Triple header for Ethan

Today was too funny. Ethan had three blog-worthies. In chronological order:

1. Greg was working to put together our weight bench downstairs this morning. As usual, Ethan was chatting his ear off. "Be quiet, Ethan. I'm trying to concentrate." "Yeah. You're right. I'm a blabbermouth . . ."

2. Ethan and Greg are playing around after our dinner/games guests leave. Greg: "Whoa! You hit like He-Man!" [more playful punching] Ethan: "Whoa! Dad, you hit like She-ra!" Greg looks at me: "This is totally going on the blog, isn't it?" How could I resist?

3. We keep telling Ethan the New Year's Elf can't come fill his shoe by the fireplace with goodies until he's asleep . . . or maybe he won't find us at all. Ethan: "I'm pretty sure he has a GPS on his suit or something. He can always find us . . ."

Craving manhood

Ethan turned to me in the middle of Sacrament meeting last weekend and whispered: "Mom, do I have hair on my chest yet?" I then exerted all of my effort to keep from falling out of my seat.

There are diapers and there are diapers

We had a beautiful Relief Society Christmas program the other night. It was held at the Senior Citizens' Center in town. where 4 sweet young women were in charge of watching over 20 crazy kids while we enjoyed the program. When it was time to go home, I went to collect my 3 boys and this cute little young woman tried to pull me aside shyly, "Um . . . Lincoln . . . um . . . " she turned red and trailed off. "Did he have an accident," I asked. She looked relieved and handed me a tiny ball of wet underwear wrapped in plastic and paper towels. "Yes. There were these diaper things in the bathroom, so we put him in one of those." I thanked her for all her help and assured her it was a not a big deal and we went on our merry way.

Later at home when I was getting the boys ready for bed, I peeled Lincoln's pants off to change him in his jammies and started laughing out loud. "Greg!" I yelled down the hall to our bedroom. "Lincoln is wearing Depends!"

Faith in Daddy

Lincoln sat at the kitchen table for about an hour with his quesadilla today, munching, talking to himself, hiding from me inside his cape . . . Once when he was hiding, he said, "Mom, you can't find me 'cause I'm dead." I told him it would make me so sad if something bad happened to him, to which he responded, "If the bad guys killed me, daddy would fix me, huh mom?"

Our new place

So we're into our new house out on Coyote Trail and we LOVE it. It's a little reminiscent - at least for me - of our Indian Ridge house. Maybe it's the hard floors, mountain views and fireplace warmth. Regardless, it's absolutely fantastic. We've moved and unpacked nearly everything in a week, which says a lot about the simplicity our household maintains a year later (yes folks, we are 1 year and 2 weeks post fire - wow).

We are settled in and loving it. Here are a few pics to wet your whistles. If you think it's as wonderful as we do, you'll just have to pack your bags and come see the rest of it for yourselves!

Front/Great room - kitchen off to the left, looking from the hallway. And yes, we're working on the lack of furniture thing.

My marvelous kitchen! The stove even has a warming shelf above and warming drawer below. Sigh.

Half of my master closet. More hanging space and LOTS of shelves on the other side. Yummy.

I know - we're lacking the decorative touch as of now, but are you not in love with this brick wall!?

Seriously folks, this is NOT a house you want to miss visiting . . . so get up here!