Weekend in Pictures

The men grilling

















The men brewing Mead
























Hanging outside















































Sunday afternoon nap
























Happy baby
























(When did he get to be so big?)

Somerset!

Last weekend we headed down towards San Antonio for Garrett's cousin's wedding. The wedding was beautiful and we had a great time visiting with family. Most of Garrett's extended family met Ethan for the first time. He loved all the attention and enjoyed being passed around from person to person.

On Sunday Ethan got to meet the rest of the family at Church and afterward we went out to lunch for Robin's birthday.

We had a full weekend and it was a blast!

Ethan's first trip to Mimi and Poppy's house! The wagon wheel in the background is part of the wagon that Garrett's grandmother came to Somerset in when she was a child.

































He loved laying on a blanket while the other kids played outside.








































Ethan and Poppy
























Wyatt and Ethan
























Ethan and Mooney (Garrett's Grandmother)

Cousins

















The whole family!
























Video of Poppy and the kids setting a gopher trap.

Ethan is now four and a half months and hitting new milestones!

Tummy time has finally become a bit easier now that he has found a new tummy time friend- the baby in the mirror!

















He gets pretty excited when talking to his friend!

















But this new found joy in the fact that my son enjoys tummy time was a bit short lived because on Friday he learned to roll over- both ways! Now he can decide when tummy time is over. Sometimes he decides its over as soon as I put him on his tummy. ;-)
























He sits up pretty good now (supported) and enjoys playing with toys. He loves his ball but also gets frustrated with it because he can't put it in his mouth.

He also likes to put his feet up on his toys when he plays and he likes to throw his legs over the crossbar on his baby gym. He is getting strong and even pulled one of the bars down near his mouth in an attempt to gum it. That's a lot of resistance- seems he's taking the name "baby gym" literally!

Ethan has really taken a liking to his "Ghost Bear" (Garrett named him) . We think he likes the feel of the silky backing. He also likes to chew on Ghost Bear's ears and hands.

















Other fast facts:

weighs 16.5 lbs.
Size 3 diapers
Still wears 3-6 month clothes
Loves bananas and sweet potatoes. Is coming around to rice cereal.

He has started to explore our faces with his hands, he has a fake cough that he does for fun, and he is working really hard at learning the army crawl. He has the right movements down but doesn't have the coordination down yet.








































Oh, and he always has his fingers in his mouth!

Silly mom, super hero's don't wear their capes in front!

Ethan and the infamous "cape bib"
























Seriously, it's a loosing battle trying to keep that drooly boy dry. :-)

Handkerchief cap

I'm just a little hanky, as square as square can be.
But with a little stitch or two they made a hat of me.

I'll be worn from the hospital or on Christening Day,
Then I'll be carefully pressed and neatly packed away.

For her wedding day, so we've been told
Every well-dressed bride must have that 'something old'.

So what could be more fitting than to find little me,
A few stitches snipped and a wedding hanky I'll be.

And if perchance it is a BOY some day he'll surely wed.
So to his bride he can present the hanky once worn on his head.

- unknown author

Sunbath- Ethan's favorite kind

How YOU doin'?
























Keeping it cool by the pool

















Sweet boy! (Isn't he such a good sport about the massive amounts of photos I take of him?)

















See that list of swimming pool rules over there? Guess which one I broke! (Comment by Garrett)
























Thanks Mimi and Poppy for the swimsuit!

Ethan met Kalyn and Rush!

So what did Ethan do today? He met his Aunt KK! That's right! Kalyn and Rush finally got to meet their new nephew. :-)

















Rush was in a wedding today and lucky for us they were only 45 minutes away. Rush was a groomsmen and busy with pre-wedding activities but Kalyn was free to meet us for lunch. It turned out that there was also a Go-Kart race going on downtown about a block from where we had lunch so we stopped and watched.
















































We had a full day and tired the little boy out.

















Notice that he has each hand on a toy?

Rice Cereal and 4 month update

On Thursday Ethan had his 4 month well baby visit. He did great! He smiled and was pretty happy until after the shots which was a big improvement over his 2 month well baby visit. His official 4 month stats are:

Height: 25 3/4 inches (77 th percentile)

Weight: 16 lbs 1 oz (75 th percentile)

Head: 42.8 (55th percentile)

Clothes: 3-6 month

Shoes: 0-3 month

Diapers: Size 2

Poor little guy was super unhappy the rest of the day and ran a fever from the shots but he's better today. When we were at the doctors office the pediatrician suggested that we try Ethan on rice cereal. I had originally planned on holding off a bit longer but the pediatrician felt that he was ready based on the signs he has been giving us. So...we gave rice cereal a go!

Was it a success? I think so. I'm really not sure if Ethan likes it or not. He didn't eat very much of it but I kind of expected that for a first try. He seemed puzzled by it and made some interesting faces but did manage to eat at least as much as ended up on his bib. :-)

Here is a video of Ethan eating rice cereal.

And while it was entertaining to watch Ethan eat cereal it was equally entertaining to watch his Daddy try a bite!

Here is a video of Garrett trying rice cereal...hehehe

The funny thing is that Garrett didn't realize that the video camera was still on at first. He set it down on the table while it was still running. I was laughing so hard that I had tears in my eyes. :-)

4 Months

So while we were busy moving Ethan was busy growing! In fact, I looked over just the other day and saw this:

















So, maybe he's not actually growing facial hair yet, but that boy is growing up fast! Ethan turns four months old on Wednesday. It's hard to believe that he's been with us that long. Of course its also hard to remember life without him. :-)

Our little "almost four month old" is one bouncing baby boy! He LOVES to kick when he gets excited! He can really bounce his bouncer good! In fact, a little TOO good! He is also constantly trying to sit up and one day he bounced and tried to sit up at the same time and ended up hanging upside down in his bouncer by the straps that go between his legs and around his waist. We figured if he was going to kick that hard and be that determined to sit up that it was time for a jumperoo! We bought him one today and he LOVES it!


































So what else is Ethan doing other than bouncing? Well, he is getting quite vocal. Now his sweet coos have turned more into loud happy shrieks and he likes to talk at the top of his lungs. He is quite talkative too! Also, he wants to sit up constantly and anytime you lay him down (other than when he's really tired) he will try to do baby crunches and try to sit up. As a result of this it seemed like his head control improved over night! And now that he has such great head control he is able to use his "sitting up" toys like the exersaucer, jumperoo and bumbo.

















Ethan still hates tummy time. :-( We do a lot of tummy time throughout the day and it always makes him mad. You would think that since he's been doing it since he was two weeks old that he would like it by now but he doesn't. He tolerates it a lot better when its tummy time on my chest or across my knees but that doesn't exactly give him a lot of freedom to learn to roll over. When he does tummy time on his mat he doesn't even try to do baby push ups anymore. He just cries. And then as soon as I roll him over he is happy and starts playing with his toes. He can roll over onto his side, but doesn't try to go any further than that. My guess is that since he hates his tummy so much he doesn't have much incentive to roll over the rest of the way. You would think that he would try to roll over when he was on his stomach, but no...

As for Ethan's weight, he now weighs 16 lbs. His weight gain has slowed down a lot in the last few weeks. He is still gaining but not at such a rapid pace. He still eats great though! It probably won't be too much longer before he is ready for rice cereal. He is showing some of the signs of readiness for rice cereal but not all of them. One thing he has started doing recently is showing a lot of interest in what we are eating. He watches us eat with great interest. He looks slightly puzzled too like he's trying to figure out why it goes into our mouth and then disappears.

He has also discovered his toes! He doesn't try to put them in his mouth but he does like to play with them. He still loves blowing raspberries and spit bubbles. In fact we go through bibs like crazy because he soaks them. For some reason I can't keep the bibs facing forward either. He always manages to turn them backwards and wear them like a cape.

The following two photos were right before we moved from the other apartment but since they are just two weeks old I figured they weren't TOO out of date.

Ethan and Daddy doing some Father/Son computer time. Not sure I approve of it starting so early....
























Our smiley little boy!

Warrior Baby

Ethan 3 months and 3 weeks old