December Part One

Now that Ethan has turned one, I swear his personality grows each and every day. He is really starting to test out Mike and I and tries to figure out what he can get away with. He, of course, has figured out that I am the sucker for his whining and crying and Mike is the fun one. The morning after his birthday, we snapped this picture of him playing, we thought it looked like a cheesy posed picture :)Here is a perfect example of him and his testing. He has known for forever not to go into the entertainment center. So, now when he walks over to the cabinet (saying no no no as he gets closer) he turns and gives us one of these looks to see if he will get yelled at...
As a late birthday present, we decided to buy Ethan a bookshelf for the basement. He is starting to really love the peek-a-boo books and those with animals he can feel. Every day he empties out the entire bookshelf then sits among the books and "reads" them.
Can you guess what Ethan's favorite food is these days??
NOODLES!!!

In mid-December Mike's family decided to spend the family Christmas at the water park in the Clock Tower in Rockford. The kids had a great time splashing around in the water and going down the slides. Although Ethan was too little for the slides, there were a bunch of stairs for him to climb and little mini fountains for him to play in. He loved all of the exploring!



As he got more adventurous, he climbed up a set of stairs and across this bridge. What I didn't realize was that there was a bucket that would fill up with water and when it was full, it would dump over. Well, Ethan went running across the bridge and before I could react, the big bucket of water landed right on his head. Mike somehow caught the action shot! (Notice me running to catch him - a little too late!)
The week before Christmas, Mike, his mom, Kelly and Lainey all went to Breakfast with Santa in Milton. Although Ethan didn't mind sitting with Santa last year, this year was a bit scarier.

November Part 3 - Ethan's First Birthday

For Ethan's birthday, we took him to a local photographer to have his first birthday and Christmas pictures taken. We thought they turned out pretty nice!

By the time Ethan's birthday came around, he was walking instead of crawling, most of the time.

For Ethan's birthday, Mike and I bought him an electric train that runs on a track. So, before he went downstairs in the morning, Mike set it up for him to see. I have to say, he was pretty excited, although mostly because it does play music. He still is an absolute lover of music and dancing!

We even added some decals to the back of the train to make it officially Ethan's train! He liked riding it, but only for about two minutes at a time.
His birthday ended up being quite a large party. Between 20 and 30 family members and close friends came to celebrate Ethan turning one! We had a nice lunch followed by cake. Ethan got the first piece, of course. At first he was a little apprehensive, but after a few tastes, he shoveled the cake in!


Then looked at me like, "Mom, I want some more!"
I'm sure you can't tell by the following picture what came next...
BATH TIME!! As much as he loves baths, it's only right for him to get a bath on his birthday.
After a quick scrub down, the party was waiting downstairs for present opening. He was much more interested in the paper than the actual gifts, but we were very fortunate to get all of the toys and clothes we will need for a really long time! Thanks everyone who came!

After everyone left, we had some quiet time with the grandparents. Here is Ethan with his grandma.
Whew! What a great first birthday! I can't believe it has already been a year since our little man joined our little family. We can't imagine life without you Ethan, you mean the world to us and you have definitely filled parts of our hearts we didn't even know existed. Your smile, giggle, and growing personality make our day! We love you Little man/Peanut/E-man/Bud/Big guy!

Ethan's 1 year stats:
Height: 30.25 inches - 63rd percentile
Weight: 20 lb 8 oz - 16th percentile
Head: 49 cm - 98th percentile

So...we are still long and lean with a big head (and big brains to go with it) :)

November Part 2

While he was sleeping, I snapped this pic of his first tooth!

After we got home from Arizona, we did a lot of work on Ethan's walking. He started out taking just a few steps and within days he was taking 10-20 at a time.


Of course on his way to walking, there were also a lot of falls. Here is an action shot of one of his tumbles.

November was also a time of a ton of exploration. He is into EVERYTHING now and especially loves seeing how well he or his hands can fit into small places. Along with this, he loves the word "no." He will even say "no no no" as he is about to go do something he knows is naughty. Here are some pics of him exploring his environment.
He has also come to LOVE bath time even more than he did before. He likes to splash, drink his bath water, and throw things out of the tub. On one special night at grandma's, Ethan and Lainey took a bath together. They had lots of fun splashing around.
As I'm sure you can tell from the pics above, Ethan's hair got to be quite crazy. Our plan was to wait until he turned one to cut his hair but I decided I wanted it to look nice for the holidays. So, on November 24th, Ethan got his first hair cut. We decided to take him to my hairdresser who does my whole family's hair. Here she is showing Ethan the scissors and comb they will be using. He wasn't the biggest fan of getting his hair cut so hopefully that will improve over time!
Here is his after shot..obviously not too happy here!
Although he hated the haircut, he sure did look cute for Thanksgiving! This year was a little different than usual. We spent the holiday morning at my grandma Leeder's house in Beloit. We had a very nice lunch and even better company. It was great to see parts of the family that we don't see very often.
After my grandma's house, we spent the rest of the evening at my dad and Pam's. Although the picture quality isn't the greatest, I thought this pic of the kids with my dad was just too cute.

Catch up #5 (November Part One - First Plane Ride)

At the beginning of November, Mike, Ethan and I all went down to Arizona for my grandpa's surprise 80th birthday party. My dad and Pam were already down there visiting and most of the rest of my family came down the day after we arrived. It was Ethan's first big trip and I think he had a lot of fun. We were really worried about the plane ride. Luckily, the lady who checked us in found us a row where there was and extra seat. We were in the very back of the plane but at least we had the extra seat. It allowed Ethan to move around and play without disturbing anyone. Although we were expecting him to play with his toys, he was much more interested in looking out the window and playing with the seat belt.
Eventually, it was time to nap. He drank his bottle and went straight down for a nap without any problem.
When he woke up, he played for a bit, but was ready to get off the plane. We landed shortly after but had to wait on the tarmac for a whole hour. Mike entertained Ethan with peek-a-boo and sticking out his tongue and luckily it worked! We only had a couple of little fusses but fortunately the people around us were more than understanding.
Needless to say, Ethan was happy to have landed and be able to be outside (especially since it was almost 80 degrees).
After landing, we spent one night at the hotel with my dad and Pam. The next day, the entire family went over to my grandparent's house while they were out shopping. When they returned, we all jumped out from behind a big bush in their back yard and surprised them. We spent the day playing games and chatting. We had a birthday party and of course took a bunch of pictures of the entire family since it doesn't happen very often that almost everyone is together.
The whole crew..Just the cousins...It had been over a month since we had seen my dad and Pam. Ethan was really excited to see them and spent most of the week we were there attached to my dad.
As you can tell from this pic, it was pretty warm in Arizona. Ethan was exhausted from all of the traveling and took a 2 hour nap the first day. This is what he looked like when he got up :)
Throughout the week, we all spent a lot of time just hanging out. This was on Sunday, when the Packers played the Cowboys. We had a lot of fun rooting our Pack on! Ethan had fun clapping and yelling for them too.
During the first game, Mike and Ethan were having fun running and kicking a small foam ball to Dean, my uncle.
Here he is standing for the first time all by himself!!
The next day, a group of us went to a fall league baseball game where young players from major league teams play in the off season to gear up for the real thing. There were players from the Brewers, White Sox, Reds, etc there.
Here is our group (minus myself).
Ethan got a little restless during the game because he is always wanting to MOVE! Mike and my dad took him way out into the outfield to burn off some energy. As you can see, it was a really nice and new stadium.Toward the end of the game, Ethan got really tired. I fed him a bottle and he was out! My uncle Rick had been working all week to be able to hold him. This was his chance and he jumped on it. Ethan spent the rest of the game sleeping on Rick's shoulder. P.S. This is also the uncle that taught Ethan how to rub his hands together (which soon became one of his favorite ways of showing off)
Every night after dinner, we would head back to the hotel so Ethan could have some quiet time. In the morning my dad and Pam would come to the hotel to have breakfast then we would go out for more family time. Here is a pic of Pam and Ethan one night just hanging out. We thought he looked like quite the grown up in this pic.
I'm pretty sure one of Ethan's favorite parts of the trip was playing I'm gonna get you every night. One of us would "get him" by tickling him and he would giggle like crazy. Here's a pic of his grandpa getting him.On one of the afternoons spent in the hotel room, Ethan decided to take his first steps. He walked from Mike to my dad for a total of about 3 steps!!

On the last full day we spent in Arizona, we went to the Phoenix Zoo which was unlike any other zoo we had been to. The exhibits were set up like their natural habitat so they had the giraffes in with a bunch of other animals in a really large exhibit. It was a huge zoo with sprawling exhibits. It was definitely some good exercise along with being lots of fun!

Overall, we had a really great trip. We were a little worried when we checked in on the way home because we did not have the extra seat we had on the way down. Luckily, the lady next to us was really nice and Ethan loved her! She even held him so he could look out the window on the way up. So, we definitely won't be as worried for our next trip since Ethan did so well on this one!