We went to see Santa this past week and that was fun. Well, it was fun for everyone except Ethan. Lets just say that it is a good thing that Santa only comes around once a year. Although I am planning on this same picture (only Ethan a little bigger) next year.

Ethan does this thing where he puts his hand in the air and you are supposed to say "Yeah! Ethan!" for him. Like he needs more attention right? That is why he gets angry at the end of the video. Because I am not saying "Yeah".

I know it probably seems like all I ever write about is Ethan - which gets boring I know. But seriously nothing else happens in my life. I don't have a car so I stay home and the only other thing that happens is.... nothing. We play all day and then sleep all night and start over the next day. But honestly I can't think of a better way to spend every day. Granted I wish it was possible to potty train a 10 month old but that I can live with.

We had good week this last week. Jacob's new schedule is awesome and I love being able to plan things with set days off! On Friday we went down to Salt Lake to the Jazz and Lakers game. We bought some season tickets from a woman on line so our seats were pretty decent. Ethan had a sleep over with Grandma Youngerg (mom) and that was nice since he wouldn't have had a good time at the game. We did win however and it was a really good game. Jacob, of course, had us wearing our jerseys to support the team. It was a fun night.

Ethan is a growing little weed and we are loving every little minute of it! We put up our Christmas tree and decided that our best bet was to put it in the play pen. So... Christmas with kids is different but it is also so much fun. Ethan loves to pull himself up to the tree and rub his head in the branches - what a goof!

He also likes to get up close and personal with the camera. He has 4 teeth now - 2 on top and 2 on bottom. He loves to bit everyones fingers who are dumb enough to still stick them in his mouth.

His favorite thing to do however is try to get his Papa's X Box remote controller. They are very elusive and always out of reach. Every now and then he will get a finger on them and think they are the coolest things on earth. We can tell when he has one because this odd silence falls into our home and we can tell that he is playing with something that he is not supposed to. And when he is not trying to put his fingers on the controllers he is trying to put his tongue on them. We are surprised that anything in our home has survived the amount of druel that it has had to endure these last 10 months.

He has also started doing this thing where he scrunches up his whole face instead of just smiling. It sometimes is a little scary looking but it is cute too! He usually snorts right along with the face which just adds to the cuteness of it all. I can't believe that he is already 10 months and is looking more and more like a little boy every day. It makes me sad but I am so looking forward to being able to watch him run around and play at the park and learn to ride a bike and all of those things that we will get to do when he is older. I am, however, not looking forward to tanrums, school expenses, and not to even mention having to send him off to school in the first place. Oh well, we will just have to deal with all of that when it comes I guess!

Oh my goodness, it has been a little while hasn't it? This Thanksgiving I am thankful for acute care clinics that are open late. We took Ethan to the doctor last night at 8:30 p.m. and was told that he had croup. Maybe next year we could be thankful for a pharmacy that is open on Thanksgiving?? I doubt it.

Jacob found out on Tuesday that he is a now a regular. That means that he will get holidays off, he will have a standard start time of 1:00 p.m. and he will also not be required to work overtime if he doesn't want to. Also starting December 1st. our insurance premiums for the Option High will go down to 45$ a pay period. I love that he works for the federal government. It sure does have its perks.

We had dinner this afternoon at Grandma Youngberg's. It was nice and I really enjoyed the fact that there were other people there that could watch Ethan so that I could eat while my food was still hot. That was a definite bonus.

On Halloween we got carpet! Ethan loves it - and because he loves it - I love. Anything that means less bumps; means fewer cries; fewer cries; means less strees; and less stress means a happier mom.

On Halloween we of course visitied all of the Grandma's and Grandpa's and I got to eat all the candy that they gave him because he is too young for chocolate. It was great. He thoroughly enjoyed being a giraffe and thankfully and surprisingly Jacob had the night off so we were able to go as a family.

Right now we are saving money for a new car for me seeings how I don't have one at all. So if anyone is thinking about what to get me for Christmas - I want a car. See if you can afford that hu? Jacob's 3 siblings all just got new cars and it is really depressing to him. It sometimes make him wish that he had student loans where we could just buy things. But we have to keep reminding ourselves that one day they will have to pay them back.

This week was Katie and Kai's wedding. It was hard to take Ethan but somehow we all survived. The first night inthe hotel room he was SCREAMING before bed time. It's a good thing that bedtime is around 8:30 because if it had been any later I think we would have had an angry mob at our door. We were going to spend the night on Friday as well but Ethan had met his limit and Jacob had gotten off work at 8:30 so he picked us up on his way home from work. It worked out well and Ethan got a good night's rest. Now today he has a runny nose. That makes the day fun.

We don't have much planned for this week. Really the only thing of note is that Jacob and I are going to buy new underwear. Woo hoo! Hey, right now I will take anything I can get.

This week has been rather uneventful for us. We did however carve pumpkins and Ethan had a great time. He thought it would be fun to try and eat the gooey insides but decided that it wasn't that tasty after all. Later he also thought it might be fun to try and eat some rocks but unfortunetly he DID think that those were tasty and so I had to wrestle rocks away from him all afternoon. And you know what - I am sorry to say that is all there was to note this past week.

We went up the Sardine Canyon on Thursday to take some pictures - Denise was our photographer. They turned out pretty well. We brough Ethan's Halloween costume (he is going to be a giraffee) and took some pictures in the bright leaves as well. He is growing quite big and can crawl faster than ever right towards mom's unprotected entertainment center better than you could believe. Jacob is going to bid on a few job openings in Salt Lake to become a regular. If he gets them he will be guaranteed 40 hours and holidays off. He would also get standard days off of Sunday Monday. That would be really nice considering right now they change every week. I hate not being able to count on a steady schedule for him.

Conference was really good. We all went up to Craig's new apartment in Logan and watched it in the apartment club house. They have a new dog - an Italian Greyhound. "Chauncey" and Ethan got along quite well seeing how they are about the same size. The only downside - he is not potty trained. Oh well, it's not my apartment.

Tomorrow we are going to go buy some pumpkins and Ethan is going to carve his first pumpkin. Well...Jacob will do the carving Ethan can play with the mushy insides. We are hoping that Jacob has Halloween since it will be Ethan's first. We won't know till a few days before but we'll see.

I started this new project of scanning all of my in-laws pictures so that they could go digital and preserve them. It has taken about a week to scan the pictures but now I have the slides to do. I think there is about 800 or so. That might take me longer than a week. But just look at this cute picture of Jacob as a little boy that found. Now you all know why Ethan has very blonde nearly white hair. All Jacob's fault. It's cute though.

We tried to push Ethan's bedtime back from 8:30 to 9:30 but he absolutely refused. He still woke up at the time and was then ornry all day long because he didn't get as much sleep as he normally did. Not worth it.

This Friday Jacob is having "brother" day where he is not to be disturbed by anyone and is going to play (I guess) with his brothers from sun up to sun down. I have no idea what they are going to do but I am assured that it is going to be awesome.

As for me and Ethan our plans are to sit home and do absolutely nothing together. General Conference is this weekend so we won't even be going to church. I am sure that mom will have something going on over at house like a slumber party for Conference but we will see.

We are going up Sardine Canyon tomorrow morning for family pictures. We can't afford to pay a fancy photographer so we enlisted the free services of Denise to do the honors. We might have to pay her five bucks in the form of frozen yogurt afterwards but it will be worth it. That way we can have as many copies of the pictures we want and it will be so much cheaper than anything we could possibly afford to pay someone to do. The last family picture we had was at Ethan's blessing day which was about 6 months ago.

It has been a busy few weeks. I was just put into the Young Women's Presidency in my ward as Secretary. We settled the deal with our totaled car and we will get a whopping $935 for it. So... I am out of a car for a while because we can't afford another car payment right now. Hopefully we will get enough for our tax returns to figure something out.

Ethan is crawling faster than ever and is not pulling himself up. He will try to pull on anything in sight. Including my drawstring pants that come down at the slightest tug. This is a picture of him at our front window. He just loves to stand there and watch the cars drive by. He will pound on the window and stomp his feet in delight every time one comes by. We took him into the doctor the other day and he is a healthy 20 lb. 9.5 oz. little/big boy. He is 30 inches tall which just makes his Papa so happy. Ya know, Jacob is hoping that Ethan takes after my height, not his. We went to my Mom's today for Sunday dinner just like we do every Sunday and made Ethan some sweet pajama pants. Do you guys remember those awful purple and black plaid things my mom used to wear. Well be thankful that she is not wearing them anymore. Now Ethan is. Strictly as pajamas though. He is teething pretty good and that makes him pretty ornry sometimes but if I keep him well regulated on his Tylenol he stays a happy boy most of the time.

Doesn't he just look so cute in his dinosaur pajamas!!

Ok - so it may have been some time since my last blog but Ethan has not been very cooperative. He is teething and is not very happy these days. He has also cut back on his napping and sleeping at night so that means that when he takes a nap so do I.

Besides that we are all doing ok. Jacob talked to the Post Master in Logan to see if he could get a job there before his 18 months was up. It doesn't look like they are going to bend the rule at all. Some post offices will - Logan will not. But he likes Jacob and so I hope that in January he will think of him when an opening comes up.

Like I said, Ethan is teething. He is growing and crawling faster than you could believe. He wears 18 -24 month clothes already and is very tall for his age. These are his dinosaur pajamas and are everyones favorite.

I just got a new calling as Young Women Secretary. I will be "initiated" this Sunday. I am just happy that I am not teaching Primary with a 7 month old or some 14 year old Sunday School class. I don't think I could have handled those kids and Ethan too.

The Scrapbook Expo is coming the end of this month and I think I might try and go this year. Seeing as how I don't have a car though I might try to convince mom to go with me so I can just catch a ride.

Boy, my life is really boring. Yesterday the most exciting thing I did was walk through the Peach Days booths with Melissa. Granted - it was fun, but certainly not exciting. Today is the big day though with the parade. Ethan is going fully loaded including earmuffs for when the police and firetrucks pass through. The parade starts at 10:00 and we are at the end of the route. Mom said to be there at 9:30 but ya know, I don't think I am going to show up closer to 10:30. Trying to corral Ethan while he is trying to crawl into the irrigation ditch that is full of water just doesn't sound like fun for me. Once the parade has started he will be intransed that he will sit still for most of it.

Well, I must say that I just don't have that much going on today. Jacob has to go back to work and so I am here to clean up the mess from our "weekend". Nothing ever seems to get done when we are all home so the next few days I have to play catch up.

I might take Ethan to the children's parade tonight. It is Peach Days this weekend. I guess I could go look at the booths too. Melissa is coming up on Saturday so I am sure that she will want to go look at the booths then too. I had to go lay out the tarp last night to reserve our spot on the parade route. I couldn't believe how full it was allready. There were barely any spaces any left!

Sorry it has been a little while since my last post. Me and Ethan took a trip to Grandma and Grandpa Barrow's house. Now, granted they do have the internet but it also moves at the speed of tar. It was interesting few days trying to travel nearly 14 hours with a 7 month old in tow but somehow we all managed to survive. We were most surprised that Dad made it. Poor Dad with nothing but girls in close quarters for that long of a time. We found ways to entertain ourselves. Ethan had several different different hairdos - this one being one of the best! We stopped in one town to take a picture underneath a street sign where the street was labeled "Bucket of Blood Street". That was nice because I bet Mom that if we stopped Ethan would wake up. I won and I got to sit in the front seat while she had to sit in the back and entertain the now tired and cranky boy. The only really bad thing about the trip is that we either had to hear Mom read from her Ann Coulter book or the NRA magazine the WHOLE WAY. And it did not stop once we got to our destination. Yes, it continued.

This weekend is Peach Days so of course we will be joining in on the festivities. It will be Ethan's first parade and he told me that he is very excited to go to the car show as well. Jacob has to work and so he will miss most everything except maybe the first part of the parade.

We are thinking that maybe once Jacob can transfer (January 10, 2008) that he might look for a job in Logan. We both really like it over there and housing is affordable. We could get a 3 bedroom 3 bath for only 700 a month. We also like that the town has more to offer than Brigham does. It has a mall, a Home Depot, and just hundreds of other little stores and restraunts that Brigham does not. Besides that it just far enough away from home but still close enough too.

Ethan is now effortlessly crawling around the house and I think it will begin to show on his forehead. We have wood floors and every now and then he bonks his head pretty good. He hit is so hard the other day that he got a bloody nose. We do have a rug in the front room but trying to keep him on that is impossible now that he knows he has things to explore. Our house isn't too big which makes baby proofing easy. We just keep the door to the bathroom and our bedroom shut and then Mom gave us a gate that we put between the hallway and kitchen. We just need a few drawer safe pulls and one for our t.v. cabinet. Now, baby proofing ourselves is another deal. Jacob has to learn to put his shoes away so they don't get chewed on and I have to stop leaving paper and pens around. That might take a little while before it becomes habit.

Boy, I miss one day and I am already in trouble! I will try really hard to do it every day but our lives just aren't that interesting. I'm telling you - I really have to talk about it Ethan's daily eating, pooping, and napping schedule.

This is the walker that Mom bought for him. At first he could only go backwards but now that he has got the hang of it he moves all over the place. With those wood floors he zooms straight for my plant in the corner. I might need to find it a new home for a while. He will tear all the leaves off and try to eat them.

I am going to a Relief Society luncheon at the park today. Ethan likes it outside so I will take him with me instead of leaving him with Jacob. Besides, if I leave him home he will end up at Grandma Barker's house anyway.

Jacob is going mountain biking up to the "I" today. Their trail is growing and constantly changing. We are just glad that the only injury he has had is a stick through the cheek. He just got a new bike at the start of this season. It is a Demo 7 Remix. His bike costs just about as much as our car. There are only a few places you find them but I assure you - he knows where to find each and every one of them. He does pretty well and really enjoys it so I guess that I will let him keep the bike.

I started this blog thinking that no one would ever look at it and that I would never update it but so far it's not too bad to keep up. We'll see how long that lasts. Ethan and I are getting ready to leave this Friday to go to Arizona to visit Grandma and Papa Barrow. They don't know that we are coming and they have never seen Ethan before so we are hoping that it is a good surprise. Ethan is growing like a little worm and he is starting to scoot around. We have already had to move some things out of the living room so that they don't end up ontop of his head. We were playing in the basement in this picture and somehow the apron ended up wrapped around him like a cape. He trapsed around the room like that for a while just having a grand time. He is such a cute little baby.

For those of you who NEVER come to visit we have redone almost the entire upstairs. We removed the carpet in the front room and the wood floors look just amazing. We painted and got new curtains. On the ceiling we had this awful asbestos crap with the sparkles that we removed. We also had no lights what so ever in the room so we installed 5 can lights and a ceiling fan. The fan makes all difference in the world in the hot summer months.

We also took up the carpet in Ethan's room and painted in there too. He got some curtains and blinds and of course a new crib to complete the room.

Our bedroom and bathroom we did several years ago and they haven't changed much.

We did the kitched this past week. It had awful wallpaper and we couldn't remove it because of the plaster walls so we jad to paint over it the best we could. We chose blue and when we went to go pick out the paint we both really liked the color. When we got home and got it one the walls it was the brightest blue we had ever seen in our entire lives. BUT - since we just spend $60 on paint it is going to have to stay for a while whether we like it or not. We would love to replace the cabinets and sink as well as the floor but we just don't have that kind of cash lying around.

Last Sunday (Aug. 19) Ethan and I were in the car on the way to Grandma Youngberg's (Toni) when a girl pulled a U-Turn infront of us and didn't see us. We hit her and totaled the car. We were both ok but since the car is totaled we no longer have transportation. Their insurance gave us a rental car for a while but as soon as that is gone we are stuck here. They will give us about $500 since that is all the car was worth but we can't afford another car payment right now so that is just going to have to go on the list of things to buy when we get money.