End of August/September 2011

At the end of August, although it was an incredibly HOT day, we met my mom out at the walking trail down the street for a bit of a nature walk. My mom has really gotten into photography lately and was out snapping some pictures. Check out her pictures on her blog if you are interested (www.abeadifulmess.blogspot.com). Toward the end of the walk, there is this pretty cool creek. It was running over the walkway on this day, so Ethan and I had fun splashing in the water and throwing rocks.

Just like every other month, we are still really into dressing up and dancing. Here is Ethan after dressing himself up! As always, he has on his beaded necklaces, but today we added in not just one, but two headbands!Another new addition toward the end of August was our bears. He has always had a couple of bears in his room. One was from Mike on his first Valentine's day, another from the Relay for Life benefit auction, and the third is one we have out for Christmas. Ethan has now made them his friends. He reads them stories (notice the bear has to have his own book), gives them hugs and kisses, and apparently sleeps with them too. After a couple of days sleeping with them (and waking up scared of them in the middle of the night) he made the decision that they were better off sleeping in his rocking chair.

Now that Ethan is a little older, he is also getting to try out some of the "treats" we like to eat. On Kelly's birthday, we had some ice cream. The kids got their own bowls of ice cream and had fun eating it at their kid's table outside.
I'd say he liked it, what do you think?Another new love is STICKERS!! We had some Disney stickers come in the mail and he loved them! Well, I guess he mostly loved sticking them all over himself but either way, he had lots of fun with them.
Right around the same time he really started getting into all of the Mickey characters. He knows who Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Daisy, Pete, Pluto (he calls puppy), and Giant are. As time goes on, he seems to be starting to like Mickey even better than his Little Einsteins.

On September 11th, we spent the day with Mike's family. This is an important day for the family. We looked back on not only the attack on the twin towers 10 years ago, but also the passing of Mike's dad 3 years ago. Although it was in part a sad day, we made sure there was some fun too! We started it off with going to an outdoor church service and something called First Fest. They had a big pot luck and games for the kids. Ethan got to play a few games and jump around in a bounce castle before his I need a nap crabbiness started. We were pretty surprised he could jump around and stay upright with all of the bigger kids jumping around him.

After nap, we headed first to Kevin's grave site then out to the cabin and even got to go on a boat ride. This was a special boat ride because Kevin's best friend Ken and his wife Chris came out with us. They are moving to Las Vegas later this month so they came out to have one last visit. As you can probably tell, all of the cousins are starting to get along a little better now that Ethan can play with them and isn't quite as baby-like.Group shot...Another cabin event this month was the celebration of Lainey turning three! Happy Birthday Lainey!
While Lainey was busy opening presents, Ethan was having fun hamming it up for everyone (like usual) wearing the glasses he got in his gift bag from Lainey's party.Our final big activity this month was a trip up to Minneapolis with my dad and Pam. We started the trip on Friday morning. The ride went pretty smoothly with the addition of a DVD player in the back seat. I don't think he has watched that much Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and Little Einsteins! But, at least we had a nice, peaceful ride up.

After a quick nap, we headed off to the Mall of America! Ethan loved all of the people watching. They even had a whole Nickelodeon area with rides, toys, and candy. Although he was too little to enjoy most of it, he did like watching all of the activity.

Saturday morning we started the day off with a trip to the zoo! The MN Zoo is super cool! They have a whole underwater area with sharks, turtles, and even a dolphin show. Right when we walked in we were greeted by this sea turtle that Ethan wanted to grab and take home. Luckily he was a pretty tolerant little turtle.

He also really liked looking up at the dolphins from the underwater area. His other favorites of the day were all of the animals he knew. Although they didn't have any elephants, giraffes, or lions, he really liked the wolf and monkey exhibits. He could huff and puff at the wolves and watch them walk around in the trees. He even got to ride this wolf!Here he is hanging out in front of the wolf exhibit, he didn't want to leave!
Another favorite of the day was the farm. They have a whole farm with goats and cows for the kids to look at and pet. Here he is with Pam making the long walk out to the farm.
And running down the ramp...
The goats were probably the highlight of the day. He liked when they came close, but would scream and laugh anytime they touched him.
Another highlight of the farm was the fresh sweet corn. It was amazing! Ethan even got to try out his skills with eating the corn right off the cob, he did really well!After leaving the zoo and catching another nap, we went to the place where they make the famous Juicy Lucy burger (a burger with lots of cheese melted in it). It was very yummy!

Although we had lots of fun running here and there in Minneapolis, I think Ethan's favorite part of the trip was all of the time he got to spend with his grandpa and grandma. He got to play the fishy face game with grandpa...
Read lots of stories with grandma, and spend lots of time giggling, running, and playing!When we got back, we had my mom and Kileigh over for dinner. They must have missed each other because they played pretty well together without much fighting or screaming!
Over the past month we have had sooo much fun watching Ethan's vocabulary grow. At the beginning of September we were amazed when he started talking in phrases. Some of his favorites were "What my daddy doing?" and "Where my daddy go?" Over the past two or three weeks we have watched those few phrases turn into constant, and I mean constant, talking! He can communicate pretty much anything he needs to and talks almost entirely in phrases now. He can also repeat anything you ask him to say (so as you can imagine we have to be careful with what we say now). Ethan also knows everyone's names in the family now and can figure out who's house we are going to by the combination of people in them.

Perhaps most impressive is that he has a truck book and knows which trucks are which throughout the entire book. And those trucks aren't only the simple ones, some of his favorites include: backhoe, tractor, roller, garbage truck, cement crusher, ATV, van, giant excavator, dump truck, and crane.

He also has grown quite the obsession with the evil characters on his Little Einsteins. The biggest obsession has transitioned from the giant to the witch. Only problem is that we have also developed a bit of fear of the witch. He has woken up a few nights with the witch on his mind. Although at times his growing personality and words can make it a bit challenging, it is so fun watching him and his vocabulary grow day by day!

Beautiful August Weather!

This week was VERY busy! Mostly because the weather was absolutely perfect. With the humidity way down and the temperatures 70's to 80's with sunshine pretty much every day, we felt like we could finally spend a bit more time outside. It was especially nice because the nice weather fell on my stretch of ten days off! Our time outside was spent either looking for bugs, playing with the puppies across the street, yelling for Emily across the street (Ethan's babysitter), kicking or throwing balls, playing in the pool, or playing blocks. When we weren't doing those things, here's what we were up to...

We started off by meeting up with Courtney and Kileigh at Toys R Us . The kids rode around in the cart playing and roaring with play dinosaurs. After we finished up our shopping Kileigh wanted to take Ethan on a ride. I think they could have played on that thing all day! (Notice Ethan's bling around his neck that he just had to wear)
After we finished up shopping we met Casey and Emelia out at Italian House for lunch then headed off to Palmer Park for some outside fun. Although we all thought the swings and play equipment sounded like a good option since it was only 75 degrees, the kids only enjoyed it for a little while.Their eyes were on the water next door! So we dressed them in their swim suits and off we went. Problem was, the water was FREEZING! Just like hose water. It was so cold that after about a minute in the water they had to get out and warm up on the concrete!Brave little man...brrrLater that night we headed out to the cabin and met up some family friends Jan, Max, Attalissa, and Jax. We started off with some dinner, then headed out for a boat ride. Although it started off pretty warm, with the fast moving boat and the cooling off temps, it got a little chilly. The kids all huddled together to keep nice and warm.After we got off the boat, Mike started a nice and warm campfire and we made some s'mores. Kelly even found a cute little tree frog for the little ones to look at. Although the adults enjoyed the fire, the kids had more fun running around and playing on the slide. After all, it was way past their bedtimes, which made it that much more fun!

Just in case you were wondering, yes, Ethan's love of bugs continues. In fact, any time we see a bug now he runs around looking for a stick to hold him with (you can tell he has spent lots of time with mom who refuses to touch a bug). Here he is with one of his many cicada friends :). On another one of our warm days, we headed out to my dad's house. Unfortunately, the visit started off with me getting pulled over in my dad's driveway. I apparently didn't quite stop at the stop sign by his house, come on! Anyway, we were all outside hanging out and Ethan really wanted the pink motorized car that my dad has in his garage. My dad said not to worry, he can't reach the pedal. Well, next thing we knew, Ethan was off and driving in the thing, and guess who got to chase him around :) Notice his hands are clinging onto the sides of the car, nowhere near the steering wheel!
Another visit we had this week was with Mike's uncle Brian and aunt Kim. They drove in from Florida to visit for the week! We spent a couple of nights with them at the cabin catching up. Even more fun was that they had never met Ethan before!
On Tuesday, my sister and I had yet another fun day. We drove up to Madison and took the kids to the zoo for the morning. They had lots of fun looking at all of the animals. They even pretended to be a couple of polar bears. Ethan's favorite animals of the day were the rhino (strange, i know), lion (because he was roaring while were watching him), and of course the polar bear. I'm sure the monkeys would have also been a favorite but the exhibit was closed that day.Although they liked the animals, they liked the carousel even better! Kileigh tried her hardest each time to get the gorilla. Ethan just liked the ride, although he did point out all of the kitties around us.
To finish up the week off, I whipped up a batch of lasagna and had my mom, Courtney, and Kileigh over for dinner. While we were busy cleaning up after dinner, the kids took the opportunity to snuggle up in the rocking chair all by themselves to read a book...just a reminder that really do love each other!P.S. We are also very excited because we just learned that my brother, Aaron, is moving back to good old Wisconsin after living in Texas for way too long! He plans to be back here by early September!

August = Lots of New Experiences for Everyone!

On August 2nd, we were inside making dinner when a storm came overhead. Little did we know what the storm was carrying, HAIL! Mike and I had never seen any hail bigger than a marble, so this was quite the experience for all of us, especially Ethan. He spent the storm out in the garage with Mike yelling at the hail for being naughty..lol. After the storm passed, we all went out in search of the biggest hail we could find.

Here was the winner!
The next afternoon we went out on an extra long boat ride out to the other side of the lake and had dinner with Mike's mom, Lainey, and Chad. Ethan loves sitting in the driver's seat!He even got to ride next to his best bud, Chad!
At the bar we ate at they had a pool table. Ethan and Lainey had fun rolling the ball back and forth.
This past week we had quite the event at our house. No, this is not the scene of a murder...

And no, Ethan is not the next serial killer...While I was busy washing the dishes, with the thought that he was being so good reading books in his room, he was busy sneaking across the hallway to the bathroom and getting into mom's lipstick! Here he is assessing the damages.
Oh so proud of his fun...stinker!
Another strange thing this week happened when Ethan and I were exploring outside. We were looking at all of the empty cicada shells on our tree out front, pointing, and saying ewww when I noticed one of them looked a little funny. That's when we noticed there was still a bug in it, squirming to get out, gross! But just in case no one else has seen it, I thought I could share the progression :)
After we found it, the first thing we did was call my mom, the nature photographer! She sped right over with her camera in hand to snap some shots of the nasty bug! Mike also got home a bit later and started talking about the cicada, thing was that it was a different one! Yes, there were TWO nasty bugs trying to get out of their shells! Here is the second one with Ethan saying "mama, grandma, ewww!"So we switched focus, and started to watch the second bug. It didn't take long and he made his way out of the shell. Then he just had to wait for his wings to dry out.Inspired by my mom's photography, here is a shot looking down on the bug and his old shell just before he made his way up the tree.
P.S. That first cicada did not plan his journey very well. He had himself right in the direct sunlight and completely dried out before he could make his escape.