all about ethan

occasionally, this little boy, who is not so little any more, will snuggle with me and let me count his freckles.

really this is code for letting me kiss his face off, but he knows this about me, and is usually willing to submit to my lips any way. a few times, he has even said out of the blue, "mom, will you kiss my face off?"  uh, YES PLEASE. any excuse i can get thank you very much.

the kids and i have been commenting lately on how he is losing that baby face and looks more like a little boy all the time. it's fun to see him grow up, but gosh it's hard to let that baby stuff go! every day, something funny is said, i try to write them down, but it doesn't always happen. yesterday while eating a churro he exclaimed, "i LOVE my lips! they're just so yummy!" probably because they were covered in sugar and cinnamon, but still. and he's asking lately, "what means 'couple' ", and "what means 'blu ray' "? he also loves to finish his stories with the phrase, "...and i was like WHAH?"  ya, i think he lives with teenagers.

his style of posing for the camera has evolved as well. lately, he feels the need to push out his hips one way or the other - 

or throwing his arms out like he's singing on broadway

or giving me his best dinosaur impression.

this one is the kids' particular favorite, every time this photo pops up on screen, you can hear laughing in the form of howling coming from our house. it's embarrassing, i hope the neighbors don't think we're weird. oh who are we kidding, they already know.

the last couple of days, ethan hasn't been himself, he's been kind of grumpy and winey, which is a frequency my ears just don't pick up, so you can imagine my frustration. then i figured it out. he misses henry. and who can blame him? for nine days he has a built-in brother, perfect for all kinds of good things...

like cracking each other up
which they did, constantly.

and puzzles

and secret telling, henry's a very good listener

and mario kart racing
(i love how both of their tiny bottoms fit on the love sac at the same time)

and racing (but mostly crashing) a billion match box cars down the hallway

and making pizza

and just plain old buddy time

he's asked me every day when henry is coming back to our house. poor guy.
i miss him too buddy.

life plan

The other morning Spencer and I were talking about his upcoming opportunity to earn some money by taking care of Goldie while Phil and Lauri are out of town for Thanksgiving. We were discussing tithing and how much was required of him to put in the bank and how much he would have left over for spending money. He was thinking about things for a minute and then said to me, "I'm going to pay my tithing, and then put the rest in the bank. After I save enough money for my mission and for college and to live the rest of my life, I'm going to buy a wii". Rich and I started cracking up immediately, he was just so matter-of-fact about being able to save as much money as he would need for the rest of his life before he bought a wii. Rich told him that he was sure about $100 would cover it. :)

did the dinosaurs have electricity?

Today I was driving Spencer to piano and he said, "I hate piano". This is a conversation we end up having every other month or so, so I am always armed and ready with the, "be grateful" speech. You may think I am a mean mom for making Spencer do piano even though he hates it, but the truth is, he doesn't hate it, he just hates practicing, once he masters a song, he plays it non-stop until everyone in the house cries. This is his third year of piano and right before he started taking lessons we went to a Jon Schmidt concert, if you've never been, you have to try it sometime. He does all sorts of crazy acrobatics like back flips off the piano bench, playing songs with his toes, etc. not your grandma's piano concert for sure. During the concert he played a song upside down and backwards while lying on the piano bench and Spencer thought it was the coolest thing he'd ever seen. On the FIRST DAY of piano lessons, Spencer came home and mastered "Old McDonald had a song" the right way, then, laid down on the piano bench and taught himself how to play it upside down and backwards just like Jon! His piano teacher Emily is great to foster Spencer's creative expression and so at his first piano recital (unbeknownst to me) he played his song once the right way and then again upside down and backwards, infact, notice that Jon's hands are crossed and Spencer's aren't! He actually plays it with the hand parts swapped! It was the highlight of his life, he thought he was the bee's knees I'm telling ya. I'll admit, it was pretty cool and I thought he was the bees knees too. I was impressed then and have continued to be, he really does have a wonderful ability to feel the music, he hardly ever practices with the metronome because he doesn't like the beat being dictated to him, but to be honest, he doesn't really need it so says Emily. Ok, so now you know why I make him take piano, because he really does love it and he's too good this early to let him quit NOT because I'm the meanest mom ever. Now we'll rewind back to in the car on our way to piano, sorry this blog is really two stories in one. So he says, "I hate piano" and I say, "you don't hate piano, you just hate practicing piano and you hate leaving your friends to go to piano". Then I proceed to tell him that when I was a little girl we couldn't really afford piano lessons or any of the other cool stuff that he gets to do so he needs to remember that he is lucky to be able to learn and try different things. (I'm such a mother!) It seemed to work, he's lost in thought for a minute, certainly thinking about the joy he feels playing a song he knows and says to me, "yea mom you're right" (the words every mother longs to hear). So then after a minute of some more deep thinking he says, "I am really lucky for another thing too, when you were growing up there wasn't very much electricity." WHAAAAAAAAAAT!? I was so stunned that I couldn't even laugh or speak, how old to my kids think I am!? I remember feeling like my parents were dinosaurs, but me? I'm so young! Don't they know that my life growing up wasn't all that different than theirs!? Don't they know that I CAN relate to what they're experiencing!? All I could say was "wow" softly under my breath, and it was a good thing that at that moment we pulled up in front of Emily's house and it was time for Spencer to exit the car. My parents I'm sure are happy that karma has finally come back to bite me in the behind. Infact, I think this is them getting a good laugh out of it now...