Already mid-November?!

Wow, time flies. It's already mid-November! We've been keeping pretty busy recently, which is normal as year end approaches (yeah, sad that we are already thinking the end of the year...).

I had the 4th annual KUS/Hospital house reunion last weekend. I have 9 girls friends from college that get together every year. In the past we've gotten together in Chicago, Vegas and Phoenix. This year since I had Ethan just 5 months ago I had a privilege of gathering my friends to Goshen. We mainly walked around Goshen and hung out at my house, but it was really good to catch up with them again. We live in 6 different states, so I don't get to see them too often. I hope this tradition continues for a long time!

Sadly I didn't take any pictures on my camera but hoping that they would e-mail them to me shortly. It was really good that Ethan could meet my dear friends though. He enjoyed the attention he got from them, and so did Oreo. Two of them, Alyssa and Rachel, stayed at my house so Oreo got 24/7 attention from them.

This past week we had a baby shower for Chrissy in our small group. It was just four of us, and we had cheese fondue and chocolate fondue. It was a lot of fun to have a girls' night and to celebrate for baby Kauffmann! It would be fun to have another boy in the small group in less than a month!

I think we'll have a little slower week this week having a plan only on Friday. That's ok as I should be studying for my CPA exam which is in 10 days! I haven't studied nearly as much as I should be, and I am really not ready for it. I guess that's what happens when there is a child in the house! We'll see how much I can cram in during the next 10 days...

Ethan's first halloween

This past week, I was in Indianapolis on a business trip for four days. Jeff and Ethan came along with me on Sunday, spent a night and left Monday morning as I went to work. I missed them a lot while I was down there, but at the same time it was nice that I could spend time for myself. I went to the mall for the first time after Ethan was born, got a haircut (first once since January), went to see The Couples' Retreat, and ate at nice restaurants every night. It was nice that I could do all things I couldn't do well with a baby along. Jeff and Ethan did well without me too. But when I got back home on Thursday, Ethan's face lit up as soon as he saw me. I missed his smiles.

We bought a costume at once upon a child, children's' resale store, for Ethan's first Halloween. He was a Tigger :-) We took him over to Grandpa and Grandma Claassen's, Grandpa and Grandma Yoder's, and Kate and Will's before we went to our freinds' house for an evening of fun. He was so soft and cuddly. Since it is a tiger year next year in Japan, I may make a new year's cards with pictures of him in this costume again :-)