May showers, not flowers

Let me just say that I'm not going to miss Rexburg weather AT ALL when we leave (which won't be till next April). Idaho is always colder than Utah, Rexburg is up on a hill so it's always windy, and there's no guarantee you can't have a snow storm after April. This makes family outings pretty hard when it's windy and raining. I was getting really excited for summer and so far we've had probably a week total of nice weather. But we've tried anyway, we went out to a park where Eric could fish and I could take Ethan on the swings- they even have fire pits so we were going to roast marshmallows, but it was too windy to build a fire, and too windy to fish. Needless to say, we didn't stay that long.

Our windy outing, with Eric trying to fish

On the swings- Ethan cracks up every time we go forward!

Just to make me nervous...

Other than unsuccessful outings, our family has stayed pretty busy this month. School started up again the last week of April, Eric is going full time and I'm taking 4 credits that aren't very hard, but still require some homework. Neither of us are working, but I am babysitting some for girls in our ward who are in school. Ethan is doing great-- he just learned to push himself up into a sitting position, and now I can't keep him down on the floor for more than two seconds. It makes changing diapers and trying to get him dressed interesting, and a few times I've gotten to get him out of his crib from naps and he's sitting up pulling on the bars. We just recently lowered his crib, because he's also started pulling himself up halfway on things. The occupational therapist thinks he's going to skip the crawling stage and go straight to walking!

At the end of last week he went through a rough time with a fever, runny nose, and temper, and he wouldn't leave his glasses on for more than a minute. I thought maybe his prescription was too strong for him and bothering him, because the ophthalmologist said their eyes change pretty quickly at this age, but the next day I looked in his mouth and all four of his teeth had popped in! Two top and two bottom- the week before we could barely see one of the bottom and a hint of the top two coming in, but they all decided to spring forth at the same time. He's a much happier kid this week :)
And here are some random pictures of our experiences this month:

Yes those are gummy worms. Ethan did them himself (Ok so Eric helped)

Riding his bike- Thanks Grandma and Grandpa! He can only go backwards right now, we're working on going forward.

Discovery #1: Light switches. He won't let me pass one without trying to leap out of my arms and grab it

Discovery #2: I can eat my toes!



Thanks Great Grandma and Grandpa for the birthday card! I loved looking at the Blues Clues dog!

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!