Monkey See, Monkey Do

Ethan and I spent Valentine's Day alone at home together just relaxing and eating some chocolate that Mike left us as a gift! Later that night we made dinner for our little family and my mom. We even got to have a glass of the raspberry wine we bought from the winery...you will never guess who had two glasses (hint: Mike)
Valentine's Day was an especially warm one. I think it got up to the 40 degree range! With our heat on downstairs it even got a little toasty! We had to open up and get some fresh, cool air. Ethan and Boo loved listening to the birds chirp away.As you will see from the pics below, Ethan is becoming quite the independent little man. One way he is much more independent is with bedtime. If we ask him, "Do you want to go night night?" as he usually does around 7 or 7:30, he runs to the gate, climbs up the stairs, runs to his room, over to the bookshelf, gets a book, over to the rocking chair, reads with Mike, then whines for me to come rock him for a minute or two. He has the entire routine down and goes down without complaint! For nap time he is even known to ASK for night night! I sure hope our next kid is this easy!

We also used to have to help him build his towers of cups. He can now pick them up one by one and rule out or decide which one goes next to make his tower.
And of course he still loves his quiet time reading before a nap or bedtime. Although he still prefers his books with different textures or flaps he can lift up, he is starting to explore the other books.
Along with his emerging independence comes a bit of mocking what everyone else is doing. One day last week I scrubbed down the couch cushions and went to throw the rag into the dirty laundry. When I came back into the room, here is what Ethan was doing.
The next morning, Ethan's keyboard wasn't working. It needed new batteries. So, Mike flipped it over and changed the batteries then returned the keyboard to Ethan so he could get back to playing with it. What was the first thing Ethan did? Turn it over and try to open up the battery compartment.
I think Ethan's favorite people to imitate are his cousins! Whether it involves playing, arguing over a toy, or participating in a screaming match, he LOVES to imitate their every move. Mike was giving Kileigh a ride in the wagon one night and Ethan had to have a ride too.
Lainey was over and was sitting in Ethan's chair. I bet you can guess where Ethan had to be!
Although they all like to fight over toys or places to be, in the end they really do love each other...
We also have a few new favorite games. Hide and seek continues to rank up there but sticking out our tongues at each other is growing in popularity. Ethan sticks out his tongue and we are supposed to stick out ours so that he can push it back in our mouths...fun, I know!

I'm gonna get you is also still one of his favorites..
Ethan is also really growing with his emotions. He randomly gives hugs and kisses now, which we LOVE! He especially likes to give them when someone else is doing it (any time Mike hugs or kisses me Ethan has to be next in line).
Probably THE favorite activity for Ethan is still dancing. He even has some new moves now with shaking his one leg and putting his hands above his head and rocking out. He especially loves dancing to Bruno Mars and the theme song for Ellen (he absolutely adores Ellen's show!) Ethan will sit and watch Ethan for a half hour or more fake laughing, slapping his leg, and dancing.
His newest game that we don't have a picture of (yet) is wrestling. If we are sitting on the floor playing with him, he likes to push us and make us tip over then continue to roll us around the floor and climb on us.

Have a good week everyone!!!
New words: Uh huh, yup, yes (all in the right context now)

Indoor February Fun

This week, Ethan and I worked on his spoon skills. He did pretty well with the tapioca pudding, but not so well with things that don't stick to the spoon. Either way, he had a lot of fun playing with it. Check out those four big teeth! It's funny how much older he looks with just those four teeth.

Ethan has also become quite the master of organization. Just like in last week's posting I wrote about how he puts things in lines on the tables, he also likes putting things into baskets, buckets, cups, or in this case, measuring cups. These are all of his refrigerator magnets shoved into one cup. Another relatively new favorite activity of Ethan's is to look at family pictures. Whether on the wall, on the refrigerator, or in a book, he likes to look at pictures, point at the people in them, and have Mike and I name who they are. Today he actually pointed at a picture of Mike and said "Da." This can go on for 20+ minutes at a time!!

On Friday, we went to Mike's grandpa's house in Rockford for a family dinner from Lino's (YUM!). After dinner, Lainey and Ethan had a chance to play. Kel brought a tent with an attached tube that they could crawl through. They loved it!

Ethan has also really grown to be pretty animated in his phone "conversations." He is becoming quite expressive with his hands and face and says "yeah" through the whole conversation.

Oh, and by phone I mean the actual play phone, an old cell phone, or in this case his fake phone and a play wrench at the same time!

Although Ethan already knew coffee was hot, he now understands how much Mike and I love it, which in turn means Ethan should also really love it. He was pretty serious in his drinking of my "coffee" (after it was empty).

We finally caught one of our favorite things Ethan does on camera! For the last month or so when Ethan is looking for something he walks around like this with a confused look on his face. He is usually looking for his juice, so it's pretty easy to point him in the right direction.

Last night, Mike and I went with Kel, Chad, Nick, and Heather to The Speakeasy for dinner then to the Northleaf Winery in Milton for a winery tour and wine tasting. It was a ton of fun and we got to sample all of their specially made wines. They were so good we bought six bottles of wine to take home and even Mike liked a few of them! Thanks for the great idea and a fun Valentine's Day celebration Kel!

Before we left for dinner, there was a knock at the door and it was the UPS man. Although the package arrived last night, we didn't take it out of the package until this morning. It was a mini big boy recliner for Ethan from his Aunt Courtney! Kileigh has one of her own at my mom's house and Ethan has loved sitting in it. So, Courtney got him one of his own. He has spent the whole morning climbing up and down, eating his treats and drinking his juice in it. He loves it. Thanks Aunt Courtney!

To finish out the morning, my dad and Kileigh came over for a little play time. Every time Kileigh comes over she asks Mike to please build her a house. So, Mike pulls out all of our old big boxes and builds the kids a little fort to climb through and they have lots of fun crawling loudly through the boxes. Kileigh even pulls out the play flashlight to make it a little easier to navigate.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Kileigh's Birthday, The 2011 Blizzard, and The Super Bowl...All in One Week!

Last weekend, we went to a small birthday party at my mom's house for Kileigh's birthday. You may be asking, "How old is Kileigh now?" Well, when I asked her that question here is what I got...Ok, wait, she is working really hard at getting those other fingers up. Here is her real answer..
Three!! Little Miss Kileigh loved her birthday this year and all of the attention she got! A few close family friends came over and had snacks, dinner (lasagna, salad, and garlic bread - YUM!), and cake. She especially loved all of the attention that came with singing her happy birthday!

Apparently Ethan thought it was pretty fun too, check him out in the background of this pic.
After dinner and cake, we tried really hard to get a cute pic of the two kids together. You wouldn't think that would be terribly difficult, but it is. Here are a couple I happened to get.
After all of the food, cake and present opening, Ethan and I had a little cuddle time :)
The night of Kileigh's party, everyone was talking about all of the snow we were supposed to get on Tuesday and Wednesday. So, Mike and I went home and investigated. Sure enough, they were calling for 12-18 inches of snow! Well, knowing how well our meteorologists predict snow, we took it with a grain of salt. When they were still calling for the same amount of snow on Monday night, we started to wonder. Since I am now commuting to Madison, we decided it would be best if I stay the night in Madison on Tuesday night...just in case. Well, it's a good thing I did! Here are some pics from Wednesday morning.

Madison ended up getting about 17 inches and Janesville got about 15 inches!!! Add to that 30-40mph wind gusts and you have a BLIZZARD!! Although I was lucky to be in town when I had to leave for work on Wednesday morning, I was still stranded. The hotel I stayed in didn't plow until 8am so I was stuck. From what I hear though, the boys had a pretty good time.

With all of the nasty weather, we had a lot of PJ time and play time. A couple of Ethan's new favorite activities this week are lining up all of his kitchen toys on the table and running on the couch. He is also getting really good at sorting blocks according to shapes, riding his train, and stacking his cups into a tower.
Oh, and how could I forget. Now that he runs on the couch, he has discovered how comfortable it is. Every once in awhile, he lays back, takes a breather and relaxes.
After a chilly, busy week, we had a fun, family time weekend! Saturday morning Mike had to work, so Ethan and I got to hang out alone. After that we spent the evening with playing lots of games, chasing each other, playing on the couch, and cuddling! This morning, we decided it was time for Ethan to play in the snow for the first time. We bundled him all up...he kind of looked like the kid from the Christmas Story but at least he was warm.

At first, we tried to go out in our back yard and sit him in snow. He was NOT having it! Instead, we decided to go out front and just go for a walk down the sidewalk. Did I mention we got another 4 inches of snow today?! It was actually quite pretty and not too awfully cold.
He had lots of fun just running down the sidewalk!
But at one point he tried to lean over and touch the snow and PLOP..in it he went! After that, it was time to go inside and warm up!
After we were all warm and toasty, we got into our Packer gear!! It's Super Bowl Sunday afterall and our Pack made it! Ethan was Charles Woodson today and I was Greg Jennings. Ethan looked pretty cute in his Packer jersey from grandpa.
Go Pack Go!!!
As an aside, this week Ethan learned to say: yummy yummy yummy, and is babbling using some new noises! He also now runs to his high chair when he is hungry, gets his blanket when he is tired, can communicate when he wants up, and knows his entire bedtime routine (crawl up the stairs, walks to his room to read books with dad, comes to mom for his bottle, gets his glow worm and blankets for bedtime)

Now, back to the game! I'll update again next weekend!

January Part Two - All Caught Up!!!!

This last part of the month, Ethan has started to show us that he is starting to become a true toddler. He is loving any type of exploration. Whether it is seeing how high up he can climb or how far or fast he can run, he is all about it! We had a barricade set up to block off all of the cords and things that go to the TV. As you can see, he has now figured out a way around it.
Along with his increasing independence and curiosity, comes a bit more discipline. Here is Mike explaining to Ethan why he cannot be climbing over things. I should also mention he has become quite the master of temper tantrums. He either plops on the ground and cries or flails his head backward and lays on the ground crying. Here he is trying out his best cry for dad.Once again, here is he running like a happy little guy (which he usually is).
That's all it takes is not getting his way and here's what we get :)
Although we do sometimes have to hear a bit of crying and watch some temper tantrums, most of the time Ethan is a pretty easygoing, happy toddler.

Here he is playing with one of his favorite toys right now, his kitchen. He loves to "stir, stir, stir" or pretend to eat and drink out of the cups, spoons, and plates. This is usually followed by "mmmm." As you can see, he also really likes to clear everything off of the kitchen (including the sink). Another favorite is to empty out his grocery cart, followed or sometimes preceded by "Oots."
Just yesterday, Ethan got a special visit from his girlfriend Emelia. The two of them, although they are still in love, also like to fight a little now. They both think that all toys should be theirs and don't hesitate to scream and rip the toy out of the other's hand. I had to include this first picture to show you all his fake smile :)
Here are the two lovebirds.

Toward the end of the play date they decided to play some peek-a-boo. It was pretty cute to see the two of them play together.
Finally, just this morning we took a quick trip down to Rockford to go out for brunch with Mike's family. We were there celebrating Mike's grandpa's 83rd birthday!

Ok, we are finally up to current time!! I am now going to be posting every weekend. Ethan is really starting to learn and grow much faster now, and I don't want to miss all of the little things.

Speaking of which, here are all of Ethan's words so far: boo (our cat), moo, dada, mama, no, hi (said like a whisper), this, uh oh, dang it, oops (said oots and is probably his favorite word), brr (shakes his head with it), stir stir stir and shake shake shake (both said like dididi), hot (also a whisper), yes, thanks, aachoo (whenever anyone sneezes or coughs - just learned on the 25th). I think that's all of them. If anyone can think of more, please post a comment!