I hauled off to Little Rock and Shreveport without the camera... suprising, yes... so the only pics I have on me are the ones of Eli and Emily's Christmas visit. When all the other people with cameras send me their pictures (hint Nana), I'll post them.

These are all random.
I just got the "mama mama uh uh" from Ethan's room. Apparently he's awake.

And... HAPPY BIRTHDAY AUDREY!!

Hello Hello. I'm a footballer's wife this evening. Apparently its an important game. I've just made my first batch of toffee, and it happens to be excellent.

Ethan took 6 steps this weekend. They were short and wobbly... but they were unassisted. He hasn't done it since. His carrot was (you guessed it!), his stuffed dog.

We threw a two-day-coup and got our living room back. We now have all the toys stuffed into another room that has a door. Ethan likes that the spider man couch is his gateway to the other couch, and Elmo is SO MUCH BIGGER on the other TV!

I was audited by the Arkansas Board of Examiners of Speech Language Pathologists today. That was fun. Shaun was no help saying that audits were "a good way to learn" and "necessary to improve." PUH-LEASE Mr. Taxman... nobody likes an auditor. Mine; however, was reasonable, and lauded me as "excellent" and as "obviously not being userpt." Strange, but I'll take it. A facade of pretty charts and graphs can get you places.


Ethan also showed his true colors last night as he scarfed down two bowls of crawfish chowder and two garlic toasts. His teachers today remarked on his disgusting gas, they said it was indescribeable... We describe it as voodoo-doodoo.

On that note, nighty night.
E

Since this blog has become Ethan's baby book, I will now post the year in pictures. This is actually my third attempt. I sat down at 8:04. I perused the internet, caught up on my entertainment news, then decided on my blog theme. FIRST, I was trying to move a picture to perfectly align my text, and all my pictures disappeared. THEN, I was on a roll, labeling, labeling... then I was one short. I forgot May, so I tried to add it and it got all screwed up. So NOW, on my third attempt, and with different pictures than I picked the first time... eh hmmmmm... our year in review. By the way, it is 9:22.

These won't line up right... alas they are in order.
December... aaaaawwwwww. All squishy and furry with a big nose.
January... he thinks we're cool.

February... he wants to trade us in for trained professionals,

March... beginning of the fat phase

April... head. is. still. so. heavy.

May

June... still fat

July.. thinning out, learning to sit.

August... HAM BONE!

September- would still wear a hat

October... on the move!

November... ate too many sweet pots and got an orange nose!

December... saw the vacuum and said "dat?!", saw the clock and said "dat?!", saw the dog and said "dat!" saw the fill in the blank and said "dat?!"

Whew. I did it. I'm posting before it can go away. Night night. E

DOG PARTY!

December 8th came and went with less bang

(and pain medicine shot into my spine... for that matter) than last year; alas, we had a dog party. There were dog cards, and a dog cake, and dog wrapping paper, and stuffed dogs, and pictures of dogs, and dog books, and dog stuff everywhere.

Birthday Boy had a good time, and enjoyed all the new stuff he got. He didn't open two of our gifts, and I think we'll just save those for Christmas.... probobly the only year we'll get away with that.

He didn't care much for the cake, and he slept trought the back end of his party, but we'll remember it always. ;)

My motherly resolutions this year include:

1. Blog like he was just born

2. Take on a different hobby than obsessing over sleep patterns

3. Ensure proper speech production

4. Teach him about cake

It's not weird when he calls me mamamamama.... what a difference a year makes!

:) E

Here's some pics. I'm trying not to lose my blogging chutzpah. What does chutzpah mean??
E

We're back! So sorry for my lag in picture posting. We've been busy. We made the Thanksgiving rounds ... Ethan got to see all his cousins. This was our best shot of all the Byrd cousins in Nana's new cool fort.
Ethan got to steal cookies at Momo's house... and got to see lots of cool stuff at SciPort. All those pics are on my fancy new phone, and once I figure out how to harvest those, I'll send 'em right out.

Otherwise, life is speedy. I made a folder called Ethan December this morning to hold all these new pics, and low and behold, there already IS an Ethan December folder. Hmmm. Full circle.

At the lighting of Fayetteville square. It was COLD and late, but we had fun.

We've gotten our tree up.. did I mention that yesterday was a snow day??? All the streets were clear by 10am, but we all got to stay home anyway! Fun fun. We went to pick a tree... then we went shopping for lights, etc.. we got to the checkout and realized all we had between ourselves was one checkbook. No IDs, no debit, nothing. They wouldn't let us proceed with our checkout. It made for a long day, but we got everything eventually.

I need to go clean up pine needles. Tootles. E

Hola.
The blogger wants me to "switch to our new version" and assures me that I will like it better, that it will be more reliable, and that it will give me great new features. I am nervy. Like my friend Katherine says "stick with what you know." Katherine navigates the entire town of Fayetteville on two streets because she doesn't know much directionally. So I'm sticking with what I know. I'M NOT SWITCHING!!

In other Oliver news, Shaun has become BFF (best friends forever for those of you too old to remember 5th grade) with our neighbor (Senior La Huerta). I was not present, but apparently over some cervesas, Shaun and Meliton agreed that if LSU is triumphant in the battle of the boot, then three La Huerta waiters will don LSU t-shirts and say "Go Tigers" everytime they serve a plate. NOW... this is the funny part. If Arkansas pulls out a victory, Michael Shaun Oliver will wear a Razorbacks cheerleading outfit in LaHuerta for a night. Oh my. I hope I can get a picture. I think his legs will look very nice in an iddy biddy skirt!
We're on the countdown to birthday #1! Unbelieveable really. We have decided that Ethan has enough brains to actually have an opinion now. He has some favorites:
1. Dogs: big dogs, little dogs, short hair or furry... he loves them all
2. Yogurt. He even has a dance to go along with it.
3. Vitamin D Milk.
4. Baths... except when he tried to pull that knob on the top of the faucet and got a shower.... doesn't like showers.
We're going to try not to go overboard on birthday and christmas so we can save our money for a year when he can remember...
I'm going to enjoy my coffee and watch the news. Later! E

Hello Hello! Its Friday all of the sudden again. We're lucky enough to get to stay home today. Every body in this house has been through the common cold this week. You may think its funny but its snot. AH HA HA. One of my favorites!! We all have hacking coughs and the sniffles.
Our friend Audrey is having heart surgery on Monday, so keep her in your thoughts and prayers.. as well as her parents, and her grandparents... She won't remember it, but her Mama will.
We can't really get Ethan to sit still and cheese it up for the camera anymore, so we've transitioned on in to the candids.
I'm going to huddle down while all these freaky Razorback fans do their thing this weekend. I hope everyone has a good game, I hope they play their best, and I hope no one gets hurt. Ethan may donn his 'Backs jeresey since his daddy is hiking 20 miles of the Ozark Highland Trail this weekend. NOT what I want to do on my weekend. He has his orange on so he doesn't get shot. Olive my love! E