When the Cat's Away

So you know that saying "When the cat's away, the mice will play"? Well this video is certainly a good example. Tuesday night I went out with Gene's sisters and parents to a concert. So, it was boys night in at our house. I guess this is what happens when Mom isn't home. This video shows why I love my awesome little family so much! Enjoy!

Ethan's New Do

With it being warmer weather outside lately, we decided that Ethan should lose the long hair. He plays really hard and is a really sweaty kid. We figured it was about time to give him a big boy, summertime haircut. I was really worried about cutting off all cute, blond hair. I was afraid he wasn't going to look like my little boy anymore. So, the other day we took him to a salon that specializes in children haircuts. It was called Cookie Cutters. This place was amazing. There was a play set with a slide and everything. When it came time to get his haircut, he got to sit in the airplane chair. In front of the airplane chair there was a TV that was playing Monsters Inc., one of Ethan's favorite movies. Within 15 minutes of walking in the door, we were all done. The woman who cut his hair was amazing. She was very interactive and made sure Ethan knew everything that was happening. She even saved a little baggy of hair for me. I know it's not his first haircut, but this was a big boy cut. It's different. He still looks like my little boy, just an older, big, little boy. I think we made a good decision. Here are some before and after pictures.

Stewart Castle

So, our child is spoiled. I won't deny it. Because Ethan has been so sick lately we decided that we wanted to get him something special. We didn't know what this something would be until we spotted "Stewart Castle". That's what I call it anyway. It is a giant blow up jumping castle. It was on sale for 50% off, so we bought it. Yes, a major impulse buy.

You should have seen his face when he walked into the room. He was so excited... which made us really excited. This castle included 24 balls and 2 blow up spires. The castle has holes in the walls so you can push the balls through them. He got that part instantly. Smart little guy.

We are moving the house around right now, so the room the castle is in is only temporary. It will soon be in the room that Gene and I are currently using. We are moving our bedrooms downstairs. So our current room will soon be the play room. This room will better accommodate such a large play toy.

Anyway, enjoy the pictures. We've had a lot of fun with this thing!

Movie Review - Knowing

Gene and I went on a date last night. We actually had plans to go to the gym, but I forgot to ask Gene to grab my gym bag. Since we already had a babysitter for a few hours, we decided to take advantage of that and go to a movie. We went and saw the movie Knowing. Here is the synopsis of the movie...

Nicolas Cage stars in Knowing, a gripping action-thriller of global proportions about a professor who stumbles on terrifying predictions about the future—and sets out to prevent them from coming... Nicolas Cage stars in Knowing, a gripping action-thriller of global proportions about a professor who stumbles on terrifying predictions about the future—and sets out to prevent them from coming true.

In 1958, as part of the dedication ceremony for a new elementary school, a group of students is asked to draw pictures to be stored in a time capsule. But one mysterious girl fills her sheet of paper with rows of apparently random numbers instead.

Fifty years later, a new generation of students examines the capsule’s contents and the girl’s cryptic message ends up in the hands of young CALEB KOESTLER. But it is Caleb’s father, professor JOHN KOESTLER (Nicolas Cage), who makes the startling discovery that the encoded message predicts with pinpoint accuracy the dates, death tolls and coordinates of every major disaster of the past 50 years. As John further unravels the document’s chilling secrets, he realizes the document foretells three additional events—the last of which hints at destruction on a global scale and seems to somehow involve John and his son. When John’s attempts to alert the authorities fall on deaf ears, he takes it upon himself to try to prevent more destruction from taking place.

With the reluctant help of DIANA WAYLAND (Rose Byrne) and ABBY WAYLAND, the daughter and granddaughter of the now-deceased author of the prophecies, John’s increasingly desperate efforts take him on a heart-pounding race against time until he finds himself facing the ultimate disaster—and the ultimate sacrifice...

So the movie was pretty good. In fact, it almost had a scary movie feeling through the whole thing. Gene and I both agree that this was a really good movie up until the last 20 minutes. I won't spoil the ending for you, but it definitely wasn't what we were expecting...I mean that in a bad way. I don't know, I wouldn't say it was a waste of money, but I kind of wish we had gone to something else.

New Addition

Now that we are preparing to have a baby, we have yet another addition to the family. Gene has been begging me to get another dog. Lucy, our black lab, has been spending most of her time outside these days. Gene thought she was lonely and really felt strongly that she needed a friend. I on the other hand liked the idea of another dog, but wasn't quite convinced that we needed another mouth to feed in out house. One day I was searching the classified ads (which I frequently do for some reason) and came across a dog named Andy. Andy was at the over crowded Grantsville animal shelter. Due to this over crowding, Andy was going to be put down if nobody came to get him. Looking at the picture of this beautiful dog, I couldn't stand the thought of him being killed. So, Gene and I drove all the way out to Grantsville to pick him up. The shelter was giving him away for free.

Andy is a Yellow Lab/Golden Retriever mix. Both good breeds for a family dog. Andy and Lucy seem to get along pretty well. It seems that they play pretty hard sometimes in the backyard. It almost borders on fighting sometimes though. Only time will tell I guess if they are going to be good buddies. Andy for sure needs some training. He digs giant holes in the backyard, he isn't housebroken, and whines...a lot! Of course as with any dog, this training will take time.

Although I'm having a little trouble adjusting to having this massive new dog in my home, I'm sure he will be a great addition to our family.

New Job

Last Wednesday our family joined the many, many American families who became unemployed. Gene was called into work on his day off to be informed that they could no longer have him as an employee. While we understood the reasons why he had to be let go, we were left worried and scared of what was to come. We have a baby on the way and a mortgage payment. Not to mention the need for health insurance!

After a small period of about 24 hours, Gene became employed again! I guess when you work with people all day it kind of gets the word out. One of the Sinclair stores he delivered milk to was in need of a manager in training. That means they needed to train somebody to be a manager for when another station opened up. How perfect! With Gene's background in convenience store operation, he was perfect for the job. He was hired on immediately without even an interview. He is training in Orem, but is in charge of the Sandy, Draper area...right where we live! So the next store that opens up around here, he gets to be the manager! They told him that one is opening up soon too! There is potential for more money to be made. We are excited for this new opportunity.

We were extremely blessed to have found something so fast. We pray for those who haven't been as fortunate as we have.

IT'S A GIRL

Hello everybody! I guess the title of this post pretty much speaks for itself. Our little family is going to be blessed with a little girl. We were instructed by the doctor to get an ultrasound to check and see how far along I was in my pregnancy. We weren't quite sure on the due date. So it turns out that I am about 17 weeks along. That's pretty good considering we thought I was two weeks less than that! We got to see her cute little face and arms and legs. It really is amazing what technology can do these days. We were afraid it was too early to tell the gender of the baby, but the ultrasound tech. was 99% sure we were having a girl. I'm sure too because Ethan's pictures looked totally different...if you know what I mean. ;) After our ultrasound we went straight to Old Navy to buy our first little pink outfit. We are going to be in trouble buying new baby girl things. It's so easy to spend money on tiny clothes!

We have decided on the name Sydney. Sydney Stewart. No middle name, just like mommy. We'll call her Syd. Cute huh? We are very, very excited to have this sweet baby girl join our family. My due date is now August 18th. Hooray!