Tribute to Ethan on his 1st Birthday!

As of yesterday at 5:10 pm, Ethan is officially ONE YEAR OLD! I can't even believe it, and I've been here for every minute of it! My little boy is growing up, now if he would just start crawling or walking...:) He does have his first tooth coming in, so that's good, and he's learning to push himself up into a sitting position. Twice he has come so close, only to give up at the last minute. Hopefully another week and he'll have mastered that one! He is such a jabber-mouth, he talks constantly in so many different sounds with such inflection, that when he does it staring right at you, you think you've just gotten through a long and very descriptive conversation about one of his many toys!
Ethan has been such a blessing in our lives, I can't imagine life pre-baby. What did we do with all of our time? ;) But seriously, he is an amazing kid and has come so far. He still has a long way to go, but from his original diagnosis, it's clear he is a living miracle. We are so grateful to a Heavenly Father who loves us enough to trust us with such a special spirit, we don't deserve the amount of joy he brings. We know he has touched many lives and will continue to do so.

Happy Birthday Ethan, we love you so much!

Blessing Wyatt

After graduation, we headed down with my parents to Utah for when Jenn and Bridger blessed Wyatt. Their house looks amazing now, they bought an old house in Salem, completely remodeled it, and now they've gotten their yard in and it looks awesome. We went outside afterwards to take some pictures, here are some of them:

Everyone there, mostly Jenn's In-Laws
(Eric, Ethan and I are in the shade on the right)

Carters and our families

The girls and the kids! Wyatt had the cutest outfit with a tiny yellow tie.

Ethan and Avarie having fun on the keyboard

Ethan helped us drive home :)

Ooops...

So I've been messing around with the template for the blog and somehow I deleted all my friends and family's blog links...When you get on and check out the blog if you could please let me know your address and I'll add you, thanks!
Jessica

Graduation!

I did it! I finally graduated from college!!!
I got my Bachelor's degree in Communication with an emphasis in public relations (or according to Jenn, personal relations :). The commencement ceremony was Friday, and my parents and sister came to Rexburg for it (thanks guys!). It was a nice ceremony, but a little disappointing because of the lack of traditional parts of graduation that BYU-Idaho didn't include. They didn't line us up by last name or even major, we just lined up as we got there. Since I was one of the first people there, I got to sit on the second row. Elder M. Russell Ballard spoke and gave us graduates some advice about sharing the gospel as we go out into the real world. Then they didn't have us change our tassels over to the other side of our caps, or even throw the ugly square graduation hats up in the air. But oh well, at least I'm done!
Well, sort of...In the middle of the semester they found out they had double counted some of my credits so I have another 3 credit class to take this summer plus one internship credit that I was already planning on doing. But it won't be bad, Eric is going to school full time and I'll just take one class between his. It still feels like I'm done though!
Thanks to everyone for all the support through school. It's been a process, and an even harder one these last 2 semesters now that we have Ethan, but it has been so worth it and I am so glad I finished!

Me, Jenn, and Ethan sitting at the Graduation Banquet Thursday night.

My parents at the banquet

Marching!

My mom, the bawl baby :) And Ethan wanted in on the hugging action

Excited that it's over!


Family photo!

All of us

Basket O' Fun

Once again, Eric likes to find interesting ways to entertain Ethan. This one he really enjoyed!



He was content for the first little while because he had so many toys at his immediate disposal, but then Eric said he had even more fun when he started throwing the toys out one at a time. That is, until there were none left...

Letters from Home

My brother Jeremy (Elder Carter) is on a mission in Cape Town, South Africa so we wanted to give him a shout out from here. I tried to get Ethan to hold the sign up to take a picture, but his love of eating and ripping paper prevailed over his love for his uncle. Love you Jer, keep up the good work!

Rubber Ducky, You're the One

I've been trying to figure out the best way to give Ethan a bath. He's been too big for his infant tub for a while, so I've just been sitting him up in the bathtub and almost having to hold him up. Poor kid's so light that even a few inches of water makes him float and every time he reaches down to grab a toy he practically falls over. They have plastic bath rings you can sit them in, but in the booming metropolis of Rexburg I couldn't find one anywhere. Luckily, I found this at Wal-Mart!


He loves taking baths in it, theres a non-slip pad built into the bottom and it even quacks when you push it's beak. It's a little cheesy I know, but a life-saver for me!!