Eric and I have really been working on trying to get Ethan to walk. I know we can't make him do it and he'll walk when he's ready, but we thought this was a fun way to get him used to it.
After a while it got tiring to keep turning him around when he would run into walls, so Eric rigged this up in our kitchen. Ethan loved it!
P.S. Eric was exaggerating when he said a half an hour in the video. Just thought I'd clear that up :)
Wednesday was Ethan's last session of occupational therapy with his long time therapist, Gayle. She has been coming to our house once a week since Ethan was a month old to work with him, and has helped his development progress so much! Not only that but I gained a friend, and we are really going to miss her! I know you read this Gayle so thanks for all you've done for our family. You've really touched our lives and I'm glad we were able to work and play with you for as long as we had the opportunity. Ethan has been truly blessed by your talents. 
We have another therapist who will replace Gayle but he has some big shoes to fill. Hopefully we'll hear from him soon and get everything set up, he's supposed to be very good at what he does. We'll see if Ethan reacts differently to a male therapist. I hope the transition goes smoothly and we'll keep you posted!
Ethan's hair has been getting really long and unruly in the back, and I kept hoping it would grow into curls like my little brother Josh had as a baby. We loved them and Jenn and I would run our hands through them all the time. I remember we even cried the day my mom cut them off :) But Ethan's hair was just getting longer and more tangled rather than curly, so Eric broke down yesterday and bought clippers. This morning he put him in the tub so as not to get hair all over our newly cleaned house (see previous post)and started cutting! I didn't want him to take too much off so I made him use the biggest guide at first, but we did end up going down a grade or two. As long as Ethan had a toy in his hand he stayed pretty still, and it turned out well! He only cut the back, and I wish I had pictures of it before, but trust me it was bad, so this is a good change.
Eric and I have spent the last 2 days de-junking and cleaning our apartment. I'm a big one for straightening and making things look nice, but only once in a while do I deep clean a room. So not surprisingly, this was at Eric's suggestion. Using a laundry basket as a "get rid of" bin, we had emptied 5 laundry baskets worth of junk into the dumpster by the time we were done. That doesn't seem like a lot, but the basket was pretty big and our apartment is pretty small, so it was surprising all the unnecessary stuff we had accumulated in our just 2.5 years of marriage. And that it took 2 full days was a shock as well- we started at about 2:00 Thursday and I thought we'd finish about 8 or 9 that night. Wrong! We worked till about 11 and got up Friday morning to continue, and we finished moping the kitchen last night at about 10:30. Wow, it took a while, but it is soooo worth it, I love being in my newly cleaned home! It feels so nice and organized, and I know where everything is. But I can't imagine doing this in a big house as compared to an apartment, and with several kids worth of stuff to go through instead of just one! But we'll see how long this lasts with a little terror on the loose!
Usually summer is the time to relax and take a break, especially from school. But that's not what Eric has been doing with his summer. First he decided to attend the summer semester at BYU-I so he can graduate on track in April 09. That was fine, although by the end he was pretty burned out. Now we are in the middle of a 7-week break between semesters, but he isn't taking a break now either. He's taking a course to prepare for the MCAT, which he will take either in September or January. This man never quits! We love you sweetie and appreciate all the hard work you do for our family! Although the end is not in sight (1 more year of undergrad, 4 years medical school, 2-4 years residency...) you work so hard and we wanted to say thank you for all you do!!
Warning in advance: this will be a long post. I haven't had a chance to update in a while so I have a lot of pictures that I want to share.
Eric says I need to blame the long absence from blogging on this:
I read, like a lot of others, the fourth book in the Twilight series, Breaking Dawn. I won't ruin it for those who haven't read it yet, but I was a little disappointed with it. I was glad it had a happy ending but it took a lot of crazy turns to get there, and I thought it may have been a little far fetched. Now I need something else to read so if you have any suggestions for a good book, let me know!
We've stayed pretty busy over this 7-week break from school. Eric has seen a lot of Idaho because he fishes a lot, but I've never ventured too far from Rexburg so I made him take us out. We went to Mesa Falls which is beautiful but I didn't have the camera with us. We also went on a hike about 20 minutes away from Rexburg with a cool view of the Snake River.
Pretty View
He looks so happy! Maybe thats because he's not doing much of the work...
Eric thought this would be funny :)
We also went bowling with our friends Kristen and Jared and their little boy Kroten. It was way fun and I haven't been in a long time! Just as we were leaving they turned on the black lights, but you can't really tell cause the flash was on the camera. Ethan had fun and was our own cheering squad, he would clap everytime someone went even if we didn't. Pretty cute. Also, we had just got back from Ethan's appointment and found out he weighed a little over 20 lbs, so these balls together weigh as much as he did :) 
Ethan's been a busy bugger over the break as well. He reads a lot, whenever he finds a book lying around, and he also figured out that he can climb up on the couch if he has a step stool. He always loves looking out the window, and now he can get up to it all by himself!
Last weekend we made a trip down to Utah to visit family. We stayed at my Grandparents, who built a house in Orem while they were on their mission. They got home in May and it's so good to have them so close!
We went to a family party at Eric's Aunt Cathy's house celebrating 08/08/08. It was fun, and the last time we've seen most of his family was at the 07/07/07 party last year! Here's Ethan's cute cousin Natalie pushing him on the swing-
We also went and visited Eric's Grandma White, she had never met Ethan before and kept raving about how he was the cutest and smartest baby she's ever seen :) 
Ethan and his cousin Wyatt
We went out to dinner with the Grandparents and Jenn and Bridger, and of course Bridger told them it was my birthday (even though it wasn't). Avarie had fun with the frosting!
Grandma's lovely drawing on the table at Macaroni Grill
Think he did this on his own?
