Books of 2009

Here is where I will keep track of the books I read this year.

• The Eyre Affair - I would reccommend this to any one who enjoys literature and/or grammar.
• The No.1 Ladies Detective Agency - Almost a collection of short stories this is a fun and easy read with a little bit of African culture mixed in.

You can keep up with what I'm currently reading by checking my "Currently Reading" shelf on Good Reads.

This apple did not fall far from the trees!

So a brief history into our childhoods.

Philip was a very orderly child. Every toy in his room had a place. His parents even joke that they would go in and move toys to see what he would do. Philip would get very upset by out of place toys and immediately set things right again. Mrs. Cindy said that growing up Craig was Philip's greatest adversary. Not just because they were brothers, but because Craig was not an orderly child and would not like to put things back in their place.

Philip also had his own special language growing up: Juice = Juey, Computer = Doodaloo, Finger = Bimmy, Philip Boudreaux = Fal-lap Boo-dough. For a while they thought he had a hearing problem, but no, he just had a better way of thinking about the world.

I, on the other hand, was a "testy" child. My parents tell stories of me disobeying them just to see what they would do. I once pushed an ashtray off of a coffee table all while my father was sitting out of reach saying, "Bridgette Marie Stelly, don't you push that ash tray off of the table." I stared him straight in the face and pushed it right off. Whew, it's a wonder I survived those years.

Well, Ethan is proving to be a mixture of us both. At 17 months of age he will clean the entire living room. Not just picking up his toys, but also putting them in the correct locations: puzzle pieces in the puzzles, hot wheels in the little plastic bucket, big cars in the big plastic bucket, blocks in the canvas container, and all other toys in the metal basket. Every toy has a place and he knows where those places are.

One of his favorite activities is lining things up: lining up cars,
or refrigerator magnets.
He recently has been aggravated by our dog Emma who leaves her two stuffed toys around the living room. Now when he finds her toys unattended he returns them to her crate. It is really cute that he is picking up after the dogs. The other day Emma busted one of her toys and before I had a chance to clean the stuffing up, Ethan was gathering up all the stuffing and making trips to the trash can.

Another thing he is orderly about is the dinner table. He does not like food to be off of his plate. If I am pushing his chair away from the table he will scream for me to stop so that he can put all of his food back on this plate.

Now for the "testy" side of him. I'm sure this will get worse but recently he has began to test his limits. The other day I told him not to touch the lime bush. He stood with his finger 1 mm from the bush until his foot slipped and he ended up touching it. Arg! Or earlier this week, he picked up a Christmas decoration that he knows he is not suppose to play with and just stared me down. "Put that back where you got it, Ethan." Blank stare. "Put it back, or you will be in trouble." Now, those are big words in our house Ethan knows that trouble is our code for you are about to get a spanking. Blank stare. So I get up out of my chair and what does he do? Yep, you guessed it, he immediately put the decoration back and ran the other way. Too bad I can still run faster than him.

On a lighter note, Danielle is coming to stay with Ethan in January and I think I should warn her that he has a list of vocabulary that do not make any sense to normal adults. For example, he calls a bagel a "Da" and (as you know from our Christmas card) he calls a ball a "gall". He can say baby so I know he can make a b sound, but he does not say ball, only gall.

Oh well, that's it for now. I'll post about Christmas soon. I hope you all had a good one.

Christmas!!

So as the presents piled up under the tree the week before Christmas we thought it would be a good idea to open a few before the big day.
Here is a present from my Nanny to Ethan. A super cool workbench from his Amazon wish list.

It is a little too old for him right now, but he'll grow into it!

With the Boudreauxs my Pawpaw sent us bags of little satsumas from his garden. While Mrs. Cindy and I were at church on Christmas Eve (the men stayed home with Ethan who had a fever) Ethan made himself busy by reorganizing them from where they were in the kitchen to his bowl on the table. When the bowl got too full he just started stacking them on the table.


The Boudreauxs came up for Christmas and Ethan loves his uncle "Keg". Here they are watching Cars (what else?).

So Christmas morning we ripped into the presents!
From Philip and I Ethan got the Elmo books seen above that go in his "My First Story Reader", his Christmas sweater and a huge box of big Legos. You can see more present opening pictures here and pictures and videos here.

I wanted to get a picture of Ethan in his Christmas outfit in front of the tree.
Hmm...He is wearing his Christmas outfit and he is in front of the tree. I don't remember why he was so upset but he got over it quickly.

Decorating a Gingerbread House

So I bought one of those Gingerbread house kits from the store the other day because I thought it would be a great family project. The following conversation took place.

"Look Philip, I got a gingerbread house kit!"
"Cool, I love gingerbread. Are we all going to do it together?"
"Yea, I thought that would be fun and then we can use it for a decoration."
"You mean we are not going to eat it?"
"Well, I wanted to keep it as a decoration."
"But gingerbread is to eat!"
"So we are just going to decorate it all and then eat it?"
"Yep!"
Using my newly developed skills I decide not to continue the argument, but instead silently mourned my new gingerbread house. I decided to try to enjoy the activity and not worry about what was going to happen to the house after we decorated it.

So the three of us gathered around the table and:
I assembled the walls with icing (not with hot glue like originally planned).

Ethan very carefully decorated the Christmas tree and two little gingerbread people that stand in front of the house. We had to repeatedly tell him that the candy was not to eat (even though dad was sneaking candy behind his back!) We finally got out some mini M&Ms so that he could eat something while he decorated.

I iced the house while Philip and Ethan placed the candies.

I even made a walkway so Ethan could decorate without restriction!

Ethan poses with his gingerbread house:Don't you just love that smile?

Here is the finished house:
So later that night I turn to Philip and ask, "Aren't you going to eat the house now?"
"Not now!"
"What do you mean not now? I thought you wanted to make the house and then eat it!"
"I do want to eat it, after Christmas!"
"That's when I want you to eat it too!"

Philip thought I wanted to save the house for years to come and I thought Philip wanted to eat the house that night. It was one of the funny miscommunications that we could laugh about the night that it happened.

I posted all the pictures from our first family craft project on our flickr page.

Thanksgiving in Ohio

Again, imagine that it is early December when you are reading this post:

This year we will not be traveling home for the Christmas holidays. We usually stay here for Christmas day, but travel home the day after Christmas and spend about a week there. This year Philip is going to be saving all of his vacations days for our ski trip in January so that will not be possible.

My parents traveled up here before Thanksgiving, and since we wouldn't be in town for Christmas we decided to do Christmas with the Stellys early.

This is a picture of Ethan opening the puppies' new marshmallow gun! Very cool. Of course Dante is terrified of it and Emma hasn't figured out that the gun is the source of the marshmallows, she just looks around on the ground until one appears. Ethan got some great gifts that he just loved! Lightening McQueen slippers and a great big dump trunk!

Here is his reaction to the new slippers (sorry about the orientation of this video, if someone knows how to flip video you let me know!)

Opening the dump truck:

He wore the slippers all day and there are some great picture of him playing with his dump truck here.

For Thanksgiving we all traveled up to my Aunt Georgia's house in Ohio for the Quaschnick family reunion. My mom is one of five Quaschnick sisters raised in New Orleans. Now the five sisters are spread over four states and two continents!

Row 1: Brandon, Jenny, Jonathan, Sister #1: Linda, Donald, Sister #2: Janet, Madeline, Cousin Phil, Sister #4: Betty, Mike, Ethan, Philip, Me, Greg, Sister #3: Judy, Danielle Row 2: Sister #5 Georgia, Aunt Betty, Grandpa, Grandma, Aunt Lee, Brian Row 3: Abby, Patrick, Tripp, and Maggie The biologist in me also wants to make a pedigree of the people shown here, but I will restrain myself.

While in Ohio we visited the National Museum of the United States Air Force. This is the world's largest and oldest military aviation museum. Out of the whole thing Ethan probably enjoyed the one jeep there and the lights in the modern aviation hanger the best. Here are pictures of Ethan trying to figure out where the color on his skin is coming from.

The museum does have an old Air Force One plane, but we did not get signed up for the tour early enough to be able to go. We'll just have to go back to Ohio so we can do it another time! Philip did buy Ethan a die-cast F-16 and he loves it. He makes jet noises as he flies it around the house.

More posts to come!

You know you are the mom of a preschooler if.....

So today when I caught myself saying, "Don't eat the couch!" I thought to myself you know only moms of preschoolers would have a reason during the day to yell, "Don't eat the couch!"

I think it would be neat to compile a list of things probably only moms of preschoolers do or say during the day. Please leave a comment on this post with something unique that you say or do and we'll go from there. If you are a mom of a preschooler and want to see what your friends could add to this list please post it on your blog too. If you do let me know and I will add your name here on this post!

Here is the beginning of the list:

You know you are the "MOP" when you....

1. say things like: "We don't eat couches!"
2. find out that there is a hole in the back of your husband's speaker because of all the toys that have been stashed there!
3. have to explain to another human being that it is dangerous to walk around with a blanket over your head.
   

That's funny! (updated)

In the last month Ethan has taken, what I would call, leaps and bounds in development. He is really growing up! His vocabulary just grows everyday and even though all of his words are really not words (momma for muffin) it still just amazes me at his ability to imitate almost anything you say. Just today he "named" all the little wooden pieces on his door: sun, dragonfly, frog, turtle, and duck. He even pointed to his name and when I said "That's your name." he pointed to himself and said "mame". It's just crazy.

He has also started running in the last couple of weeks. When he really gets going all you see is flailing limbs and his little body just miraculously moves forward. He also falls alot more now because of it, but that's okay too.

He can now also make a kissing noise which is so cute. About a month ago he started "kissing" the dogs. Really he would just hold his hands behind his back and then lean forward with his lips slightly puckered. The dogs would have various wet spots on their backs at any one time. Well, somewhere along the way he learned to make the kiss noise and now he kisses everything! His cars, his stuffed animals... at a play date last week he even kissed the hostess's little boy. Max let him and then said, "Now my face is all wet!" That's what you get when you let a still teething boy kiss you I guess.

Lastly, he is developing his sense of humor. On Sunday Philip was sick and stayed home from church. It was really cold so I just grabbed his down coat and wore that to church. While buckling Ethan in his car seat he grabbed the sleeve of Philip's jacket and said, "Dadda?" "Yes, this is daddy's jacket." I replied. Then he busted up laughing. It was so cute! It may seem hard to believe that he grasped the irony of me wearing Daddy's jacket, but that sure was what it seemed liked.

We had a great time at Thanksgiving and that post is coming up!

Updated section: I forgot about something else he has started doing. Ethan has started coming up to us in whatever room we are in and telling us "Aye, Aye". He then will walk into another room, or around the house. A couple of days ago while I was getting ready in the morning he told me "Aye,Aye" and then closed my bedroom door. He waited in the hall about a minute and then he came back in the room all smiles. He did this over and over! Telling me bye-bye and then waiting out in the hall until he could come in and do it again.

He can also now feed himself oatmeal by himself in the morning. We have even had a few servings of soup which opens up all sorts of new menu items for me!

So, pretend it is still early November.....

Post-Halloween entry:

This Halloween was Ethan's first time trick or treating. Our church did not have their usual Trunk-o-Treat (why, I do not know) so we trick or treated in our neighborhood with our friends and neighbors David (the dad who is not pictured here), Alex (The Tennessee fan), and Abbey (Little Red Riding Hood).


Ethan was a Saints player and that evening and I followed suit by wearing my jersey and Philip wore my Saints cap (he was going to be Sean Payton and hold a piece of paper in front of his face all night but we didn't think people would really get it).

On Halloween night we had to wake Ethan up from a nap to go trick or treating and he was not hungry for dinner before we left the house...does this spell disaster to anyone else?

His cute eye "decorations" are cut and colored band-aids and they didn't last more than one or two houses. Other than losing the band-aids he did really well considering the circumstances. To collect candy I decorated a $.25 bag from Walmart with some white paint and gold glitter glue (also supplied to me by the VanderSluis family!) and spruced it up with some Halloween stickers. When Ethan wasn't carrying the bag he was holding on to the "FOOTBALL", which is the only way Ethan knows how to say football.


Our neighbors dog Dodger was even dressed for the occasion!

Stay tuned for more updates.....

I've been tagged!

I know it's been awhile, but I was tagged by two of my friends to do this, so here it goes!

I've been tagged by Brandi and Janet to do the following:

1. Choose the 4th picture folder on my computer (there were no pictures in my "fourth folder" so I choose the "My pictures" folder)
2. Choose the 4th picture
3. Explain the picture
4. Tag 4 people to do the same.
This is a picture of our Christmas card last year. From top left these are:

• Philip and Ethan wearing a shirt that says "Daddy's Team"
• Ethan with a LSU hat on (I'm sad that it no longer fits)
  
• Our first (and so far only) trip to the Great Smoky Mountains as a family
  
• A pregnant version of me at the Atlanta aquarium from my road trip last June
  
• Philip and I at our first UT football game (vs. our Alma mater ULL)
• Ethan in his walker
• A family picture of our first picnic (also taken in the Smokies)
• One of my favorite pictures of Ethan (~6 months)
• Ethan and I at Halloween

I really could not have planned for a better picture to have to explain. First, it reminds me that I need to get on that whole "Christmas card" thing, and secondly I realized that I should have included a sticker on our Christmas cards last year to explain each picture!


I tag:
1. Danielle Stelly
2. Allison Harris
3. Ryan Milani
4. Cara Knapp

I promise to make a real post soon. Here are the things you can look forward to:

• Pictures from Halloween
  
• Ethan is really developing his dancing skills (video to follow)
• Quaschnick reunion in Ohio for Thanksgiving
• The Boudreauxs are coming up for Christmas
  
• Philip and I are going to get to go to Colorado in January for a ski/business trip and Danielle is flying up to watch Ethan for a portion of the time we are gone (7 days).

Lots of pictures to get you caught up!

Keep in mind that none of these pictures were staged! I hope you enjoy them.

Ethan LOVES to watch the movie Cars (the first twenty minutes at least), and he has picked up this blanket habit from me.

Now you know why you are not suppose to put tacos in the toaster oven! We do own a new toaster oven now, so that is cool.

My son likes to use quesadillas to eat sour cream!

A long time ago Ethan had stuck one of his shoes through the cat door. He has since rediscovered that little trick! We might want to think about hanging our keys elsewhere.

Believe me, if he could fit, he would have come through himself!We recently brought him to our old hang out: Walker Springs Park.
He loved going down the slide...

and swinging on the swing.
Ethan woke up one day last week with "crazy hair".


My son has no waist as evidenced by these "low rise" pants.


When my parents (Mimi and PawPaw) were in last week we took a trip to the Fruit and Berry Patch to pick pumpkins. Ethan tried to pick up every pumpkin in the place.

Eventually we did find one his size and I have since painted it orange.
After he "decorates" it tomorrow I'll post more pictures.

Blaise and Laura were with us, but I don't have any pictures of them, or the other adults on the trip for that matter.

Hmm... I guess some things you just don't have to teach:
I have no pictures of my parents from their trip, but Philip and I did get to go away for a few days and here are pictures us at Bays Mountain.














If anyone has photoshop and can put us together in one picture that would be great!

...and Found!

So, Philip and I don't argue very often and when we do argue we are not yellers or screamers. Our arguments usually look more like debates. We sit on opposite couches and have times of point, counter point, discussion, and rebuttal. All of this is very logical mind you. We are scientist at heart after all!

So tonight there we were in one of the more heated arguments we have had in a while. We had moved and now were sitting across from each other on our love seat that has a center console. Well at the conclusion of one of my counter points Philip looks up and says, "Well I know something that will make you really happy." "What?" I ask. Then he pulled out my watch! It had slipped between the cushion of the love seat and the wall of the center console. We almost never sit there (it was about a month since I had sat there last) and so I never really inspected it that closely.

In my search for this watch I have torn the house apart, cleaned my car and searched my office at work. I had even found a picture of myself wearing it on Sunday, September 7th and then analyzed my calendar for all the places I had been since then. I even called my pediatrician to ask if anyone had turned a watch in there. But when did God allow me to find my watch? In the middle of a heated argument with my husband. At a time that I needed my heart to be softened. To gain some perspective. After celebrating having my watch back again (making Philip ask me what time it is repeatedly) we finished our "discussion" in a more light hearted manner and agreed to take the matter up at a later time.

Yeah! I'm so glad I found my watch and I'm grateful for God's timing even if it was not my own!

New Videos of Ethan

So this first video shows all of the body parts that Ethan knows.


This second one is something funny that I noticed about Ethan the other day. For our dogs he has a standard "uff, uff, uff", but for our neighbors dog Sawyer he makes a high pitched dog sound which is so cute. Sawyer is a "Toto" dog who does have a higher pitched bark, but I think it is so cute that Ethan has picked up on it. It is also cool that he knows that Emma, Dante, and Sawyer are all dogs and that Yoda is a cat. You can also tell that my teacher training has made me a positive reinforcer!

Lost...

So my number one pet peeve is losing things. I know normally you wouldn't call that a pet peeve but it really drives me nuts. In the last couple of months I have lost a Pampered Chef rubber scraper, Ethan's very first blanket from the NICU and my watch. I have already replaced the scraper, but the last two are nearly irreplaceable. The blanket was a "scent" blanket that Ethan got at the NICU and that I wore next to my body the first night we were separated. Then we kept it under him while he was in the NICU so that he could be close to my smell even when I wasn't there. I was using it as a softee for a couple of weeks and I may have even brought it to Louisiana with me this summer, but alas now it is lost. I've checked at all the Churches that Ethan regularly attends and searched the house. Still no blanket.

Here it is under Ethan on a trip to LA when he was a few months old.

Now my watch is an issue of monetary replacement more than emotional attachment. When I first bought it Philip thought I was spending too much money on just a watch, but I figured it would be the last watch I ever bought. It was an Eco-citizen and it was run with a solar panel face. Really cool! The problem is I usually take it off to type on the laptop or computer because it hits the desk as I type. Somewhere along the way I have misplaced it or Ethan has picked it up and hidden it somewhere. It is even a possibility that Ethan put it in the trash can and it got tossed out. I do have a picture of me wearing it early September but I do not know when it got lost between here and there.

I guess the real reason losing things bugs me is that I know the item is somewhere. Science teaches us two major laws that are at work in our everyday lives, the conservation of mass and the conservation of energy. In this case I have expended a lot of energy looking for things of relatively small mass!

On Thursday at MOPS I did get to put things into perspective a little bit. Our lesson was on contentment. Being discontent in life is a very dangerous place to be. It was discontentment that first drove Eve to pick and eat the forbidden fruit. In the lesson the speaker went over the following verse that has given me some peace:

“But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.”

1Timothy 6:6-10

We come into this world with nothing, and we can take nothing out of it. Even if I do find Ethan's first little blanket he will not be able to take it to eternity with him. He probably won't want to take it anywhere in a few years anyway! My watch can be replaced, and really the frustration of losing it does no one any good especially not me. I have food in my belly and clothes on my back so I do count myself blessed. I just need to remember to be content with what I have, not constantly frustrated about what I have lost!

Oh well....

So I guess our "great" government has gone against what we all wanted (or didn't want) and done what they thought was best. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. As Dave says, "If you are waiting on Washington to change something, you've got a very long wait!" At least I know that God is in control of all things including the economy.

Now on to Snookums. We have a had a few really funny conversations lately.

Last Monday night:
Ethan: "Dada?"
Me: "Dada is at Bible Study."
Ethan: "Baba?"
Me: "No, he's not at the Baba's, he is at Bible Study."
*Wait two minutes and repeat.*

Saturday morning:
Me: "Hey Ethan, what do you want for Christmas?"
Ethan: "oo-kie?"
(Maybe he thought I said breakfast.)

Dave Ramsey's Common Sense Plan

Do you think it is right for our government to spend our tax dollars to bail out bankers who made bad decisions? I don't! They knew what they were doing when they made these loans and we should not be the ones to save them from their consequences with our hard earned money. I am not an economist, but I do know that there has to be other ways to fix this "crisis". We are a Dave Ramsey family and recently Dave has spoken about his Common Sense Fix on air. I have posted it below for your convenience. There are three things that we can do to get this fix in place instead of the one that will cost you and me 700+billion dollars.

1. Pray for our leaders. They are operating under a spirit of fear at this time and we know that fear is not a fruit of the Spirit!
2. Send the plan below to your representatives and congressman.
3. Tell others to do the same!
   

The Common Sense Fix
Years of bad decisions and stupid mistakes have created an economic nightmare in this country, but $700 billion in new debt is not the answer. As a tax-paying American citizen, I will not support any congressperson who votes to implement such a policy. Instead, I submit the following three step Common Sense Plan.
I. INSURANCE
a. Insure the subprime bonds/mortgages with an underlying FHA-type insurance. Government-insured and backed loans would have an instant market all over the world, creating immediate and needed liquidity.
b. In order for a company to accept the government-backed insurance, they must do two things:
1. Rewrite any mortgage that is more than three months delinquent to a 6% fixed-rate mortgage.
a. Roll all back payments with no late fees or legal costs into the balance. This brings homeowners current and allows them a chance to keep their homes.
b. Cancel all prepayment penalties to encourage refinancing or the sale of the property to pay off the bad loan. In the event of foreclosure or short sale, the borrower will not be held liable for any deficit balance. FHA does this now, and that encourages mortgage companies to go the extra mile while working with the borrower—again limiting foreclosures and ruined lives.
2. Cancel ALL golden parachutes of EXISTING and FUTURE CEOs and executive team members as long as the company holds these government-insured bonds/mortgages. This keeps underperforming executives from being paid when they don’t do their jobs.
c. This backstop will cost less than $50 billion—a small fraction of the current proposal.
II. MARK TO MARKET
a. Remove mark to market accounting rules for two years on only subprime Tier III bonds/mortgages. This keeps companies from being forced to artificially mark down bonds/mortgages below the value of the underlying mortgages and real estate.
b. This move creates patience in the market and has an immediate stabilizing effect on failing and ailing banks—and it costs the taxpayer nothing.
III. CAPITAL GAINS TAX
a. Remove the capital gains tax completely. Investors will flood the real estate and stock market in search of tax-free profits, creating tremendous—and immediate—liquidity in the markets. Again, this costs the taxpayer nothing.
b. This move will be seen as a lightning rod politically because many will say it is helping the rich. The truth is the rich will benefit, but it will be their money that stimulates the economy. This will enable all Americans to have more stable jobs and retirement investments that go up instead of down.

This is not a time for envy, and it’s not a time for politics. It’s time for all of us, as Americans, to stand up, speak out, and fix this mess.

30 Day Challenge: Just Do It!

Last Sunday my Pastor challenged us all to read the Bible for 15 minutes a day for 30 days. The idea is to take a snap shot of where your life is now and after 30 days see how/if your priorities, outlook, or life in general has changed. I don't know about anyone else, but I easily get caught up in reading lots of studies or books about God and I forget to actually read the WORD!

Would anyone like to join me? I plan on starting with the book of John and probably just continuing through Acts and Romans. If you don't have a bible you can read it online in any translation from this site. As the last couple of posts have shown, not having enough time can not be an excuse to pass this up. If I can find 15 minutes anyone can!

I am going to begin on October 1st and I'll post updates and excerpts here. If you want to join me please leave a comment here and I promise to contact you in the next month with words of encouragement.

A typical week in the life of Ethan Boudreaux (read as: Why this blog is seldomly updated.)

I love Ritz crackers!

Sunday: Ethan usually wakes up by 8 am. While we shower (or this week I ran to the grocery store while Philip showered) Ethan plays alone in his room. After we are all dressed we head down stairs where Ethan eats breakfast (usually a whole banana and then 1/4 cup of cereal or a serving of yogurt). Ethan goes to nursery at church from 9:30-12:30. Every fourth Sunday I get to spend an hour and a half with him and his little friends. After a very cranky ride home with a tired boy, we have lunch and Ethan lays down for a long nap. He usually wakes up sometime around 4 or 4:30. After playing around the house for a while he has dinner around 5:30pm. At night he loves to play with his cars (vrrrmming them all over the house) or tonight he is pushing around his "pick up" truck. Finally we head to bed at around 7 or 7:30. We do have a bedtime routine that includes 3 books, pjs, a cup of milk and our prayers.

Monday: We have to be at church at 8:00am! This means that Ethan eats a poptart in his snack dispenser and a cup of milk for breakfast on the way to church. He plays in a different nursery room (on the same hallway as Sunday) until 11:3o when we head back home. After lunch he usually takes a short nap and then wants to play again at about 1:30 or so. We usually go grocery shopping on Monday afternoons and he likes to flirt with all the ladies at WalMart (esp. those over 50). After a second afternoon nap he wakes up to eat dinner and see daddy for about 45 minutes before Philip heads off to BSF. Before going to bed he loves to read books and will bring one to you and then sit in your lap while you read.



Tuesday and Wednesday: Early care at Preschool starts at 8:30 and his teacher Mrs. Sharon is there to greet him. At preschool they have outside time (or gym play), inside play with art, lunch and nap time. Art has included putting stickers on butcher paper so far. Ethan has gotten a good report for naptime everyday! His teachers say that he is the first to sleep each day. He is always awake by the time I get there at 2:00. He is also always starving when we get into the car so I try to remember to bring a snack with me. We usually head straight home after PS and he is back in bed by 3:30. He then sleeps till about 5:30 and when he wakes up he is again starving! After dinner we have been spending family time together outside or upstairs in the newly painted "boys" room. Here is a video of such a time with Ethan showing you all of his animal skills!

On Wednesdays we do have small group from 6:30-8 and Ethan loves playing with the Bell children during this time.

Thursday: My bible study at church starts at 9:30 so this is a relatively late day for us. He is in the same nursery room that he is in on Mondays so at least there is familiarity there. We are home by noon on these days and so far we have had my friend Betsy and her kids over or we have gone to a buisness lunch. We reached "critical mass" at the last lunch so I won't be planning another one of those for a Thursday anytime soon. Having Betsy and her little ones over was so much fun so I hope we do more of that this fall. This Thursday afternoon Ethan has his 15 month check up at KPA.

Friday: Free Day! Last Friday we just ran errands in the morning and stayed home for the rest of the day. This Friday we have MOPS so Ethan will be back at Central Baptist in the same room that he is in for PS.

Overall, I hope you forgive us for not blogging more often, but as you can see we are seldom home! I do realize that I have "overbooked" myself this year but I'm not counting down the months yet. I just look at my schedule one week at a time and recite the phrase, "This too shall pass." I've also resorted to buying a paper calendar for the garage door so that Philip can keep up with my/our week night obligations.

Philip has been busy too. Look at my (our) new desk!


He also enjoys picking apples from our apple tree:

Even though I haven't posted here in the last couple of weeks I have updated my other Blog so check that out when you get a chance (esp. in you're in the market for a mixer!)

Socks and Shoes

This picture really has nothing to do with the post, but it was too cute not to post. He just found this hat the other day and brought it to me to put on. He wore it for about 30 minutes while he walked all over the house.

Setting the scene: Ethan's shoes are stored in a cardboard box in the laundry room. Earlier in the day Ethan brought me one of his dress shoes and I tossed it into the kitchen.

This afternoon:

Ethan appears with an Elmo tennis shoe in his hand. I inform him that he can not wear this shoe unless he has socks on. "If you can find your sandals I'll put them on you, but to wear your shoes you need to have socks."

Ethan reappears with a pair of socks. Where did he get these socks I wonder? Maybe there was an extra pair in the cardboard box, I honestly don't know. I put the socks on this feet. Ethan disappears back into the laundry room and comes out with a dress shoe. "We aren't going to wear those today, find your Elmo shoes." He proceeds to walk through the kitchen and place the first dress shoe next to the other misplaced dress shoe from earlier in the day.


Ethan retreats back into the laundry room. He is momentarily distracted when he hears the sounds of wood working coming from the garage. Squatting down to open the cat door Ethan says, "Dada?" to which he hears Philip say, "Ethan?". Satisfied that he has identified the source of the racket he returns to his original mission. He brings me one Elmo shoe and then the other. Here he is with both his shoes and socks on:



Other cute incident: At Panera today I took pieces of turkey from my sandwich and placed them on a napkin in front of Ethan. He diligently worked on his grilled cheese sandwich and periodically ate pieces of turkey. After we were done with lunch we asked Ethan if he was done. He made the sign for "done" and then promptly picked up all spare pieces of turkey and sandwich that he had not eaten and placed them back on the napkin. He is becoming more and more like his daddy everyday!

Ethan's update

Ethan has had a good two weeks at preschool (totaling 4 days). There was a mishap this last Tuesday when I forgot his thermos in his backpack (instead of in his lunch box) and all he had for lunch was peaches, milk and cheese. I was really upset by this, but when I talked to Mrs. Sharon she said that she didn't know to look for more food because she has had moms in the past send three different types of crackers for their child's lunch. She now knows that Ethan should have all food groups represented, and if he doesn't to go and look in his bag for something else. He was really hungry when I picked him up that day, but we made up for it by going to iHop with Carmen, Justin, Nancy and new baby Jonathan! That's right, Carmen (who we have prayed for during this pregnancy) had her baby last week! He was four weeks early but he is home and everyone is doing fine.

Ethan did something yesterday that really made me feel like he is a big boy now. After getting dressed in his PJs I sat on the floor to read him his three before bed books. Well, as I was looking through the books Ethan picked one up, handed it to me, and then plopped himself down in my lap. After we read the first book he stood up, got another one, and plopped himself back down in my lap to listen to it. It was so cute! We usually only read three books before going to bed but that night we read five. I don't know if he learned to do this at pre-school or maybe he picked it up at Allison's house watching her kiddos do the same thing. Either way it is super cute!

Gutav update: Philip's parents got thier power back on, but as far as I know Danielle is still without power in Baton Rouge.

Baton Rouge hit hard

My parents and grandparents have their power back so that is good. Philip's parents got home last night. There is no damage to their house but they are still without power. The live in a more rural area, so that may take a while.

Meanwhile, Danielle has returned to find Baton Rouge practically in ruins. 98% of the city does not have power and the authorities are saying that 50% of the city can expect to get power again in 1-8 days and the rest of the city can expect to get power sometime in the next 4 weeks. Governor Jindal and President Bush said that these time tables were unacceptable and that other states need to lend manpower to the Southern Louisiana Coast. The energy company for the region has stated that only Katrina left more people without power and that this is the worst storm that Baton Rouge has ever seen.

LSU is out for the rest of the week and Danielle is returning to work tomorrow. Her cafe is the only CC's in Baton Rouge that still has power. Other CC's from all over the city have brought them their perishables. She said they now have shelves and shelves of muffins. She and Paolo went to the grocery store today and had to wait in line to get in. The store had no perishables, only cans of food. At 4pm they were going to stop letting people in to the store. According to her LSU has even canceled the football game scheduled for Saturday and rescheduled for sometime in November. Even if gas stations have gas they need electricity to pump it. Please pray for the citizens of south Louisiana. It will be a while before things get back to normal and I pray that authorities have looting and price gouging under control. So far they really seem to be on top of it! Baton Rouge is still under an 8pm - 6am curfew. Danielle did find a place to stay with power tonight so that is good. You'd be amazed how good you sleep with A/C on!

Thanks for everyone who has expressed concern for my family! We really do appreciate it.

Update

We are in the all clear. Dad's house and Mawmaw's house are still without power, but Mawmaw does have a generator and they even watched the UT game last night. I haven't heard any official word out of Vermillion Parish where Dad's cousins live. I know the Vermillion river in Lafayette is predicted to continue to rise until Wednesday so there may be local flooding around the river. Luckily my family doesn't live by the river so they will be fine.

The Boudreauxs are still in Arkansas and now they are getting to see Gustav first hand. I don't know when they will be returning but I'll post that up here as soon as I know.

Landfall

Well Gustav has made landfall and spared Vermillion bay any major storm surge which is great for my family's homes that were damaged in Rita.

My dad had a few things to add to my previous post. Being under voluntary evacuation also makes public transportation available to those who want to get out of the parish.

Also a paraphrased quote from Rob Perillo (local Meterologist) about staying in Lafayette, "All modern structures (with the exception of trailers) are built to withstand 115 mph sustained winds. Will you lose power? Yes. Will you lose shingles? Yes. But, will you die? Not unless a tree falls on the room you are in. That is a possibility, but not a probability."

So far everyone in Lafayette that we know still has power. My Aunt is in Baton Rouge and they lost power sometime this morning.

The real bad news is that it looks like New Orleans might flood again. We are keeping are eyes on things and still appreciate your thoughts and prayers.

Update: As of 4pm CST Lafayette lost power.

Gustav

• Fill your car's gas tank
• Go grocery shopping for non-perishables
  
• Gather up any thing that is outside and not bolted down
• Fill bathtubs with water
• Buy lots of ice
  
• Sit and wait

This list is just to give you an idea of the things that my family is doing about now (or has done over the last few days).

Many of you have asked and so I will post some info here about the status of our families. Gustav is headed directly for our hometown even with the change in trajectory over night. Our home parish of Lafayette is under voluntary evacuation which really just means that schools and some county buildings will be set up as shelters for people who need a place to go. I have family that live south of Hwy 14 and they all received heavy damage to their homes from Hurricane Rita's storm surge. They have all been evacuated and we hope that Gustav's storm surge will not be as bad (the changed trajectory has seemed to help that prospect out).

Philip's parents, brother, and grandmother are driving to AK today to get out of the way of the storm. Please pray for safety during their travel. They obviously will not be the only ones headed north today. My parents who live in south Lafayette Parish are going to ride the storm out. They are probably one of the highest houses in their neighborhood and the water has never come close, so that is good. My sister lives in Baton Rouge and I believe she will be driving to Lafayette today to stay with my Mawmaw and Pawpaw who are also riding out the storm in Northern Lafayette. They have a generator and are well stocked with food items and such. Her boyfriend Paulo is going to be going through his first storm and I can imagine that must be nerve racking.

I'm glad to hear that Gustav has weakened to a Cat.3 and may stay there before making land fall. Just yesterday we had heard reports that it could make landfall as a four or five.

Mostly during this time I just hate not being there. It is hard to be 700 miles away and have nothing to do to help.