dance class

ethan has been so good at coming with me to dance classes. its so fun to be able to do clogging again this year. he is pretty good about letting me get through most of the class without crying. i really hope that by coming to dance classes ethan will grow up with the desire to dance. that is one of the things that attracted me to his daddy and i hope that ethan will take advantage of his opportunity to learn dance from his awesome grandma! ask me how a baby falls alseep while 8 women are clogging with loud music... answer: no idea! ask my kid!

ward party/santa train/parade

the weekend after thanksgiving was really special. it started off with our ward party. our whole stake was rearranged and we were put in a new ward. we were able to go to our new ward party and meet some new people. the best part was that matt got the whole day off! after the party we headed to boulder city to ride the santa train. all of ethans cousins came (even the arizona ones!) the santa train is a fun thing they do in boulder city. the regular train tour that they have is just a ride up and back on an old train but at christmas they throw on some decorations and santa and mrs clause come through for pictures
we had lots of fun riding the train with cousins and seeing santa!


after the train we got a picture in santa's sleigh. then we went and looked at all the model trains on display

after we were sick of trains we went and got some mcdonalds and went to a nearby park for the kids to play. ethan went in a swing for the first time... he loved it! (video at the end of the blog)

after the park matt went home because he was tired and ethan and i went with grandma and grandpa to get ready for the boulder city christmas parade. this is a parade that grandmas dance studio does every year. the parade is special because its done at night and everyone has to use lots of christmas lights. stacie and i had fun clogging while pushing our strollers. the blessing was that it was acctually really nice otuside. it is usually freezing and i was concerned for my baby but it was nice and comfy and he loved it. he loved the lights and the fun "ride" mommy took him on. he loved it so much he wore himself out and fell asleep at the end!
it was such a fun way to start our christmas season!

thanksgiving

alright so thanksgiving was a few weeks ago... alright fine it was a few months ago. but i did say i was bad a blogging didnt i??? thanksgiving was fun this year. it was a larsen year for thanksgiving and so we got to spend lots of time with our fun larsen family. we were so blessed to have matts uncle eric and his family come down as well as aunt charisse and aunt wendy. we were especially lucky to have our fun cousins jared and emily stay at our house. as has been our tradition matts aunt charisse brought lots of her fun scrapbooking stuff for us to play with. we turned brenda's dance studio into a scrapbooking workshop. aunt charisse helps us to put together beautiful scrapbooks for all of her great nieces/nephews that we just have to add the pictures to. it is a great way to document my sweet boys first year. aunt charisse has TONS of scrapbooking stuff and loves to share it with us. it is nice because i love to scrapbook but dont really have the time or means to do so. ethan spent lots of time with his daddy while i got to have fun hanging out with aunt charisse. even though it was our year with the larsens we still found some time to hang out with our rodarte family as well. we went thanksgiving morning to join with the romneys in a little volleyball which is our tradition. this year we went to the church building and played inside instead of at the park. i was grateful for this because it was cold outside and i dont think ethan would have been very happy. loved sitting and watching inside where it was warm.

I think ethan enjoyed spending time with his cousins and he liked watching football on tv with the guys

we only wish our larsen family could live closer so we could spend more time with them! oh yeah... the food was great!

Ethan Wayne and the Great Pumpkin

I should start off by saying i am an awful mom! i waited until the last minute to go get a pumpkin. walmart didnt have any more so we went late saturday night to smiths. matt stayed in the car with ethan and i ran in... when i got to the produce section my heart dropped when i saw that all the pumpkins were gone. i walked to the front of the store in tears. what kind of mom doesnt get her kid a pumpkin for his first halloween? as i was walking out of the store i noticed 2 tiny pumpkins with painted faces. they were on managers special and i was on cloud 9! i was so excited and snatched one of them up! it was the perfect size for my little guy! i washed off the paint and helped him carve it! and boy am i glad i did!
Ethan enjoyed following the big orange ball with his eyes. i know its good for his brain to touch different textures and so i helped him explore all the surfaces of the pumpkin.

he was a little bit wary of the pumpkin goo at first

we put him in his bumbo chair and put the goop on the tray while i carved the pumpkin face. it only took him a second to figure out that the pumpkin goop was fun! he played for about 25 minutes and only tried to eat it twice!

he was so amazed with the finished product. ethan loves light and the pumpkin had his attention!

i cant wait till next year!

pumpkin patch

The friday before halloween we decided to go to the pumpkin patch to get a few fun pictures. first we tried to get a picture through the pig head but ethan would not bend his legs so we had to move over to the cow face. little stinker! he loves to put weight on his legs now but sometimes it is not convenient! he makes a pretty cute cow though!
then we found some pumpkins to lean against. matt was afraid he was going to fall over but think we did pretty good! i got him the cute outfit at gymboree! it says mommy's little (picture of a pumpkin)

he had fun riding on daddy's shoulders. he was playing with daddy's hair and staring at the fun hanging lights. i also got to take him on a train ride but we only got video of that. it was pretty much a lawn mower made to look like a train with a cart attached that made me dizzy going round and round but it was fun nonetheless! he didnt even get scared!

i know he is a little young for all these fun activities. they are more for my benefit i guess but its just so fun to have my own little guy to take to all these fun things!

we have so much fun with our little man! im so excited for the holiday season to start. halloween is the kickoff holiday and i think we will have a lot of fun! thanksgiving with the larsens this year and chritmas with the rodartes/warrens. even if he doesnt get the full fun of the holidays at least his scrapbook will be awesome!

my luna loo!

Miss Loo, duna loo, poopy dog, baby dog, luna tic larsen. all names that apply to my sweet little luna. we decided that it would be a great idea to get a puppy a few weeks before we had ethan. everyone said we were crazy but she was just so cute. most people that know matt know that he is not the biggest fan of dogs but i love them. when matt said he wanted a puppy i jumped on the opportunity because who knows when it would come up again. i knew that i could not mess this up because this was my opportunity to prove to matt what a great thing it is to have a dog. we have been so blessed with our spunky little dog. when we got her she was this tiny little dog. she is a mutt! german shep.,chow, alaskan malmute, labrador.
a few weeks after we got her her ears stood up. she loves us very mugh but she was very standoffish with matt. i told him that it was because i was the one feeding her and walking her and doing everything for her. she definitly helped my last few weeks of pregnancy go faster. sure enough after i had the baby matt had to provide for her needs and in those few days luna found her new love was her daddy! luna runs in the house to alert me when daddy is home. she plays with him and loves to be around him. this is a picture on the way home from my parents house one night right before ethan was born. loo couldnt fit on my lap anymore in the car but wanted to cuddle with me to fall asleep. nest thing i know she has perched herself on my back and fell asleep. such a cute puppy!

luna loves to fall asleep on her back with her legs open. it cracks me up!

one nice thing about getting luna was that it forced daddy to finally clean up our messy backyard. we got a dumpster and filled it up with the trash from our yard. right before we got the dumpster this is what i found wating for me outside one day luna was waiting outside the door because she couldnt get through wrapped up in the air duct... however it did not stop her from getting tangled up again.

luna earned the middle name tic! this dog is nuts! she has so much energy and she doesnt know what to do with it. now that she has her shots we are able to take her to the dog park and she loves it! she always finds the biggest dog there and tries to get them to chase her. she will pick on them till they do and then she will run and hide under a bench. she is such a little twerp! before we would take her to the dog park we would take her to grandma and papas house to get a change of scenery. she is slowly getting used to the swimming pool but she loves to get into grandmas plants. this is a video of my crazy dog playing in the "trampoline" bush... im told she will calm down after she gets fixed... hopefully thts true but if not she is at least good for a laugh!

joys and sorrows of motherhood

So i have had th longest week of my life. It all started on sunday at 5 am. Ethan woke up with gas. he also had some diahrrea. i didnt worry too much because i had chili the night before. after church he felt warm to me. I changed his clothes and checked his temperature. it was 100.2 degrees so i gave him some tylenol. we went to choir and then to my parents house. his fever wouldnt budge. we stripped him down and papa put a cool rag on his head which kept him cool but he heated back up as soon as we took it off. little did i know that when i put his lil toughie bib on how true that statement really is.
we drove home from my parents house and i started to get really worried so we stopped at matts parents house on the way home so matts dad could help matt give him a blessing. brenda and melanie recomended a cool bath. he was so lethargic and his eyes were glassy and bloodshot. we got home and i put him in a lukewarm bath and he screamed his head off. i took him out and took his rectal temp and it was 102. i decided to feed him and calm him down to see if that helped. i took his rectal temp again and it was 103. i told matt to feed the dog and left for the ER. i know not to mess with high fevers! at the ER they took us right back and weighed him and took his temperature ( he is 17 pounds now by the way) they got us right into the doctor. the doctor told me that there were standard tests for high fevers in infants. because they cant tell us what hurts they just test for everything. i was cincerned and called matt but he didnt know what to do either so i called and woke my parents up. my dad said to do the tests and that he would come meet me at the hospital. they started with a chest x ray. then they put in an IV so they could draw blood and administer antibiotics. it was so hard to hold my baby down while the ER nurse who is not used to putting IVs in children let alone 3 month olds try to get his IV in. he finally got it in and i calmed him down. then they had me and my dad wait in th waiting room while they did a spinal tap. ( i know... awful) then they loaded me and ethan into an ambulance and transported us to st rose sienna. de lime has no peds unit ( i wish i had known that) he had more tylenol but he still had a fever when we got there

i guess the positive thing for ethan is that i never let him watch the tv because he is too little. i dont want him getting addicted. i felt so bad for all the pain he was goin through that i let him watch tv. he was glued to it but if i let go of his hand he would cry. it was nice to know that even though i held him down while they hurt him he still wanted me.

he finally started to get some sleep but the monitors helpt beeping and waking him up. he was so tired. our nurses were great though. we were put in isolation and informed that he probably had viral meningitis. everyone who came into our room had to put on gowns masks and gloves and matt and i were not allowed to walk around the hospital. 4 am tuesday he spiked another high fever. i was so tired that i slept through it but the nurse comforted him. she said there wasnt anything i could really do but i still felt bad. ethan seemed to like the nurses though, scary masks and all.

tuesday morning he started eating really well and they said that either his IV needed to be moved to the other arm or they could inject him with his antibiotics every 12 hours. i didnt know what would be worse. putting him through getting anothe iv ( and having to deal with the discomfort of keeping it in) or get 2 shots a day. the nurse asked the doctor if they could use a more concentrated versiona nd give it every 24 hours. the doctor oked it and we decided that was a good option. he was much easier to cuddle with without his IV. even when he cuddled with daddy his eyes were on the TV.

after the fever spike he didnt really get anymore fevers. the doctor told us tuesday afternoon that his cultures were looking good and that if he didnt get anymore fevers we could go home in the morning. well he did very good. the only traumatic experience from then on was getting his antibiotics at midnight. but we got through it. wednesday morning he was all smiles. he was flirting with the nurses and he was playing with his favorite red monkey. in other words, he was back to being my sweet little boy. a different doctor came to see us and said we were good to go.

we got released just in time for daddy to come pick us up after work. it was so nice to bring my sweet baby back home. I have never been so afraid in my whole life as i was driving my baby to the ER. I have never been so greatful than when i got to bring him home safe. he was happy to be home too!

this is a video i got of him playing with the monkey

thank you for all the prayers and support. thank you to papa for spending his night with us. i couldnt have done it alone!