New Toy and Last Year

Well, I got a new toy for Christmas!! A roomba (who will in the future be referred to only as Herman).

Herman the robot!

Herman is great! He cleaned the entire living room tonight and then when his battery ran out he returned to the charging dock...by himself (seen above)!!

Meanwhile on the food front: Ethan tried peas tonight. Well, I say "tried". I only really got one bite in to him and that one bite gave him a bout of the "freesons". (Danielle you'll have to help me spell that for the non-cajun folk). His reaction to them was very similar to the first time I fed him avocados. At least this time he didn't start crying and refuse to eat anything else! He has tried and does like applesauce. I am not making my own though, because he can just eat over the counter "natural" applesauce which is so much cheaper than baby food applesauce.

My friend Allison had a list of things that happened to their family in 2007 and I thought I would steal that idea and make our own list:

2007

1. The year started off with a bang when my best friend Laura had a baby boy: Blaise Samson Neff! (Landon Walker only missed 2007 by a few weeks)
2. I flew home for two awesome baby showers (thanks Mom and Mrs. Cindy) and had two additional ones here. We felt tremendously loved and blessed after these four throw downs:)
3. I missed Laura as I finished my fourth and last year teaching at South Doyle High. I really loved working there because the faculty was like my family away from home. Words can not express how they supported and loved me during the Katrina and Rita hurricanes when I felt so far away from home.
   
4. Danielle came to live with us for the summer which turned out to be a blessing straight from God.
5. I know this seems small, but I got to see whale sharks when we traveled down to the Atlanta Aquarium with Sarah Williams.
6. Ethan made his triumphant, dramatic entrance into the world and we lived through the longest week of our lives.
7. The Boudreaux family went from 5 to 6 or from 2 to 3 if you only count the humans.
8. I accepted a full time position with Knox County where I could bring Ethan to work!
9. Ethan flew on a plane (and did great) for my 10 year reunion in Louisiana. Sadly only 3 or 4 of my high school buddies even showed, but I gave the rest of them great tongue lashings on myspace.
10. With my new job, I planned an executed a full day of professional development for all middle and high school science teachers in Knox County. I was really nervous about it all coming together but it worked out great and the teachers really liked it!
    
11. I pulled back from work a bit after Ethan was not able to come with me to the office and am now fully enjoying my part-time position.
12. For Thanksgiving, we traveled to Birmingham, AL for the Lambert family reunion. It was good to meet all of Mrs. Cindy's extended family and Ethan did well for both car rides!
    
13. We celebrated Christmas with Ethan for the first time. Since July he had learned to roll from front to back and back to front, sit up by himself, has developed two teeth, is eating a multitude of solid foods, and recognizes Philip and I as people he likes to smile at!
14. To celebrate Christmas with our family, we took our first road trip down to Louisiana with out the dogs, but with one special edition and all of his multitudes of STUFF! Seriously, I never knew kids had so much stuff! Thanks to Philip he made sure I had everything I needed while I made sure Ethan had everything he needed!

Thanks for letting me journey back and reminisce over the last year. I know it is a discombobulated list, but they are the things that popped into my head first! Here's a new picture of Ethan straight from Sears:

You can see his puppy Martin's ear in the corner, but the photographer edited this out for our prints!