ch-ch-ch-changes...

Wow time flies. The boys are getting so big. Ethan's getting to be such a little man. I can't believe he's almost two! Joshua is coming up on 6 months, it's amazing. His new favorite thing is to stick his pointy little tongue out and to suck on his bottom lip. He rolls all over the place and jabbers away (has even managed to reach down and undo his diaper a few times). Ethan loves his brother so much. Every morning he makes the sign for baby, slides down the stairs and gives Joshua a kiss. He's so sweet. He's still a complete and total daddy's boy. I think it's getting worse too. I swear every 5 seconds from the moment he wakes up until Anthony walks in the door he says "dada, dada". It's getting kind of annoying ;) It was really cute the other day though, we met Anthony at his work for lunch and on the way home I looked in the rearview mirror and saw that Ethan was asleep. A few seconds later I hear him whisper "dada"! It was the cutest thing, asking for his daddy even in his sleep.

Well the big change around here is Anthony got called to be the new bishop of our ward. It was a complete surprise and shock to us both. We've only been here a little over a year and only have 2 years left, but I guess this was what we both needed to be pushed out of our comfort zones (way out!) and raise the bar. I've only been primary president for a month or so now, but I won't complain about getting a less time-consuming calling. Miracle of miracles though, last Sunday- when he was set apart, Ethan fell asleep on the way to church and slept through sacrament meeting for the first time ever! I hope that becomes a new trend!

We're getting ready to take our trip to Florida in a few weeks and are getting excited. Anyway, I've posted some new pics of the boys at http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8CZsmjRy3cMJM&notag=1 Oh and if you want to be notified when I create a new post- enter your email address at the top of the page.

Soggy 4th of July

We went camping for the holiday. The boy scouts have some land outside Elizabethtown with a creek on it, so we went camping there with some friends. The kids did a little skinny dipping in the cold creek. It ended up raining the entire weekend. We set up a tarp to keep us dry while we ate (there was a nice covered pavilion, but like true campers we huddled under the tarp instead and got a nice shower whenever the kids tripped on the ropes holding it up). It was miserable sleeping though because it stormed all night long and was so loud, I was just waiting for lightining to strike one of the trees by our tent. But thanks to Kelty, we stayed 100% dry, I love our tent! I was sure glad to get home and get the mud off of me. And...I FINALLY got my new camera!!! So I'm open for business (yay!). I'm setting up a new website, so stay tuned. Here are a few shots from this weekend (camping pics not with the new camera).

New family pic's

On Saturday my friend Amber and I did a family photo shoot. It was miserably hot and humid we were sweating like pigs, the locusts were dive bombing us the entire time, and Ethan was trying to jump in the water...but we did manage to get a few cute shots (even if we couldn't get the kids to smile).

Ethan's growing up so fast. He's finally starting to talk (favorite words are cheese, milk, and Joshua). He loves his brother and gets so excited when he wakes up in the morning- he runs down and jumps around then hugs him. Unfortunately his big head usually ends up hitting the baby’s and then Joshua cries. But hey, at least he tries to be loving… I’ve been trying to introduce him to the potty since he’s a year and a half old now. It only took one try to figure out if he peed he’d get a candy, so now he does a few drops, reaches for the candy, a few more drops, reaches for more candy, and so on until he weasels out at least 4 little candies. Such a little stinker. We took him to a park with ducks today and he was so excited he ran around for probably 15 minutes straight chasing the ducks all around and saying “quack quack” and squealing. The poor ducks.

Joshua still sleeps through the night and is our little angel baby. He’s finally starting to learn to scream when Ethan gets near. He smiles, laughs and squeals anytime you smile at him, it’s so cute. He loves to laugh at Ethan too. It’s so nice to have such a calm laid back baby since Ethan is such a wild thing.

St. Louis, Missouri

I know it's been a long time since I posted anything, it seems like I never have time to sit and sort through all the pictures I take anymore. We are all doing really well. Joshua is getting bigger by the minute and laughs and smiles all day long. Since my last post he's slept 7 to 8 hours every night. He's upstairs in the room across from Ethan now and doesn't even wake up until 6 or 7 in the morning. He's my angel baby. Ethan is finally starting to say a few words although he prefers to sign them or grunt. He speaks Chinese really well, we just need to get him to learn English.

We just spent the last week in the St Louis area and had a long needed vacation. We set a new record- almost 6 months without a vacation (not counting our DC trip since that wasn't technically a vacation)! I really shouldn't go that long again, we're all much happier when I'm traveling. We also combined our trip with a little camping, Joshua did awesome on his first camping trip and Ethan loves to camp, so we had a lot of fun. We camped the first night outside St Louis and then saw the sights of the city the next morning. We had fun going to the top of the arch- a little freaky how it sways though. We took the river cruise and of course did some shopping, went to the zoo, a few historic sites and just had a great time.

It is so much slower traveling with a toddler though! When Ethan was little we just packed him around and he did great, now he gets tired and doesn't want to sleep unless he's in bed and gets grumpy and wants to run around like a madman everywhere. We only saw about half the things on my list I thought we'd be able to see. Oh well, we got the important things. And I found another place I could live. Our hotel was 15 minutes outside the city in Fairview Heights, IL. I first fell in love with the town when we stopped for dinner the night before we camped- there was a mall on one side of the street and a target, burlington coat factory, babies r us and tj maxx on the other side of the street, not to mention lots of great places to eat. Then when we went to find our hotel the next day I got all excited about seeing those stores again when I realized it was the same place we stopped for dinner the night before. It seems like you're in the country even though you're only a few minutes outside the city and it didn't have half the traffic of say Sandy, UT. Perfect for me. Oh and the big kicker- just 4 miles away is the world's largest catsup bottle ;)





Anyway... After spending a few days in the city and doing some fun shopping, we went south to hike the high point of Missouri. It was pretty much in the middle of nowhere in the Mark Twain forest- called Taum Sauk mountain (although it was really a hill). It was a nice 3 mile loop and at the top there were some small waterfalls, we let Ethan skinny dip and he had a great time. He fell asleep on the walk back and Anthony carried him out. Then we drove through more country roads on our way back to KY. We camped again that night on the border of MO and IL at the Trail of Tears state park where we got eaten alive by mosquitos. We stopped in Paducah, KY on our way home the next day and let Ethan splash in the water again- this kid loves water and will find a puddle to splash in no matter where we go. We had a great time and are kind of glad to be home, we're already working on the next trip... To view all the pics of our trip visit http://carianthonyosborne.shutterfly.com/

New pics of the boys

Last night Joshua slept for 7 hours again!!! Unfortunately I didn't go to bed until 2 hours after he did, but still, it gives me hope for the future ;) Here are some pics I took of the boys yesterday, they actually cooperated! You can view the full photshoot at http://carianthonyosborne.shutterfly.com/action/

SLEEP!

The night before last the miracle of all miracles occured...Joshua slept for 7 hours straight! I could not believe it. I laid him down just after 10pm and when I woke at 5am I realized it was the first time he'd woken up! It was the first time in over 6 months I've had that much uninterrupted sleep, it was so nice. Last night he gave me 5 hours, so things are getting better- and he's not even 2 months old yet! The brain is starting to work again and I don't feel like such a zombie. I just couldn't ask for a better baby. He's starting to get fat- I'm going to try to do a photoshoot today, we'll see if I can get any decent pics before Ethan clobbers him...

Joshua's Blessing

I woke up this morning to my bed shaking- we felt the Illinois quake out here. I expect tornadoes- not earthquakes! Anyway- we had so much fun spending last week with Anthony's mom & her cousin and my mom and sisters Cheyenne & Beki came for the weekend. Ethan got completely spoiled all weekend long and was so sad when everyone left. We took them to Kentucky Down Under and Ethan got to pet the kangaroos. He wasn't one bit afraid but I was freaking out because he kept running around trying to touch their face and pull their ears. On Sunday Anthony gave Joshua his name and blessing. He was such a good baby, he didn't make a peep the entire time. It was such a sweet blessing and we are so grateful to have another precious baby boy. Unfortunately my pictures of his blessing day came out a bit fuzzy, but here are few. I've uploaded more pictures to our shutterfly photo album at http://www.carianthonyosborne.shutterfly.com/action

The Boys

The boys semi-cooperated today while I attempted to take some pics. Ethan looks a little disgusted that we stuck brother on him, but he really does love him.

New Site & Easter Pics

I've decided to switch to blogger because it takes way too long to edit my other website (please update your links), so hopefully I'll get more posted now! Joshua is getting so big, he's so much chubbier than Ethan was, I like his fat little arms. I could not ask for a better baby, he sleeps for 3 hours at a time (last night he slept for 5 hours!) and rarely cries. Ethan loves his brother, he has to smother him with kisses every chance he gets. Unfortunately he usually tries to lay on top of him at the same time. But we've managed to keep Joshua alive for a whole month now, so I think he'll survive. We are so excited for both of Ethan's Grandmas to visit us next week! We're blessing Joshua next Sunday. I know it's a bit late, but I did take a few pictures at Easter, here they are... As always, you can view all our latest pictures at http://www.carianthonyosborne.shutterfly.com/action