things…..good things……..

This week, Tuesday November 16th, Ethan took his first steps! He was just 11 months and one day old.  What a big boy! He can take 4-5 steps on his own, balancing himself and loves it. We have a feeling that as soon as he figures out walking, he’ll be running and then we’ll be in trouble. He has a very cute obsession with Daddy right now. Last week I asked Jared to do an early morning feeding with Ethan so I could snooze in bed. That totally backfired on me because when Ethan saw Daddy he was ready to party and not interested in eating or sleeping anymore. I  rarely ask for helping during the sleeping hours, but I certainly won’t ask for help again!

Bryce on the other hand is being a big “Mama’s boy” right now. He is into everything, on top of everything, and some how ends up with some sort of head injury at least every 2 days. His face looks like a Crayola crayon picture sometimes. It’s nice that he is a happy, funny little guy. He loves to dance and tease. And cheer for his siblings. It is like he wants to be a big boy and not listen to me, be independent; however, at the same time he still wants to be held, snuggled, and always in sight of me.

And for an update on our sweet Hope. She calls herself the “little Mommy” and that I am the “big Mommy”. And she lets me know when I am needed, and when the “little Mommy” can take care of something.  She is the only one of the children that actually understands what a rule is and follows them (ok, most of the time) but loves to enforce them on others (mostly Bryce). Thank heaven’s for girls, because I often feel like “The little Red Hen”, and Hope is really stepping up to put in her share of helping.  She has always been socially reserved with people other then family and now is starting to open up and introduce herself and play with others her age. Our preschool group has been a good experience for her.

Goodbye October, Hello November.

It is great to end each year with fun holidays. We had a safe, and fun Halloween. We enjoyed a night of Trunk or Treat with the Formans at the Colfax ward. Hope was one of the kids voted for “cutest costume” although every kid there was adorable. Sunday morning I decided that we should finally carve a few pumpkins. Daddy was at a meeting and Ethan was asleep so Hope, Bryce and I attempted it. I cut my hand within 30 seconds trying to cut the top off. After I came back from getting it bandaged Hope said, “Mommy, I think that we should wait for Daddy. He is better at cutting pumpkins.” Turns out Daddy is awesome at carving pumpkins. We had the pumpkins hollowed out by the time Daddy came home and he did a great job carving out Jack-o-lantern faces on them. That was the first time in our marriage that we had ever carved pumpkins together so I didn’t know he was so good at it. So now we have bags of candy that we don’t know what to do with. I am the mean Mom who doesn’t want the kids to eat it all, doesn’t want to waste it by throwing it away, and is just not sure what to do. Perhaps they’ll forget about it being in the cupboard.