I LOVE this kid

Happy Valentine's Day to all. I thought I would share a picture of my favorite little boy. He is so sweet and fun to be around. It is amazing how much happiness he brings to my life. Even though at times he is frustrating, I LOVE spending everyday with him. (I also was able to get him to smile for the picture which is a first.)

Newport Aquarium

Scott had another interview this week in Cincinnati and with a free hotel room at the down town Marriott I couldn't resist tagging along. There is an aquarium right by where we stayed that I have been wanting to go to since we moved out here, so we finally went and had a really fun time. Ethan loved it! They have all kinds of fish, turtles, jellyfish, sting rays, penguins, snakes, alligators, otters, birds, and of course SHARKS. The sharks were our favorite part. They have this tunnel you walk through and the sharks swim all around. It is so neat to see them up close like that and the best part of the whole day was when we got to pet some sharks. We spent the majority of our time at the shark petting pool, Ethan couldn't get enough. He wasn't scared at all even when other kids started crying, he just wanted to keep touching them. It was hard to get him to leave cause he loved it so much.
The other highlight of the trip was of course the gap outlet, which is a must every time I'm in cinncy, and I scored some pretty good deals. It was a fun little get-away.

As far as a potty training update we are finally doing really well. I hope I don't jinx my-self again like I did last time I posted about it(we had a major relapse after my other potty training post.) Anyways if we make it the rest of today it will be a whole week accident free. HALLELUJAH!!!!! I feel like I have just accomplished something really hard like curing a disease or writing a novel. So hopefully I am not jinxing myself but it has been very difficult and it feels so good to finally be in a good place with the whole thing. Good job E, I am so proud of you!

Finally some progress

Of all the stages we have been through in Ethan's short 2 1/2 yrs of life I have to say that I rank potty training right up there with child birth. Despite my entire house smelling like bodily fluids my favorite moment of the week was when he pooped and then pushed it under a dresser to hide it from me. Coming in at a close second has to be when he peed in my floor vent. Lets just say it has been a frustrating week but we are finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. He has almost gone 2 days with out any accidents (he did have one but it was more my fault than his) and we made it through our first diaper free outing today. I am so proud of my big boy. It makes me so happy to see him growing-up and even more happy to be getting this out of the way before the new baby comes.

Beautiful girls

I just had to show off my two beautiful new nieces. They are so cute and it is making me even more excited to be having a little girl in two months. Especially since she will have a cousin her same age on both sides of the family.

Anna Kate Yeates

Born: Jan. 2nd

Bella Reese Sorensen
Born: Jan. 18th

Cleveland ROCKS!!!

Well today was the day! The BIG day! The one we have been waiting for for what feels like forever! Today was MATCH DAY!!!! Well at least for us Optho people, and yes we are going to Case Western in CLEVELAND!!!!! After a not so restful night, we had to wait around all morning for "the phone call." It felt like we were the last ones to know, (because basically everyone else knew where they were going long before we did.) which of course did not go so well for our nerves. Over the past few months and weeks we have spent hours speculating on which program it would be....but for some reason Cleveland wasn't even on our radar. So I must say we were a little surprised. Not in a bad way, because we are thrilled that Scott matched and Scott really likes the program there. (I remember after his interview at Case it was one of his favorites.) So all in all we are very happy and relieved that it is over and we finally know where the next few years will take us. My sister-in-law Michelle said it best..."(We) were meant to be in Ohio for 8 years!!!!"

My Obsession!

Michigan again....

We drove up to Michigan this weekend because we weren't cold enough down here in Ohio. Scott had a transitional year interview so we stayed at Todd & Michelle's and the kids couldn't have been happier. Our weekend was full of kid centered activities, of course, and Ethan, Hannah, and Rylee loved every second of it. We went to a few different indoor play places and on Sat we went swimming(also indoors.) The weird thing that happened this weekend is at the swim place someone stole Ethan's shoes!!! My question is who steals a two year olds shoes? The thief even took the time to remove the stinky socks that were stuffed down inside. Hopefully who ever took them needed them more than we did. We tried to get Ethan to wear Rylee's shoes for the rest of the time but he wanted nothing to do with her purple butterfly shoes so instead he just went without. He really has so much fun with his cousins every time we get together that it is always so sad to leave.

Deja Vu

Is it Fall all over again? The last few days have been hard to tell. It should be concerning to have 65+ deg weather in January in OHIO, (maybe there is something to this whole Global Warming thing.) but I am having a hard time complaining. Especially when we have played out side for 2 days in a row and when usually at this time of year we are frozen solid. Ethan does love playing in the snow, which I'm sure will return to us soon enough, but for now we are enjoying our second fall of the year and trying to spend as much time outside as we can. Today we raked up all the leaves we could find and had a pretty good time throwing them into the air to watch the wind carry them away.

Our Christmas

We had a long but much needed Christmas break where we did a lot of traveling and got to see almost all our family. We went to Utah for a few days and then drove down to Vegas to spend Christmas with the Sorensen family. It was fun to see everyone and Ethan and Joce had a great time tearing up the house and all the presents. All the guys & Mom went to the Las Vegas bowl, while I recovered from a 7hr drive (we hit some bad traffic) We had a fun Christmas and Ethan got so many presents!!! After x-mas we headed back up to Utah to spend the rest of our break with the Yeates. We went sledding, bowling, swimming, and Scott went skiing. Ethan could not have been happier playing with his cousins. It was so nice to spend the holidays with family because who knows when it will happen again. We just wish we could have gotten to see everyone.