BUZZZZ

A few weeks ago we went to a Salt Lake Bees baseball game with Dustin and Rebekah. Bekah took this cute picture of Gene and Ethan with Bumble, the mascot for the team. I wish I could tell you who won the game, but we left early. I think Salt Lake was winning when we left. Look how Gene's shirt matches Bumble. I wonder if he did that on purpose? Maybe they called each other? Ethan was so tired. See how he looks thrilled to be at the game. Well, us adults had fun anyway!

Then and Now

I just wanted to post these 2 pictures to show how much E has grown.

Ethan's Big Day

Well the big day has already come. Ethan turned one year old on Sunday. The year went so fast. Too fast if you ask me. It's hard to believe that my baby has been with us for a year. What a wonderful year it was too. It has been amazing to watch him grow and learn new things. I was thinking about the first time I felt him kick in my tummy. It was on April 18, 2007. Now here we are celebrating his first birthday. Nuts.

So the weekend started out with the arrival of Tiffany and Mark. They came late Friday night and stayed in our basement bedroom. Big apologies to them for the lack of furniture. On Saturday we had a super busy day. First thing Gene and I did was go mow our Saturday lawns. 3 lawns to be exact. Not too bad. Tiff and Mark were nice enough to take Ethan for the morning while they visited some other family and friends. Once we were home, party plans took over. I had to bake 2 big cakes, a bunch of cupcakes, and one little cake for the birthday boy. Busy, busy, busy.

Soon after the baking started more people started to arrive to help. Mom and Grandma came and then Dustin and Rebekah were next to arrive. Shortly after that Dad, Rose and Camilla came. Rebekah not only helped me decorate for the party, she helped me keep my sanity too. I was beginning to feel the stress of the party.

Once everything was ready, guests started to arrive. The final head count of people was 23. Talk about a full house. (No John Stamos however...) We all ate yummy sandwiches Gene's mom made and just visited for a while. Then, the opening of the presents. Ethan got a lot of clothes and new toys. Thank goodness! He needed warmer clothes and he was getting bored of all his other toys. And then there was the cake and ice cream. Thanks to Tiffany for decorating the cakes. Ethan got his own little cake. He really got into tearing it up, but he really didn't eat much of it. He's seeming to be a little bit of a health nut...besides oreo cookies...thanks to Dustin!

After the party we were all exhausted. Dustin and Bekah stuck around with Gene and I and Tiff and Mark. We stayed up talking and laughing. Just what I needed after a day like that. I was so tired!

Sunday came and went pretty quietly. At exactly 10:39 am we told Ethan happy birthday offically. I pulled him in close and gave him a kiss and wiped away a little bit of a tear. Happy tear of course. I just can't believe that he's so big already.

Dad and Rose left Sunday and Tiff and Mark left Monday. It was nice to see everybody. We want to thank all our family and friends who came to the party. It was amazing to see so many people here together to celebrate the birthday of our little boy with the huge personality.

Yet Another Book Review

Welcome back to another edition of Stephanie's Book review. Today we will be discussing Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer. Wow, I sound so offical. I'm imagining myself with a british accent as I write this. I read Breaking Dawn a few weeks ago and just never wrote my thoughts about it...until now.

Starting off where Eclipse left off, Breaking Dawn was the perfect ending to the Twilight series. Well, that's just my opinion, there were a lot of mixed opinions on how this book played out. So, Bella and Edward have their perfect storybook wedding, they go on their honeymoon, and you know what usually comes next...yes a baby. Huge spoiler if you haven't read it. Sorry. Basically this book is about what happens when a human and a vampire have a baby. Of course there is Jacob Black who is Bella's best friend and is desperately in love with her. He has to watch her suffer through her pregnancy and try to cope with the fact that all his chances with Bella are over. There are many twists and turns in this story, but the biggest problem that they face is the Italian Volturi (pretty much vampire royalty) coming to destroy their family. I won't say why because I don't want to totally spoil everything. So anyway, this book was awesome.

I'm really sad that the series is over. Stephenie Meyer was writing another book to go along with the series called Midnight Sun, which was Twilight just from Edward's perspective. Because of a leak of the rough draft on the internet, she has decided to put off the project. I hope she can someday get over that betrayal and publish the story. All in all, like I said before, Breaking Dawn was a perfect ending to the series.