My Son Thinks He's Edward Cullen

So, aside from being as pale as the moon and breathtakingly beautiful, Ethan has one other thing in common with the glamorous bloodsucker: He's a biter.

This is just one of the many bruises covering my poor arms, legs, torsos - I guess I just have one of those, but you get the point.. Anyway.. This beauty is 2 days old, and look at how glorious it is!

Ethan started the whole biting bit right before we left for Phoenix, and with 16 teeth is still going strong.. Any suggestions on how to get the little bugger to stop? Upon suggestions of some friends and family, we tried biting back {gently} for a few days, but decided that would just teach him to bite back.. We thought future teachers and nursery leaders would appreciate it if we didn't instill this moral code into him.. We've also done the time-out thing, the maneuvering so he bites himself thing, the crying like he hurt us thing - that lasted all of one try - and quite a few others... I'm pretty sure he's not teething, but I still offer him other biting alternatives.. To no avail.. So.. what wisdom do you all have to impart on me? My arms will thank you for it.. :D

Happy Father's Day!

So, here I am, slaving away in a hot kitchen making Alec a special breakfast, trying to keep Ethan out of trouble, and in waltzes Alec, half-an-hour early..

"You're supposed to be in bed!" I say.

"I know," He says. "I woke up and came out and smelled what you were doing so I sat on the couch for a while, but then I got bored."

"Okay, well.. Happy Father's Day!" I say.

"It is?" he replies.

Ugh!

*****

Well.. that went over well.. Let's not lie, though, it would have been WAY too difficult for him to eat breakfast in bed with Ethan jumping all over him.. Perhaps the table was a better choice anyway... So, while chowing down on my mediocre waffles {Alec is the breakfast chef in our family} he opened his presents.. First up, a home-made {mostly} gift from me..

I found this great idea on one of the scrabooking forums I'm a member of.. It's technically a hybrid project - combining digital and paper scrapping.. I'm doing these this week with the young women, and will post a little tutorial later on with how-to-instructions, if you're interested.. Anyway.. back to the day at hand.. So a can full of Juicy Pear Jelly Bellies - his favorite...
And a new tie {of course} to match Ethan's new church clothes.. We decided that when it's 85 degrees out by 10:00 in the morning, it's not exactly sweater vest weather.. And he was growing out of his old one's anyway.. This is Ethan's first official 2T outfit.. I was sure I'd need to do some temporary alterations to make a bit smaller for a while, but no.. Fit him perfectly! Who said my 17 month old baby was allowed to wear 24 month clothes!?! Oh well.. Aren't they handsome? :D
And now, a little photo tribute documenting his first 18 months of fatherhood.. Although technically, this is Alec's THIRD Father's Day. Back when I first found out I was pregnant with Ethan, I planned on telling Alec on Father's Day.. but seriously, they just keep moving that holiday farther and farther into June! So rather than waiting a whole extra week - I'd already waited 3 days! - I woke him up a week early with breakfast in bed and a Father's Day card.. He was confused for a minute, but caught on pretty quickly.. ;)

I love this picture of him feeding Ethan.. It's a perfect representation of his outlook on fatherhood.. He was so helpful and supportive and just perfect for those first few days of Ethan's little life - which were a little hard on me. I really appreciated him so much.. And not much has changed.. :)

Three weeks into the game of being Daddy, and he seems to be taking it like a champ!

Two months later, and he's still going strong.. If you can call this "going"...

Fast forward 6 months, and their relationship is really turning into something precious..

Such a proud daddy..

And still Ethan's favorite..

There's not much better than snuggling up to Daddy when you're sick..
Of course, the fact that he's just a big teddy bear doesn't hurt.. ;)

All the time, whenever Alec's home, Ethan is always right by his side..
He loves his daddy so much..

Thank you, Alec, for all you do for me, and for Ethan. If I had my choice of all the men in the world, I wouldn't choose anyone different to be the father of my children and to help raise them in the gospel. Thank you for your wisdom, your insight, your testimony, your strength and your support.. I love you!

*****

But let's not forget the other fathers in our lives..

Thank you Dave, for the wonderful man you raised, and for the wonderful example you are to him of being a father. When Jason came out in February, he and Alec were talking, and they both commented that they couldn't think of anything you ever did as a parent that they would have done otherwise. Thank you for your generosity, love, compassion, sense of humor and positive spirit.

And Dad.. Thank you for being so patient with me. For your love and understanding, your sensitivity, your willingness to let me learn things the hard way, and for making me look up the definitions of words in the dictionary. You are such a wonderful example to me and I hope to never forget the lessons you've taught me. I love you.

And of course..some pics of the grandpas with The Bug..

And I never got a picture of this, but when we were in Phoenix, there was nothing Ethan liked better than sitting on Grandpa's lap and looking out the window.. He could be just as rowdy and fussy as ever, but as soon as Grandpa picked him up, he became so calm and still you couldn't believe it..

And finally, one of my all-time favorite pictures of my dad and me.

I hope all you fathers out there have had a great day, and that you don't get too used to all this spoiling.. There's a reason you only get ONE day out of the year! ;)

Calling all photographers..

.. or anyone who would like me to make some scrapbook pages for them... I've decided to expand my little entrepreneurial scrapbooking adventure and take up doing Scrap For Hire. Basically, people would pay me to make pages for them..

So, here's where you come in: I need to expand my portfolio {free for you, of course!}. As cute as all these little boy pages are that I've done for Ethan, I'm guessing there are some - not a lot, but a few - people who wouldn't really appreciate those types of pages and be able to translate that into how I could do something to fit their needs.. If any of you are interested, please send me the following to: stolenmoments.pagedesign {at} gmail {dot} com.

1. Any photo(s) you'd like me to make a page with and whether you'd like them b/w or color
2. What size you'd like it
   
3. Journaling and/or title for the page
4. Date and place - if you wanted it included
5. Style of page you'd like. Playful, sweet, simple, elegant... Check out my gallery HERE or just browse everyone else's stuff.. I'm pretty good at playing copycat.. :)
6. Any other general instructions..
   

I'll say there will be a 5-7 day turn-around, but that all depends on how much stuff I get.. As I will be posting these online and also in hard copy portfolios to distribute, I am completely willing to blur out faces, names, places, and other info you don't want the whole world to see.. Just let me know.. :D Oh! And if you have little boys, feel free to send me their pics, too.. The more the merrier.. I'd hate for Ethan to have all the fun... ;) I also need heritage, maternity, wedding, holiday, birthday, vacation, GIRL, and so many other types of pages.. So really.. send me whatever you've got! :D

Once I get a good collection, I'll announce this to the world, and hopefully people will just start flooding me with requests... Until then, I'll have fun doing some little projects for you to keep.. :D

{This was the third post today.. Keep scrolling...}

Ethan Funnies & Some Catch-Up...

Here are some {used to be} funny things Ethan is doing lately..

This has been the status of my pantry lately:

Not because we're in danger of running out of food...
Rather, Ethan has found a better location for it all:It's hard to tell from the picture, but that's over the gate that separates the kitchen from the office.. And let me tell you, it's a joy to walk over again and again when you're trying to do laundry {the closet on the right}...

Well, our doors are old, and don't work with standard child-proofing mechanisms..
My solution - lose the doorknobs:However, that hasn't stopped him..
Now he just collects things from the rest of the house...
Leaving his bookshelves and toy baskets quite empty...

He also likes to make piles on people. Alec and I were watching a movie on his last night off, and were soon buried under books, stacking cups, stuffed animals, and all other varieties of kiddie goodies.. {I was under the pile to your right}This used to be cute, but now that he's officially faster at creating piles than I am at cleaning them up - we'll cross paths as we try to bring our own versions of order to our home - me taking things back to his room, and him bringing them out - it's just plain annoying! Any suggestions to stop a kid from collecting and piling? It's about to drive us insane!!!

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This is a good one... I usually have the tv on while I'm working around the house. Sometimes it's just Baby Einstein videos {not that Ethan actually watches them}, while other times it's real tv that I watch while I'm folding laundry {also not something I can really do while he's awake anymore.. because of the piles..} Well, one day, I couldn't find the remote for the life of me! I knew I had it because I had paused the tv to get Ethan up from his nap and change his diaper. Next thing I knew, it was gone.. I about went crazy.. I thought I was losing my mind.. Well, a few hours later, I found it:

Apparently when I had made Ethan his after-nap snack he decided it should live in the fridge.. Just don't tell him we accidentally put Sasha in the fridge once, too...

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No - despite the bad picture, your eyes aren't fooling you..
That really is an onion my child is eating as if it's an apple.
He loves them. End of story.

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And some catch-up... This is actually from our trip to Phoenix, but I forgot to include it in the recap.. I loved my little boy's long and luxurious hair with cute little wings curled behind his ears.. But I finally decided - much to Alec's delight - that it was time for his first hair cut...

Before:
{pardon the chocolate pudding - we were being neglectful parents and
he found an empty cup somewhere... gross}

During:

He got to sit in a fire truck and watch Thomas.. not that he knows who that is...

After:
Isn't he handsome?

{This was the second post today.. Keep scrolling...}

What?? No!! Could it be!?!?

Is that a husband that I see??? Haha - seriously, though, folks.. It seems like ages since I've seen Alec.. He's been working on this radio project since we got home from Phoenix, and his first summer job started the week after that, so he's basically been gone 18 hours every day for the last 3 weeks or so.. I guess I should be used to it by now, but he hasn't even been coming home for lunch, so it makes mine and Ethan's days rather long and sometimes boring.. However.. He just found out that his deadline for the radio project has been extended 2 weeks, so.. He's allowing himself a few moments each day to be with us.. He's going into tech this weekend, though, for his "real" job, so we won't see much more of him anyway.. But it's better than nothing, I guess.. :D

Time Flies...

Wow! Is it June already!?! I know in my last post {like 2 months ago} I said I'd be better at posting.. Well.. I guess I lied.. But I kind of have an excuse this time.. Things have been pretty busy around here actually..

The first week of May, the store I was selling my scrapbooking kits with announced they'd be closing - more on that later... Two days later we drove to Phoenix to visit Alec's family before his younger brother leaves on a mission to Paraguay... It was actually really enjoyable to drive with my boys.. Ethan hated it, but I was really impressed with Alec. On the way down there, he drove the whole way, and we almost drove right through the night to make the 21 hour drive in one day, but Ethan just wasn't sleeping well in the car, so we ended up stopping just outside of Albaquerque. We had a lot of fun while we were there, and it was actually a lot more relaxing than I expected. Aside from a few blinds, Ethan didn't destory anything, Grandpa and Uncle Austin just couldn't get enough of the little guy, and there were only a few run-ins with Vinnie the dog.. On the way home, we ended up giving Ethan some benadryl in hopes that he'd sleep, better, but it didn't work. He just mellowed out for a bit then went right back to fussing. So we stopped in Amarillo for the night then finished up the trip the next day. Here are some pages I've made of pics from the trip.. {You can click on them for a larger image}.

single pages HERE & HERE

We got home from Phoenix on Sunday, and my parents came to visit us on Tuesday. It was really nice to see them, and they loved being entertained by the little one. We went to the zoo with Ethan for the first time - it was less great than I had hoped his first zoo trip would be, but I guess he's still a little too young to really get it.. We still had fun, though... My parents stayed through until Friday, at which point I went full swing into planning a birthday celebration for the new store I'm selling at..

So.. There was some drama concerning Digital Candy - the store I used to sell with, and like I said before, they ended up closing on the 15th of May. I spent all of my "free" time in Phoenix {the hours between midnight and 5 in the morning, plus some during the day} searching for a new site to sell at, and then getting everything re-packaged with the new store's logos, etc.. On the 23rd, I started selling at Sunshine Studio Scraps, and have really enoyed it so far.. One of the best perks is they have a wholesale system, where I basically get anything in their store for free.. So... I've been doing a lot more personal scrapping and less designing.. But it's been nice to actually get some pages done for our family... But anyway, the store just turned 1 last week, and I was in charge of the Scrap-A-Thon.. Basically a series of challenges where if you complete all of them, you will have finished 13 layouts in one week.. Not bad, if you ask me.. I've only finished 9, but I'm hoping to get the rest in tonight - we'll see how that goes.. ;) Here are some of them I've been doing...

single pages HERE & HERE

This was a challenge to re-do one of my first pages.. The original is HERE.
Boy, what a long way I've come in the year {on the 26th of this month} that I've been scrapping!

Alec has also been keeping really busy.. Ever since we got back from Phoenix, he's been working on a radio drama.. They did all the recording before school got out, and now he's going in and putting it all together with sound effects, etc.. He's been really great with it, and I've been super impressed with his self-discipline. He goes in each morning and takes a lunch, comes home for dinner then goes back.. It makes mine and Ethan's days a little long and lonely, but that's almost finished, so hopefully we'll be seeing him more often..

However.. on Thursday this week, he started one of his "real" summer jobs with the Heart of America Shakespeare Festival.. They're doing The Merry Wives of Windsor in one of the parks downtown, so they were working on the sound install last week, and start tech this coming Tuesday.. Once the show opens, though, Alec should have his days free to hang out with Ethan and I, so we're excited about that..

Well.. I guess that's it for now.. I hope everything is going well for all of you.. I've spent about as much time checking out other people's blogs as I have posting on mine, so I'm WAY behind.. Hoping to catch up soon... ;)