Pictures of the Backyard...Finally!

I finally have pictures of the deck. It took a while to get some though because it just won't stop raining here!!! Man, never ending!!!

These are pictures of the backyard before the work. I wish I had a picture of the deck before, but I can't find one.

This the backyard with the new cement. I really love the brick accents. It really makes it nice rather than looking like just basic concrete. Its hard to tell from these pictures, but the cement is like a sand or tan color.

This is the new deck. We tore out the hot tub, which extended it probably 3ft. past where the stairs end now, so it added a lot of space to the yard. I also like how the stairs are open. Before, they were narrower and had a rail across the deck, so it didn't seem as open.

Once taxes come in, we'll be able to cement the driveway, and then put new grass in the yard area. We're actually thinking astro-turf, so Dakota can't ruin it. Its all going to look so nice once everything is done.

The Snow...

We went up to the snow last weekend. We want up to Strawberry, which is near Dodge Ridge. It only took us two hours to get there. How lucky are we to only have to drive two hours to play in snow.
The snow was nice. Some of it was hard, but some of it was powdery. Ethan LOVED it!! Man, he just could not get enough. At first, actually through most of the day, we couldn't get him to stop eating it. Every time it got on his mitten, he would eat it. Every chance he could, he would bend over, pick up a hand full, and eat it. We kept telling him not to eat the yellow snow though. He also loved to make snowballs too and throw them. We had gotten into a big snowball fight with my cousins. Actually, it was me and Carrin (15 yrs.) against Taimon (10 yrs.) Ethan was supposed to be on Taimon's side, but he ended up throwing at Taimon. Ethan also picked up a big huge block of snow and threw it at Xavier, which hit him in the face. Poor Xavier. I told Ethan after that that we have to throw snowballs at people's feet.












We also went tubing/sledding. Strawberry has a tubing park that has lanes for people to go down. Most of them are real big, but there is a very small hill for the little ones. Ethan actually went down the big ones a few times, and LOVED it. The kid is a dare-devil. You could hear him giggling the whole time. I wish I had a picture of the big hills so you could see how steep they actually were. Even I was afraid of them. After going on the big ones a few times, we stuck to the little ones, and Ethan went down those hills over, and over, and over again. He just could not get enough.

The King of the Throne!

So, it has finally happened!! Ethan is potty-trained. (Well, except for night time.) He was so ready this time. A few weeks before his 3rd birthday, we kept telling him that 3-year olds can't wear diapers. So when his birthday came around, we took the diapers off, and that was it! He has had very few accidents ever since. It was so easy, that it just showed he was so ready this time. He had one poop accident, but after that, he learned to tell us when he needed to poo, and he has no trouble with that. And he has had 2 pee accidents, and those were both when he was playing real hard with friends and just didn't want to stop.

It is so great to have him out of diapers. Its just so much easier. And he can go into the bathroom by hisself to pee, so its not like I even have to help him all the time. And the savings of not having to buy diapers, wipes, or diaper genie refills is just great!!! Though Greg tells me I can stop wearing the diaper bag now and start using a purse again. It may take a while to break that habit though.

Christmas Time

Wow, a whole month has gone by since my last posting. I could blame it on the holidays, but we all know I just lag.

So Christmas was great this year. Its the first year Ethan really got it. He was so excited about telling Santa what he wanted. He walked right up to Santa and said, I want a horse. No, not a real horse. Just a new toy horse to play with his other toy horses, Bill and Spot. It sucked though when he added 2 more things to his list 3 days before Christmas. He wanted a camel and a donkey. But when I went to the store on Christmas Eve, I forgot about the donkey!!! So all of Christmas Day, when anyone asked what Santa got him, he would say "3 horseys and a camel, but no donkey." Man, can you imagine how bad I felt. His first Christmas and I ruined it!!! Well, not really, but I sure did feel bad.

We did have a visitor on Christmas Eve though. It just made the whole Christmas experience magical. Santa showed up right as we were putting Ethan to be bed. So we snuck out and spied on Santa and watched him put presents under the tree. When you see the video, its dark for most of it, but keep watching, cause you get to see him real good with the twinkle of the Christmas lights shining upon him.