11 months old and counting

Ethan turned 11 months old today. Wow. And weird. I can swallow the fact that I have a baby but it is a little harder to believe that he will soon be a whole year old.

I haven't written in a while because we have been SO busy. I am almost done with school (thank goodness, only two weeks left!) and we have SO much to do before the end of the semester. General Conference was this weekend and Jean A. Stevens, first counselor in the Primary General Presidency, said that we must choose to have faith and to trust in the Lord. I am so glad that she said that. These next few weeks are going to be hard but I have been working on being patient and not getting stressed out. Now, I guess, is the time for me to choose to have faith and to trust that if I put the Lord first He will help me to get it all done without getting stressed out and taking it ot on those around me. I know the principle is true. I just have to have faith to try.

So, lets start from where I left of last post. On the 16th Trent left early (3:00 AM early) for Chicago and Student Career Days put on by PLANET. He has been preparing for it all semester now and was a little nervous about how he would do. On Sunday I got a call after the awards ceremony telling me how they did. BYU took first overall. Trent took first in not only Small Engine Repair (the one we knew he would do well in) but he also took first in Plant and Pest ID (which he had told me he was going to do terribly in...ha)! He couldn't believe it himself. I am so happy for him. He works so hard and deserves to finally win something. Now he is a National Champion. Twice. Pretty cool.

While he was gone my mom came to visit. She came down to help me with Ethan during my last week of teaching and help Natalie get ready for her BFA Illustration Show Reception. It was so fun to have her here and to watch her with Ethan. Trent came home at midnight on Monday and then my dad came down on Tuesday for Nat's reception (on Thursday). It was crazy to have so much going on during my last week of teaching but I loved having them here. On Wednesday night we went to my parents hotel to take Ethan swimming for his first time. It was so fun. He never smiled once during his whole time in the pool, but he didn't cry either. He just stared and looked around, presumably trying to take it all in. I am so excited to take him to the pool and the ocean this summer. He loves bath time and I hope he loves to swim.

Thursday, March 24th was Natalie's art reception. I asked if I could make the food and she said yes! (My first catering experience! I have this secret desire to be a caterer). Anyway, I made red velvet mini cupcakes with cream cheese frosting and almond cheese balls. It was my first time making either and I had a lot of help from Dad, Mom, and Nat. Luckily, they turned out good and were a success. I had a lot of people ask me for the cheese ball recipe and one lady wouldn't accept my offer to email it to her and had me give it to her off the top of my head! The best part about it all was that I had so much FUN. I LOVE cooking/baking. I just wish I had more people besides Trent and I to eat the food that I make. Here is a picture with Ethan, Nana, and Papa (my parents) at the reception.

Here is Papa reading to Ethan.

So Ethan is exploring and into everything but he is learning so much. Just a few stories to illustrate how fast his little brain must be working. About a week and a half ago I went to go to the bathroom and I shut the door most of the way but I left it open just a crack. My parents were in the living room but I heard Ethan crawling in to find me. I heard him crossing the little bit of linoleum and saw him peek through the crack in the door. I smiled because I thought it was so cute that he came to find me. Then, though, he reached up with his right had and pulled the door towards him, opening it. I was shocked. How did he know that to open the door he had to pull it towards him? I have seen him push doors closed but never pull them towards him. He was too much in the way of the door to open it very much so he scooted himself backwards and to the side so that he was out of the way and then opened the door, crawled in to the bathroom and pulled himself up to standing using my leg, and gave me a huge smile. I am amazed. I just can't believe that he knew to pull the door towards himself or even how to move out of the way so it could get by him. Second story. We have a couch and a chair that sit at almost a 90 degree angle to one another. In between them is an end table with computer and TV cords underneath. I was cleaning up and decided to put our little ottoman in between the couch and the chair so that Ethan couldn't get to the cords in the corner. Later, Ethan was walking along the couch and decided that he wanted to play with the little handle that hangs from the table (it is like a fake drawer handle that he likes to pull on). He couldn't reach it though because the ottoman was in the way. He leaned over the ottoman, reaching for the handle, but he just couldn't get it. He turned around and walked back down the couch. He went about a foot away from the ottoman before sitting down and rolling around a little bit. I wondered what he was doing because it just seemed kind of strange. Then I saw. From his position he reached out, grabbed a hold of a little rung on the ottoman and pulled it towards him. When he had pulled it as far as he could he rolled and scooted about another foot away, reached out and pulled the ottoman towards him again. I started laughing. I knew exactly what he was doing. He looked up at me and started to crawl to me but then he remembered the mission that he had started on, and he turned, crawled around the ottoman to the newly vacant spot, and pulled himself up the table so that he could grab onto the handle. I could hardly believe it. What must be going through his little mind to think: I want X. If I do Y, then I will get X!? Not only that, he is getting less sidetracked. He stayed focused on that handle the whole time. His brain must be learning so much about cause and effect right now. It is a pretty amazing process to watch.

Change of topic now.
This past Thursday was the Elder's Quorum Activity which was a Pinewood Derby. The wives were invited so Trent and I made a car together. Before we started we kind of had a lazy afternoon playing tennis (Trent barely won) and just kind of hanging out together. The activity was going to start at 6:30 so at about 4:00 we decided that we should probably start on our car. We knew people who had been working on their cars all week and we didn't want to be shown up too badly! We pulled out the table saw and started designing our car. When Trent went to cut it it splintered to the axle and ruined the block, making us realize that a table saw really isn't that great for making pinewood derby cars. Luckily we had an extra block. The second one survived the table saw but didn't look much better as you can see below. We tried to do one thing and messed up (hence the weird cuts in the front and up the sides) and then we just cut at an angle up the front and back to try to make it look a little better. We didn't have paint so we just colored it with markers. We also didn't have a scale so we had to wait until 6:30 to go to the church and use the scale there. Trent figured out how many fishing sinkers he could use and took his drill to the car, gutted it out, and hot glued the sinkers in! It was the ugliest car there! We were just laughing, we knew we weren't going to win. There were guys there who had some sweet looking cars and knew all about physics and where exactly to put the weight to get the most potential energy (in the back). Anyway, Trent named out car Trent & Cait, which is super romantic for him so I thought it was really sweet ;). When it went for its first run we beat the other three cars by a whole car length! We were shocked to say the least. It ended up winning all the other races and took first at the Derby. Wow. We laughed the whole way home in disbelief. Here are some pictures of the Trent & Cait.

Saturday was General Conference but Trent had to change the fuel pump in the truck.  I stayed inside watching Conference with Ethan while Trent worked on the truck and listened to the radio. He was getting pretty frustrated because he had to drop the gas tank to get the fuel pump, which means he had to crawl around on his back under the truck. After the first session and Trent had dropped the tank I went out to help him switch out the fuel pump. Ethan hung out at some friends house for a bit and then in the cab for a few minutes until it was time for his nap. He had fun pushing buttons and exploring. When he went down for his nap I went back out to help Trent. I ran the jack while Trent tried to balance the gas tank on top and then we rolled around underneath trying to screw all the nuts and bolts back in place and hook tubes/wires back up. Trent was so sore from being on the hard asphalt for four hours but we had fun working on it together. I love working as a team. I think that is what marriage it all about. I can't believe how cute it was to watch him work on the truck though! I was so proud to be married to such a man!