The Magic Tree House

Ethan has been quite funny lately.  His new thing is “Wish Time.”  About a month or two ago Ethan noticed on the clock that the time was all the same numbers like 2:22.  I told him well make a wish.  As a child growing up I always was told to make a wish when you see all the same numbers on the clock.  Well Ethan thought that was neat and he has taken it to a whole another level.  Everyday he can’t wait for wish time.  He checks the clock constantly and he knows when a wish time is coming up soon.  He knows that at 5:55 pm it is the last wish time for the day for him and he even gets upset if he misses wish time, any of them, which is 11:11am, 1:11pm, 2:22pm and so on.  If we are in the car, he knows that  the car clock is 3 minutes ahead and he will say at 2:22 (if that’s what time it is) “I can still make a wish” and at 2:35 he will say, “now is the real wish time”.  Well at least he is learning good math skills with our car clock being ahead of the real time

Ethan has been taking swim lessons since January.  We are stopping for the summer and possibly until next winter again.  He has done really well and actually learned to swim.  He still has a ways to go before I feel comfortable with him in deaper waters.  He has learned how to swim freestyle and then flip onto his back and swim backstroke and them flip back over again.  He still needs some reminders on keeping his belly up and head back when he is on his back, but we can work on that ourselves throughout the summer.  Here is a picture of him in his swim cap and goggles.  The swim cap was his idea and he really liked it.  He liked that his hair only got a little wet and he thought it made him swim faster

The following article is from CNN and is titled “Should I vaccinate my baby?”

I know this is a very touchy and controversial subject, but I found this article interesting and so I thought I would share.

After reading it, I would say I have to disagree with #1 point.  The doctor says “I don’t know babies who have sex or share needles”, when talking about the Hep B shot.  I completely agree with this, but to only delay it till 2months?  Did I miss that a 2month old is not still a baby?  Why not delay it much longer, like teenage years if you feel your child is at risk?  If anything, I do think it’s important to at least not do it at birth because how will you know if your child has a reaction?  You know nothing about your newborn and will not be able to tell a difference in them if one occurs.  Waiting till 2months from that aspect does make sense.

Here is another article that I came across this morning.  CDC:  Vaccine Study Design “Uninformative and Potentially Misleading”

This article is a little more intense with lots of statistical terms, but overall interesting.  I feel like the CDC is really under pressure right now to prove to parents that vaccines are safe and they(the CDC) are failing.  After their concession in the Hannah Poling case that vaccines did help cause her autism and I believe in the first article I linked above we are realizing that vaccines are not a “One Size fits all”.  I think and know this makes it very difficult for parents to decide what to do.

Well these are things I think and worry about.  I know this is a hot topic and asking for no flaming comments.

The other day Ethan was brushing his teeth and Gavin came into the bathroom and was yelling at Ethan that he wanted a toothbrush too.  Ethan gave him one and I was sitting in the other room listening and then I start to hear some tapping of the toothbrush and it sounds like it’s coming from the toilet.  I go look and I am sure you can guess what I found.  Gavin dipping his toothbrush into the toilet water and sucking on it.  EWWWWW!  He was so mad I made him stop.

I went to the doctor yesterday.  This doctor office has a midwife and a doctor and I didn’t know who I was going to see, it was the midwife.  They both are really nice!  It was one of those quick short appointments, especially since this is my 4th pregnancy.  Basically I just complained about my horrible and ugly varicose veins that are on the back of my legs,  and then we checked the baby’s heartbeat and all is well.  She said the baby seems to be growing well because my uterus is already to my belly button.  I think it’s more of, this is my fourth child and my stomach and everything moved right out of the way for the baby :)  Next month we get to have the ultrasound.  I am excited to find out what we are having.  I sure hope the baby cooperates and lets us look!

I never got some of the pictures put up from when we went to Kansas for Mark’s funeral.

First is of Gavin being cute.  Then of him and his cousin Derek.  Gavin is trading his orange pacifier for Derek’s white one.  Then they both decided they had enough of the pacifiers and went for the fingers.

These last set of pictures were taken at the sand dunes.  The kids loved going there and riding “The Fun Truck” to get there.  “The Fun Truck” is a 6-wheeler and lots of fun to ride around there on the farm.

The first picture is of a horny toad.  Next is Shad laying in a hole they dug through in the sand.  See his feet on the other side and then the horny toad decided to stick around for awhile and is on top of the hill.  Carly is next standing in another hole they dug and then Ethan is jumping off the top of the hill.  Last picture is of Ethan’s name carved into the dune.  Clark did this for him.  Ethan thought it was pretty cool.

Well about a month ago we decided to move Gavin into Ethan’s room and give Carly a room of her own. It has been the best thing. Most of our bedtime battles with her have finally ended. She goes to sleep earlier and she is excited about her new pink room.

Here is a before picture of the room color. We already picked out her new bedding and Ethan was playing in her bed and got mad at us for taking his picture in a girly pink bed.

and here are several after pictures

We still have quite a bit of work to do.  Carly needs new curtains and blinds.  Also, we are going to put vinyl flowers on the wall to add some different colors.  Kind of like the rug shown in the picture.  The room is overwhelming pink, but she loves it.  She was so excited to get a shiny pink comforter.  She may have a girly room, but she still wears Ethan’s clothes almost daily

On June 7th Ethan turned 6. It is kind of a neat year because his birthday is 06/07/08 this year.

He had a great party with all his friends. They played outside in the water. We had a pool (which fell apart quickly), racing slip-n-slide, and Clark built what we call ” the kid car wash”.

Here is a picture of Ethan playing a water game.

Next is a picture of the cake. It is a cupcake cake. It is made of 48 cupcakes and Clark shaped them and iced it into one of Ethan’s favorite Pokemon characters. Ethan loved it and we loved it too. It was so easy to not cut a cake, just take one and go.

And here is a picture of Ethan opening his presents.

Last is a video of just our kiddos the night Clark finished making the kid car wash.

They loved it. They loved drinking the water a little too much

I seem to have taken a trip away from blogging lately.  I just haven’t been in the mood to actually sit down and type everything and add pictures, etc.  Well now everything is getting so far behind I feel like I have a ton of things to talk about.

So hold onto your horses, Clark and I are going to being adding lots of updates tonight