Fourth of July

This year our street had the 2nd annual Fourth of July block party. The street was blocked off, we had badminton, games, food and probably 40-50 people in attendance.


Walking to Papa

Ethan playing with our neighbors dog, Molly.

Ethan & Daddy walking down the street.

Ethan & a neighbors little girls stroller. Ken didn't like that.


Ethan sitting with Papa during the fireworks. Ethan did fairly well with the loud noises and the fireworks didn't freak him out. An illegal firework went off right at the beginning of ours and that freaked him out.
Ethan took two naps that day and got up at 6pm to play, eat and have a bath before fireworks. He walked all around the block and loved being free to roam. He went to bed at 1015. The latest he's gone to bed since before he was 6 months old. I wish we had the photo of the whole party, but our friend hasn't posted it yet.

CF Great Strides Walk

We didn't quite make it to our $5,000 goal, but we got pretty close with $4255. Ken was the #7 top walker and Team Ethan ranked #4 out of top teams!!! We are very proud of how much support our team got from our family and friends.
This year the new family I'm working for all came to walk, my neighbor and her family, my parents, my college friend and her friend, my niece, my brother in law and Ken's parents. I hope I didn't forget anyone. The walk was 3 miles to places around the State Capitol and took a little over an hour.



Thanks again to everyone who participated and to everyone who donated. The Sacramento Chapter raised over $144,000 this year!

Playgroup

Over the summer a friend of mine from high school named Melissa and I started hanging out. Her son was about 10 months old at the time. After our first get together we decided to start meeting once a week for a play date. We joked that we were a playgroup, even though we weren't really "group".

During this time, I became friends with my neighbor 3 doors down who also had a 10 month old at the time. We started walking together every morning.

Fast forward to a couple weeks ago. Melissa and I started talking about who else we could invite to our "playgroup". We really wanted it to grow so we'd have more friends to talk to and more kids for our boys to play with. The next week I invited Katie, her son, Grant and new baby, Emily to play with us. We had a great time. Here are the pictures from our 1st official playgroup.


Max & Ethan (almost 1!)


Melissa's little boy, Max (16 months, now 17 months)


Katie's son, Grant (16 months)


The only one of all 3 boys.


Ethan playing in his new tunnel from Mom & Dad.


Ethan reading with Melissa.

The next week we planned to go to Katie's house since she had more space than me. She ended up inviting one friend with a 2 yr old and an almost 1 yr old and a friend with a 16 or 17 mos old. Melissa invited one friend from Gymboree and her daughter who was 18 mos. In the end, there were 6 moms and 8 kids. Most of the kids were between 16 and 18 month old. We had so much fun and it wasn't really as crazy as I thought it would be. The kids got along really well.

We have talked about starting a weekly playgroup on Wednesdays. It was so nice to talk to all these moms. It was great to get some ideas from other moms and to just get out of the house and have someone to talk to. It's hard being home all day with no one but the baby to talk to.

I'll update about the playgroup as time goes on. I think it's going to be a great playgroup especially as it gets nicer outside. We're already planning trips to the Zoo & the Railroad Museum. It's a great to be apart of something.

6 month photos

For Ethan's 6 month photos we decided to take my friend, Pam's son with is for photos. Pam & I didn't want to be in the photos. Evidently, Sean, Pam's 1 year old, didn't want to be in the photos either.








At 6 months, Ethan can roll very well from tummy to back, switch toys from one hand to the other, move around his bed (always found in a new spot with toys in his hands or his blankie over his head), sleeps 730pm-630am with no feedings, and eats a jar of baby food and cereal at dinnertime. He is on his way to sitting up on his own. I think within the next couple weeks he will be doing it on his own. We don't know how much he weighs, but I will update this post with a weight on Thursday when we go in for his shots and checkup. He should be about 17 1/2 lbs.

4th of July

Ken's dad, Gary & his brother, Tim.

Elaine & Tim

Ken's niner apron put to work.

Daddy & Ethan

Nana & Ethan

Mommy & Ethan

This year our street hosted a block party for the 4th of July. It was a lot of fun to get to know our neighbors more and to hang around our own neighborhood this year. Ethan slept through all the fireworks, except the whistlers. During those he'd open his eyes, stare, and then go right back to sleep when they were finished. Can't wait for next year.

Ethan at the end of the day.

A Blast From the Past

Rachel Reed Keys, Brittany Harmon, me, & Elizabeth Reinking Tosspon
- My 16th birthday party.

I recently bought a negative reader so that I could take all of my old 35mm film and convert it to digital. It's actually a really easy machine to use and I've already converted over 500 pictures by doing it for the equivalent of 2 hrs a day over 3 or 4days whenever Ethan goes down for a nap. I still have a ton of pictures left to do.
I've found some old photos from high school and college. It's so interesting to look at the clothes I wore, how I styled my hair (or actually did something to it!), and remember all those old memories of youth group, jazz choir and boys...lots of memories of boys! I was a "little" boy crazy and DRAMA, DRAMA, DRAMA. That's another story for a later time.
Here's what I found:

Lauren Bryant Jenkins with her hotel hair thingie @ State Youth Conference '98


Sarah Thompson & Pamela Jones Perry @ my 16th BD Party


The guys: Alex Callan, Matt Modica, David Bohl, & Graham Munday


Lauren Bryant Jenkins' obsession with the pencil sharpener @ Mission Trip somewhere.


Alison Oldham Johnson & Me @ State Youth Conference '98

Emily Callan Maurer & Alex Callan receive their secret pal gifts. Wow!


Shelly Rogers Epler playing her trumpet @ Mission Trip to Spokane, WA in '98


Me Singing in Spokane, Wa

Great Strides Walk for the Cure

Ethan was exhausted after all that walking :)


I've been meaning to post about the Great Strides walk, but with all that's been going on you can see why it's taken me almost 2 weeks. On May 1st, our team of 12 people met at the Capitol steps in Sacramento along with about 500 other people to walk for the cure for Cystic Fibrosis. Our team raised $3210 between the 12 of us. We brought Ethan along in the front pack to keep him up and away from the germs of kids, but of course, he already had a cold. I thought he was getting better actually.
The walk was about 3 miles long through Old Sac, K Street Mall and around the Capitol. We had a BBQ at our house after the walk to say thank you to everyone.
We made t-shirts with Ethan's photo on the front and TEAM ETHAN on the back. Unfortunately, as soon as many of us put them on the transfer with the picture on it cracked. Ethan even had a onesie with his little face on it. I didn't get a picture of him in his onesie, but we did get some pictures of the day.

Lizzie's Wedding & 24 weeks

Rachel, Lizzie & Me

Ken & Me

Mr. & Mrs. Brandon & Elizabeth Tosspon.

I blinded Brandon with the flash that why he

looks like a deer in the headlights.

Rachel's husband, Scott doing Michael Jackson's

moves on the dance floor. Hilarious!

Last weekend Ken and I headed down to Riverside/ San Diego for Elizabeth and Brandon's wedding. Elizabeth and I have been friends since 9th grade P.E. class and even after going away to different states for school still have remained good friends. We flew in on Friday night and spent the whole weekend with my friend Rachel, also a friend from high school, and her husband, Scott in Riverside.

On Saturday, we headed to Elizabeth's wedding but first had to stop off at the Original Pancake House for breakfast. If I lived down there, I would probably gain 50 lbs fast. It's great food!

I always thought Elizabeth's dress would be a 1920's dress with lace and I was right! She was gorgeous! I was really bummed that I was still congested and coughing some at her wedding because I didn't get to sing. I felt even sillier when I saw my name in the program. How embarrassing! The wedding was great! We had an hour between the wedding and reception so Rachel, Scott, Ken and I headed for the closest Chili's in San Diego using the GPS on Rachel's phone. That was an experience in itself. We finally found the Chili's, which was right across the street from our hotel, in about 20 minutes, had some chips & salsa and headed to the marina for the reception. Elizabeth had a Mexican food, which I was really looking forward to, and she even sported a Mexican apron to protect her dress. We had a blast at the wedding!

I'm actually 25 weeks now, but the picture below is 24 weeks. I'm getting bigger and bigger everyday. It's getting harder to bend over to pick things up and I'm getting more uncomfortable. I've gained almost 19 lbs so far, which the book says is normal, but geez, it seems like a bit much to me. Ethan is moving around a lot more than before. I watched him move from one side of my belly to the other last week. It took an hour, but he tapped his way. It's very cool to see your belly move on its own and to feel him move when I'm not just sitting down. In fact, last week he kicked me in the bladder at Target and almost made me pee my pants.