Ethan's First Step

Steve and I have worked with Ethan to learn to walk. Not constantly. We don't want him growing up TOO fast.  But all he has done for us is leap at us.  And giggling. LOTS of giggling.  There's nothing better than hearing your little one giggle hysterically.   So I decided to let him do his own thing - as I've had to do with about everything for him. Stubborn little boy!!!

So then yesterday I walked into the living room and looked over as he was la

ughing at Gavin and took a step.  He wobbled for a second and looked at me very proud of himself. He was about to take another one but got too excited and sat down.  Among all the giggling and laughing and feeling proud of himself, we couldn't get him to do it again.  He did have fun following after Gavin for the rest of the day - crawling.

Then this morning I was washing dishes and thanks to our high counter, I missed seeing him take three steps to Jakob.   I thought the "I'll do it myself" phase would wait another year... or at least a few months!

This picture has nothing to do with the post. I just thought it was really cute.  I think he's worn himself out..

Way Behind!!

I just keep missing events left and right. It doesn't help that its all happening within a couple of weeks.

So first of all,  Ethan turned ONE on May 22nd.  I can't believe my little one is already a year!! We got to celebrate in Idaho.  He wasn't too thrilled about the cake but he LOVED his bath afterwards!  He got some really fun gifts and his cousins liked them as much as he did!!

Next came Steve's birthday. We spent it visiting cemeteries in my hometown.  It was nice and we enjoyed the drive through my beautiful town.   The cake below is a black forest cake. I couldn't believe how good it actually turned out!!  This is Steve's favorite cake and I decided to go all out with it.  My family sure enjoyed it!

The rest of the week was spent cleaning and getting ready for our next event. Jakob's baptism!!  It was a very nice experience and Jakob was happy. He has been SO excited for his big day! It flew by. I couldn't believe how fast it was.   We had a really nice dinner afterwards with family and a few friends.  It was a very nice day.

I could go on but its late, I'm falling asleep typing and this is already long enough. I'll talk about this weekend when its all done. :)

My Little Jakob

Wait, he's not so little anymore. Jakob turned 8 this week and it blows me away!! Where did the time go when he was my only child and my little buddy who said things like "I can't get my sippy cup, my feets is broken(he was 2!)." Now he's the older brother of 3 brothers and a sister and growing by leaps and bounds.

He continues to amaze us in so many ways. In February he took a 3 hour test for A.L.L. which is kinda like AP school for grade schoolers. He passed! He along with 23 other children from Eagle Mountain, Saratoga Springs and Lehi get to go to a special class where he will take advanced Math lessons. Its actually advanced everything but they focus a lot on that subject. It took him a long time to decide if he wanted to leave his school but he decided it would be best for him to do.

Then just this last week he tried out for the Utah Arsenal Soccer league and made the team for the district!! He has developed a love for soccer and plays it nonstop. He has a great talent for a lot of different sports(basketball he's very good at too!) but soccer is his love now. His season starts in July or August and will keep us plenty busy but this was something he really wants to do so here we go!!

He also started scouts this week. With it being pack meeting this week, he won't have den meeting until next week. He loved pack meeting though and wears his new scout shirt proudly and wants to wear it to school all the time.

And last but most definitely not least, he gets baptized next week!! We have worked with him on getting him to know for himself that this is something he wants to do. He loves the scriptures and talks about different ones he's read and he knows that this is something he wants. He's had the songs he wants sung picked out for months and we're still working on everything else.

And speaking of Jakob, maybe I should wrap this up and go pick him up from school!! We love you Jakob!!! Oh and the picture below is Jakob and Andy with their "trophy" from winning 2nd place in their divisions for the Jujitsu tournament in March!

Making a BIG Jump

Well, our poor computer has seen better days.  It takes FOREVER to load anything - and no, its not the internet connection.  It decides its tired at random times and turns itself off. You can't just decide to turn it back on because it freezes up as it loads... 

Since we needed a computer for our bookstore, we decided it was time to go for another computer(shhhh! don't tell our dear, old one!).  After much deliberation we decided to go to Best Buy and look at the laptops there.  We KNEW we didn't want Vista but that left us with one mini laptop to work with.

The first employee we talked to was 100% salesman who talked down to us and tried to get us to upgrade on EVERYTHING.  I walked away because I was tired of it (and of course the kids can't resist finding every restroom in every store and needed a potty break).  Luckily when I came back ready to look again, I found another guy back by the computers. He was GREAT.  He knew what he was talking about, he didn't try selling us anything by shoving it down our throats and he was very friendly and personable.  My kind of salesperson! 

So what did we get?  A MacBook!! We decided to ditch the PC and the need for Vista and all those problems and went for the Mac instead. So far I've loved it but I've had to relearn a lot of things. Its nice to be able to work on the computer while I'm in the living room with my kids instead of locking myself back in the back while the kids rip the house to shreds and have raisin fights... and yes that has happened.

Now to really use it for business and not just for fun. ;)

Happy Anniversary and Birthday to US!

I'm just a little behind by about 3 weeks. or maybe more...

April through July is a busy time in my family. I have two birthdays in April, 3 in May and 2 in July. And that's just my little family! That doesn't even include all the cousins, my sisters and in-laws, brother, parents, etc. If I included those this blog would be REALLY long.

So first we start with our anniversary. Steve and I have been married for 9 great years as of April 22nd. I can't believe how fast the time has flown. but you add 5 kids into the mix you can see how it would!!!

So how did we celebrate? By signing papers on our business loan to get our bookstore!! Best anniversary gift ever is to open the store I've been wishing for all my life with the man I've loved for the last 10 years(hey we had to date!) and will for eternity! Who could ask for more?

After we got done with that, we took the kids home and they had a babysitter so Steve and I could go to the temple. It was the first time with this babysitter but the kids loved her and she did great - even with Ethan who can be a pill! We stopped at Emmett's and Ethel's on the way home and enjoyed a nice yummy milkshake and fries. A perfect ending to a perfect day - except that Steve had to go to work afterwards... gotta love graveyard shift!

Next comes mine and Ashley's birthday. We had kind of a long, drawn out birthday starting on Monday at the Hannah Montana movie. I admit a lot of it was for me but Ashley LOVED the horses and the songs and had fun. I bawled(I just do that in movies) but otherwise thoroughly enjoyed the movie!

We went and let Ashley pick out the goody bag toys for her party we were going to have on Saturday in Idaho and then went home to hang with the boys.

Wednesday we had a nice quiet birthday at home. Perfect gift for Mommy!!! I had two very sweet ladies in the ward offer to babysit but since Ashley and Ethan were fighting colds we decided to hold off on babysitters. Plus I felt bad leaving Ashley behind since we share the birthday! She got a leapster so between her playing hers and Andy playing his, we had a very quiet day.

And of course we checked out the new Walmart in Saratoga Springs where I got a gorgeous watch from Steve and Ashley got a few things from siblings and from the money Grandma and Grandpa Weist sent her. Besides the "Lost Mommy" incident all went well and we went home to enjoy our chocolate truffle ice cream bars. YUMMY!!!!

I'll post the rest when I get pictures of the cakes and the party with my family in Idaho.

Jakob's Sculptures

Jakob discovered a new talent today. As all kids are, he's fascinated with magnets. He took this to a new level and decided to make sculptures using drywall screws and magnets. So while my fridge door was bare because he took everything off, he made some pretty fun sculptures. Here they are.

Results Are In

Well its was a tough race (a whole 16 votes but hey, that's pretty good!). It looked like Fairy Tales and Copy Cats tied with Jac's Box of Books(my personal favorite but that's because I'm the Jac...). For most of the survey Fairy Tales and Copy Cats was tied with Dragons and Fairy Tales. SO we decided to combine them. The name of our store is officially (got the business license and everything!)

Dragons, Fairy Tales and Copy Cats

Bookstore and Copy Center

Steve and I are coming up with a fun logo to put on the sign, shirts, bookmarks, etc. We'll be selling both online and in the bookstore, hopefully to be opening in the next few months! Thanks for everyone's support! We can't wait to get it all started and share our love of reading with all of our friends and neighbors!!!!!!!

Ashley's a Big Girl Part 2

This morning I decided to see how much Ashley remembered from yesterday. She wrote her name with no help from looking at another page! She then asked how to spell Gavin so I wrote it out and she copied that and then proceeded to ask about each other family member in turn. After that, I asked her if she wanted to learn numbers so she worked on those too. She had a harder time with them because of the curvy 2 and 3 but still did pretty good! I don't have that part scanned though... My little girl is getting so big!!!

My Big Girl

Ashley has recently decided that since she is going to be 4 this month she wanted to learn to read. She wants to be able to read the scriptures with Daddy at night. While that will be a while from now, she's working very hard. She's been using Teach Your Child To Read in 100 Easy Lessons (By Siegfried Englemann) and did 5 lessons this morning!

Anyway, so after each lesson they have the child write one or two letters. She was having a rough time with s's so Steve decided to teach her A instead. She wanted to know the other letters for her name. I wrote it out in capital letters and then had her try. She wrote it all out on the first try! And the second, and third and on and on. She still has a hard time with the 's' but I was SO happy my little girl is learning to write! The best part is that as I was scanning her first paper(down below), she came in and showed me the paper she wrote it on again - this time without a prompt to show her the letters!!! Yeah, she's still three... for 3 weeks more anyway. :) What a happy day for any mom or dad - and yes, I did burst into tears the first time she did it...

Its Survey Time Again

We're getting ready to do business licenses and stuff and so we're in desperate need of a name. We've come up with a few but haven't picked one for sure. SO please help us out by voting for the one you like!!! Just click on your choice on the survey to the right of the page. :)

And any other names would be welcome. Here is what's happening in the store to give some ideas:
Books(of course)
Copy center with scrapbooking, laminating and book binding supplies
Games
Toys(not a lot)
Reading time for kids
Book clubs for adults,
Game nights every other Friday

ETC

Thanks! Any ideas for feedback would be GREAT!!!