Ethan's Appointment

Ethan's speech therapist sits like this when she comes:

Ethan tripped over her legs, smacked his chin on the coffee table and bit his lip - inside and out. He bled everywhere, but the orange is from the popsicle I gave him to help the swelling.

Two teeth through the outer lip...

... and a few through the inside.

This is how it looks today - two days later.

In the Anchorage airport:

Ethan had an audiology appointment today. As of three weeks ago, we were only planning on giving him a cochlear implant on the right side. The hearing in his left ear wasn't great, but it was good enough not to implant him. Today's results show the hearing in his left ear is gone. It has disappeared over the last three weeks. His hearing aids are giving him little to no help. The audiologist is beginning the authorization for bilateral implantation and we will verify the left hearing loss in a few weeks.

The plane to Anchorage has 2 seats on each side with 5 seats in the back row. There are only about 10 rows. Waiting in the airport, there were 2 felons in orange and yellow jumpsuits and handcuffs. They boarded the plane first. Ethan was one of two children on the flight. The other mom and I were the last to board with our kids and can you guess what the only seats left on the plane were? The row directly in front of the felons. So nice of the other passengers to put the small children between themselves and the possible danger.

On the way back, the flight attendant would not let Ethan sit in his own seat. She told me he was too small and must sit on my lap. And why then is he required to purchase a ticket? Also on our trip, I got frostbite on two of my fingers.

This one's for Mandi: (she says she won't believe it until she sees a picture!)

Grant and Greg, thank you, thank you for the shelves. They aren't quite beautifully arranged yet, but you WILL get your picture!

Happy (Early) Anniversary to Me!

THAT is what Doug got me for our anniversary! Isn't is cute? I am so excited! It has some of the coolest features and is teeny tiny, but takes the most beautiful pictures! It has a huge display (considering the teeny tiny-ness of the camera) and it knows which direction you are holding the camera and flips the pictures accordingly. The zoom is amazing! The "auto" feature recognizes what you're taking a picture of, so, for example, it will focus on the person's face and tell you it is taking a portrait. But most of all, it's so cute! My little camera has been dead for a while now, so maybe now you'll get more pictures on the blog - and a video or two besides.

Poor Doug - he got new tires for his truck for our anniversary. I can't afford anything beyond that. They are NOT CHEAP! If you've seen the size of them, you understand. Nolan refers to Doug's truck as "the monster truck," if you need a visual.

The painting is... frustrating. Jared - I don't sit around and stare at my walls. It is kind of a "catch a glimpse and shutter at the site of them" thing going on. Really, they are bad. I hate them. I think I am on paint color #5, which is a custon mix created by Doug.

Ugh!

Painted again - hate it - again. Maybe I'll just go back to white. Boring old white. Blah.

Snow at last!

It finally snowed. I know, you thought I wouldn't be looking forward to it, but it is better than the barren scene we've had for a while with no real fun outside. We did go down to the lake on Sunday and throw rocks. Sometimes they would go through the ice and create an air pocket under the ice and other times they would skip across the ice, making the most incredible noise. I can't even describe it. The best little tinkling sound came from a handful of tiny rocks.

We had initially gone down to the dock to retrieve the motor off of Doug's little boat. The big one has been "packaged" for the winter - he lovingly wrapped it in tarps, folding them nicely so it looks like a gift - okay, I think it looks like an arc, but whatever. There was no ice in front of our dock, so Doug decided to just drive the boat around to the boat launch. He got about half way there and hit the ice. He had a good time breaking through the ice, but it doesn't sound so good when a small ice burg hits the propeller.

There was no snow on the forecast for the week as of Sunday, but today it says we should have snow for the next three days. The little boys will be so excited when they wake up! We have to head into town and look for new snow pants for Brenden. The ones that he is wearing from last year look ridiculous!

I painted part of the rest of the kitchen yesterday, but I HATE the color, so I will start over today. I like the color, just not with the yellow wall. The color is called "warm muffin," but it looks like I painted a pastel yellow wall next to my bright "squash" wall. What's with the food names for the colors?

Have a wonderful day!

Recipe Book

I am home sick from church today, so I thought I'd share a little story I remembered last night.

About a month ago, I was working outside and it was getting late. Brenden poked his head out the door and asked if he could make dinner. I said, "Sure," thinking we would be having cereal or toast. I came in a while later to see Nolan bustling around setting the table beautifully and Brenden making a gigantic salad. Doug and I thought it was so delicious, Brenden typed up the recipe so I can make the same salad again later.

Yum! Yum! Salad

RECIPE: GET LETTUCE THEN GO GET SPINACH LEAVES NEXT I GET CROUTONS THEN CUT TOMATOES. PEEL AND CUT CUCUMBER. GET SEEDS GRATE THE CHEESE.

Brenden got all of the packages out so he could spell everything correctly. Seeds are sunflower seeds.

From there he has created an entire cookbook called "Brenden and Nolan Cookbook." He typed it up on my computer and toward the end was experimenting with fonts. This is the only handwritten recipe:

Fruity Fruit Snack

get A Few Pechs then get A Few grapes then get A Few slies of Apples then mix it then you make Fruity Fruit Thank you

Quite a few of the recipes are very simple: (anything lowercase is handwritten and capital is typed - in all capital letters)

Brefist fruity oatmeal

RECIPE: MAKE OATMEAL THEN GET FRUIT THEN PUT THE FRUIT BY THE PLATE GET THE MILK OR WATER

Brefist

RECIPE: MAKE CEREAL THEN PUT FRUIT BY THE SIDE OF THE BOWL

Lunch chips + sandwich + fruit

RECIPE: MAKE A SANDWICH THEN GET CHIPS NEXT ALSO GET FRUIT OR GET BANANAS Thak you

Lunch spegete

RECIPE: MAKE SPEGETE THEN PUT GREEN STUFF THEN MAKE IT WEVER YOU WANT Thank you

Green stuff is parmesan cheese - no, ours isn't green, it just comes in a green container.

The only recipe in the "Desrt" section:

BUTER POPCORN movestand popcorn

RECIPE: MAKE POPCORN THEN GO GET THE BUTER PUT THE BUTER ON THE POPCORN

Ocassionally, in between recipes, there is a picture or a comment he has written like: "Great! recipes!" "YUM!"

That made me also think of another story. One night we each colored a Halloween picture to decorate the house. Nolan picked out coloring sheets on the internet one afternoon, so I printed them and he assigned who got which sheet. We colored them and Brenden taped them to the window. Then he decided it was a coloring contest and guess who won? Brenden. I got second and a comment written on my picture that said, "Very cute witch." Nolan got 4th place and a comment that said, "Next time add more color." I wish I had saved them, but I just can't save everything.

Brenden told me this morning that last week he wrote in his journal that he has lots of books, but his mom still keeps buying him more books. What can I say? It's a more true statement than he knows! He sometimes reads my blogs so I can't say much more than that - but trust me, there are more... LOTS more.