What's New

We settled back into a routine after our two week journey from Wisconsin. Heath's enjoying his job. His customers love him, of course, since it appears that he can walk on water. He has also been asked to serve on Strategic Planning Committe, which takes him to the corporate office in Dallas every few weeks. They work out detailed improvement plans for operations within and between each department. He manages to work in some fun though. He got in two days of skiing last week at Copper Mountain with his bosses and some clients. I find it fascinating that I enjoy being at home full-time with my boys. Pre-Ethan ideas included: "What do stay-at-home-parents do with their time? Don't infants sleep a lot? I like staying busy so I imagine holding down a full-time job and taking care of a baby is easily manageable." Little did I know that even rising at 5:30AM does not guarantee time to shower before 3PM. Big time kudos to the parents who can work full-time and parent. I am in awe of you. In fact, I envy that you can routinely brush your teeth every morning at a regular time. But the joys, oh the joys, are wonderful! Ethan can sit up fairly well. After sitting up by himself for five seconds he has a tendency to flop onto his back. Ethan's vocal skills are improving greatly. For example, in Target last week, he discovered how to shriek. In order to discourage public shrieking, I hastily smothered my smile and distracted him with a toy. He's now pronouncing syllables such as Da Ba Ga Do Goo and he smiles and giggles a lot. We took a baby sign language class, which met every week at the Westminster Rec. Center. I know about 40 signs now. Ethan seems to recognize the sign for milk, but my expectations aren't high since babies don't start signing back until they're 1+ years old. His baby food intake has increased and now includes: carrots, pears, apples (which he strongly dislikes), raspberries, sweet potatoes, bananas, brown rice, winter squash, green beans, and peas (also yuck). His hands down favorite is bananas and oatmeal. I've been making a lot of baby food at home thanks to my handy dandy new food processor and my fickleness about paying 80 cents per jar for mashed bananas or beans. Ugh, I mean, come on who are they fooling. It's just pureed food. My life isn't all about Ethan, though. On Saturdays, I am volunteering at the Colorado Therapeautic Riding Center. They offer riding lessons to children and adults with special needs. The volunteers groom and saddle the horse before the lesson, assist the rider during the lesson, and groom the horse afterwards. I've learned a lot about working with horses and or course enjoy helping the kids. Heath keeps teasing me about mucking out stalls. Honestly, I wouldn't mind. I'm used to poop : ) and physical labor outside sounds pretty appealing. No pictures in this posting, but I'll add some in the next few days. XO