It's me again ETHAN. I have been reading a lot. my favorite is hank the cowdog the case of the monkey burglar. The interesting thing is that there is a website for hank.We got a new cat.he is nice.me and lili have work.

New Blog

I just made a new blog for the family adventure up in Washington.

Check it out :)

Steel Eel

Ethan rode his first real roller coaster ride this weekend. The Steel Eel at Sea World has a huge drop, but he was determined to go. On the initial freefall he panicked, but I assured him he would not fall out. After we got off the ride he panted "never, again, never, again...." As soon as we saw James he asked Ethan if he wanted to go again - and he said yes! (so much for "never"). The two of them rode and Ethan came off again saying "never again" and that was it for the day...but I figure he'll get back on a roller coaster again when he gets the chance ;)

The box said for ages 9-14...

Ethan has always loved Legos. In the past this has meant that I had the opportunity to become a Lego engineer, but in the past few months (due mainly to his incredible progress from his eye therapy), he has really started to build the ships himself. On Christmas Eve he built his first ship by himself (with relatively little help). This one was within his age range and he did great!





Several months ago we saw the Star Wars Battle Droid Carrier at Target...this ship had almost 1400 pieces and the recommended age minimum was 9 years old. Ethan really loved this ship and we had to look at it every time we went into the store. James and I went ahead and bought him the ship for Christmas, figuring that we would be putting the bulk of it together. Were we in for a surprise! He went to work as soon as we got his Lego workspace set up. We helped him sort the Legos by color (as per the instructions) and he was off. By the end of the first night he was well on his way.







He took a couple of days off from full time building to play with Aunt Crystal, Uncle Dan, and Holly, but as soon as they were on their way back home, Ethan was back at work. Last night he had finished about 80% of the ship. He asked me to take pictures and "send them to all the grandparents."





This afternoon he finished his ship. And it looks AWESOME!





Except for the sorting, the occasional help from James or me to find a particular piece, and a rebuild of one wall that was injured during construction, he did the whole thing by himself!!!!! We are so proud that he didn't let the 9-14 advisory scare him off. He showed amazing patience and concentration as he worked long into the night :) He totally rocks!!



So, if you are wondering what is next for my budding structural engineer - he isn't planning on taking off much time between projects. Once he is finished savoring the moment (and playing with the spoils of his victory) he will be building Hogwarts Castle.

Happy Halloween :)

Well, we had plenty of fun last night. Ethan was Harry Potter (big surprise, I know!)




Several of his friends came over and they trick-or-treated in a large clump - which was a blast for him.

Plus, his pumpkin "won" the vote for best decorated (thanks to a couple of fellow contestants who threw a few votes his way :)





All in all, it was a fun night!

Catching up

Sorry it's been so long...but I have been busy. As I mentioned on Annelise's blog I was in a digital scrapbooking contest last month...here are my entries for rounds 3 and 4:







(Credits: Charleston Blues from Amy Fenner at GDS and Atomic Cupcake Actions)




(Credits: Theresa Borntrager's Electric Youth kit at GDS and Atomic Cupcake actions)


To make the picture bigger double click on the picture and it should show you a bigger image.

The cool thing is that I was selected for the Supreme Team III so I will continue to be busy creating more pages :) I will try to do better at updating the blog though!!

Ethan starts 2nd grade

Ethan successfully began a new school year. He decided that this year started just right when we opened our front door to find a gecko. If keep up with Ethan's blog, you know all about his gecko obsession. The thing that was really cool was that the shirt he had chosen to start the school year off in is his new gecko shirt...so there you go.



He did report upon coming home that he has the nicest teacher in the whole world, so all in all a good start to second grade.

The Changing Landscape that is Ethan's Smile

The smile that has been so familiar to me is changing in the blink of an eye. Ethan loves being able to stick his tongue out without opening his mouth :)

Ethan's Dream

Ethan woke up this morning and told me that he had a dream in which he was riding his bike. Up until today he has been very resistant to the idea of the bike, but today he was ready.

We went out before lunch and had moderate success...he was able to pedal and go for a bit (and I was even able to let go once) I figured that would be it for the day, afterall a huge thunderstorm was coming (and toally drenched us - for the record) and I wasn't sure when we'd be able to get back out on the bike.



After nap the sky had (mostly) cleared and Ethan was ready for another shot at the bike. In no time at all he was able to with out me holding on. The next thing I know, I have jogged 3 miles as we criss-crossed our neighborhood while he honed his bike skills!



Hot and humid...this is what I looked like after Ethan's dream came true :)

Another tooth bites the dust

Ethan lost his front tooth this morning. Well, not so much lost, as systematically wiggled it until it came out. He woke up wiggling it. Then he got encouraged when it started to bleed. Finally...POP...out it came. He is extremely pleased with himself and it has given him a whole different smile :)

Slip Sliding Away

(a.k.a. How to get your kitchen floor really clean)

The kitchen floor was a mess. I never could figure out which pair of shoes leave all of the annoying scuff marks, but they were all over. Usually I use a Magic Eraser to get up the scuffs. Ethan was very excited about cleaning the floor, but I was out of Magic Erasers. I figured that any cleaning was better than nothing, so I told him to have at it. I forgot that he was a experimental scientist. I knew that we was using windex. I said ok to the small amount of dishwashing soap he was using. I stepped into the other room listening as he worked and talked on the phone. The first warning I had was "Mom, you don't want to come in here! It's very slippery." OK, I say and continue my conversation for a few more minutes. When I get up to check on him, this is what has become of the kitchen:

The kids had a blast skating on the bubbles. (Annelise was not thrilled with the several times she fell down, but she always got back up :) After a few minutes of letting him play in his masterpiece, I got a big towel and started to dry the floor (after changing Annelise and putting her in a no-slip zone). I was shocked to find that Ethan's mixture cleaned the floor better than any of the mopping stuff I use. I sent him over all of the serious dirty spots and mopped up behind him. The floor is clean and the kitchen smells all lemony.

Now, if only he would invent a new way to wash all of the laundry this adventure produced....

Last moments of 6

Ethan's sixth year of life has been a good one. Here he is...6 for about 12 more hours!

Mr. Fix-It

Ethan has always enjoyed "fixing" things. When he was about three years old, I bought this electric car at a garage sale for $5 to see if you could replace the battery and get it going. We never actually got the car to move on its own, but Ethan spent hours "working" on his car. So, I didn't really pay much attention to him as he was working on his bike. I was too busy taking pictures of the kids in the beautiful spring weather to be concerned with such mundane things as what he was actually doing. Before I knew it he had removed the reflectors from his bike and reattached them to his scooter. All by himself. Some of you may be concerned about his bike's lack of night-time visiblity -don't be. He doesn't actually ride the bike. But he does ride the scooter constantly. For years I had been looking forward to the day when he could not only take something apart but also put something back together. That day has arrived! There is no telling what he will "fix"next :)

Now playing for the Seahawks...

Ethan had his first flag football game last Saturday. Turns out he likes football - better than soccer, better than baseball, better than kickball. That's my boy.



Here he is in action:

Banging On Pots and Pans

Ethan and Annelise have this Sandra Boynton kids' CD that we love to listen to. One of their favorite songs is "Banging on Pots and Pans". Ethan took it literally today. He got out several silver bowls and some spoons and made some serious noise.



Annelise wasn't going to stand idly by, so he gave her a bowl and spoon of her own...just like the song they had pots and pans and a rock and roll band :)

Gone Fishing

(This one's for you Mom :)

Ethan, Annelise, and I went fishing today. Of course it took an hour to go the store to buy worms and then to a different store to buy gloves, but after we accomplished this we were ready for fun. The gloves were necessary to enable our handling of the worms :)


Ethan successfully picked up the worm, but he just couldn't get it on the hook...too wiggly.



Sooooo...it was up to me. Donning the gloves, I fearlessly picked up that four inch worm...



And impaled him twice with the hook. (This only made him wiggle more.)




After several attempts (I forgot how the fishing rod worked), I managed to fling the worm out into the pond . Yea me!




Of course a few minutes later I managed to hook myself and the worm. This time I even dehooked myself gloveless :)




I turned the reins over to the boy...who didn't need a course in remedial casting and was able to put the worm back in the water.




And so we fished. And had fun in the beautiful weather. The worm lasted through many toils and snares.



We only went home after Ethan caught something on the bottom. We did our best to reel it in, but the line broke...leaving us both wormless and hookless. But I am pretty certain that the worm is still firmly attached to that hook at the mucky bottom. So I think I did my part.

And I still remain fishless!

Ethan always has an idea...some kind of plan. The other day he strung rope all around the yard to make a ladder to climb up a tree. Our yard looked a bit like a spider's web, but he was happy.

The other night after the kids were in bed I heard noises out on my deck. Both the cat and the dog were sleeping peacefully together in Madeline's bed. I heard a crash that was the result of the cat's bowl falling down. I looked out the kitchen window and this is what I see:



I have long suspected that we have a possum in the back yard, but now I can prove it :) I went and grabbed the camera and quietly opened the window so that I could capture him. In the morning I showed Ethan the pictures and he thought they were cool, but the first thing he asked was "did you catch it?" There was a time when I probably would have tried, but it didn't even cross my mind...so we do not have a new pet. He is now on the look out for the possum.

Brand New Cousin

Ethan is now a cousin...he should be good at it since he has received glowing reviews as a big brother :) He is also being overrun with girls, but he is ok with that. When I told him that his new baby cousin was here his first response was "where is it?" I had to explain that she was in the hospital with Aunt Crystal and Uncle Dan in Maryland. Even though early on he had hoped for a boy, he was quite taken with Holly. And rightly so...just look at her :) He is looking forward to meeting her in person.

What's happening?

As everybody knows, we had ice last week. School shut down for 2 days (and even let us start late on the 3rd day). While it did snow, there wasn't much to cover anything, but the kids did have fun sledding - which is to say riding the sled down our nieghbor's icy driveway. Ethan is a serious sledder and went down more times than I can count. Annelise loved it as well. Here she is with her Big Brother. The smiles tell the story best :)

This is my life!!!!

We had to replace one of our toliets the other day. When James brought the new one in (fortunately the NEW one), the kids figured they got a new toy. Yep, they are my pride and joy :)