Animal Sounds

We have the world's Smartest Boy! Isn't he cute? He does other animal sounds too, but he needs help. Like, he can say tweet tweet for birdies, but only after he does quack quack, because anything that flies is a duck. He can do moo but only after he does woof woof... so cute.

Latest Family Portrait

One Yummy lookin' family.

Baby Bookworm

Ethan likes to read his books!

Memoirs of a Geisha

Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden:
I watched the movie when it came out because I never thought I would read the book, but I have and I think because I saw the movie first it seemed the same as the movie to me. Normally I read the book first and then I hate the movie because it is nothing like the book. I enjoyed reading the book, although it contained a few "skip these pages" areas. It was a beautiful story about a girl trying to find her place in the world, and I thought it was written very well. I am interested to know what the other book club ladies thought about it and am excited to hear their input. I don't know that I would highly recommend it, but I probably wouldn't discourage you from reading it if you wanted to. Next I am reading the biography of the woman who this story was loosely based on (also for book club). I'll let you know which version I liked better.

Backfire!

When we tell Ethan no we shake our heads no too. Well, Ethan likes to tell us no now and he does it by shaking his head at us! What a funny boy. Also, if you're wondering what is in his mouth, he is trying to wolf down a cheese stick, which he calls shees shees.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith:

I read this book because I have known a couple of people who have said it was their favorite book ever. One was a friend from high school named Leah, and also Steve's cousin Julie. So Julie lent me the book and I've had it for about a decade, so I thought I should read it and get it back to her. Turns out that I loved it too! It is a story about a girl named Francie Nolan and how she grows up in Brooklyn. It talks about her life, and the life of her family from the time she is born until she is seventeen or so. She first aspires to be an actress, and then a organ-playing-dancing lady, and then a writer. I especially liked her take on writing. She got "A"s on her compositions when they were about what her teacher thought was beautiful. But when she wrote about the truth of her life, her teacher told her it was ugly and she should stick to writing about beautiful things. She burned up all of her "beautiful" compositions and kept all of the ugly ones, because she wanted to keep with the truth. Which kind of sums up this novel, which was about the truth of what it was like to live in the poor neighbor hoods, the ugliness of them, but also the beauty of them. Anyway, I give it a two thumbs up. I wouldn't ever call it my favorite book, but it has made it into the top twenty, which is pretty good :)

The Road

The Road by Cormac McCarthy:
I thought that this was a super interesting book... I didn't love it like Julie does, but I thought it was a good read. Sometimes it was super cryptic, half the time it didn't use complete sentences, but it was a... I don't know, sort-of-touching-lots-disturbing story about a father and a son trying to survive in a devastated land. I would definitely recommend reading this one, but be prepared to wonder what happened to the world, because they don't ever tell you. Also be prepared to wonder what happened to some of the characters, because he does like to leave things vague.

Silver Falls

My Parents came to visit and we decided we would go out to Silver Falls. We have been there before (Steve has been many times) and we really love it there. One of these days we are going to go and camp down their, but today we just hiked. They have a trail that takes you past ten different waterfalls, and they were especially beautiful because it is practically spring, and they have SO MUCH water coming off of them, it's just incredible. Anyway, we had a blast. Here are some of the pictures.

Lower South Falls, you can barely see Steve, Ethan, me and my Dad hanging out by the fall.

Ethan really enjoys being carried in our baby backpack, he especially enjoyed it when Grandpa was carrying him and would run ahead and hide behind a tree to jump out and surprise us!

My mom and me by South Fall.

Ethan, Steve my mom and dad behind South Fall

Ethan has become a great walker, but this brick side walk made him trip a lot so he enjoyed holding grandpa and dad's hands to help him stay on his feet.

How My Boys Spend Their Time