Ethan's Birthday

Ethan is 4! I can't believe it either. People say time flies, but they're not kidding!

Ethan's birthday party was held at Bloedel Donovan Park on Lake Whatcom. We had pizza, pinata, cake, and presents. Who could ask for more? Ethan had a great time. So far his favorite presents are the John Deere wheelbarrow, bike, giant fire truck, and play dough. He also really likes the "shoot gun" that Uncle Mike and Carly picked out for him. It has yellow foam balls that shoot out the front. I think we have 3 left...

Anyway, enjoy the pics!

Pumpkin patch time again!

Once again, we made it out to Stoney Ridge Farms in Everson. It's become a yearly event, this year being the third annual. Our group grew this year to include Mom, Julie, and Nick (Julie's boyfriend).




As usual, we started out with checking out the animals. I think Ethan's favorite this year was the donkey. Nick put his quarter in the food machine and gave Ethan some grain. Ethan held the grain in his hand and the donkey ate right out of his palm! He was giggling and pretty excited about the whole thing.







We also made sure to stop by the Black Angus cow in the barn. When Ethan asked what he made (meaning "is this a milk cow?"), I told him it was a beef cow. His response was "So, it makes beef?" - I guess that's one way to look at it!




Alex and Matt took a ride on the train while we waited for the hay wagon. Ethan was less than interested in the train ride, so we watched for tractors instead. Shocking really...my son wanting to watch for tractors!


We made it down to the pumpkin patch and went through the corn maze. Jaisha and Jana cheated and cut through the back of the maze to the pumpkin and gourd patch. We hunted for our perfect pumpkins and had to get two wheelbarrows to carry them all! Mom got some great looking gourds for a basket at work. We made our way back up to the checkout where we found out my "baby got back" pumpkin weighed 41.6 pounds!

We finally carved our pumpkins tonight (Sunday). Ethan carved the small green one all on his own! Quite a step up from last year when he wanted nothing to do with it! Jaisha drew a face on the larger pumpkin and he carved about 1/2 of it before losing interest. My "baby got back" pumpkin got a "Lula" look. Basically, big full lips, sassy eyes, curly hair tendrils, and a nose ring. She'll be getting a pair of jeans tomorrow to cover her ample back end.

I do believe it was another successful year at the pumpkin patch!

Work day at the Larson's

The Larson Family has been pretty busy. As many of you know, we've been remodeling for ages. Last week, the working continued on a really hot out that night. We had all been in the pool cooling off. Later into the evening, Dan decided to work on the outside trim, and of course, Ethan had to paint as well. So, we found a quart of paint that we weren't going to be using. I thing we bought it originally as a tester that didn't pass. Anyway, I then pulled a piece of plywood out of the shop for his "canvas". There was no way I was letting him near the house! So, he diligently went to work on his board, very intently painting in his orange flip-flops and Thomas the Train underwear. You can see by the look on his face that this is very serious business. During this same time, Tyson was out splitting and stacking wood. With all three boys busy, it was only obvious I should be taking pictures! Once Ty was finished and Ethan's paint was drying, the boys proceeded to shoot each other with water guns! They had a great time, until I (the big, bad Mommy), shut off the hose and announced it was time to dry off and go inside.


As you can see by this last picture, Ethan was very tuckered out and slept well after working so hard!

Independence Day

I know - it's been more than a month, but at least these made it. Over the 4th of July weekend, we were very busy. Ethan got to visit both great grandma's, we went camping, and enjoyed some karaoke. First off, on the 4th, I had to work. So in the morning, I dropped Ethan off with Great grandma and Papa. He got to spend some quality time with the Steiner gang, playing with Tommy and having a great time with his new found love of Poppits. Later in the afternoon, Ethan began playing with Jamie and his pack of "Sparkles" - he burned through 8 packs that afternoon! That evening, we enjoyed fireworks where we were camping at the Log Show Grounds. There were several people there and many great fireworks.

The next morning, we made our way to Nana and Papa's house where Great grandma and Gator came to visit. We spent a couple hours visiting and enjoying their company. We made our way back to the Log Show Grounds for naps while Dan played a competitive game of "Washers". I can fill you in if you don't know how to play. Anyways, later that night, the Rudig's brought out their Karaoke machine. At first, I wasn't really in the mood, but before you know it, I was signing like crazy (I know, shocking...). Becki, Jaisha, and I sang our hearts out until 1:45 AM! Overall, we had a great weekend and look forward to camping out again next year.

Deming Log Show - 2008

Our family had a great time this year at the Deming Log Show. It is the first year of competition for the Larson family and I imagine it won't be the last. Dan competed with our friend Cody in the double bucking competition. This is where an old time saw (aka "Misery Whip") is used to saw through a log with one guy pulling on each side. For their first year, they did pretty well. Dan and I also competed in double bucking - only it was called Ma and Pa bucking for us. The first day we made our cut in 17 seconds and on Sunday we improved to 13.8 seconds! We were only about .6 seconds behind the 3rd place finisher, so we were pretty proud for the first year. Ethan was so excited for log show this year because it meant, most importantly, that he got a new pair of suspenders. He had been looking forward to that since just after Christmas. This first picture is of him watching a log processor in action. This machine picks up whole logs and runs them through a 'processing hand' and cuts them on specific lengths. Ethan could barely take his eyes off the machine! Later in the evening, we were all sitting around the fire after dinner and Ethan picked up the recent edition of Logger Showcase magazine. He grabbed his Doritos, started munching and flipping through it. He was in his element and he can't wait for next year!

Ethan the Construction Man

Ethan recently spent some time with Uncle Mike. He and Uncle Mike wrote a poem after a long day's work on the deck outside. I have included some recent pictures of Ethan helping around the house to accompany the poem.

"Ethan the Construction Man"
by Ethan and Uncle Mike
There he stood before me,
A rough & tumble little man.
Ready for his workin' day,
Plastic toolbox in his hand.

His look said he was ready,
For there was lots to do.
But I said "First things first, young man",
We'd better tie your shoe.

He hammered and he sawed all morn,
And never did he slack.
So I said "What do you want for lunch?",
He answered with "Big Mac!"

And when the work was done at last,
He climbed up on my lap.
He said "We had some fun today",
And dozed off for a nap.

Christmas 2007 - Finally!

OK - I know I've been a bit "delayed" in getting info on the blog. It's been crazy! So, I thought I'd update on the Larson family Christmas. This year was fantastic! We were able to spend time with each family and not have to rush all over the place.


Ethan really enjoyed Christmas - of course! I think he got approximately 467 tractors. I've just uploaded a bunch of pics for you to enjoy, including one of the four generations. Hopefully the new post won't take so long!

Are you ready for some football?

That's right - Monday Night Football! For my birthday this year, Dan got me two tickets to the Seattle vs. San Francisco football game. He wasn't really interested in going, so I took his cousin's wife (and my good friend) Cheri. We left Skagit County around 11:30, even though the game didn't start until 5:30. We stopped in Alderwood to get some gloves at Old Navy, since we both forgot ours! We shopped for a bit and then had lunch at the Old Spaghetti Factory. We then made our way to Qwest field. We wandered around a bit and hooked up with a couple of her friends who were tailgating it. KOMO 4 interviewed a bunch of people there about tailgating so that we pretty cool to see. We finally made it inside the stadium and headed for the exhibition center. They have a bunch of booth set up with freebies and giveaways. We visited the Seahawk's team booth for some souvenirs and grabbed a beer. We wandered a bit and ran into Drew Carey coming off the stage! He signed my poster and I got a pretty good picture. We also say Warren Moon, Brock Huard, and Steve Raibel doing a broadcast. Finally we made it toward our seats. We were in season ticket holder club seats so we had to enter through a special door. The club part was awesome! They had good restaurants and bars - even serving hard alcohol (not just beer)! We ended up about 25 rows from the field just in front of the ESPN crew! They were doing their pre and post game shows and half time report right in front of us! I got to see Emmit Smith and Steve Young but from our seats. I tried to get a good picture, but it was tricky. Overall, Cheri and I had a blast - I'd definitely go to another game again!

Pumpkin patch - 2007

Well, it's that time of year again - Pumpkin patch time! I don't know how Ethan knows, but he started asking about the pumpkin patch in late September. I told him we had to wait until the pumpkins were big and orange before we could go - knowing it wouldn't be until October 2oth that we could finally make it. The day finally came and Ethan was so excited. He had on his orange Jack-o-lantern shirt from Great Grandma and was rearing to go. We went and picked up Jamie and Jaisha and were on our way to meet up with Alex, Matthew, Jana , and Aaron. We started out with the animals. Ethan used his hard earned quarters (Thanks, Grandma Berta!) to buy grain for the birds. Once we made it through the animals the tractor and trailer came to pick us up to go down to the patch. I think Ethan was going to burst he was so excited to ride on the trailer! We went down to the patch and picked apples, gourds, and ghost pumpkins. We then picked out one pumpkin each - Ethan picked a 30 pounder! Not to be shown up, Jamie picked a 33 pounder. Jaisha also got a large one, but I think it was less than 30. Finally, Aaron took the kids through the muddy corn maze while we waited for the tractor to come and take us back up to the farm. Our day was completed with 5 hours (no joke) of pumpkin carving and seed roasting. There were 10 carved pumpkins when it was all said and done (Thanks Weezer for the extra pumpkins!) including funny faces, initials, and a haunted house. It was a good time had by all - we'll see if we can top it next year!

Fireplace Remodel

The Larson Family has been hard at work, remodeling our house. Ethan is very busy "working" on everything he can get his hands on. Basically, hammering everything in sight! Our latest adventure started when we realized we needed to redo the chimney. The siding on the house is in progress, but the chimney was not flush with the side of the house. Dan started taking the chimney down and before you know it, we are pushing the built-in fireplace and brick mantle out the side of the house. For a week or so we had a hole in the side of the house. Luckily, Bear came by last weekend and helped to frame in the hole - making it much warmer in the house. This weekend, Bear and his buddy Chris came over and built me a platform. We are going to add a free standing wood stove and needed a safe and stable place to put it. With the platform done, Jaisha and I set about laying the Hardibacker and slate tile. Yes, as you see, we did it all on our own. The grout will be laid this week and we should be able to install the wood stove. The tile looks great, but let me tell you - it's no easy! We laid 20 tiles and it took us about 4 hours total (including installing Hardibacker and mixing two sets of morter). We still have to determine what to do with the wall and side of the platform. We'll probably go with some more stone, but it still remains to be determined. I can't wait to see the finished product!