5 Years Ago, I became a mom

My beautiful baby boy was born 5 years ago today. I can't believe it has been 5 years already! Really? Where did my baby boy go?

Back in 2003...

At just 5 minutes old...

then at 1 yr 2004...

2nd birthday....

3rd birthday...

4th birthday, 2007...

I stayed up until 2am decorating dining room with the Spongebob theme and his bedroom door, wrapping presents, baking cookies...so tired right now.

I made these cone cupcakes for daycare kids at Mrs. F, they had a little party Tues for him... We made these Monday night and Ethan helped by putting on all the sprinkles. First time making these, I filled about half of them with too much batter and they overflowed in the oven! E picked out the funfetti cake with white frosting.

I made up these star cookie suckers to take to his preschool class today. I only have one pan of 6 stars, so took 4 batches...part of the reason why I had a late night. I bought the sucker bags & sticks at Michaels, had to tie with yellow ribbon-E's fav color.

Here is Ethan this morning smiling as his Ga T sings Happy Birthday to him on the phone. T's parents came over last night with part of his gift since they are out of town tonight.


I hope he has a fun day today! After preschool, T & I are going to take him to Red Robin for lunch.

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Nice weekend

Had a good weekend, but only left the house once.



Friday night was kids Easter party at church. I took Ethan & got there before 5:30pm so we didn't miss the big egg hunt. There were a lot less kids there this year. They said there were 550 eggs and maybe about 25 kids. So, luckily E had no problems getting a bunch. No tears this year because another kid grabbed his egg either. We sat with Brendan's family, who is in his preschool class. Nice time, plus hot dogs for dinner, which is E's fav.


Wed. was wacky clothes day at his preschool. E wore this ensemble...

Funny Ethan quotes for this week, that I can't forget:

Wed. 3/5 at my mom's house:

They were discussing dogs and he brought up that Mrs. F has a new dog, Brinkley.

My mom asked, "What kind of dog is it?"

Ethan: "A wrestler"

Brinkley is a boxer! So funny, at least he knew they were similar.

Sat. 3/8 walking into the kitchen and complaining his foot hurts. I asked if he stepped on something since he was barefoot.

Ethan:"No, it is on the inside. This happened one other time"

Me: "oh, is your foot asleep? Does it feel like pins & needles? Try shaking it. Does it feel better now?"

Ethan: "No, it still is fizzy"

He amuses me so.




On Saturday, T had boys game. Unfortunately, they lost so they are done for the season. HE had told E that if they win he would come home and get us to go to the 2nd game at night. So Ethan didn't get why we couldn't go back and watch the game. When T got home I left to do some quick errands. I just went to CVS, got gas, went to Jewel for a couple things for Sun. dinner, then back home. E & I painted another 'E' for his room. This one matches his comforter. I finally hung the last 2 E's, so he has 6 up on his wall. E had fun painting on the newspaper, then grabbed the tape I used to mask off areas for the stripes.


I did laundry today, got through 2 loads of Ethans, towels, and 1 load for me.


I need to set up some Ebay auctions, just need to get the energy to take the pics and upload it all. I need to put up Ethan's summer clothes he has grown out of. I think April/may is more the time when ppl buy those clothes. I have ton of winter stuff I needed to get up there and haven't. I think I will pull some dressy church stuff for Easter clothes buyers.





We tivoed the finale of "Gone Country" on Friday.
I waited to see the reveal of winner when T was home and watching it. I really thought it would be anyone but Julio or Sisco. T & I both agreed, definitely Julio had to be in last place. I was thinking Bobby Brown, T thought Maureen. Spoiler here...


Julio wins!? WTF?? Still surprised by that one. No way! Total letdown of that show. We were watching some of the marathon last week and I think got caught up with it today. Such crap that he won. His accent is so distracting and his song was way too Latin sounding.

Enjoying American Idol, though.

Boys I'm still rooting for the 3 Davids, dreads guy, Inxs guy.


Girls I like- Ramiele, Carly, Brooke-ok....now I can't think of any other girls


I really thought that Danny was gonna be there until top ten. I bet that is all he was expecting to a point, too. He would have loved to gone on tour with everyone. I really saw him as this year's Sanjaya. Doesn't he look like a mixture of Shannon Elizabeth & Jessica Alba?


I wasn't a fan of Asia'h, or however you spell her name. I hate how she sang from that back of her throat.


It was kind of neat that there were 3 people from Indiana this year. Only 1 left, the rocker Amanda. Not sure if she can hang on to the top 10.


Watching Big Brother on the free Showtime now. I can't explain why that show sucks me every season. Not sure who to root for this time. I was rooting for James or Chelsia, but doesn't look good for them.

Quick post

Just wanted to plug in some pics from the weekend.

I had T take our pic at Northwoods on Friday. I told him he didn't have to have the flash on...I didn't want to attract attention either. I could just lighten it up some in photoshop.

Here is the pic he took....yeah a bit dark, huh?

After playing around in Photoshop I got 2 decent enough pics. I made duplicate layer of the pic, then changed the duplicate layer to screen from normal. Then I added 2 more layers repeating this process. I think I did an auto levels on one of them, too. It is still really grainy, unsharp mask didn't do anything to correct that.

Isn't the fire so cozy? There are 'stuffed' animals up in the rafters that E noticed after a while.

Here is E's new grin with 2 missing bottom teeth now.


I found my little heart pillow from when I was a little girl. Now my little guy can use it for his lost teeth.

You put the tooth in that little front pocket for the tooth fairy. He seems to like it. It doesn't look that girly since it is green.

I made these Hamburger Cupcakes that Kelly's Korner blogged about.

I took the time to make them last night. E took one bite & spit it out. Oh well.

I made his with out any ketchup in the meat, too. He is such a picky eater, my fault for it, I know. I thought it I called them cupcakes it would intrigue him a bit. When he saw me making them, he said he didn't like that kind of cupcake.

Not too bad, and super easy to make. T just had 2 when he came home that he had to reheat.

First week of March

Now that it is March, I'm starting to plan Ethan's birthday party. He will be 5!

I just invite our immediate family, we are all local except for T's brother. We're having it on his actual birthday next Wed. He chose Spongebob theme for this year.

I just made up these invitations and emailed them out tonight.

I have made up a photo incorporation of him with the invitation every year from year 2.

Not sure if I am making his cake yet. It would be fun to design a spongebob cake, but I don't think I have the skills or time for it to look realistic. I'm going to check with a bakery by my work to see if they design them better than the grocery store book one where they just add the characters to the top of a sheet cake.

I want to make my choc. chip star cookie suckers for his school treat and some cupcake cones to take to Mrs. F's daycare. I have never made those before & always wanted to. I found some good tips online already. How cute are these?

I actually haven't watched tv tonight. I've been online working on Ethan's party stuff. Still need to watch Days.

I did tivo our fav Monday night show, Jon & Kate plus 8.

Ethan loves to watch that show now, too! I don't know what it is about that family, but I enjoy watching them. They are completely different to our family in so many ways. I cringe at the ways that she talks to her husband though. T would so not tolerate half of what she tells her dh to do. So different.

Weekend recap:

Friday night - went out to dinner at Northwoods. Love that place & I loved that there wasn't a wait! When I came home from work T was already home. I decided to write down 3 restaurant options and let Ethan draw one out of a bowl. He seemed excited about it, too. Well, would have worked fine until E had to input a choice of his own....Ponderosa. Now I do enjoy Pondo for breakfast buffet, but just not in mood for dinner there then. I did put his choice on the slip of paper. Other choices were... Moe's, Jalapenos, Northwoods. T made a face at 3 of the 4 and I was actually wanting Northwoods the most, also!

As E was drawing the 'winner' I was telling T that you know what is going to happen right? As he was drawing he was asking me "which one is Pondo?" Amazingly enough, yes, he drew Ponderosa. Well, luckily he still can't read and I just grabbed it and laughed and said "Northwoods". So my 'fun drawing game' was anything but random.

I made T take a pic of us. I had the yummy pork roast with stuffing, mashed potatoes & gravy and their spicy green beans. Ethan ate all of him mini corndogs.

After that we checked out the puppies at Alsips, which is always fun. They had a corgi. E just went up to one of the girls and asked if he could play with one. I guess he remembered doing that before with us. They got out the corgi for us. Cute little guy.

Saturday was so nice since I had time to shop by myself. I went to thrift store-for half off Sat. and found some soccer shorts for E & M, too. Then I went out to Old Navy to get these cool madras shorts for E & some flip flops (2 for $5) They were sold out online in every style in his size! So happy they had plenty at the store. I'm going to wrap it up for his birthday, though. Won't he be thrilled? He'll think the flip flops are cool, at least.

I didn't realize but there was a TJ Maxx a couple stores away, so I had to check it out. It was a nicer one than in Merr. I've been looking for nice leather magazine holders for my new bookcase. I found 2 olive green textured leather ones, $10 ea. They fit nicely, too!

E spent the night at T's parents on Sat. night, but was gone for 24 hrs. His bottom tooth was loose when his dad picked him up on Sat. so we told them to watch out that he doesn't swallow it again. When they dropped him off on Sunday he brought in a baggie with a tooth! C was checking how loose it was and wiggled it forward and it fell right out. He was happy, as I was, that we had the tooth this time to put in his little pillow for the tooth fairy.

Boys won their sectional tonight! T is so happy. He brought home part of the net. They haven't won the sectional in 10 years! 1998- before we were married, sorry to say I don't really recall that happening. He made a bet that if they won the sectional he would wear a tie to the next game, now he wishes he didn't make that bet! He'll look nice though.

Wed. - Ethan has wacky clothes day at preschool. I know exactly what his ensemble will be.

Nephew's Birthday Party

Happy Birthday, Matthew!



Yesterday was Matthew's 5th birthday. E & I went to their house for his party. T had to work, so didn't get out there in time.

He had a Superman themed party this year.
He opened presents...

We got him LiteBrite, Doodle Doug, a baseball long sleeved tee, green plaid button down shirt and matching green pants.

We sang to him and he blew out his 5 candles...well kind of.
Trying to blow out all the candles...click to watch video...

Then we had cake!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Hope you are having a nice Valentine's Day!

T is sick...no card from him yet.

I made heart shaped chocolate chip cookies last night.

I got Ethan...
-a cute little black doggy holding a sparkly heart (Dollar Store & he loves it),
-rev-up car that is magnetic and has a loop track so it goes upside-down - plus on the refridgerator!
-little Whitman's Snoopy heart box of chocolates
-Marshmellow & choc. heart
-Reese's heart
-a cool Spongebob Valentine card

For T- a card, 2 Reese's hearts, Snickers heart

We don't do much for V-Day. Trent is sick right now, too. He always is busy at work. I hate the crowds at the restaurants anyway.

I'll give the cousins a heart cookie tomorrow. I decorated some with icing, too.
2 weeks until my nephew's birthday. I need to get ideas for him. He will be 5, just 12 days before E.

I took one of those fun quizzes for today, too...

What Does Your Candy Heart Say?

OMG! Just saw this on Ross Blog. Look who got to meet & interview!

He loves House Hunters as much as I do! So funny that she is really different in person & I didn't know she did stand up, wow!

So, Trent surprised me at work with a flower delivery on Friday. Check out my pretty flower arrangement. He always gets me an assortment of my favorite colors, I don't really have a fav flower. They did an awesome job this time, too!

He lost his first tooth!

Well, it happened today! Ethan lost his first tooth. I can't believe it!

T called me at work and said he was putting on Ethan's coat and he started crying. He was telling him that his tooth fell out while he was eating his sandwich and he swallowed it.

Yes, he swallowed his tooth! He was so upset, too! Over the weekend I had explained to him when he loses a tooth we will leave it for the tooth fairy and she will leave you money.

Well, I think he thought he didn't have the tooth so he wouldn't get the money. T said he was really emotional about it. But oddly, he didn't tell him right when it happened when he was eating. T thought he was probably scared to tell him because he kept asking him if he could just pull it out so he doesn't swallow it when he is eating.

Well, I won't go into that T actually thought I would want to keep the first tooth...yeah, actually sift through poo? I will admit I am a memoribilia freak, but not to that extent.

I talked to Ethan in the car about swallowing it to help him calm down. I told him we could take a picture of his mouth with the empty space and print it out to show the tooth fairy. This went over beautifully with him, quick thinking on my end.

I left this one in the little tooth pillow...

what is the going rate now?

Watched the new Big Brother tonight, Biggest Loser & Westminster from last night. We will tivo the finals tomorrow and watch it later. I just had to quickly change the channel on the news because they were starting to say the winner.

Ethan signed all 15 of his Valentines for his class, so they are all ready for school tomorrow. We got Spongebob ones this year and they fold up into a little box and included a little bag of yogurt raisins.

I really decorated a lot for Valentine's Day this year. I love the new light-up heart from Walgreens for the front window. E loves finding other houses that have the same one. Ok, I do, too. Love decorating in my apothecary jars, it just fun & festive.

I need to mail out Valentine's to Grandparents tomorrow. Hope they get them on Thursday!

Ethan has a loose tooth!

I'm not ready for this milestone. Ethan has a loose tooth. Its on the bottom and it is pretty loose.

I'm not ready for this yet. It actually makes me sad. Like really sad. Is that bad?

I know I will cry when it falls out. I don't want to scare him, I'm sure he will freak out with any blood. Where did my baby boy go?

Don't kids lose teeth in kindergarten & 1st grade? He isn't 5 yet! He will be in a month, though.

I catch him playing with it and can see it is pretty loose. He is worried about eating certain foods now. He noticed it was loose when he was eating an apple at my sister's on Friday. She checked it and thought it was loose & told me. A lost her first tooth when she was 5, but I think she was in kindergarten.I can't believe my baby is growing up. It's too fast!

We went bowling today with Swans. It was so fun! We played 2 games and remembered the coupons this time. It was Elliot's first time bowling and he did super! He is 2.5 yrs now.

We even went out to dinner together. The boys really like each other. Elliot's that age that he copies everything E does. So cute. We sat together at the game on Thursday, too. I got my 1 game in this year.

It is supposed to be a high of 4 degrees here tomorrow. I'm feeling it already. I'm not leaving the house tomorrow.

I ordered a tall bookcase for our livingroom. My mom has one similar. I like Sauder brand stuff.

It was so cheap at Walmart, too. I ordered online, so shipping directly to me. Even with shipping it is cheaper than Lowes, Menards or Kmart price of the same bookcase. It won't ship out for another week.

Need to get major cleaning/organizing done tomorrow. I hope T helps me.

Crazy weather here

Last night was so scary foggy. It was foggy during the day and the drive home got scary for me.
I was following people in rush hour so wasn't that bad, I couldn't see any buildings on the either side of the road.
When I turned off the main road to get E at Mrs. F it was a country road with no street lights for about 1/2 mile. It was so scary because I wasn't following anyone and no one was coming. It seemed like it was a white out blizzard. It was definitely the worst fog I have ever driven in.
I was so happy to make it home safely.
T even came home like 2 min after us. He went to play poker, but he said it got worse and couldn't see the lights until he was right on them.
WE are supposed to get 4-6 inches tonight. It hasn't started snowing yet though. It has been drizzling rain most of the day. I hope it isn't messy in the morning. Wed. are my busy day at work so I can't miss it with those deadlines. I hope it doesn't get too bad. We had about 6 inches on Friday and they called off school. I went in around 11am, after T snowblowed 4 driveways.
I watched Biggest Loser tonight. This is the first season I have pretty much watched every episode, oh I didn't see the first epis. I'm liking it.
American Idol-just watched the first 15 min, but it is tivoed.
Watched Days, which is getting kinda good. I predicted Colleen right and she being John's mother.
E has a pajama party at school tomorrow. He wants to wear his Spiderman pjs. I hope he is warm enough in them. He is excited he gets to bring slippers and his blanket & Edgar.
I'll need to take a pic of him.

Lesson Learned with a 4 yr old

Look what Ethan learned to do...

One day I added that Hi-5 cd set to my 'watch' list, when I was playing with Ethan. He wanted to see the Hi-5 stuff offered on Ebay. Well, that auction had ended a while ago. I had the window open and was buying something for my mom. I left it open, but he was playing a game on another window. Luckily I checked my email later that night and noticed I bid on this??

I think the max offer is funny and it would never have gotten that high. Obviously, he doesn't understand decimals and just entered the exact amount "1190". I have no idea how he knew to even enter anything. I was so relieved that I was able to retract it, though. The seller was from Malaysia, too!!