put the recycle box back behind the chair and carelessly threw his shoes inside the box....

And then I carelessly left them there, not thinking much of it because the recycling had already been taken out....

And then a flattened cereal box got put in the recycling box....

And then Sean carelessly dumped the recycling box into the recycle bin and pushed it to the street early Friday morning....

And then the recycle guys carelessly took our recycle bin and dumped it in their big truck. How dare they not check first for a pair of little boys' shoes!!

And sometime Friday afternoon, while straightening the living room, I noticed the completely empty recycle box sitting behind the chair. Panic set in. And disbelief. Surely Ethan's fancy-schmancy light-up shoes that he's only had a few months or so did not really get thrown into the recycle bin and then hauled off by the recycle truck. Preposterous!

But his shoes were nowhere to be found behind the chair. Or in his room. Or by the back door. Or under the couch. Or anywhere else I was hoping they somehow mysteriously walked off to on their own.

Dang.

$17.99 plus tax, down the drain. Or recycle bin.

And no one to place the full blame on... Ethan shouldn't have put them in the box in the first place, I should have grabbed them out of the box and Sean could have checked the box {or left it - there was only one thing in there. Curse his thoroughness!!} which had to have seemed a little heavy for just containing a cereal box.

Dang, again!!

Not that Ethan doesn't have shoes. These were just the newest and sturdiest of his small collection - which only includes church shoes, plaid canvas shoes and some too-small lace-up running shoes.

Off to Target we went.... After a discussion on how there would be no whining about which shoes he got because Mommy would be picking them out since he had not taken better care of his last ones.

We lucked out. Boy howdy, did we luck out!

While the fancy-schmancy light-up shoes were not on sale, several other styles were. We got TWO!! Count them: one, TWO pairs of shoes for less than the cost of the fancy-schmancy light-up shoes. A pair of brown, casual/dressy shoes for $8.48 - they were half off and look good with jeans OR his khakis for church on Sunday. AND a pair of super-cool, light-blue-with-dinosaur-skeletons Converse (well, the One Star line that Converse makes) for $8.68!! They retailed for $28.99, which means I got them for 70% off. Woot woot!!
And, fingers crossed, maybe the fancy-schmancy light-up shoes will go on sale between now and Ethan's birthday. Or maybe we'll make a trip down south to the Nike outlet store. Because he kind of still needs a sturdy pair of shoes he can wear outside and not worry about getting yelled at by mom for getting them dirty!

Bottom line: Ethan learned his lesson! And so did mom. And dad.

Even Mozart Had to Start Somewhere

Sean has 12 piano students and 1 vocal student.

And a waiting list.

He's in high-demand for his mad-piano-teaching-skills.

In fact, he may get two more students this week... Younger siblings of another student. His schedule barely allows it, but we think we can squeeze them in.

His newest customer, though, is non-paying.

Unless you count hugs and smiles. :)

Because those are in abundance and worth their weight in gold.

Sean has been giving Ethan mini piano lessons here and there - nothing really consistent, no set day or time - and Ethan is soaking it up like a sponge! Over a month ago Sean worked with him on counting quarter, half and whole notes. And Ethan got it. I was amazed. This first video is just of counting notes, playing middle C on the piano.

Once Ethan mastered that, Sean moved on to notes. Ethan knows, I think, most of them around middle C on the piano but Sean focused on notes on the page. Honking Cars is one of Ethan's first songs and it's just C and G notes, but Ethan has it quite mastered already. I am one impressed Mama!!

And I'm so glad it's Sean that plays piano and not me, though I wouldn't mind learning how to read bass clef. Several of Sean's students come from homes where the mom knows how to play piano but hasn't had any luck trying to teach their kids because there's not enough separation between mom and teacher. Mom's the one home with them after school AND trying to be piano teacher and they just don't respond well. In our case (for now, at least), it works to have the piano teacher be a parent because Sean's not the one home all day.

Anyway... Just thought I'd share some videos of our little Mozart-in-training!

{Please note, I am kidding. I am not under the assumption, by any means, that our child is a piano prodigy - just happy he is learning!}

January Recap

Sometimes I forget how long I've been writing on this blog... That Ethan was just under a year old... And then I look back and realize that this is my FOURTH January Recap post.

FOURTH!

Crazy.

The very first monthly recap post I ever did was for January 2009! Ethan was 21 months old. We were still living in Oregon - our last January there.
January 2010 - Ethan was almost 3 years old. An animal chewed through the spark plug wires in the Explorer, causing a couple hundred dollars in damage. And... We moved. Hard to believe we're going on three years up here.
January 2011 - Ethan was almost 4 years old. We had just returned from our seven-state-mega-road-trip for Christmas break. Ethan and I made a visit down to Oregon and it was the last time we saw Grandpa Ken.
But, moving on to this year... January 2012.

* ROSE BOWL!!!:

[http://www.madeinoregon.com/Oregon-Ducks-Rose-Bowl-Champions-2012-T-Shirt-6188.html]

We were so excited and so happy to see the Oregon Ducks go to the Rose Bowl this year! My family drove up on the day of the Rose Bowl to watch the game with us and drop Christine off at the airport {so she could fly back to Provo}. Of course, we had awesome game-day food: spinach/chicken stromboli, pepperoni/olive stromboli, veggies w/ dip, chips, spicy/cheesy bean dip and leftover Christmas candy. GREAT game and a Rose Bowl WIN for the Ducks!! Woot woot!!

* Family Movie Night: Captain America

[http://www.recipeapart.com/captain-america-first-avenger/]

Both Sean AND Ethan had already seen this movie - Sean at a guys movie night and Ethan at the Colemans' house one night while we were playing games with other couples at another friend's house. So, really, we rented and watched this movie for my benefit. Most Friday nights we end up out doing something with other families or couples and it was nice to stay in, get some pizza and watch this together. Of course, Ethan had to play with his Captain American tank toy {thank you, Nana and Papa!} while we watched the movie. I loved it! Much better than I expected. In fact, Target had it on sale last week and I bought us a copy. Now, I just need to rent Thor and I'll be all set for when The Avengers comes out in May!

* Oregon Zoo: Ethan and I braved the cold weather and met up with some friends for the $4 Tuesday at the Zoo. It was pretty cold, but stayed sunny all day. Ethan and I, knock on wood, always manage to get sun when we go to the Zoo - even during the non-summer months! Ethan and his buddy, Sam, were so fun to watch together. Sam's little brother, Austin, stayed bundled up in the stroller.Thanks for coming with us, Walkers!

* Playdate w/ Sarah: Ethan and Sarah are such good friends and play well together. Sarah came over for a play-date and they painted birdhouses. See, at a previous play-date, Sarah had spied a birdhouse that Ethan painted for me some time last year and she wanted to paint one too. So the next time Ethan and I were at JoAnn's, we got two and kept them stashed until Sarah came to play again. $1 crafts that keep toddlers entertained for at least 1/2 hour are OK in my book! * Sean's OT and Extra Shifts: Sean has been working hard to provide for our family. He already works full-time, plus has 13 piano/voice lessons to give each week but, when the opportunity for over-time and some extra shifts came up, he took them! First up was a very rare chance for over-time with his current job - Seattle area was hit with a lot more snow than Vancouver, so it wasn't safe for kids to travel home Friday afternoon and they had to stay for the weekend. OT almost never happens and Sean worked a full Saturday shift at time-and-a-half. The next weekend, Sean signed up to work TWO graveyard shifts for a special college-prep thing the Commission for the Blind did over in Sandy, OR. We are very, very grateful for all of the hard work he does to provide for our family!!

* Stuff already covered: Pretty much the only exciting thing from the month that was already covered was our snow day. Oh, and our Brazilian cultural night!

* Random Ethan Sleeping Pictures: I can't help it, I have to take a picture when I find Ethan in a funny position. Well, I guess the first one isn't that funny, it was more that I found him crashed out on my side of the bed! The other two he had done a complete 180 turn.
Woo-hoo!! I am officially caught up on my monthly recaps!!