Party for the 8 year old!

How does one throw a birthday party for an 8 year-old at the end of a very busy week? Pay someone else to do it. Ethan and a bunch of his friends spent time tumbling, jumping, flipping, hunting, eating, and having fun somewhere besides our house. . . . . the Sports Academy.

Everyone had a great time!

Ethan was so excited to have his friends join him to celebrate. Everyone had a great time!

Happy (Friday the 13th) Birthday!

When I was pregnant with Ethan his estimated due date was January 9th. Well I kept saying, he can't be born on the 13th because then his birthday will sometimes fall on Friday the 13th and we all know the superstitions with that date. And so the story goes it turns out that the 13th is a lucky numbered day for our family because on January 13th, eight years ago, Ethan came into the world.

2 years old
4 years old

5 years old
and now . . . . . 8 YEARS OLD



I'm constantly awed at how fast time goes and it seems like yesterday I was cuddling my baby boy (so cliche, but true). Not a day goes by that I don't look at Ethan and feel extremely proud of what an incredible person he is growing into. We use to worry that Ethan would be a bit of a follower, but he has developed into quite a little leader. Ethan continues to develop all of those characteristics that make him who he is and what we all love about him. He's creative, intelligent, kind, caring, competitive, athletic, just an all around great kid.

WE LOVE YOU ETHAN!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

Ethan Stats at 8 years old:

*Favorite Color: Blue

*Favorite Foods: BBQ steak, rice,

*Favorite Sport: basketball

*Favorite TV Show: "The Looney Tune Show"

*Favorite Song: "AEIOU sometimes Y" "Cars"

*Favorite Movie: "Home Alone" & "Home Alone 2"

*A place Ethan would love to go: DisneyWORLD & Oregon Coast

A little SNoW

The weather in our neck of the woods has been unseasonably dry so when we received a little of the white stuff there was no time wasted in getting a sledding hill built.

New Year's 3ve

For New Year's Eve we decided to head into SLC and party it up downtown. The kids LOVE to stay at hotels (that in itself was super exciting for them). . . .

. . . . . . however the activities of 3ve were a HIT!

Life-size building blocks

Bounce Room Mania

(a.k.a germ fest - We tried to get past this little detail)

Home-Made drum world
(a.k.a. headache central - it was LOUD)

The most popular activity by far was the "BALL"room. One of the huge conference rooms at the Salt Palace was filled with 100's of clear beach balls of varying sizes. We spent a ton of time here. In my opinion it was kind of dangerous (especially for the little ones, Ellie got ran over by one of the huge balls a couple of times), but the kids could have cared less.

We ended the activities with a stroll through Temple Square (Ellie crashed by this time) and then watching a Coldplay concert back at our room where we had the perfect view of the Fireworks at midnight.

2011 was a great year and we look forward to what 2012 has in store for our family!

New Year's Day:



Two EXHAUSTED kids!