The Whole Alphabet

Ethan's keen interest in letters has continued, and he now knows all of his letters! He cannot pronounce all of them, but if we draw them on his doodlepro and ask him to point to various letters (in random order), he can pick each letter out correctly. His all-time favorite letter is "D". I cannot count the number of times per day that Ethan brings me his doodlepro and asks for me to draw the letter "D". :) I was wearing a t-shirt with words on it the other day, and as I was changing Ethan's diaper, I realized that he was reading the letters off of my shirt to me. He says "W" as "bubba-u", and he also told me "D", "E", and "I". It's amazing how fast his knowledge and vocabulary are growing!

Celebrating Easter with Grandma and Grandpa G. and Uncle Mike

We hope that you and your family had a wonderful and blessed Easter!

We spent Easter afternoon and evening at my parent's house.
Mom made a wonderful meal, and we enjoyed hanging out, watching some March Madness, and Ethan got to open and play with a new Thomas the Train playset from Grandma and Grandpa G. Ethan really enjoyed the Thomas the Train toys at our local children's museum, and now he has some track and cars of his own to tinker with! His favorite thing to do today was to sit in the middle of an oval of track and push the cars around and around. I "videotaped" him using our digital camera and posted the footage, although for whatever reason, Blogger rotated the video when it was uploaded and will not allow me to edit it. Sorry!

Funny Photo

I'm not big on reading the newspaper, but I do skim through the Sunday paper and the local papers that we receive (and clip coupons, of course!) This photo caught my eye the other day and cracked me up. Gas prices have been ridiculous lately, and I hope that this picture gives you a chuckle too ;)

Swim Class and Finished Pottery Project

Today was Ethan's second swim class, and again he really enjoyed it! Unfortunately, even though Dan had the day off of work, he was unable to attend the class with us because he had some type of 48-hr flu bug. While Ethan was napping (and Dan was probably also napping ;), I finally had a chance to go back to the pottery painting place where my mom's group went last week to work on finishing my cookie jar. I was WAY too ambitious with my project, as it took me 2 1/2 hours today to finish it. So, in all, it took me almost 5 hours to paint the cookie jar! I am writing this post belatedly, so I can *magically* fast-forward to a picture of the final product after having been fired in the kiln. I was a little disappointed that the flower design looks primarily brown (the color of paint was supposed to fire green), but overall I am happy with how it turned out. I LOVE the speckly look of the rest of the jar. I am excited to go again and paint something else or make a mosaic soon! I think that we'll be planning another evening there in the near future, as everyone had a great time and several people have mentioned being interested in going again.

What Ethan's Been up to Lately

It's been awhile since I've posted an update on some things that Ethan is up to... So here goes!

*He likes telling people and things "Bye Bye" even if he's going to be away from them only for a moment. For example, if he is going with me upstairs to get his diaper changed, on our way upstairs he says "Bye Bye Daddy, Bye Bye D-D (doggie), Bye Bye Elmo" etc.

*Waggles has a tendency to drink too much water at a time, which can sometimes result in his stomach contents coming back up. Lovely, huh? Anyhow, we try to prevent this yuckiness from occurring by hollering at Wags to slow down when he is drinking a lot of water. Ethan has caught on to this, and now whenever Wags is drinking water Ethan will shout at him "Ahhh! Ahhh!"

*Remember eskimo kisses? My parents gave us eskimo kisses (where you rub noses) when we were little. I started giving Ethan eskimo kisses recently, and he thinks they are hilarious. He will walk up to me or Dan and try to give us eskimo kisses. Very cute!

*Ethan loves to dance. When he climbs up our stairs, he'll climb one flight, and then dance his way across the landing to the second flight. Why dancing is especially fun on the stairwell, I'm not sure. We also discovered that he enjoys dancing in the buff ;) We remove his diaper just before bathtime, and if his toddler tub is not quite filled up with water, he has a minute or so before we plop him in the tub. He enjoys running around in the bathroom dancing while he waits. Totally cracks us up! A friend who has a little boy advised me that little boys like being naked, and this was the first evidence that we'd seen of this!

*Ethan enjoys building quite impressive towers with his Megablocks. The wagon that we use to store the Megablocks has a row on either side that can be built on. He has been building towers that are nearly as tall as him using the wagon recently. He gets really excited about building, and after placing each block he says "More More" and looks for more blocks to add to the tower. Here are a couple of photos of a tower in-progress.

The Search for Swimwear

I waited until late last Thursday night to try on my potential swimsuits to wear to Ethan's swim class on Friday morning. This was not a good idea. I literally have not purchased any bathing suits since just before our honeymoon, and those suits are not nearly as flattering after you have had a child (and have indulged in too much chocolate lately)! I had to select the "least worst" swimsuit to wear on Friday and decided to search for a new one before his second class. This search has proven more difficult than I had imagined. I discovered that Ethan has limited patience for dressing rooms. I have tried Kohl's, JCPenney, Target, Macy's, etc., etc. without much success. I found a suit (tankini top and board shorts) that I loved at Macy's, but just couldn't swallow the $90 price tag. I was shocked at regular prices for the swimwear, as I am accustomed to searching only clearance racks! Fortunately I finally settled on a somewhat reasonably priced suit at JCPenney that will suffice.

Yet Another Great Experience at the BMV!

I blogged previously about an unexpectedly pleasant experience at the BMV when I renewed the registrations for our Grand Prixs in January, and I guess that I'll need to start classifying my experiences as expectedly pleasant! I went this Saturday morning around 10am to our local BMV to get the registration and plates for our new minivan, and the parking lot was completely swamped. I was prepared for the worst as I opened the door, but was able to walk directly up to their "triage" desk. I had barely sat down in their waiting area when our last name was called, and I again had wonderful customer service and a great experience at our BMV. Despite needing to do title, registration, and license plate paperwork, I was in and out in less than 10 minutes. I even had time to run several other errands that I didn't think I'd be able to attempt. What a nice surprise!

First Day of Aquababies (Swim Class)

Today I took Ethan for the first session of an Aquababies class that is held at an indoor pool at an exercise/rehabilitation center for a local hospital. The class is for infants and toddlers who are 6 months to 2 years old and helps them get comfortable in a large pool and with dunking under water briefly. They sing songs and teach kicking, floating, and how to "jump" to a parent in the water on the count of 3. They do several other activities that involve playing in and enjoying the water. Ethan had so much fun! He had this giant grin plastered on his face and especially liked sitting on the edge of the pool and "jumping" (basically leaning in) to Mommy in the pool. The class consists of 8 1-hr sessions. I hope that Ethan enjoys the remaining sessions as much as the first! Dan has Good Friday off of work next week, so he is planning to come along and watch us during the class. I'm glad that Dan will have the opportunity to see how excited Ethan gets during the class too!

Mom's Night Out- Pottery Painting

Tonight our mom's group from church got together for a ladies' night out. We visited a local pottery painting and mosaic place to have some fun being artsy. There were so many items to choose from to decorate that I think everyone had a difficult time selecting their piece. Our group did pencil holders, platters, a bowl, cookie jars, a cup and saucer, and a coffee mug. Everyone did a fabulous job decorating their's, and sadly I took on too big of a decorating project and did not finish my cookie jar before closing time. I will need to go back sometime soon to finish it so that it can be fired in their kiln. I am excited to see how the finished product will look because I used an unusual type of paint that looks an orangey/brown color when applied to the pottery, but when fired will turn a speckly green. The blue on the inside of the cookie jar is a special food-safe glaze that will turn white when fired. I'll post a photo when it is all done!
Lori brought her camera to our outing and took some great pics. I "borrowed" ;) these photos from her blog so that you could see our creative group at work!

You Can't Beat a FREE Breakfast!

Today we got together with Jackie and Lauren at a local restaurant that was offering FREE breakfast! Chick-Fil-A offered a free breakfast entree to each person today until 10:30am. Who can beat that? We each got a chicken biscuit, and they were very yummy! I guess that the point of the promotion was to make people aware that they serve breakfast in addition to lunch. I'm glad that Jackie had heard about the promotion, because it was a great breakfast and the price was certainly right! We also did a little shopping, and we visited my biggest weakness- Kohl's. Kohl's clearance racks basically call my name, and I just can't pass them by without looking through them. I found 4 things for Ethan at 80% off (all larger sizes to grow into), and was pleased with my purchases. Ethan and Lauren had fun playing peek-a-boo together while Jackie and I descended upon the clearance racks. Lauren would hide in a rack and then jump out at Ethan- he thought that was the most hilarious thing ever. It was nice that they could keep each other entertained while we hunted for bargains.

Another Visit to the Museum

Today Ethan and I met Nan and Will at the Children's Museum, and the boys had a blast! They enjoyed the Playscape area for quite awhile, and Ethan even cooperatively held my hand as we walked between different parts of the exhibit rather than running off without looking back. This visit his favorite things to do were to play with the Thomas the Train table, the water table, and the magnetic letter board. Grandpa G. and Uncle Mike have a huge (8 by 20 foot) N-gauge train layout at their house (model railroading is a major hobby of their's), and Ethan LOVES when Grandpa holds him up to see the trains running around the layout. He will likely be a big train buff. The water table at the museum had been "renovated", and there were lots of new toys to play with. Ethan may also be interested in soccer as he gets older since he loves to kick balls. His coordination is much better than mine, as he almost always connects his foot with the ball. There were tons of new balls in the water table, and Ethan kept taking them out, dropping them on the floor, and kicking them. Will and Ethan also rode the carousel (stationary horses), and they both seemed to enjoy that too. It was a really fun morning!

Bath Letters are FUN!

I couldn't resist picking up a set of foam bath letters and numbers for Ethan when I was at Babies R' Us stocking up on diapers and purchasing his potty chair the other day. He has been SO interested in letters lately, I thought that he would love them. And boy does he love them, and the fact that they stick to the side of the tub increases the fun factor even more! He pitched a massive fit when we tried to take him out of the tub the first evening that he played with them. We let him hold two of the letters as we dried him off and put his jammies on, so that pacified him. I have been surprised and amazed that he has caught on to the names of the letters so quickly. He now knows at least 3/4 of the letter's names and can accurately identify them. His current favorite toys are his LeapFrog Letter Whammer, foam tub letters, and magnadoodle (as long as you are drawing letters for him).

Maybe We Missed Our True Calling-Lumberjacks?

Today Dan spent probably at least 4 hours cutting up wood from our fallen tree and moving it to a pile in our backyard. We even took down the 10-15 foot piece that had remained standing when the other part broke off and fell to the ground. It probably would have been comical to get a picture of us as we "felled" the rest of the tree ourselves, but there weren't any neighbors outside to ask to take a photo. Dan read the directions in his chainsaw manual about how to guide the direction of the tree as we took it down. Dan somehow managed to lasso a rope around the top of the tree, and I held the opposite end and pulled with all my might about 25 feet away from the base as Dan sawed it off just a foot or so off the ground. I'm sure that we made for quite a sight as I pulled the tree over so it fell between our houses. This was also my first "up close" look in daylight at the tree remnants. I was amazed at the gigantic dent that the tree made across our yard, and that was in frozen ground to boot! If that tree had landed on a house or car, we would have been looking at SERIOUS damage. Anyhow, thankfully it didn't, but we again counted our blessings.

Potty at Our House

Get my awful pun? Potty aka "party" at our house? Yes, even Dan thought that was extremely lame. Anyhow, I did make a trip to Babies R' Us today and purchased a Baby Bjorn potty (the exact one pictured in a post below) for Ethan. He has been curious about this new addition to our downstairs bathroom, and he has sat on it fully clothed twice, but we probably aren't going to seriously attempt potty training for several months.

Silly Boy!

Ethan certainly inherited a tendency toward silliness from his mommy and daddy ;) His sense of humor is so cute, and he is very quick to catch on to something that makes me or Dan laugh, and he repeats it over and over. The other day Ethan managed to get his arm out of the sleeve and up through the head hole of his sweatshirt, and then he started waving at himself. This completely cracked me and Dan up. Since then he has done this a few more times. Today he was taking quite awhile to settle down in his crib to sleep for his nap, so I went in to check on him and tuck him back in. I found that he had once again managed to get his arm up through the head hole of his shirt, and he had this big grin on his face. I had to smile and laugh at him, and this time I took a few pictures to capture this little silly moment :) Hopefully he'll stop doing this before he stretches out all of the head holes of his winter clothes!

A Big Praise During Today's Icestorm- Does Anyone Need Any Firewood?

Just thought I'd share a big praise from this afternoon... We have several gigantic trees in our yard, and today the weight of the ice in combination with strong winds brought a 50 foot tall tree in our front yard down. It split about 10-15 feet up, and the rest of it fell exactly in between our house and our neighbor's house. It's difficult to tell from the pictures, but it is AMAZING that this tree did not hit one of our houses, our neighbor's fence, or did not end up toppling in a different direction and landing on one of our cars or our neighbor's cars. After seeing what happened, we are so thankful that no one was hurt and no damage was done. When will it be spring time? The pictures will enlarge if you click on them- then you can really see how tall this tree was...

On a funny note- I ran out of our house through the garage at around 4pm to grab our mail. At the time it was sleeting heavily, and I ran with my hood tucked tightly over my head. I retrieved our mail and then again ran with my head down and hood on back into the house. According to our neighbor (the one whose house the tree fell next to), she heard a huge sound and saw the remnants of the tree just after it fell around 2pm. So, this gigantic tree was laying in our yard in pieces (it broke apart all over the place), and I didn't even notice it due to my hood when I ran out to get the mail. In fact, I wasn't aware that anything had happened at all until Dan got home from work and came into the house to tell me! I was on the opposite end of the house when the tree fell and attributed any noises I heard to icy branches banging against a window in our stairwell. I won't be winning any awards for observation skills today, that's for sure!

Fun with Cousins

Today some of my dad's family who we hadn't seen in several years came to visit. My dad's cousin, Vera Jo, her two daughters, Vicki and Venessa, and Venessa's son Garrett came to my parent's house. I'm not sure how we are all related as far as second/third cousins once/twice removed goes! Garrett is 3 months younger than Ethan, and this was the first time for them to meet. They had a great time playing together, and it was so nice to get to catch up with Vera Jo, Vicki, and Venessa! Vicki and Venessa are both expecting little ones this summer which is very exciting. My mom planned an early mini Easter egg hunt for the boys and "hid" some small plastic eggs in their living room for them to find. They had fun finding the eggs and putting them in their Easter baskets.

Me, Ethan, Venessa, and Garrett

Venessa and Vicki

Vera Jo

Easter egg hunt

Garrett giving Ethan a ride in his car